Dykstra: The Hits Keep Coming

On step up and two steps back, that's the way it's been with the market this week.

Yesterday was absolutely painful. The market gave back all of Tuesday's gains and then some. The S&P officially joined the Nasdaq and the Dow in bear territory amid the free fall yesterday. Yet, amid all this pain, I'm lighting up the scoreboard.

The way I see it, yesterday it was Dykstra: 3, Markets: 0

The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 237 points to 11,147, while the S&P gave back 29 points to close at 1245. The Nasdaq fell 60 points to finish the session at 2235. Yesterday, Fannie Mae(FNM) and Freddie Mac(FRE) were among the catalysts for the free fall. Investors were spooked by news of concerns over Fannie and Freddie's capital positions.

On Tuesday -- a day when the market rallied -- we picked up two wins with Sanofi-Aventis(SNY) and Forest Labs(FRX). Combined, they brought in $7,300 in profit. Both required us to average down, adding to our positions as the stock price of these picks declined.

While many others were likely wincing at all the blood in the streets on Wednesday, those who follow my picks had something to cheer about ... specifically $8,400 to cheer about. I put three more check marks in the win column.

The first is United Technologies(UTX), my pick from Monday. I went with the January $50.00 calls. This is a company that has been good to my readers. Yesterday's victory is our second win with UTX this season, and fifth total in the last two years. I will keep going back to this pick as long as we can keep pulling wins from it.

The other two picks -- ones that did not appear on TheStreet.com but were part of Nails on the Numbers, my subscription newsletter before we relaunched with TheStreet.com - notched us wins as well. Eli Lily(LLY) and Bristol-Myers Squibb(BMY) both crossed the finish line. LLY pulled in $4,200, while BMY made $3,200. These figured do not include broker charges.

These last two picks required us to average down, or add additional contracts to lower the average price we paid for each contract. We want to lower the average price because we set our good-till-canceled (GTC) sell order $1.00 above the average entry price. The lower the entry price, the less the option needs to climb for us to achieve a victory. Also, as we add to the position, the bigger the payout will be when we win. I will elaborate more on this week's performance and positions in our weekly recap on Nails on the Numbers tomorrow.

But I will leave you with this: We've seen $15,700 in wins in the last two days alone, this all while the market lost ground. Of course we still have other picks in play that were impacted by the downfall, but while others are hurting, we are able to recognize some Major League wins.

Remember: Life is a game, enjoy the ride!

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