Phil's Stock World, Stock Options Trading & Information

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

I have been trading for quite a few years and in good years made about 25%. After joining PSW, I followed closely the PSW strategy and my trading profit for this year is close to 70% to date. For fun, I like to mix in a few \"Hail Mary\" plays that really worked out well, but overall the simpler Buy/Write strategy, as presented by Phil so often, created the majority of the profit.

- Gel1, Nov 24, 2009

Brilliant covering of the arcane, the profane , but never the mundane! Easy to understand the reason for your huge following, Phil, and why you have become a must read on my daily agenda. Please accept my complete appreciation.

- Seeking Truth, Nov 24, 2009

Oxen (directly) and Wilkinson (indirectly) are making me a great day trader! Props to Andrew for another little nugget last night: HIG. $20 Dec calls paid 6% quickly this morning. And helloooo STJ - a few days, but nice pick nonetheless - esp with early cover premium.

- Dstillwe, Jul 24, 2009

100KP dividend plays - FYI, I’m loving them...thanks, Phil!!! Including the $0.848/share dividend, I am up 100% on my $2.38 net entry on LYG...that’s pretty cool!

- SSDirk, Jul 29, 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

Phil - FAS - I dont know whether to be happier I averaged down and sold calls or that I got myself out of FAZ the other day…thanks for that help

- BCFla, Apr 15, 2009

Newer member here, but just wanted to say thank you too. I’ve learned so much and I hope you’ll be around for a long time helping us learn along the way.

- Where, Apr 7, 2009

WOW, glad I went bearish… Phil, thanks for the help on the QID calls yesterday, I turned it into a partial cover rolling down to the Feb 52s selling the 55s 1/2 covered. Sold 1/2 and now lowered my cost basis to $4.38 on the $52s (fully covered).

- Texasmotion, Jan 31, 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!

Daily Stock and Options Tips & Updates; Get Our Daily Newsletter Here

Posts Tagged ‘call buying’

Citizens On Patrol: The Blogosphere As Regulator

by ilene - November 11th, 2009 11:07 pm

Bloggers also coin new words, for example, "embiggen." - Ilene

Citizens On Patrol: The Blogosphere As Regulator

Courtesy of Joshua M Brown, The Reformed Broker

Tonight we witnessed a watershed event in financial blogging, and it concerns The Case of Who Front-Ran the 3Com Takeover.

By now, the only people out there still trying to use options contracts to profit from inside information are the brain-dead and the citizens of non-extradition countries. As is well known, I am a huge proponent of the financial blogosphere and this evening’s 3Com options bust just gave me goosebumps.

The story is this:

At 4pm, shares of telco equipment company 3Com (COMS) were halted followed by the announcement of an acquisition by Hewlett-Packard at a 40% premium. The financial blogosphere sprang into action, immediately pointing out that today’s trading volume in 3Com’s options was triple its 4-week daily average. Options are the weapon of choice for the inside information crook as they give you the most bang for your buck on a near-term jump in a stock.

OptionMonster.com’s Jon Najarian picked this 3Com options activity up, probably first, and posted the below via Twitter:

(click image to embiggen)

From OptionMonster.com

Najarian’s revelation was immediately followed by separate but equally incisive comments from some of the biggest and most influential market commentators out there. None of this was coordinated by a producer at CNBC nor was it orchestrated by the editorial staff at the Wall Street Journal.

Rather, it was an organic meme that spread around the financial web by means of Twitter, WordPress, Blogspot and Typepad.

The mainstream media picked up on this insider trading angle only AFTER the bloggers nailed it, at least from what I’ve seen based on the times of the articles and posts.

Now we don’t know for sure whether or not illegal activity took place, but if it quacks like a duck…

Congratulations to Jon Najarian of OptionMonster.com, Tyler Durden of Zero Hedge, Andrew Ross Sorkin of DealBook and Karl Denninger of Market-Ticker.

UPDATE: Reader MarketAddict informs me that:

OptionRadar on StockTwits tweeted the unusual call volume during the day today:

http://twitter.com/OptionRadar/status/5623636484

Ladies and Gentlemen of the stock market, I give you your new citizen-regulators.

Here are the referenced links:

Najarian’s TwitPic (TwitPic)

1.5 Million in Blatant Insider Trading Activity (Zero Hedge)

Whispers About 3Com (DealBook)

Blatant Insider Call Buying (Market-Ticker)

Tags: 3COM, bloggers, call buying, insider trading

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Phil's Favorites

The Boredom Before the Storm (Time to Buy Volatility)

March 20th, 2010 1:08 am

John's thoughts on the relentless trend higher in stocks, with the languishing VIX.

The Boredom Before the Storm (Time to Buy Volatility)

Courtesy of John Rubino at Dollar Collapse

As eventful as the past few months have been (what with Greece, California, Illinois, Iran, the Lehman Brothers revelations, U.S./China trade friction, and record deficits just about everywhere), you’d think the financial markets would be agitated, to put it mildly. Instead, just about everything is range-bound, and the things that aren’t, like U.S. stocks, are trending slowly, reassuringly, higher. This has taken the VIX, the main measure of fear (i.e. volatility) in the options market down to levels last seen before the ...

Zero Hedge

Guest Post: A Historical Note On Multi-Sigma Sovereign Risk

March 19th, 2010 9:13 pm

Courtesy of Tyler Durden

A Historical Note On Multi-Sigma Sovereign Risk, By JM

AttachmentSize More on the Economics of Decontrol.doc273.5 KB ...

more from Tyler

Chart School

Quad Witching Expiration and a Pullback from the Long Term Trend

March 19th, 2010 12:05 pm

Quad Witching Expiration and a Pullback from the Long Term Trend

Courtesy of JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN

The front month on the SP futures has now switched from March to June as a part of the Quad Witching Expiration. (Technically it switched last week, but for charting purposes I made the switch last night.) The June Futures have essentially the same formations as did March, it's just that the earlier months have few trades to mark them. This is the first serious test for US equities since mid-February, as it has been on a spectacular rally streak, no doubt fueled by excess liquidity applied to a selling exhaustion in the funds. Curiously not among corporate...

Trading Goddess

Options and My Patience Expire Today

March 19th, 2010 9:29am

Well now we're officially cashed out!

As I always do before options expiration I reviewed our Buy List, which, this quarter, is a list of 37 stocks we've been playing since late December and, sadly, after reviewing 37 of our favorite investments very carefully this week - I could only conclude that cashing them out was the only decision I could be comfortable with this week. Of 66 trades we had on our 37 stocks, 64 are winners with an average return since 2/8 of 28% - since most of the trades were designed to make 40% for the year - it just seems silly not to take the money and run now, on March 19th.

You are not supposed to have 64 out of 66 winners in 6 weeks, you are not supposed to make 3/4 of what you anticipate for the year in 6 weeks - that is NOT how the markets are supposed to work! When the ma...

Oxen Group Trades

The Oxen Report: Five Keys to Fundamental Day Trading

March 19th, 2010 11:05 am

Identifying the Fundamentals

Stocks move under the influence various factors that we can use to identify stocks that are likely to move 3-5% in a single day. Even t...

The Options Report

By Andrew Wilkinson

Best Buy Option Investors Condone Broker Upgrade in Bullish Action

March 19th, 2010 4:41 pm

Today’s tickers: BBY, DNDN, GLD, BAC, AET, BA & NBR

BBY - Best Buy Co., Inc. – Shares of the world’s largest electronics retailer rallied 2% to $41.25 during the trading session after receiving an upgrade to ‘buy’ from ‘neutral’ at Goldman Sachs Group where analysts increased BBY’s target share price to $47.00 from $44.00. Options traders employed a few different bullish tactics to position for continued upward movement in the price of the underlying stock through expiration in April. Plain-vanilla call buyers targeted the April $44 strike to purchase 5,100 calls for an average premium of $0.55 apiece. These investors stand ready to accrue profits if Best Buy’s share price increases 8% from the current value to exceed the effective breakeven point on the calls at $44.55 by expirati...

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

...

more from OpTrader

March 2010
M	T	W	T	F	S	S
« Feb	«-»
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30	31

19,938 Newsletter subscribers

As Seen On:

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...

Learn more About Phil >>

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.

Favorites Site >>