Friday Curtain Raiser

My apologies, folks, for my limited posting of late as I've been busy attending to other business matters in recent days. I've also been walloped with a pretty severe case of sinusitis which has kept me down for the count (yes, the left side of my face is killing me). Another thing I've been busy doing is managing a small options account of a friend who put me to a friendly test of doubling it for her. She gave me $10,000 to work with and 8 trading days later it's at $20,515 (spread sheet available). I'm actually not going to stop there, but as I've explained to my friend, as the numbers get bigger, generating similar large returns will get harder and that her money will not be doubling every 8 trading days. I should also add, that I note this because it has been time consuming to do this type of swing trading and has been a reason for my absence in posting. For those new to options - DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME. The spreadsheet is being available just so you know I'm not telling a tall tale.

The big number tomorrow is the monthly non farm payrolls figures. The Barron's survey says the consensus figure expected is 135,000 with unemployment expected at 4.5%.

Some interesting corporate developments tonight:

Bancroft Family Agrees to Meet with Murdoch Over Dow Jones Sale;
Wall Street always loves layoff news: Dell Lays Off 8000 As 1Q Earnings Fall - shares jump 6%.

So, if Wachovia (WB) is buying AG Edwards (AGE) for $89.50 why did more than 2000 June 90 AGE calls trade today? Late today Bank of America put out a note stating that the WB bid was "fair" but not full and upped its target to $95. hmm.