Phil's Stock World, Stock Options Trading & Information

Market manipulation…. One of the things I’ve gained from this site is the concept of market manipulation. I never thought it was so prevalent, but now I know it is. I actually consider its effect when I make trades. Several days ago, when AAPL was moving toward 220 I sold 210 calls. My reasoning was that they will probably pin this month at 210. They came in big time as the stock moved ever closer to 210. I agree with Phil’s comment that one of the things we need to do is find out what they are manipulating, and how, and hitch a ride. They are doing this with several equities. I’ve actually seen one article describing several equities that were being manipulated to pin at expiration each month, and describing how it was done, and of course Phil has described it well. In some ways it’s easier to figure this out than it is a ‘normal’ market behavior, and thus easier to make money in certain equities.

- Iflantheman, Jan 15, 2010

Phil - Moved today to send kudos. You're in my top 5 to see/read daily. I do not trade... but as former econ-finance adjunct faculty near Stanford U. I give you lots of attaboys.... and provide your links to many to spread some understanding of the mess we are in. Best to you and yours,

- HJ Kobbeman, Sep 4, 2009

Being a bear is easy (and I am not convinced we are doing all that well on the whole as an economy), but one cannot fight the trend (didn’t Phil say that a while ago)? Just cover, make 5-10-15-20% and move on. It really does add up by chipping away. All I can say is I am back to 2007 levels in my account b’f the crash with this run up and some very nice help on this board….so kudos to us (and me!!)…

- Pharmboy, Aug 5, 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

AMZN ... thanks Phil; boy did they run a squeeze on everyone there ... made me sweat ... scaling helped! I think AMZN has an 85 handle tomorrow ... maybe lower.

- Cap, Jul 29, 2009

I have been here a year, and made most of my money back from the 14K fall. The people here are more than willing to help whe Phil cannot get to it. FWIW - This site is my brokerage firm, I was with Wells Fargo Portfolio and it was costing a fortune to trade, the costs here are more than offset with the data, trade ideas and profits you should make.. and I get a chuckle out of Cap and Phil’s rantings on healtcare, guns, oh, yeah, and government….

- Pharmboy, Jul 16, 2009

Against all prognostics (bears) Phil pointed in the morning the correct direction, and in middle of day he pointed the possible move to 2.5% Incredible… I’m starting to serious believe on the program trading and the human nature behind the programing those \"trade-bots\".

- Spider, Jul 14, 2009

Thanks Phil, I have adjusted my position by getting rid of the IYF puts, and selling the FAZ puts. You have so many of these awesome little tricks in your playbook that it really amazes me. I toally love your analogy by the way: Do you want insurance that you have to pay for, or do you want insurance that pays you?

- Craigzooka, Apr 25, 2009

Fed days are fun! Just for grins I decided to see how much money I could make in two clicks. I bought DIA calls right when the surge started and then sold them the minute they hit my account. Net gain of 20% in 20 seconds. Can’t do that very often…

- MrMocha, Mar 18, 2009

Great calls this week!

- SNS1, Feb 6, 2009

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Posts Tagged ‘CTRP’

Bullish Ddollar Index ETF Intrigues Once Again

by Andrew Wilkinson - November 12th, 2009 4:14 pm

Today’s tickers: UUP, VIX, FSLR, HMY, M, GMCR, CTRP & DOW

UUP - PowerShares DB US Dollar Bullish Fund – A pair of bullish risk reversals on the PowerShares US Dollar Bullish Fund suggests today’s sharp rally for the dollar will likely continue over the next several months. We observed massive bullish plays on the UUP over the past couple of weeks, some tied to machinations of whether or not the fund had enough shares in circulation. But today’s activity predicts far more extreme movements in the price of the dollar index. The UUP is current up 1.4% to $22.80, while the dollar index, which it supposedly tracks, is up just 0.7%. Investors sold 4,700 deep in-the-money put options at the December 29 strike for an average premium of 6.30 apiece, spread against the purchase of 4,700 calls at the same strike for one nickel each. The high-delta put options hold very little extrinsic value because expiration is just over one month away. Thus, investors are expecting the intrinsic value of the puts to decline. The only way this will occur is if the dollar rallies forcing the UUP to increase. If traders’ bullish predictions are correct, the value of the long calls will appreciate, while premium on the short puts erodes. Such a scenario allows investors to profit by buying back the puts for less than the 6.25 net premium received on the reversal. A similar uber-bullish strategy was employed at the January 2010 28 strike price where investors sold 4,250 deep-in-the-money puts short for about 5.30 each, and purchased the same number of calls for 5 cents apiece.

VIX - CBOE Vix index – With the equity market down and the dollar on the rise, investors across different asset classes today appear to be blaming one another for prevailing direction. No one seems to know why anything is moving in the fashion it is. The suggestion of course is that risk appetite is on the demise and fear is picking up. Compounding such indecision in the volatility class are trades suggesting ongoing disparate views on the fortunes for equities going forward. The so-called fear gauge is 5% higher at 24.90 today while trading has been two way. In the November options one investor loaded up on 25,000 call options at a 25 cent premium suggesting that the index will be above 25 when options expire next Tuesday. The December contract equally hinted…

Phil's Favorites

Armstrong Economics: Entering Phase II of The Debt Crisis

March 20th, 2010 8:58 pm

Introduction by Ilene

You may be wondering why Chopshop is referencing Martin Armstrong's writings, given Marty's extended stay in maximum security prison. Chopshop contends that Martin's cyclic modeling is genius and ought to supersede whatever opinion one has of Armstrong's case.

Armstrong is a gold-to-$5,000 guy. Chopshop agrees that one day gold will likely reach those dollar-denominated "values", but believes that gold will likely digest its 400% gain of the past decade over the next few years before 'going for the gusto.'

Chopshop and Fibozachi have remain...

Zero Hedge

Adventures in Nationalization with the Central Bank of North Dakota

March 20th, 2010 8:06 pm

Courtesy of Marla Singer

Crony Capitalist tendencies do not discriminate with respect to "side of the aisle." The left has been as busily handing out delicious treats to its favored students as the right. Tacking on a reverse bill of attainder cleverly (or not so cleverly) disguised in prose designed to deter key word searches and in order to slip cash to a friend of a friend is as American as reality shows. Accordingly, the somber faces of Zero Hedge readers should register exactly no surprise whatsoever on learning that the Health Care Swill harbors a series of such glory hole surprises.Consider this gem:

SEC. 460A. AGREEMENTS WITH STATE-OWNED BANKS.(a) DEFINITION OF ELIGIBLE LENDER.—In this section, the term ‘eligible lender’ means a lender that, on July 1, 200...

Chart School

Bears Emboldened By Low CBOE Equity Put to Call Ratio

March 20th, 2010 1:56 pm

Bears Emboldened By Low CBOE Equity Put to Call Ratio

Courtesy of Bill Luby at Vix and More

Truthfully, I have not surveyed our ursine friends this morning, so I really have no idea if they are emboldened by the low CBOE equity put to call ratio (CPCE), but they should be.

My preferred way of looking at the equity put to call ratio involves using an exponential 10 day moving average (EMA) as a smoothing factor. The 10 day EMA generates the dotted blue li...

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

...

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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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