5/15 Day/swingtrades

From this morning: Just a quick update...with the news on TARP money, I'm adding the insurers to the watchlist today. There are quite a few strike prices to choose from...PRU, AFL, MET, HIG, ALL, PFG, LNC.

The market makers pretty much owned the tape today. I didn't see any setups I liked with the insurers and the action on the rest of the watchlist was pretty choppy. I got stopped out of chasing MOS May 50 Calls for $0.40 loss and here's a trade I took late in the day on CME for $1.70:

5/14 Day/swingtrades

I had a few things to take care of today so only put on some trades in the morning. I actually think today's action bodes well for expiration day. There was a strong push in the morning but most stocks just drifted sideways into the afternoon. Hopefully, we'll get some big moves either way tomorrow. I've got my eyes on the ferts (IPI, POT, MOS), exchanges (CME, ICE...maybe some air will come out of these) and the other usual suspects (GS, AAPL, RIMM, GOOG, WYNN).

ICE - I finally closed out my remaining position as ICE broke through yesterday's high and then retraced back to the moving averages. I only had the May 100's which I sold around $101.50 for $2.60 profit.

GS - This rebounded well after yesterday's weakness. I wanted to enter @ $130 but decided to wait until it cleared the morning spike to $131. I went with the May 130 Calls and sold a bit later as the momentum died down.

5/13 Day/swingtrades

I was surprised the dip buyers didn't step in to support the close. Could we finally be headed down? A lot of moving averages didn't hold up so be careful if you're long. I'm going back to SKF, FAZ or SRS if the weakness continues.

POT - POT made a nice, sharp move at the open. With the market headed south, I didn't want to be greedy so closed out the position @ $104. I picked up about $2.30 on the calls.

ICE - This continued to pay out today. Despite the market weakness, CME continued its ascent so I figured it was just a matter of time before ICE turned up. I re-entered some more May 95 Calls @ 95.00. Fortunately, ICE took off over the next 10 minutes. With such a sharp spike, I had to take profits. I sold into the strength, closing out all the May 95 Calls and some May 100 Calls. I netted $4 on the remaining May 95 Calls from yesterday, $3.50 on the ones I picked up today and $2 on the May 100's. The May 100 Calls were actually trading @ $0.75 with ICE @ 95.00. Those ran up to $3.70...great return with minimal risk if anyone traded those.

5/12 Day/swingtrades - CME, ICE, RIMM, POT

Looks like "sell the news" kicked in the past couple days. Today's weakness brought many overbought stocks back to the moving averages. This was needed if you're leaning long and also a very good low-risk entry if you missed the moves the past couple weeks. CME/ICE finally paid out today. I traded those as well as RIMM and POT:

POT - I missed the thrust off $97 so waited for a pullback. I picked up May 100 Calls around $100.


RIMM - I noticed a potential double-bottome around $69. I picked up some May 70 Calls and sold 1/2 for $1 profit around $72. I'm swinging the rest into tomorrow.

ICE - I picked up May 85 and 95 Calls after ICE formed a potential double bottom and bounced off the 10-SMA on the daily. I netted about $3.25 on the May 85 Calls and $2 on the May 95 Calls. At the close, I rolled some profits into May 100 Calls. These only cost $1.10 so if ICE can retest the $104 level, those should pay out nicely.

CME - I picked up the May 250 Calls as CME bounced off the moving averages. This one moved quickly so I closed out at $258, netting $6 on the calls.

May 2009 Options Expiration Week

Back to my favorite time of the month, options expiration week. Just a recap, as option premiums decline into Friday, I'll be leveraging in-the-money and at-the-money options to trade potential movers. Here's the approach:

1. Identify a momentum stock poised for an explosive move (industry break-out/break-down, earnings, news).

2. Buy calls/puts 1 strike away from the price of the underlying stock.

3. POSITION-SIZE based on your normal risk parameters. If you normally risk $1k, buy $1k worth of calls/puts.

Now that the financials news is out, I'm not sure if we'll see any big moves in this sector. I'll be keeping an eye on ICE/CME as the daily charts look to be consolidating. Tech was weak on Friday so I'll be watching the usual suspects (AAPL, AMZN, BIDU, RIMM, GOOG) to lead the market lower or rebound off support levels.

New Site: www.OptionsVista.com

I'll be contributing occasional articles over at this new site...most likely during options expiration week. All the writers are very knowledgeable about options and the trading strategies are very diverse. Check it out when you get a chance: www.OptionsVista.com

OptionSpot - I trade part-time, while striving to develop and refine two different trading styles. The first is discretionary trading based primarily on price patterns. The second method is trading mechanical systems, designed to provide a significant statistical edge in the market. These systems are EOD with a time frame of a few days to several weeks. They are currently and primarily mean reverting strategies and pair/ratio strategies. Price and volatility determine when I use options vs the underlying. My preferred option strategies are selling spreads and buying Deep ITM.

SnapTrader - I am a retail trader trading primarily options. I've been at it for about 10 years, although I've only been very consistent for about the past three years. My option trades tend to be spreads, but aside from that they come in many shapes and sizes.

OETrader - I am a part-time trader focused mainly on momentum stocks. I use deep-in-the-money options to trade high-priced, high-flying stocks. As options expiration nears each month, I transition to at-the-money or out-of-the-money options to maximize the risk/reward of my trade set-ups.

MilkTrader - My full-time job is an airline pilot. As a trader, I've been actively trading option spreads for about 3 years. My trading style is divided into two categories: discretionary and systems. Discretionary trades are done with options where I will express an opinion of market direction or non-direction, and construct an option spread that profits if I'm right, or maybe even I'm slightly wrong. System trades are based on backtesting strategies with specific entries, exits, stop losses, etc. I'm currently doing research on the expectancy of every-month Iron Condors, Trend Breakout systems and non-reversion pairs strategies.

1option - I am a young retail trader with aspirations to manage lots of $$ one day. I am working on a Masters Degree with a focus on Finance. I trade options part-time for income and continue to work on improving my technical skills. My trades of choice include spreads, butterflies, and condors, among others. I prefer to trade indexes and ETFs over indvidual securities.

Landlord - Retired CPA turned Real Estate Investor. Now spending my time trying to make money and work less. My goal is to obtain multiple streams of income. Covered Calls (renting stocks to others) is one of those streams.

4/30 - Day/swingtrades - LVS

Scanning the charts at the open, I just had a feeling that folks would be selling into the strength. We've been overbought for quite some time and it usually takes one of these gap opens to the upside for the institutions to sell into the strength as the retail trader gets sucked into the last gasp euphoria. Also, a lot of charts were showing double-tops with diverging MACDs. I'm always on the lookout for these on gap open days. Below are a couple obvious examples. Unfortunately, despite the gameplan to fade the strength, I just couldn't get myself to trade the setups with the Dow/Spy positive for most of the day. Time to recharge and clear out the bullish mental blocks in case the weakness carries through over the next few trading sessions.

LVS - Too bad I had sold half the position yesterday but LVS gapped open this morning. As I mentioned above, after the momentum the past few days, I was looking to sell into the strength. I closed out the position @ 8.90. I would normally place a stop at the opening range low but check out the 2nd red hammer bar which took LVS down to $8.40. It reversed so quickly that I didn't even get a chance to place the stop so I decided to switch to the 1-min chart and sold when the stock started fading during the next bar. Also, LVS actually traded up to $9.60 in pre-market but that is the downside of options, you can't unload them during the pre and post-market excitement. No biggy as I picked up over $3 on the 2nd half of the position.

4/25 - 4/29 Day/swingtrades - DNDN, SLAB, WFC, LVS

After a couple choppy sessions, we finally got some nice trends today. The bears are definitely getting frustrated as every dip is being bought. There is still a lot of cash on the sidelines so until we get a significant catalyst to the downside, I'm going to continue trading the tape to the long side. I got stopped out of a couple setups myself during the chop but here are a couple decent daytrades and updates on my swings:

DNDN - Similar to a surprise earnings announcements that gaps a stock up, creating support/resistance lines, DNDN announce some news on their drug a couple weeks ago. I kept it on the radar and was finally rewarded when the high established on 4/14 was breached. It didn't take very long to move a couple bucks so I took profits and ran. Fortunately, I wasn't around when the stock plunged later in the day.

SLAB - Earnings were pretty positive so I took a position after the stock consolidated and bounced off the moving averages. Another way to trade this stock was to wait until the opening range high, $32.50, was broken. Notice the 2 red bars after the stock first hits $32.50. Lots of traders will use the opening range high to take profits so expect a pullback and consolidation before breaking through. As in most cases, I used the moving averages as my initial stop so did not get shaken out.

WFC - The post-earnings momentum didn't materialize on Monday so I unloaded the calls for $0.50 loss.

LVS - This has held up nicely the past week. I like seeing those white bars on the daily. It finally got close to my initial target around $8.00 so I unloaded half my May 5 calls. I'm going to trail the stop with the other half. Normally, I'd roll some of the profits into the next strike price but the premiums are a bit expensive for the May 7.5 Calls so I'll wait for a pullback and gauge the overall market conditions.

4/22 - 4/24 Day/swingtrades

I had quite a few daytrades the past few days so I highlighted a few different setups below. The common theme with the setups are low-risk entries where I can comfortably manage the stop (risk).

WFC - This is a post-earnings momentum trade. I like to watch the lows/highs that are printed on the day of earnings. These serve as support/resistance levels for people betting on earnings. WFC built up some resistance around $21 following surprise earnings a couple weeks ago. Now that the profit-taking has cleared out, I think newcomers can push this up a few bucks. I went with the May 20 Calls to give me some cushion in case we get some profit-taking on Monday.

AAPL - This setup involves the RSI and oversold conditions. The key to this setup is to trade with the market momentum and wait for confirmation. In other words, if the market is trading up, and the stock breaks down, I'll trade for a rebound back up along with the market momentum. AAPL broke down a couple days ago, prior to its earnings release. However, the market was still up (at the time, it sold off later in the day). Once the RSI got below 30, I waited for a reversal signal on the candles to catch a low-risk entry. Fortunately, this coincided with the opening range low which usually acts as support.

OIH - This is a "holy grail" bounce off the moving averages. Similar to most of the setups I trade, this allows for a low-risk entry with the moving averages as support. OIH ran hard out of the gates so I didin't feel like chasing it. It finally started pulling back to the moving averages. I don't like the risk of catching a falling knife so I normally wait for some type of reversal signal. In this case, there was a bullish hammer that was confirmed by the following up-candle.

LVS - I picked up some May 5 Calls @ 5.74 a couple days ago as the daily chart was looking pretty bullish on Tuesday's bounce off the moving averages. I added to the calls this morning @ 7.05 and picked up some shares but dumped those ahead of the stress test release. I'm looking to unload or roll the calls to a higher strike price if LVS can get to $8 or gaps open next week.

4/21 Day/swingtrades - FAZ, BAC

Yesterday's weakness didn't last very long at all. The bulls are determined to keep this uptrend intact.

FAZ - This gapped up at the open but unfortunately, the opening range could not hold. I let go half at the low of the opening range low and closed out the position when the bounce off the moving averages could not hold.

BAC - This settled into a brief narrow range and then printed a hammer off the moving averages. I like this setup because the narrow range allows me to increase the position size while still managing the same risk. I closed out the position for an even $0.50.

4/20 Day/Swingtrades - FAZ

After the buying spree last week and today's gap open downward, we may drift sideways to down until the stress-test results are released. I wanted to be positioned for any further weakness so I pretty much stayed with FAZ all day. In addition to catching a couple intraday breakouts, I picked up shares on the break of the narrow range early on. After locking in some profits, I moved into May 12.5 Calls which were asking $2.00. That's out-of-the-money and a bit of premium but there's plenty of time before expiration and I want some downside protection in case the setup fails and FAZ gaps down on me. Looking at the 30-min charts, this same pattern played out on Monday - 3/30 but FAZ could not sustain the momentum the following days. The difference today is that there was much more volume.

4/16 - 4/17 Option Expiration Trades

I caught some good moves the past few days leading up to options expiration. I like this time of the month because the premiums dry up, allowing me to trade expensive, high-flying stocks with minimal capital. Depending on the setup, I can also lever up 2-5x my normal position size. The key is to trade the same set-up as you would any time of the month but to consider increasing your position size with ATM or OTM options. Here are a few setups I took, both moving on earnings momentum:

GOOG - I rarely trade off the 1-min charts but there was a ton of movement in GOOG afterhours yesterday following earnings so I wanted to see how it moved at the open. I picked up the Apr 390 Calls and sold a few minutes later @ $396 for about $5.

ISRG - This has been quite volatile the past few days. I picked up the Apr 120 Calls on the break of $120. I like to trail my stops with the low of the previous candle but after that $5 bar printed, I got out for $5. I was multi-tasking with too many positions and didn't think to add the Apr 125 Calls. The range on the Apr 125 Calls was $0.05 - 7.68 today...amazing if anyone caught the low and dumped at the high.

GOOG - Below is a close-up of GOOG's 5-min chart for today. I picked up some Apr 390 Calls on the break of $393 and sold 15 minutes later for $1.40 on the calls. Again, only on options expiration day can I trade a $400- stock for $3.

4/15 Day/Swingtrades - FAZ, GS

The markets were weak early in the day but it just felt like there were a lot of buyers stepping in. Pull up the chart for MA. It doesn't get much narrower than that $163 area. I actually tried going short via Puts but was stopped out flat when the beige book numbers were release. In any case, it looks like the bulls still own the tape. In terms of low-risk, high-reward options expiration plays, I didn't see much out there. CME and GOOG had some very nice reversals but I didn't get in on either of them, despite having the charts up all day.

FAZ - This gapped up at the open as I had hoped. However, the opening range didn't hold up so I sold half and moved my stop to break-even which was triggered a while later. I think I eeked out about $0.10 on this trade. FAZ and SKF are dead for awhile.

GS - The chart below looks a bit busy and hence the lack of posts the past couple months...among other reasons. I've been trading these narrow range breakouts quite a bit lately. This is a good example of why I like to trade deep-in-the-mony options. You can wait all day on a $20 stock to see it break-out and move up $1. Or, you can focus on an expensive momentum stock and catch the same set-up multiple times through the day. Deep-in-the-money options allow me to participate in the price movement on a $100+ stock without tying up all my capital. Position-sizing and risk management are crucial regardless of what I trade, DITM options or stock. On the first trade below, I picked up the Apr 110 and 120 calls. The Apr 110 Calls got me almost dollar-for-dollar movement...or $2 in this case. The Apr 120 Calls were out-of-the-money and I only picked up $1 on the calls but on options expiration week, I like to add the OTM calls and use them to my advantage in case the stock takes off on me. On the second trade, I traded the same set-up or break of the narrow range. The market averages and technicals all confirmed the breakout so I pyramided immediately. In this case, I was carrying about 40 Calls. If I was trading the stock, I would have needed to use up almost $500k in capital. The trade-off is that I was giving up $0.15 between the bid/ask spread but overtime, I've learned to accept the slippage as a condition for trading bigger lots. I netted about $1.50 on this trade.

4/14 Day/swingtrades

Despite the opening weakness, today's action looked choppy as there are still quite a few dip buyers left from the recent runup. For the past few weeks, any bad news has been bought. Today, GS killed their surprise earnings with an offering priced @ $123 and last month's retail numbers didn't looked too good. So, we may be in for some near-term weakness. If so, it shouldn't surprise anyone as we've had a pretty good runup the past few weeks and need a decent pause/consolidation to digest the gains.

GS - This was definitely on my radar from the opening bell. If you pull up the 5-min chart, GS had a very hard time getting past the 20ma. I actually took 3 trades on GS today but only two are shown on the charts. I entered the first trade on the break of support and opening range low around $121.00. I went with the Apr 125 puts with an initial target of $118 (support established prior to breaking out last Friday) and a second target of $115 to fill last week's gap. I took partial profits @ 119.00 and closed the position when the 1st target was hit @ $118...netting $2.00 on the puts. For the second trade (red candle at 2pm EST), I was actually up $1 on the puts but had cable problems and ended up getting stopped out flat before I could readjust the stop to lock in the profit. Finally, GS broke down again in the last 30 minutes. I picked up the Apr 120 Puts and closed the position when the gap was closed @ $115.20...netting $1.20 on the puts.


C - I used the open strength to close out the rest of this position @ $4.40. With the GS weakness at the open, I figured it was just time before the rest of the financials got dragged down. I don't like to view trades in % gains as I'm more focused on dollar for dollar movements but $0.25 to $1.40 is pretty good...especially if position-sized correctly.

FAZ - Like I said, there were quite a few dip buyers out there today. I first entered FAZ as it broke the opening range high, around $10.10. I tightened the stop to $10.40 which was triggered awhile later. I also got stopped out flat around 2PM EST as I picked up FAZ shares along with the GS puts above. Finally, I re-entered at the close as volume picked up and the financials weakened into the close. This is a speculative ONH (ala Stewie) play as overnight holds in FAZ have NOT been rewarded the past few weeks. However, FAZ is finally trading above the moving averages on most timeframes and the Calls should give me some downside cushion if the setup fails tomorrow.

4/13 Day/swingtrades

I haven't posted much as I've been in daytrading mode the past couple months and there have been too many charts to put up. It looks like we've been in a nice uptrend lately. It appears we may be overbought but I'll keep riding the trend until it ends.

I've been mainly trading the financials stocks. The 5 & 15-min charts have been helpful to reduce some of the "noise" as the Vix has now come down below 40. The low-priced issues like BAC/C/FAS have also been great for leverage using options. I've found some nice narrow-range breakouts that have allowed me to position-size 2-5x my normal lot size. Here are a couple trades I took:

C - The daily has been consolidating nicely. The Apr 3 Calls I picked up on Friday cost $0.25...dirt cheap. I took some off the table near the close.

FSLR - This carved out a nice narrow range. I initially entered @ 143.00, got stopped out and re-entered @ 143.50. I also bought the Apr 150 Calls as FSLR popped to $157 last time it broke out. I managed $4 on the Apr 120 Calls and $0.75 on the Apr 150 Calls.

2/20 Daytrades

I wanted to try and post real-time today but the action was just too fast and furious. Expiration day continues to be my favorite day of the month to trade. Premiums dry up so you can trade the big movers with limited risk and potential for big gains. Many traders take options expiration day off due to the volatility. If you're a daytrader, that makes no sense, especially with options where you can control your risk.

Today, you can just sense the fear in the market. BAC/C were getting whacked. I went with the weakness early on and then bet against it as the panic-selling built up.

SKF - This was a big winner for me back in November and again today. My first attempt @ 204+ was stopped out. After peaking above $210, I went back into the Feb 200 Puts which were only trading $1.oo at the time. As I've mentioned previously, the key on expiration day is to continue position-sizing as usual. If you normally risk $1000, then risk the same. In today's case, with the dried up premium, you'll probably be able to pick up twice the normal position for the same amount of risk. In my case, I had 3x the amount of calls at $208+ than I had at $204. The market averages started strengthening, RSI/MACD declining and a narrow range developed for risk-control. I took partial profits at $196 for $6.00 profit. The oversold bounce got me emotional so I set a limit order for $10.00 to close out the position at around $190 for $9.00 profit. The range for these puts were $0.45 - $18.20 so I definitely left a lot on the table but am still happy with the profits which easily offset the hit I took with the UYG Calls.

FAZ - I traded the market weakness with FAZ early on. A narrow range developed and I entered @ 78.50 on the break of the range. I took profits at $81.00 when the RSI indicated overbought conditions. I highlighted the same exact set-up later on in the day. I was too distracted to trade this but the set-up is the same....break of a narrow range in the direction of the market momentum. The narrow-range allows me to easily define a stop point.

GS - Here's a trade I mentioned on a chatboard that I chickened out on. During the panic selling midday, I noticed the potential double-bottom on GS. RSI and MACD were both diverging. The GS Feb 80 Calls were trading $0.95. With a stop at $79.00, the true risk was proabably only $0.50. That would have been nice for $5.00...

2/11 - 2/19 Day/swingtrades

Anyone want to buy a few hundred UYG Feb 3 Calls?! Barring some overnight BS like back in October, I'll be left holding the bag on those calls as they expire tomorrow. Alas, I had high hopes for a market rebound but the trend is still down. My only consolation is that I capped my loss with the Calls vs. the stock. Looks like this market will continuing drifting lower. The problem with all these attempts by our government to stabilize the markets is that the window of opportunity has come and gone. The market won't rebound until we start to see the economy stabilize which won't happen for at least another 6 months. In the mean time, no one wants to put their money to work. Every day the market drifts lower, middle America will continue moving to cash. It will take a significant intervention for those same folks to think, "We'll be okay. After losing over 50% of my account last year, I think stocks are the best investment now...". Fogettaboutit!!!

I've been in daytrade mode the past week. FAZ has been the vehicle of choice with a few trades in POT. I've included the POT trades but the FAZ trades are too many and the chart would look pretty messy:

POT - I started yesterday with POT Feb 60 Calls as it broke the opening range. I took partial profits on the first spike and closed the position on the second spike when the momentum tapered off into the close. However, I decided to go with OTM Feb 85 Calls for an overnight which didn't gain that much despite the gap open due to the high premium on the calls. Later today, I picked up puts when the market traded lower and POT could not hold the 84.00 support level.

AZO - How the heck is this pushing a 52-week high? I guess Eddie Lampert is doing something right. Actually, autoparts generally do good during recessions as everyone would rather save money and fix up their clunker than splurge on a new hot rod. I would not look to short this new leader here. Any short-covering rally and this will be the first to sky rocket.

ESI - This was the options expiration play of the day. I wish I took this trade. The Feb 120 Puts traded in a range of $1.00-15.10. I'll be looking for these types of moves tomorrow if the market falls apart or has a huge rebound.

2/10 Day/swingtrades

I came into the day expecting "sell the news" but I didn't think we'd go that far down. There was basically too much anticipation for Geitner's plan. The only thing I got out of his speech was that he needs practice using teleprompters and not making it so obvious. How about that follow-up interview, why can't he look the interviewer straight in the eyes instead of tilting his head and eye-balling him? If he is going to play a big role in the new administration's economic recovery plan, he better step up his game a few notches.

As for the markets, I actually think it was more of a trader's sell-off. Basically, we've moved quite a bit since last week so there really wasn't too much of a base to hold onto. At least that's my thinking since I'm left holding the bag on those UYG calls. I'm going to stay nimble the next few days and go back to daytrading mode...long or short, wherever the markets take me.

USO - This is still trading pretty sloppily. I moved my stop up on that gap open and it triggered a bit later for $0.20 slippage on the calls.

OIH - I got stopped out of this one as well for $0.30 on the puts. Looks like yesterday's double-top was definitely the time to sell.

2/9 Day/swingtrades

POT - Another strong move at the open. POT started weakening midday so I unloaded the remaining Feb 95 Calls around $94.15 as the RSI/MACD were declining and the second attempt at $95 failed. Too bad I did not flip to puts at the same time...that would have been a great follow-up trade. POT has made a monster move the past week and was definitely due for a breather.

OIH - This was also looking pretty good this morning. Unfortunately, I forgot to pull up the daily and check for potential resistance levels.

I ended up exiting the calls after giving up about $3.50 on the stock and re-entering later in the day. We'll see tomorrow morning if that was a wise decision.

BAC - B of A showed some nice strength at the open. However, it was sitting right at the 20-SMA which acted as resistance for most of the day.

I tried pyramiding @ $6.91 as the moving averages inched up but was later stopped out of Friday's and today's position @ 6.84. This one probably needs a breather.

USO - The action on this is boring but better than losing money. I'm still holding.

UYG - Still holding. I'll either unload or add more pending tomorrow's reaction to Geitner's plan.

2/6 Day/swingtrades

BAC - This one has made an impressive move off the lows from Thursday. My entry was late as BAC broke out of its morning narrow range. The key to this setup is the position size. If my entry was in the $5.70 area, I could have position-sized for $0.20 risk. Instead, I ended up position sizing for $0.45 risk which was still decent but not great. With the Dow up over 200, I got a little greedy in the afternoon and instead of selling at $6.40, I ended up unloading half @ 6.20. I'm still carrying half the position.

POT - I picked up some shares for a daytrade as POT broke out of the declining channel. I set a $0.50 trailing stop that triggered awhile later @ 91.75.

SWINGS

POT - I'm glad to see the strongest daily chart I put up on Thursday was the strongest mover of my holdings. I used the opening strength to unload half my position. Later in the day, POT stalled at that $92 level so I closed out the Feb 90 Calls. I picked up about $3.50 on the Feb 90 Calls and $2.50 on the Feb 95 Calls. I'm still hold half of the Feb 95 Calls from Thursday.

OIH - This held up pretty well and started rallying midway through the trading day...still holding.

USO - This was definitely the laggard for the 1st half of Friday. Then, there was that sudden spike above $29 before settling back at $28+. I'm still holding.

UYG - Feb 3 Calls are looking good. Volume/open interest picked up on Friday so the premium has edged up a little.