Elan and follow up to my volatility trade

Two things tonight:

Elan and Wyeth announced that they are dropping the 2 mg dose in the non-APOE4 gene carrier cohorts of the Alzheimer's Disease drug bapineuzimab (AAB-001), due to safey concerns relating to vasogenic edema. That was the minor brain swelling they encountered in the Phase II - more so in the carrier group than the non-carrier. They already had made the decision to not include that dosing group in the Phase III carrier group.

What this means is simply that those already dosed will continue in the trial and be randomized into the .5 or the 1 mg groups. This is not really news that should move the stock.

We had a pretty good move in the Nasdaq today ... it went from 30.77 to 31.76, or 3% That was enough to move the options as shown below (new prices are what you could sell the contracts for. If I closed out it would make some money, but not at my target, so it continues!

As an aside, I opened up a real time trade near the end of the day when the QQQQ was at $31.93 -- 3 each of the April $32 calls and puts. I will advise when I close out of this trade.

Strike Date . Strike Price . Type . Contract Price . Sell Price
April . . . . . $30 . . . . . . . . .Call . . . . . . . $150 . . . . . 238
April . . . . . .$31 . . . . . . . .. .Put . . . . . . .. $114 . . . .. 62
May . . . . . .$30 . .. . . . . . Call . . . .. . . .$216 . . . . 298
May . . . . . . .$31 . . . . . .. . . .Put . . . . .. . . $181 . . . . 131

IF I closed out of the April trades now, I would have gained 2*88 on the calls and lost 3*52 on the puts... with commissions it would be pretty much a wash. I really need a full doubling of the profit side to close out successfully. It is also obvious in retrospect that one should strive to made the two sides an equal number of calls vs. puts, as the calls need to gain a larger percentage to offset the 150% as many puts.
In the May series, there is a 2*82 gain and a 3*50 loss, again, nearly a wash. I will hold these.

Regards,
Trond