2/9 Almanac

Tuesday, Feb. 9, is 10 days before February options expire, 38 the March and 66 the April.

Blue chip stocks (SPY) closed the latest regular session at $105.89, down 0.7% from the prior close.

In total, 3.1 billion shares were traded on the three major U.S. stock exchanges. That's about 29 percent less than on Friday.

Mediawatch: AP alludes darkly to worried about the European debt crisis but leads with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing below 10,000, which became a habit beginning Oct. 10, 2008, amid the collapse of capitalist finance. The habit persisted until Nov. 2, the last close before that level. Meaningless, actually.

On the jump, rules, econ reports, portfolio and a good book . . .

My rules allow trades today in March iron condors and covered calls, along with butterfly, calendar and vertical spreads. I allow myself to trade unhedged call and put option purchases that expire in April or later. No significant economic reports are scheduled for Tuesday release. My portfolio consists of: February expiry: CVS, iron condor, p28/-p31/-c34/c36 ERTS, iron condor, p15/-p16/-c18/c19 MCO, covered call,  s/-c30 PALM, covered call, s/-c13

March expiry:

• CSCO, iron condor, p22/-p23/-c25/c26

Good trading!

New to Private Trader? Check out the Reader's Guide.

New to private trading? Here's a look at How to Become a Private Trader.

Topics:
S&P 500, SPDR, Spiders, Cisco Systems networking, CVS Caremark, pharmacies, drugs, Electronic Arts games, Moodys bond rating, Palm smartphone Pixi Pri.