Full Throttle Friday: Dollar Dive Does Bears In [View article]
We don't let FAS become a problem because we sell premium (short calls), we don't buy it, so the decay works in our favor. Occasionally, we'll do a bullish play on FAS of no more than a month but, after that, the decay tends to get you - especially in a choppy market.
Full Throttle Friday: Dollar Dive Does Bears In [View article]
FAS and XLF are both useful for different time-frames. In our FAS Money trade, we're long XLF because it doesn't decay and short on weekly FAS calls (when we're bearish, of course).
As to RIG, they got low enough for us to sell short puts on them.
Just Another Manic Monday: Value Investing [View article]
By the way, whenever you think a post is missing something, you can just click over to PSW, where any post that is up on SA is available for free viewing on our site as well (but not all of our free posts are on SA, so it's always good to check out our site). SA does not include videos and certain images for reasons I'm not quite sure of.
Just Another Manic Monday: Value Investing [View article]
Thanks Hans but this site edited the last sentence of my post where all I said was: "... so the bull will be flying – even if the markets are not!" I can't imagine why they did that but it's strange things like that which turn this site into the same generic drivel we get everywhere else on the web (except PSW, of course).
Which Way Wednesday - Happy Crashiversary! [View article]
Damn, we had a server problem. Haven't had one of those in a while.
Well, if anyone is here, it looks like we're bouncing a bit into the close. Have to assume they think they can get the Dow green back at 12,800 but it's the only index likely to pull off a green close at this point.
The real key is what happens with oil and the Dollar overnight.
Which Way Wednesday - Happy Crashiversary! [View article]
AAPL/Proactive - Of course we buy AAPL when its on sale! We don't like to hold the stock though - they don't pay us a dividend so why should we?
What we like is selling the 2013 $230 puts for $20, which, at worst, puts you into the stock for net $210 and we then use that $20 to offset the purchase of the 2013 $300/400 bull call spread at $40 and that's net $20 on the $100 spread that's $35 in the money to start.
So you get $80 of upside up to $400 and your worst case is AAPL drops below $230 and triggers your short put (although you can roll it, which is the kind of adjustments we talk about in Member chat every day) for a net $250 entry (because you spent $20 more on the spread and we assume it was a total loss).
According to Think or Swim, the net margin on the short puts is just $23 - far less than what the cost of the stock would be. That plus $20 in cash puts you in control of the trade for a possible $80 gain.
Don't fool yourself though - you'd better have at least the 50% margin you'd need to own AAPL at $230 - just in case but, if your plan was to buy AAPL stock - I much prefer this alternative.
SI is a good company too - the high sticker price makes then harder to hedge and that's always one of our primary concerns.
As to why HIT and not TM - I said so on the video, TM has serious supply issues and most of Japan will lose a month this year. HIT is a nuke play and they will be very busy inspecting and upgrading for a few years now. Suddenly all that maintenance people have been putting off will be done in very short order.
Which Way Wednesday - Happy Crashiversary! [View article]
No, sorry, read the story in the comments above.
Hey RedKite, I don't know what gives you the impression we pick options only, we pick stocks all the time - they are just very boring so we hardly ever discuss them. 8-)
As to a forum - We do have a site you know that's pretty well-read and the articles are free after 48 hours for those who can't justify the $1 a day it costs to get access (50% off the Annual $695 Report Membership) so, if the information has no trading value to you then it's no big deal to read it two days behind, is it?
I'll let you guys know when the occasional post is available for free, we like to give away one every week or so. Also, of course, you can catch me on TV like yesterday: watch.bnn.ca/tuesday#c...
This has been a fantastic week, of course (as you can see from the above post we were just very lucky to go more short last Wednesday) and now we're in bargain hunting mode again - a couple of my pics are on the BNN clip.
Which Way Wednesday - Happy Crashiversary! [View article]
Cdivia - You asked what is the dynamic that I like so much about the Newsletter and, as I said, it's not the newsletter - that's just the surface you get. It's all about the chat and here's a great example from yesterday of two of our Premium Members saving the rest of us from catastrophe with their expertise:
zeroxzero (premium) March 14th, 2011 at 11:10 am |
For what it’s worth, anecdotally, I worked with TEPCO for years in Europe, where they inherited some power plants from a Japanese trading company they bought out. I have never been associated with a more opaque, immobile bureaucracy in my entire career. The company receives checks from Japanese consumers every month and scarcely makes decisions of any kind. Their approach to any new problem was to ignore it; taking a decision involves risks, taking no decision was never criticized internally. In fact, they would often reach critical points in project development and simply not return phone calls or emails when they didn’t know what to do — which was pretty much always. While it’s no laughing matter, when I realized that TEPCO was in charge of saving Japan from a nuclear disaster, I didn’t know whether to laugh hysterically or make plans to travel to another planet. Events may prove me wrong, but if Japan depends on cool, calculated responses from TEPCO, it will be very disappointed. Or worse.
pentaxon (premium) March 14th, 2011 at 1:47 pm |
it’s only that this "residual heat that has to be quenched" can melt together your fuel rods – or your control rods out – or it can melt your fuel rods to drop on the floor of the reactor. whatever melting it will be – once the critical mass of fuel is melted together somewhere the chain reaction starts again… and this time in a sligthly less controlable way, as the chairman would probably call this then. I don’t say that this has to happen. As I said earlier it’s a matter of heat, geometry and so on. But unfortunately the reactor seems to be quite hot still.
======================...
There may be experts who comment on SA but these guys are our Members, we work with them every day and we all share our individual specialties as colleagues, not in some ridiculous battle to one-up each other in blog comments, as is often the case here.
When it all hits the fan, we all know where to go to get information we can count on and that is a million times better than sitting home alone - trading at your desk and relying on strangers to tell you the news - which can hardly be separated from rumor these days.
Which Way Wednesday - Happy Crashiversary! [View article]
I don't know why but now I can't even post an instablog - I was trying to share with you our information on the situation in Japan and how it may affect the markets in the morning but, for some reason, the system won't let us submit the article.
I will make a post available to the public on our site in the morning as these extraordinary events unfold. Our hearts go out to the people of Japan as they go through this terrible crisis.
There are many fine relief organizations doing their best to aid this Japanese disaster - the American Red Cross is one of the most accessible and you can Text REDCROSS to 90999 and make a $10 donation right on your phone - right now - and then tell your friends to do the same - 10 Million People donating $10 each is $100M and all you have to do is add your $10!
Which Way Wednesday - Happy Crashiversary! [View article]
There are many Billionaire publishers and few Billionaire traders - that's one reason. Also - traders can't retire or leave their trading to their children when they die.
Also, I enjoy it and the format at PSW is designed to have live conversations with hundreds of top-notch traders during market hours. We share ideas and information in a way few brokerages can match - it's a very powerful tool that makes us better investors.
I write a post in the morning about what I think the most important issues of the day are and, from there, the conversation takes on a life of it's own with people coming up with trade ideas, option strategies, company information, charts and, best of all, insights from people who have actually worked for or owned companies in the industries we're following. We even have quite a few fund managers.
Why is it necessary??? I can't imagine giving it up!
Which Way Wednesday - Happy Crashiversary! [View article]
Hi guys! Greg's Email is admin at philstockworld dot com, not "greg" - sorry but there seems to have been some confusion with people.
SA has been talking to us and we may be able to work something out - we'll know next week. Meanwhile, the offer still stands if anyone is interested in getting better, faster access to PSW.
We've had a great week, of course, and we ended up just a bit bearish into the weekend after taking our short-side money and running on the morning dip.
I'll leave off with a comment from one of our Members, Hoss18 - who just said the nicest thing today - this, to me, is what our site is all about and exactly why I do this every day:
======================...
Phil, I’m not sure how best to thank you for how much you have taught me. Wednesday, I went with the DIA Puts which netted a big win yesterday. Then, replaced them into the close last night just in case and unloaded them right at the open for a nice little gain, along with profiting on the EDZ long calls and the DXD calls which I hadn’t covered yet. This flipped my portfolio to neutral so I added the DIA calls this am before I took my 3 year old to swim lessons.
Came home and checked a little while ago and found the DIA calls up nicely so bailed on them at $1.40 and now have a relatively neutral stance into the weekend, except my balances are the same now as they were when the Dow was 200 pts higher…and I still have my core positions nicely nested away burning off their premium!!!
It’s awesome to have learned enough to be able to do this while raising Hope. So here’s what I did. I took the Paypal refund from referrals you sent me, and I completed a loan for a farmer in Peru through Kiva.org. And I put you as the reference for introducing me to the service and a note that you inspired me to do more for him. The loan is so he can buy tools to clear the land he’s been getting in lieu of payments for the last two years. He likes having the extra land, but doesn’t have the money to make it grow his achioli(sp?).
Thanks for the inspiriation.
Sincerely, Hoss
======================...
I know I will be having a good weekend after hearing that - I hope you guys do too!
Full Throttle Friday: Dollar Dive Does Bears In [View article]
Full Throttle Friday: Dollar Dive Does Bears In [View article]
As to RIG, they got low enough for us to sell short puts on them.
Just Another Manic Monday: Value Investing [View article]
Just Another Manic Monday: Value Investing [View article]
Just Another Manic Monday: Value Investing [View article]
Which Way Wednesday - Happy Crashiversary! [View article]
Which Way Wednesday - Happy Crashiversary! [View article]
Well, if anyone is here, it looks like we're bouncing a bit into the close. Have to assume they think they can get the Dow green back at 12,800 but it's the only index likely to pull off a green close at this point.
The real key is what happens with oil and the Dollar overnight.
Which Way Wednesday - Happy Crashiversary! [View article]
Which Way Wednesday - Happy Crashiversary! [View article]
Which Way Wednesday - Happy Crashiversary! [View article]
What we like is selling the 2013 $230 puts for $20, which, at worst, puts you into the stock for net $210 and we then use that $20 to offset the purchase of the 2013 $300/400 bull call spread at $40 and that's net $20 on the $100 spread that's $35 in the money to start.
So you get $80 of upside up to $400 and your worst case is AAPL drops below $230 and triggers your short put (although you can roll it, which is the kind of adjustments we talk about in Member chat every day) for a net $250 entry (because you spent $20 more on the spread and we assume it was a total loss).
According to Think or Swim, the net margin on the short puts is just $23 - far less than what the cost of the stock would be. That plus $20 in cash puts you in control of the trade for a possible $80 gain.
Don't fool yourself though - you'd better have at least the 50% margin you'd need to own AAPL at $230 - just in case but, if your plan was to buy AAPL stock - I much prefer this alternative.
SI is a good company too - the high sticker price makes then harder to hedge and that's always one of our primary concerns.
As to why HIT and not TM - I said so on the video, TM has serious supply issues and most of Japan will lose a month this year. HIT is a nuke play and they will be very busy inspecting and upgrading for a few years now. Suddenly all that maintenance people have been putting off will be done in very short order.
Which Way Wednesday - Happy Crashiversary! [View article]
Hey RedKite, I don't know what gives you the impression we pick options only, we pick stocks all the time - they are just very boring so we hardly ever discuss them. 8-)
As to a forum - We do have a site you know that's pretty well-read and the articles are free after 48 hours for those who can't justify the $1 a day it costs to get access (50% off the Annual $695 Report Membership) so, if the information has no trading value to you then it's no big deal to read it two days behind, is it?
I'll let you guys know when the occasional post is available for free, we like to give away one every week or so. Also, of course, you can catch me on TV like yesterday: watch.bnn.ca/tuesday#c...
This has been a fantastic week, of course (as you can see from the above post we were just very lucky to go more short last Wednesday) and now we're in bargain hunting mode again - a couple of my pics are on the BNN clip.
Which Way Wednesday - Happy Crashiversary! [View article]
zeroxzero (premium)
March 14th, 2011 at 11:10 am |
For what it’s worth, anecdotally, I worked with TEPCO for years in Europe, where they inherited some power plants from a Japanese trading company they bought out. I have never been associated with a more opaque, immobile bureaucracy in my entire career. The company receives checks from Japanese consumers every month and scarcely makes decisions of any kind. Their approach to any new problem was to ignore it; taking a decision involves risks, taking no decision was never criticized internally. In fact, they would often reach critical points in project development and simply not return phone calls or emails when they didn’t know what to do — which was pretty much always. While it’s no laughing matter, when I realized that TEPCO was in charge of saving Japan from a nuclear disaster, I didn’t know whether to laugh hysterically or make plans to travel to another planet. Events may prove me wrong, but if Japan depends on cool, calculated responses from TEPCO, it will be very disappointed. Or worse.
pentaxon (premium)
March 14th, 2011 at 1:47 pm |
it’s only that this "residual heat that has to be quenched" can melt together your fuel rods – or your control rods out – or it can melt your fuel rods to drop on the floor of the reactor. whatever melting it will be – once the critical mass of fuel is melted together somewhere the chain reaction starts again… and this time in a sligthly less controlable way, as the chairman would probably call this then. I don’t say that this has to happen. As I said earlier it’s a matter of heat, geometry and so on. But unfortunately the reactor seems to be quite hot still.
======================...
There may be experts who comment on SA but these guys are our Members, we work with them every day and we all share our individual specialties as colleagues, not in some ridiculous battle to one-up each other in blog comments, as is often the case here.
When it all hits the fan, we all know where to go to get information we can count on and that is a million times better than sitting home alone - trading at your desk and relying on strangers to tell you the news - which can hardly be separated from rumor these days.
Which Way Wednesday - Happy Crashiversary! [View article]
I will make a post available to the public on our site in the morning as these extraordinary events unfold. Our hearts go out to the people of Japan as they go through this terrible crisis.
There are many fine relief organizations doing their best to aid this Japanese disaster - the American Red Cross is one of the most accessible and you can Text REDCROSS to 90999 and make a $10 donation right on your phone - right now - and then tell your friends to do the same - 10 Million People donating $10 each is $100M and all you have to do is add your $10!
Thank you,
- Phil
Which Way Wednesday - Happy Crashiversary! [View article]
Also, I enjoy it and the format at PSW is designed to have live conversations with hundreds of top-notch traders during market hours. We share ideas and information in a way few brokerages can match - it's a very powerful tool that makes us better investors.
I write a post in the morning about what I think the most important issues of the day are and, from there, the conversation takes on a life of it's own with people coming up with trade ideas, option strategies, company information, charts and, best of all, insights from people who have actually worked for or owned companies in the industries we're following. We even have quite a few fund managers.
Why is it necessary??? I can't imagine giving it up!
Which Way Wednesday - Happy Crashiversary! [View article]
SA has been talking to us and we may be able to work something out - we'll know next week. Meanwhile, the offer still stands if anyone is interested in getting better, faster access to PSW.
We've had a great week, of course, and we ended up just a bit bearish into the weekend after taking our short-side money and running on the morning dip.
I'll leave off with a comment from one of our Members, Hoss18 - who just said the nicest thing today - this, to me, is what our site is all about and exactly why I do this every day:
======================...
Phil, I’m not sure how best to thank you for how much you have taught me. Wednesday, I went with the DIA Puts which netted a big win yesterday. Then, replaced them into the close last night just in case and unloaded them right at the open for a nice little gain, along with profiting on the EDZ long calls and the DXD calls which I hadn’t covered yet. This flipped my portfolio to neutral so I added the DIA calls this am before I took my 3 year old to swim lessons.
Came home and checked a little while ago and found the DIA calls up nicely so bailed on them at $1.40 and now have a relatively neutral stance into the weekend, except my balances are the same now as they were when the Dow was 200 pts higher…and I still have my core positions nicely nested away burning off their premium!!!
It’s awesome to have learned enough to be able to do this while raising Hope. So here’s what I did. I took the Paypal refund from referrals you sent me, and I completed a loan for a farmer in Peru through Kiva.org. And I put you as the reference for introducing me to the service and a note that you inspired me to do more for him. The loan is so he can buy tools to clear the land he’s been getting in lieu of payments for the last two years. He likes having the extra land, but doesn’t have the money to make it grow his achioli(sp?).
Thanks for the inspiriation.
Sincerely,
Hoss
======================...
I know I will be having a good weekend after hearing that - I hope you guys do too!