Exits, 1/17/2025

How we did on the trades we exited this week.

Dids/Pexels

This Week’s Trade Exits

As soon as I exit a trade, I note that in the comments of the post where I first mentioned the trade; at the end of the week, I try to track them all in one post. Starting in July, 2024, I have also been tracking them in this spreadsheet. These are the trades I exited this week.

Stocks or Exchange Traded Products

1. MicroStrategy (MSTR 0.00%↑). Bought for $333.40 on 1/3/2025; stopped out at $309.65 on 1/13/2025. Loss: 7.1%.

Options

1. Calls on Asana (ASAN -2.42%↓). Bought for $0.25 on 12/16/2024; (half) expired worthless on 1/17/2025. Loss: 100%.

2. Call spread on MicroStrategy (MSTR 8.62%↑). Entered at a net debit of $1.70 on 12/16/2024; expired worthless on 1/17/2025. Loss: 100%.

3. Calls on Reddit (RDDT -0.05%↓). Bought for $1.35 on 12/26/2024; expired worthless on 1/17/2025. Loss: 100%.

4. Calls on Lam Research (LRCX 1.44%↑). Bought for $0.80 on 12/17/2025; expired worthless on 1/17/2025. Loss: 100%.

5. Calls on Zscaler (ZS 0.34%↑). Bought for $1.74 on 12/9/2024; expired worthless on 1/17/2025. Loss: 100%.

6. Call on Applied Materials (AMAT 0.00%↑). Bought for $1 on 12/17/2025; sold for $0.05 on 1/15/2025. Loss: 95%.

7. Calls on Hello Group (MOMO 3.87%↑). Bought for $0.70 on 8/27/2024; sold for $0.24 on 1/17/2025. Loss: 66%.

8. Call spread on Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM 0.12%↑). Entered at a net debit of $0.68 on 12/26/2024; exited at a net credit of $1.02 on 1/16/2025. Profit: 50%.

9. Calls on Kratos Defense and Security (KTOS 0.00%↑). Bought for $1.25 on 12/12/2024; sold (a third) for $4 on 1/14/2025. Profit: 220%.

10. Call on Semler Scientific (SMLR 0.00%↑). Bought at $0.75 on 1/13/2025; sold at $2.91 on 1/15/2025. Profit: 288%.

Comments

Stocks or Exchange Traded Products

Despite our loss on MSTR, our core strategy of buying our top ten names, putting trailing stops of 15% to 20% on them, and replacing them with current top names when we get stopped out, continues to perform well, driven by the performance of our top names.

Normally, I would replace MSTR with another top name this week, but as it happened, there was a top name last week I liked so much I bought the underlying stock then, Semler Scientific (SMLR 0.00%↑).

It’s up nearly 26% since then.

Options

Today was the big options expiration day for January, so we had some losing trades collect here (losers congregate on expiration days since we usually exit winners before expiration).

• Exits 1-3 and 5 were speculative technical trades made last month, on the expectation that then-current market enthusiasm would carry through to Inauguration Day.

• Exits 4-6 were on AI-related hardware names picked based on their valuation and setup scores being better than market leaders like Nvidia (NVDA 0.00%↑). Lesson learned there, perhaps.

• Exit 10 was unfortunately on a trade I didn’t post here, as I wasn’t confident in it. It was a third, speculative trade on SMRL from above. Our first two trades on it were buying the underlying shares, and opening a call spread expiring in April; my third trade was simply buying the nearest OTM expiration call expiring today, which in this case was the $55 strike call. I bought it for $0.75 after the stock pulled back on Monday, and sold it for $2.90 on Wednesday. Had I held it until today, I could have sold it for nearly $10. I added a similar trade idea as suggestion in today’s trade alert (below).