Apple, Amazon, Pandora: Feeling Pain At Options Expiration?

Rocco Pendola submits: << Return to Part I In part two of my series on options pinning and maximum pain theory, with a focus on Apple (AAPL), I interview University of Illinois Professor of Finance and Harry A.

By Rocco Pendola:If you've followed my simulated portfolios on Seeking Alpha, you know that I often bend rules not to provide an advantage, but to make things harder on myself. That's exactly what I am doing today. This approach not only makes things more challenging, but it also ramps up the pace of learning opportunities.

By Rocco Pendola:Based on my experience with last year's $10,000 portfolio, I've found that, for record keeping purposes, it makes sense to lead off each installment with a position update. Speaking of that, by the end of the weekend, I hope to get the $10K portfolio's trade history up on Robert Weinstein's Paid2Trade. I'm already keeping a running log of the $100K trades over there.

Andrew Wilkinson submits: SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) – A massive bearish put spread purchased on the SPY this morning suggests one big options market participant is bracing for the S&P 500 Index to pull back ahead of November expiration.

By Rocco Pendola:As stated from the outset, I offer the $100,000 portfolio as more of a learning exercise than an experiment in chest pumping. As such, I make several moves intended to illustrate various options and general investing themes, strategies and phenomena.

Rocco Pendola submits:Just a few short years ago, I was a budding academic. I spent as many hours conducting research and attempting to publish in peer-reviewed journals each day as I do covering the markets and lounging around Santa Monica today. While the experience did not make me a professor, it didn't send me to Starbucks (SBUX) to work as a barista either.

Rocco Pendola submits:About one month ago, I wrote an article discussing how options expiration day and the theory of maximum pain could impact some of Wall Street's most-watched and heavily-traded stocks.

Rocco Pendola submits:Last month I published an interview on Seeking Alpha with Whatstrading.com options strategist and Seeking Alpha contributor Frederic Ruffy about manipulation and the options market.