Phil's Stock World, Stock Options Trading & Information

Phil, I don’t know if I told you lately but you da man! I’m doing so much better following your guidelines. It’s like you actually know what you are talking about. 8-) I’ve tried a lot of services and none of them are as comprehensive or honest AND successful. I appreciate all youz other guys/gals input as well…learning tons as a relative newbie to this game.

- Aclend , Mar 16, 2010

Nice intraday trading calls this week Phil. You have me hooked on trading SPY options analogously to your DIA moves. I paid some tuition the last few weeks but I think I have the hang of it. Don’t be greedy and be happy with 0.05 to 0.10 and sometimes you’re lucky with much bigger moves. Thanks for the training!

- TmDecay, Feb 26, 2010

Phil… My portfolio, in the past few months, has acheived a high degree of stabilization. I’ve noticed that on up days, down days, even days, it doesn’t matter, my portfolio rarely varies more than 2%. And over the long haul it just slowly increases in value. I attribute this not to investment choices, but to style. Thanks to you and others on this site I’m paying close attention to position size, delta neutrality, downside protection, and concentrating on selling premium rather than buying it. I’ve developed increasing patience, not having to trade daily, or even weekly. I’m concentrating on the finer points of trading, letting the profits come to me, rather than the other way around. I appreciate the help everyone here has given in getting me focused on this principle. I’m pumped!…in a calm sort of way.

- Iflantheman, Feb 16, 2010

hil, I hit my targets for the year in my 401K (thanks in no small part to your site), so I cashed out of all positions a couple of weeks ago. Feels good... I'm conservative with this money –looking for 2% per month, which i’ve been able to do… thx.

- Lunar, Dec 31, 2009

The best play I made this year was PSW. Will renew my membership tonight. Looking for the same trading profit percentages next year, but will have an advantage from the compounding, and much better skills acquired from you and the many skilled PSW co-pilots. Thanks!

- Gel1, Dec 15, 2009

Phil: I loaded up big time yesterday on your suggestion of the AMZN September 75 naked puts. They are up 43%!

- Gel1, Jul 24, 2009

Phil: Once again thanks for those inciteful comments, and the old links to Sage’s portfolio management (I hadn’t read before). I’m an experienced stock trader, but over the last 3 or 4 months have come to appreciate options trading here at PSW, and the consistency of your many premium-selling strategies. It is liberating to have to worry less about getting direction right and being able to generate 5% MONTHLY returns with close to delta-neutral positioning. Much appreciated!

- Neverworkagain , Jul 16, 2009

Phil, I was so impressed with the personal note in the comments that I went ahead and paid for a months trial of premium that I have been on the fence for awhile about. Just reading the comments makes me already glad for the purchase.

- Smasher, May 28, 2009

Hey Phil - writing to thank you! First of all, and I know you have heard this a few times form some others - the portfolio updates you have done - with entries and targets and even margin reqs are invaluable! I find myself understanding what is done here IN THEORY most of the time..however, there is a much bigger difference in placing and setting up the hedges properly than just understanding…This has been eye opening for me and Ifeel like I just took a major step in trading during the last week.

- Bcfla, Apr 20, 2009

Phil, thanks for the call on the SKF puts earlier, I’m riding that horsie downhill right now, giddyup!

- MrMocha, Jan 15, 2009

Beginner's Guide to Options Trading. Free PDF Guide. Where & when to trade, how to prevent stock or option loss and how to make money!

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Posts Tagged ‘BZH’

UnitedHealth Bulls Have a Fever – the Only Prescription is More Call Options

by Andrew Wilkinson - March 16th, 2010 4:20 pm

Today’s tickers: UNH, BZH, WFC, GE, XLB, WMT, BAC, COF, HOG, ETFC & STJ

UNH - UnitedHealth Group, Inc. – Health and well-being company, UnitedHealth Group, commenced the trading session in the red after Goldman Sachs Group removed the firm from its ‘Conviction Buy List’. However, UNH is still rated as a ‘buy’ at Goldman, and the company’s shares recovered this afternoon to stand 0.60% higher at $32.73. A fire-storm of bullish activity descended on UnitedHealth during the middle of the trading day. Investors gobbled up April contract call options perhaps to position for continued bullish movement in the price of the underlying shares. Options players purchased 42,600 call options at the April $34 strike for an average premium of $0.87 per contract. More than 50,000 calls changed hands at that strike, which blows the 4,333 contracts of open interest at that strike right out of the water. Investors long the calls are positioned to amass profits should UNH’s shares rally another 6.5% to breach the breakeven price of $34.87 by April expiration. Wild-and-crazy options activity on the stock lifted the overall reading of options implied volatility 5% to 43.06% as of 2:05 pm (ET).

BZH - Beazer Homes USA, Inc. – Single- and multi-family homebuilding company, Beazer Homes USA, attracted bullish options players today amid a 4.65% rally in its share price to $4.95. Beazer was upgraded to a ‘buy’ rating and a target share price of $6.25 at Citigroup yesterday. Plain-vanilla call buying took place at the near-term March $5.0 strike where investor picked up 2,100 contracts for an average premium of $0.14 apiece. Investors long these contracts are hoping Beazer’s shares rally another 4.25% from the current price to surpass the effective breakeven point at $5.14 ahead of expiration on Friday. Optimism spread to the April $5.0 strike as traders coveted 2,200 calls for an average premium of $0.32 per contract. Call-buyers in the April contract profit if shares jump 8% and trade above the breakeven price of $5.32 by expiration day next month. The surge in investor demand for options on Beazer Homes lifted the overall reading of options implied volatility on the stock 15.8% to 61.92% this afternoon.

WFC - Wells Fargo & Co. – The bank holding company’s shares increased more than 0.65% during the session to $30.09, inspiring bullish options activity on the stock. Investors positioning for a continued rally in the price of the underlying shares purchased nearly…

Toppy Tuesday - Happy Anniversary Bull Market!

by Phil - March 9th, 2010 8:26 am

It’s hard to believe that just one year ago today investors thought the world was ending!

Well, not all investors - we were BUYBUYBUYing at the time, as I recapped back in September whan we did our "Market Crash - Year One Review." Click on Cramer’s picture for the Daily Show’s March 4th, 2009 review of the magical moments that led us down to the bottom and here’s another great video from the evening broadcast on March 9th and, of course, there is my own legendary appearance on LiveStock from March 6th, but that’s summarized in the crash link, so save yourself 3 hours, although the first 10 minutes are worth it for people who want to learn about our buy/write strategy as I explained the logic of it as I recommended FAS at $2.41 using those hedges.

And what a wild year it has been as we’ve made an epic recovery. The only question is - have we come too far too fast? Should we be up 75% from our March 9th lows? We are still down 25% from our highs but let’s keep in mind that we made those highs thinking AIG was MAKING money, that FNM and FRE were great stocks for your retirement portfolio, that Kirk Kirkorean was going to rescue GM, that BZH wasn’t some kind of scam, that BSC, LEH et al were "the smartest guys in the room." I urge you to click on Cramer and listen to the idiocy of the analysts who would tell you everything is all right even as it was all falling apart around them - why does everyone suddenly trust them again?

How could we not love this market? Markets do this sort of thing all the time don’t they? It’s all part of the "efficient pricing model" that always lets you know what a stock is truly worth like when GE was "worth" $30 in 2008 and "worth" $6 in 2009 and is now "worth" $16. This is not some biotech folks - this is GE, they’ve been around for 100 years and they have $170Bn in global sales. Did they really drop 80% in value in 2009? No. That’s why it was easy to pick a bottom - the valuations got ridiculous and, as fundamentalists, we siezed on the opportunity to BUYBUYBUY despite the negative sentiment.

Now, we are in a very different situation. Now we have the MSM telling us to BUYBUYBUY…

Tags: AIG, BSC, BULL MARKET, BZH, Commodities, Cramer, DIA, FAS, FNM, FRE, GE, GM, LEH, Oil, SPY

Posted in Uncategorized | 206 Comments »

Gold Mminers ETF Attracts Bullish Option Plays

by Andrew Wilkinson - November 10th, 2009 5:08 pm

Today’s tickers: GDX, CF, S, XHB, PCLN, XLF, CX, CAR, BZH, CRI & ERTS

GDX - Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF – Shares of the gold ETF that invests in shares of precious metals mining companies are up 0.5% to $49.53 with one hour remaining in the trading session. Option implied volatility has come down from 54% to 46% recently as gold’s price has surged. Nearer-term investors sought downside protection on the fund, whereas long-term traders initiated bullish plays. Investors hoping to lock in gains experienced during the recent run-up in the price of gold purchased 4,000 puts at the January 2010 47 strike for 3.05 apiece. Further along, at the March 2010 44 strike, another 6,000 puts were picked up for an average premium of 3.10 per contract. Finally, long-term bullishness took the form of a call spread in the January 2011 contract. It appears one investor purchased about 5,000 calls at the January 50 strike for an average of 9.52 each, marked against the sale of the same number of calls at the higher January 55 strike for 7.55 each. The net cost of the optimistic play amounts to 1.97 per contract. The trader stands to accrue maximum potential profits of 3.03 each if shares of GDX rally 11% over the current price to $55.00 by expiration in January 2011.

CF - CF Industries Holdings, Inc. – Bearish option plays appeared on the manufacturer of nitrogen and phosphate fertilizer products today after the firm rejected rival Agrium Inc.’s increased takeover offer of $4.52 billion. Shares of CF are currently trading 4% lower to $77.20. Investors purchased put options at the now in-the-money December 80 strike for an average premium of 6.70 apiece. Perhaps put-buyers are protecting long stock positions. Otherwise, they are hoping to accrue profits if shares of CF decline through the effective breakeven price of $73.30. Another trader unraveled a previously established bullish play in the January 2010 contract. The investor originally placed an extremely bullish 8,500-lot call spread at the January 90/100 strikes. However, the trader abandoned bullish sentiment today by closing out the spread. Option implied volatility on CF jumped 7.5% over Monday’s closing value of 52.9% to reach an intraday high of 55.9%.

S - Sprint Nextel Corp. – Shares of the wireless communications company surrendered a portion of gains experienced during yesterday’s 20% rally to an intraday high of $3.43. The stock rebounded due to news that Clearwire…

Beazer Homes bounces on sales data, inspiring covered calls

by Andrew Wilkinson - April 24th, 2009 4:07 pm

Today’s tickers: BZH, AG, TSN, XLF, XRT & JNPR

BZH Beazer Homes USA, Inc. – The builder of single-family homes across the United States has experienced an enormous share price rally of more than 21.5% to $2.14 following today’s upbeat new home sales data. BZH jumped onto our ‘hot by options volume’ market scanner after one investor established what appears to be a covered call in the June contract. The covered call was initiated by buying shares of the underlying stock and selling 10,000 calls at the June 5.0 strike price for a premium of 17 cents apiece. This investor receives the premium on the sale of the options as well as positions an exit strategy at the June 5.0 strike by maintaining a short position on the calls. If shares can rally through $5.00 come June, the shares will likely be called away from him at expiration. Should this come to fruition, he will have enjoyed gains of 134% on the stock from the current price of $2.14 in addition to the 17 cent premium.

AG AGCO Corporation – Shares of the manufacturer of agricultural equipment have skyrocketed by more than 10% to $26.00 ahead of its earnings release expected on Tuesday, April 28th. One news source has reported unconfirmed takeover speculation surrounding the company perhaps leading option traders to position themselves for a continued near-term price rally. The more than 16,000 lots that have exchanged hands on AGCO thus far today represent 70% of the existing open interest on the stock of 23,000 contracts. Furthermore, we have observed that nearly 12 call options have been traded to each single put option in action. At the now in-the-money May 25 strike price investors picked up 1,300 calls for an average premium of 1.71 apiece. More optimistic individuals targeted the May 30 strike price where more than 6,300 calls were purchased for 53 cents per contract. In order for the May 30 strike call to land in-the-money by expiration, shares would need to continue to rise by an additional 15% from the current share price. Option implied volatility is up slightly on the day from 71% to the current reading of 74%.

TSN Tyson Foods, Inc. – The processor and marketer of chicken, beef and pork products has attracted bullish investors to the pigpen amid a share price rally of about 1% to $11.15 today. Tyson’s shares have been on the rise since touching down…

Tags: AG, BZH, JNPR, TSN, XLF, XRT

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Phil's Favorites

Jon Stewart on financial market reform

March 19th, 2010 12:20 am

Jon Stewart on financial market reform

Courtesy of Tim Iacono at The Mess That Greenspan Made

This seems to be showing up everywhere and, if you haven't already seen it, it's well worth ten minutes of your time if you're in need of a good chuckle.

Quite a contrast with that last item... Is there a way to invest in Jonco International?

...

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Zero Hedge

Profiling Senator Ted Kaufman

March 19th, 2010 12:04 am

Courtesy of Tyler Durden

A well-deserved profile of one of the most respected Senators, Delaware's Ted Kaufman, who unlike most of his colleagues, has shockingly and stubbornly still not "gone once, gone twice, sold to Wall Street." By Arianna Huffington.

At a time when our political and financial landscapes are littered with villains and those unwilling to take them on, it's refreshing to find someone in the halls of power that we can unabashedly celebrate. Enter Sen. Ted Kaufman of Delaware. Kaufman, Joe Biden's longtime chief of staff who was appointed to serve out his old boss's term, was originally thought to be a Senate placeholder. But, far from biding his time, Kaufman has emerged as one of more from Tyler

Chart School

What Do I Need To See To Make Me Take A Trade

March 19th, 2010 12:46 am

What Do I Need To See To Make Me Take A Trade

Courtesy of David Grandey All About Trends www.allabouttrends.net The only pattern you'll ever need to know in uptrending markets is commonly referred to as a Pullback Off Highs (POH). And sure enough with the recent vertical leap to nosebleed levels we've seen in the indexes a bunch of names took off out like rockets. All of those same names got away from those low risk entry points very fast leaving any trades taken now being of higher risk entries due to being away from those prime entry points that we use to manage risk from a technical perspective. Each of them, and many other stocks, are extended and away from any low risk entry point. Buying them here would surely be of the dog chasing the bus variety types of trades at this point in time. The big question then becomes so where does tha... more from Chart School

Trading Goddess

Pivotfarm Support and Resistance Levels 19th March 2010

March 18th, 2010 11:50pm

Pivotfarm.com provides Support & Resistance, Fibonacci, Volume Analysis, Market Profile, Moving Average and Pivot Information for day traders. These data sheets are designed to help day traders gain an edge in the market, providing all the most important information a trader needs in one clear and concise data sheet.
Today's levels can be found by clicking here

You can now have the Support and Resistance levels emailed to you via our Newsletter every morning please sign up at pivotfarm.com

All information on this website is for educational purposes only and is not intended to provide financial advise. Any sta...

Oxen Group Trades

The Oxen Report: Jobless Claims Drop Only Slightly and Miss Estimates, Will It Weigh on Market?

March 18th, 2010 9:34 am

Yesterday, we got into an Overnight Trade of the Day in New York & Co. (NWY) at 4.34. We a...

The Options Report

By Andrew Wilkinson

Citi-Bull Sheds Just Under a Quarter Million Put Options

March 18th, 2010 4:21 pm

Today’s tickers: C, ERTS, ATVI, DNDN, HIG, DD, RCL, SFD & AMR

C - Citigroup, Inc. – One investor established a mammoth bullish stance on Citigroup in the first 20 minutes of the current trading session. Citigroup’s shares at the time of the transaction were trading at approximately $4.05, but have since slipped lower and are down 0.50% to $4.03 as of 2:45 pm (ET). It looks like the Citi-bull sold 240,000 put options outright at the April $4.0 strike to take in a premium of $0.16 per contract. Premium received on the sale, which represents maximum potential profits, amounts to $3.840 million to the investor if Citigroup’s shares trade above $4.00 through expiration day. The short stance in put options implies the investor is willing to have 24 million shares of the underlying stock put to him at an effective price...

Insider Zone

Insiders: March to Exit

March 15th, 2010 6:49 pm

By Ilene

Let's take a look at Insider Buying and Selling over the last week or so. These are screen shots from Finviz - the significant buys against a green background first and significant sells against the pink background second. All the buys fit into my screen shot but the sells did not. Click here to see all the sells.

Note that the largest buy in the group, for KITD was at a price of 9.73 (KITD is currently at 11.54). The buy was part of an Equity Offering rather than an open market purchase. Tuzman Kaleil Isaza's (KITD's Chairman and Chief Exec. Officer) history of buys is http://www.insidercow.com/ more from Insider

OpTrader

Swing trading portfolio - week of March 15th 2010

March 15th, 2010 8:55 am

This post is for live trades and daily comments.

To learn more about the swing trading portfolio (strategy, membership etc.), please click here

- Optrader

...

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March 2010
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About Phil:

Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...

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About Ilene:

Ilene is editor and affiliate program coordinator for PSW. She manages the Favorites backup site (blogroll, archives, more). Contact Ilene to learn about our affiliate and content sharing programs.

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