Wild Weekly Wrap-Up (Part 1) – Our Billion Dollar Oil Shorts!
by Phil - June 11th, 2011 6:08 am
That’s how much money our oil futures trade ideas generated over the past two weeks and I certainly hope everyone got a piece of theirs but, out of curiosity, how did our other trade ideas do in this terrible market? We track our virtual portfolios but we have many trade ideas during members chat on both sides of the fence so let’s take some time to review what worked and what didn’t work as the Dow dropped 500 points since the holiday.
Keep in mind this is just virtual performance and I’ll do my best to not miss anything and I’m going to include the Friday before the holiday weekend so we can review what our mind-set was as we set ourselves up for the long weekend as well as how we handled the moves since in both our daily posts and our Member Chat. I’m not going to narrate each day, that’s what Stock World Weekly is for – I’ll just make quick comments on the trades when appropriate. Keep in mind, with all options trading, once you make a quick 20%, you should be looking for the exits (see our Strategy Section) by setting stops (and we also stop out with a 20% loss of course) – we are just lucky when we happen to do better.
TGIF – Dollar Done Diving or Destined to Drop?
In the main post (main post trade ideas can be read daily by Report Members or higher – the rest are in our Private Member Chat), I discussed shorting oil futures off our $101.90 (at the time) target. We didn’t like waiting for $102 because sometimes it failed. Oil finished at $99 this week but was as low as $97.24 as we put pressure on the NYMEX pump crew by accepting their bogus offers to buy oil over $101 per barrel. This post was the first one where I decided to go public with what we were doing, hoping to break the back of the market manipulators at the NYMEX by letting as many people as possible in on the trade. This is also where I laid out our bearish fundamental case for oil so good for review. My comment in the morning post was:
As I mentioned yesterday, this week’s action is
…
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn 
del.icio.us
DiggTesty Tuesday – Topping or Popping?
by Phil - December 28th, 2010 8:24 am
Looks like we picked the wrong week to short FCX!
Copper hit a new all-time high in Shanghai this morning (as the guy who owns 90% of London’s closed for the holiday exchange supplies sold it to himself for more money than he did yesterday) and gold is back at $1,400 in the futures and that should give us a better entry on FCX puts than we expected for round 2 but Paul Krugman has me worried now that maybe commodity prices are just high because the World hasn’t got enough of them to go around. Usually Paul and I agree but i think he may be discounting the effect of a 10% decline in the dollar a little too much – which is understandable as he is still arguing for more stimulus while I’m arguing that the way they are stimulating now is causing this problem and can not and should not be sustained.
Still, we have to be pragmatic. That’s why, this weekend, I posted our "Secret Santa Inflation Hedges for 2011" as a follow-on to the "Breakout Defense – 5,000% in 5 Trades or Less" ideas of the 11th and, in the week between the two, we had bullish bets on HMY, XLF, CAKE, TNA, IWM, CCJ, CHK, EXC, TNA, XLF, UNG, GLD, AAPL, GLW, TOT and AXP – which I had mentioned on the 19th in the weekend post "It’s Never too Early to Predict the Future." Just because I think there’s going to be a disaster doesn’t mean we can’t go with the flow while we wait, right?
We don’t have to like the market to buy it above our breakout lines but we do need to keep in mind that this is a very thin rally that is very likely nothing but window dressing aimed at dragging money off the sidelines so the IBanks who have been propping up the markets can, once again, stick the retail shareholders with the bag as they load up on puts (watch the VIX to confirm) and crash the markets once again. I’ve seen it happen in 1999, I saw it happen in 2008 and, both times, the rally lasted longer than seemed logical but the smart play was to hit and run – not to leave your money on the table but to participate in the upswings and then…
Weekend Reading – It’s Never Too Early to Predict the Future!
by Phil - December 19th, 2010 7:57 am
Barron’s already has the 2011 Outlook on the Cover.
We were discussing the generally bullish in Member Chat and Barfinger said "So, Phil, what is your response to the bullish preview?" That was a great question because it made me think. Does he expect a "rebuttal"? I can understand that as I’ve been fairly bearish but let’s not confuse caution (I called for a cash out when the Dow hit 11,200 in early November, it peaked at 11,444 on the 5th and closed Friday at 11,491) with bearishness – it’s just that my now 45 days of running around saying "the sky is falling" while it stays in place does make me seem like a perma-bear.
The "October Overbought Eight" was my first bearish virtual portfolio since April 28th’s "Hedging for Disaster – 5 Plays that Make 500% if the Market Falls" (and it did, and they did). THAT was a bearish outlook! We are not that bearish here, otherwise it would have been the easiest thing in the World to re-up those plays for the new year. We expect a correction, but hopefully not the kind we had between May 4th and July 2nd, where the Dow dropped 1,600 points in just over 2 months. We are HOPING for a nice 20% pullback off the 15% gain from 9,800 to 11,270 back to the 11,000 line and holding that would make us very bullish going into next year.
That would be 1,180 on the S&P (the declining 200 dma) and just 5% down from Friday’s close – THAT’s how bearish I am! Where we are now is simply where the 5% Rule told us we’d be back on May 5th, where the chart pointed out that 1,240 is 20% off the upper, non-spike consolidation at 1,550 that marked the high for the S&P. 20% is the most powerful level in the 5% Rule and that’s why it’s been safer to wait and see how this line resolves than place long-term bets in either direction into the slow and volatile holidays.
Obviously, I am fairly convinced that Global "leaders" are making all sorts of policy mistakes handling the economy and I do believe it will all end in disaster but that does NOT mean I am market bearish.
Think if it this way: If you come across a…
Thrill-Ride Thursday – Where Will Economic Indicators Lead Us?
by Phil - July 22nd, 2010 8:27 am
Isn’t this fun?
Up 200, down 200, up 200, down 200 - wash out your savings, rinse and repeat! What a total sham of a market we have these days with machines running us up and down on virtually no news at all. Yesterday they would have you believe that Ben Bernanke caused a sell-off. How ridiculous is that? He didn’t say one thing that he didn’t already say in the Fed Minutes that were released on the 14th, which were the notes from the meeting of June 23rd so for analysts to get on TV and say "the markets were concerned by the Chairman’s comments" is beyond stupid – it’s criminal negligence.
That’s Can Not Be Correct and other media outlets are supposed to have something that is called a Public Trust, which means that broadcast licenses are a national resource that are meant to be used responsibly. I know, that almost sounds like a joke but it’s not – we used to care about these things… Now the public is treated like cattle and is simply stampeded to the slaughterhouse at the whim of the media and the Big Money that pulls their strings and our equally puppet Government spend their days fighting over who gets to wear the captian’s hat on the Titanic. Maybe it is a joke - too bad it’s on us!
That’s why we keep things light over at PSW – we know it’s a crock but, as long as it’s a crock we can figure out, we’re happy. I mentioned yesterday that Tuesday morning’s Alert to Members had 2 long plays on the Russell that made over 40% each in a day. Well yesterday we shorted the Russell at 9:42 with TNA $32 puts $1.60 and IWM $60 puts at $1.32. It wasn’t as exciting as Tuesday but the TNA puts made $2 (25%) and the IWM puts performed much better, also hitting $2 for a 50% gain on the day. We have now learned that TNA and TZA, despite looking sexy, are not as good to play for direction as the IWM puts and calls. This is due to the wide bid ask spread and low liquidity, which means the Market Maker can rob you blind by stealing nickels and dimes from you every time you buy and sell – this is something you should always be aware of when trading options on ultra-ETFs.
We made a couple of attempts to go long, first with QQQQ…
Bears Binge on Put Options as Diamond Offshore Drilling, Inc. Shares Nosedive
by Option Review - June 8th, 2010 4:21 pm
Today’s tickers: DO, GAP, RIG, WMS, IMA, BAX, IGT, CAT, CCJ, CVS & WM
DO – Diamond Offshore Drilling, Inc. – Shares of the world’s largest U.S. deep-water oil driller fell as much as 7.6% to an intraday low and new 52-week low of $54.70 after businessinsider.com reported the firm’s Ocean Saratoga rig is leaking crude into the Gulf of Mexico. Goldman Sachs’ ratings cut of Diamond Offshore shares to ‘sell’ from ‘neutral’, as well as a downgrade to ‘underperform’ from ‘market perform’ with a 12-month target share price of $54.00 at FBR Capital Markets, also helped drive the stock lower today. Bearish options investors populated the stock with pessimistic plays, buying near-term put options and selling calls in the June contract. Traders expecting Diamond’s shares to continue to decline purchased 1,200 now in-the-money puts at the June $58.63 strike for an average premium of $4.07 apiece. Investors holding these contracts profit if shares trade beneath the average breakeven price of $54.56 by June expiration. Buying interest spread to the lower June $54.88 strike where 1,100 puts were picked up for an average premium of $2.26 each. Another 1,100 puts were purchased at the June $53.63 strike for a premium of $1.82 per contract. Finally, uber-bearish players coveted 1,600 put options at the lower June $49.88 strike by paying an average premium of $0.92 apiece. Shares of the underlying stock must plunge 10.5% from the current intraday low of $54.70 before June $49.88 strike put buyers start to garner profits beneath the average breakeven price of $48.96. Investors not expecting Diamond’s shares to rally ahead of June expiration sold short 1,300 calls at the June $61.75 strike to pocket an average premium of $0.61 per contract. The premium is safe in call-sellers’ wallets as long as shares of the underlying stock trade below $61.75 through expiration day. Options implied volatility on Diamond Offshore Drilling is up 15.1% to 59.94% as of 3:10 pm (ET). Earlier implied volatility surged roughly 18% to 61.42%, DO’s highest reading of volatility in at least one year.
GAP – Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., Inc. – Investors bought put options on the operator of conventional supermarkets, combination food and drug stores and discount food stores today with shares of the underlying stock trading lower by 4.45% to stand at $4.08 as of 2:38 pm (ET). Pessimistic traders expecting GAP’s shares to continue to decline…
Smart Virtual Portfolio Management III – The $1,000,000 Virtual Portfolio (Members Only)
by Phil - May 15th, 2010 6:35 am
You can’t lose what you don’t have.
The reverse is true for people with Millions in a stock virtual portfolio. Phil points out that the reson you don’t run a large hedge fund trying to make 100% gains is that the people who invest in those funds are more interested in what we call "preservation of capital" rather than generating wealth. Generally, the people who have $1M of investable cash to play the markets have already achieved a great deal of success, often by taking their own risks along the way. For most of us, $1M is hard to come by and, while we want to put that money to work – we certainly don’t want it wondering off and joining the circus.
As a high net-worth investor, you need to decide how to diversify your assets to suit your long-term goals. We’re not going to get into that here – let’s just say that if you want to gamble and go for some of our "more exciting" plays, perhaps allocate a portion of the virtual portfolio to those. Whether that’s 5% or 10% or 30% is up to you but it is good to fence off your risk to a sensible, manageable amount that you really can afford to lose while keeping the bulk of your market allocation well diversified and well-hedged.
I have my own 5% Rule. Phil’s famous 5% Rule deals with the predictable movement of stocks in their trading ranges but my 5% Rule, which Phil also agrees with is simply "Do not put more than 5% of your virtual portfolio in the stock of any one company!” This is so much easier said than done for many reasons!!
[1] Transition to Large Numbers
Moving from a 5 or 6 figure account to a 7 figure account has a profound impact on many traders. In fact, our friend Dr. Brett refers to the effect “performance anxiety” can have on a virtual portfolio and notes that one of the causes is the responsibility felt by traders as larger dollar amounts are traded. Phil advocates a system of "purging" Short-Term Virtual Portfolio gains when they gets too large and shifting money into safer investments in a Long-Term Virtual Portfolio – it is good to have a strategy for balancing out your holdings, not just target goals.
While it might be acceptable to put 15% of your $10,000 virtual portfolio on that long call you just KNOW will…
Prior Weekly Wrap-Up – February Expiration Day Special!
by Phil - February 19th, 2010 7:17 am
I didn’t get to do a wrap-up last week so we have a lot of trades to go over and, with expiration looming and the Fed tightening, I thought it would be good to just get the list out on Friday so we can adjust our rolls to March where neccessary (in bold under appropriate positions).
In our Feb 7th Wrap-Up, I was gung-ho bullish saying "It’s Only a 55-Point Drop You Wimps!" and we had been BUYBUYBUYing at the bottom all week, especially Wed-Fri as the market spiked through our projected support at Dow 10,000 but not enough to change our minds as we bottom-fished on AAPL (2 trades), ABX, ACOR, AKAM, AMED, BRK/B (2), C, CCJ (3), CSCO, DELL, FXI, GE, GOOG, IBM, LLY, LOW, NLY, TBT (5 times!), TM (3), TNA, USO (yep, we wen long oil) and UYG. To say we were weigting bullish by that Monday was an understatement as we has finished the weekend in a bullish stance and were relying on our disaster hedges to protect us.
Those disaster hedges are an interesting set to look at, especially now that we’ve recovered 400 points:
- DXD July $27/33 bull call spread at $2.50, now $2 – down 20%
- We can roll the $27 calls to the $25 calls for $5 to widen the spread and drop our b/e from $29.50 to $28.50
- EDZ July $3/8 bull call spread at $2.10, now $1.60 - down 23%
- EDZ Apr $10 calls sold for .70, now .15 – up 78% (pair trade)
- SDS 2011 $36/40 bull call spread at $1.30, now $1 – down 18%
- We can roll the $36 calls to the $33 calls for $1.10
- TBT Jan $35/45 bull call spread at $6.30, now $7.40 - up 17%
- TBT March $50s sold for .65, now $1.22 – down 87% (pair trade)
This is what is great about disaster hedges. The potential upside on these spreads, if the market headed south was up about 100% on the 4 trades so a commitment of 5% of your virtual portfolio to each one (20%) would give you back 40% of your virtual portfolio in cash if the markets tanked. Already, after 2 weeks, we have the markets heading in the opposite direction and what is the cost? Not even 20% of the 20% you may have allocated, a 4% insurance premium while the 80% of the virtual portfolio that is bullish caught a…
German
Spanish
French
Italian
Portuguese
Japanese
Korean
Russian
Chinese
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...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the Favorites backup site
(