Back at it

I had to be out of town for work for a few weeks on short notice, so the blog has been idle. My trades did well during my absence, although there's been some pullback with the recent debt ceiling debates. On a side note, I'm definitely not an economist, but I'm not too worried about the debt ceiling...I see it as all political bullshit. The real problem(spending way more than we can ever get in tax receipts) isn't going to be solved this year, next year, or probably ever. It's going to take a major financial crisis, like the dollar losing it's place as the world's reserve currency, for any real change to happen. I have absolutely no idea when that would happen, but by then it will probably be too late to do anything anyways. But I can't control the US economic and monetary policies, so my plan is the same as it always is: Make hay while the sun is shining. I'm gonna keep doing my thing and making money until it stops working.

Today I took on some merger arbitrage trades. This type of trade is one of my favorites. The returns can be a little smaller, but they're very safe. I find companies that are being bought out and sell naked puts with strikes near the buyout price. In order to control my risk, I only do this with cash-only deals. If a deal includes stock as part of the purchase, the final purchase price can fluctuate with the buyers stock price. The liquidity of these options can be very low, so the bid/ask spread tends to be very wide. This makes patience and limit orders an absolute necessity. I see three quality plays, but one of which(Lubrizol Corp: LZ) I've been in since before the blog and I already have a decent unrealized gain. I'll include it at current prices for the purpose of the model portfolio though.

1. The first one is Varian Semiconductor(VSEA). VSEA is being bought out by AMAT for $63.00 cash. With VSEA currently trading around $61.00 I can get approximately $1.55 by selling the November $60 puts. With approximately $1300 of margin requirement, this comes out to about %11.92 in just 3 months.
• Sell to Open: One(1) VSEA Nov 19 2011 60.0 Put @ 1.55
2. Next up is Kinetic Concepts(KCI). KCI is being acquired by a private group called APAX Partners for $68.50 cash. KCI is trading around $67.00 and I got $1.50 for the December $67.50 puts. The return on margin on this trade is about %9.4 in 4 months.
• Sell to Open: One(1) KCI Dec 17 2011 67.5 Put @ 1.5
3. Finally, Lubrizol Corporation(LZ) is being acquired by Berkshire Hathaway for $135 in cash. LZ trades just under $135 right now and the September 135 puts are going for about $0.65. I originally got $1.45 for this trade a few months back. If I was entering it for the first time today, I'd probably go with the December options to get a few extra bucks. The return on this one is also smaller because of the unrealized gain I already have on it, but with about $2800 in margin requirements the model portfolio will be %2.3 in just over a month.
• Sell to Open: One(1) LZ Sep 17 2011 135.0 Put @ $0.65

Some of these trades may need to get rolled out a month or two depending on when the buyouts are finalized(especially the LZ trade), but that shouldn't be an issue.

The Numbers

• Cash: +$370
• Short Option: -$470
• Margin: -$5630

VSEA closed out
KCI closed out