White Christmas Portfolio – Goaaaaalll!!!
by Phil - November 19th, 2011 7:31 am
Looks like we’ll be having a green Christmas this year!
Congratulations to all who played along with our latest virtual portfolio as we couldn’t have made 33 better trades in a month as we blasted past our goal for an 89.4% gain, from $15,000 to $28,415 in just 25 days. There’s certainly as much luck as skill in getting this kind of result but, since we’re over a month ahead of schedule and ahead of our $25,000 goal – there’s no reason to shut this down and we’ll see how far we can push things through Christmas – on one condition.
In the last update, I put up a link to our NYC Food Bank, where we are fortunate enough to have arranged for matching donations for the next Million Dollars that comes in. If you should happen to benefit from what you learn following our virtual portfolio – PLEASE take a moment to give something back to the millions who are less fortunate. It doesn’t have to be the Food Bank – all of our communities have needs and you may find it pleasantly surprising at how good it makes you feel to just walk into a local shelter – hand someone a check and say "Happy Holidays."
That’s all you have to do. They may try to hug you (there’s a lot of huggy people working in shelters) but they won’t put you on a list or bug you for money or come to your house – they are just thrilled to make it through a week with enough money to take care of the people who really need it. Please keep that in mind as this is a particularly hard holiday season for charities – as giving has plunged around the country and needs, obviously, have skyrocketed.
Thank you. Now we can get back to our Capitalistic endeavors!
- 2 NFLX Nov $67.50 puts sold for $3 expired worthless – up $600
- 5 DECK Nov $105 calls sold for $6.60 expired worthless – up $3,300
- 5 SCO Nov $45/48 bull call spreads at $1.10 expired worthless – down $1,100
- 20 FAS Nov $11 puts sold for .65 (-$1,300) expired worthless
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DiggI’m Dreaming of a White Christmas – Portfolio
by Phil - October 29th, 2011 8:35 am
Wow, what a market!
Maybe we closed out our $25,000 Portfolio too early last week, with a virtual gain of $105,000 (420%) for the year, but we still have our Income Portfolio, which was quite bullishly positioned and well ahead of goal as well as positions in our very aggressive September’s Dozen List that are winding down, so we decided to set up this new virtual portfolio with the goal of turning $15,000 in to $25,000 between now and Christmas to have a little extra spending cash for the holidays.
The strategy is the same as the $25,000 Portfolio, which is meant to be the aggressive, "risk" portion of a $250,000 or larger portfolio, utilizing excess margin to our advantage with the goal of making a series of hit and run plays, with the goal of making $1,000 a week for the next 10 weeks. Also like the $25KP, we take our winners off the table and work out our losers as best we can because, above all else, this is an exercise in adjusting and managing short-term positions.
This virtual portfolio will be available to Voyeur Members but trade ideas during chat will have their usual 1-hour delay. Premium members will get the trades with no delay Basic Members also see WCP-related comments with no delay as well. New trade ideas and updates will be copied into the comment section of this post or, assuming I write one, the updates of this post. If you are not a Member yet, now is a good time to join. Check out the subscription page – Our EXAMPLE trade on C closed up 200% and our ENP example returned 137% – not bad for free samples, right?
Our first official trade for the new portfolio was one we discussed on the weekend, GNW, which I added to the main post on Monday (and discussed that afternoon, in part, in my BNN interview). We’re not going to re-hash the logic for every trade here, this is simply a review post to track the trade ideas (and, while we do our best to be as accurate as possible, we do NOT include trading fees, which vary greatly so always take that into account) so we can see how they are doing and discuss how they can be adjusted but, of course, all the live commentary…
Monday Market Movement – “Like Moths to a Flame!”
by Phil - November 29th, 2010 8:01 am
"Investors are drawn to China like moths to a flame." – Neil Woodford
That’s a great quote. Neil is the head of investments at Invesco, running the UK’s largest investment fund with a decade of 15% average returns under his belt so let’s take the man seriously for starters. Mr Woodford’s concerns coincide with figures showing that food prices in China were 10.1pc higher in October than in the same month last year – a level of inflation not seen since mid-2007. This is deepening concern that China’s economy is now starting to overheat.
"I do not deny that in the long term an economy like China will grow much more rapidly than the West. But I think one has to be very careful about correlating growth necessarily with economic opportunity, and opportunity to make money," said Mr. Woodford.
And so it is that the moths are all drawn to the light, even as it burns them. For they are blindly drawn to its grace, hitting their heads about the light, destroying their senses, going without food, and becoming easy prey to those that hunt them. Even those few moths that will get within the embrase of the light will burn unable to escape, ever.
There was no escape for Ireland this weekend as the IMF and EU pinned the country down and forced them to swallow a $130Bn aid package at (get this!) 6.7%. $17.5Bn of this money is to come out of Irish pension funds all just to make sure Bill Gross doesn’t lose any of the money he lent to Ireland! I honestly cannot tell you who is the more vile, despicable villain in this debacle. Is it the banks, who started this mess with their idiotic lending practices? Is it the lobbyists and lawmakers, who turned Ireland into a tax haven for EU Corporations and destroyed the economy by funneling tax breaks to the wealthy? Is it the Irish Government, who stupidly bailed out the failing banks with guarantees that put the nation on the hook for more money than their entire GDP. Is it the bondholders, who drove up the cost of financing Ireland’s newfound debt to levels that threatened to break the National Bank or is it the EU & IMF, who are effectively playing the role of loan sharks, borrowing $100Bn at…
Weak Weekly Wrap-Up – Charting Uncertain Waters
by Phil - May 8th, 2010 5:43 am
I’m just doing a quick wrap-up this week because, surprisingly, it MIGHT be time for a new Buy List!
I had said to Members on Cinco de Mayo, in our 5% Rule Review, that if we broke below 1,155 we would retrace all the way to 1,100 with our 5% Rule resistance points around 1,100 at 1,155, 1,114, 1,100, 1,073 and 1,045. We actually spiked as low as 1,066 on Thursday but finished the week at a very sad 1,110 as we watched for that "weak bounce" zone to be broken all day. This does not bode technically well for the markets next week but I told Members we would have to give the markets a pass for the day. Based on the uncertainty of the weekend, we can’t expect a lot of capital commitments ahead of the EU decision. After all, we’re in cash – why shouldn’t other smart funds be too?
When I predicted we’d hit 1,000 on Wednesday, I did not think it would be on Thursday! The markets are now negative for the year and the S&P has spiked almost to the Feb low of 1,044 (and our lowest close was 1,056). That’s right, these 5% Rule numbers are the SAME ones we used back then and it’s the same series we used to measure our winter run at the end of last year. We expect a bounce here, hopefully at least a test of 1,155 on a relief rally if Greece is "fixed" yet again on Monday but we’re not going to be too impressed until we’re over that line.
Still that means it’s time to at least lay out a new Watch List, which is the prelude to a Buy List – giving us a list of stocks we’d like to get into at lower prices. Our last Member Watch List was back in December and by Feb 6th we had our famous Buy List, which we triggered at Dow 10,058 for a very successful run through March 18th ("Bye Bye Buy List!"), when we closed 2/3 of the positions and we have since cashed out the rest as I got more and more worried about the rally, finally calling for all cash last week.
Speaking of last week, for those of you who say I don’t pick enough straight stocks – I listed 33 short trade ideas from my unofficial "Sell List" last Friday (4/30) when the Dow was way up at 11,167…
GDWheee Friday – Could be a Wild Ride!
by Phil - April 30th, 2010 8:30 am
Attention ladies and gentlemen:
The stock market will soon be leaving the station, please secure all personal items, pull down the safety bar (our Disaster Hedges) and keep all body parts inside ride at all times. Well you know you can follow all of the safety instructions and STILL get smacked in the face with a black swan (like our friend Fabio, pictured here) which is why we elected to get back to cash ahead of this report. The markets were just too insane this week and who the heck knows if Europe will still be a Union on Monday or what the GDP number is going to be (but I do think it’s a miss).
Since our biggest weekend fear is financial panic in Europe, our cash US dollars will become more valuable in a crisis and if the market drops, all the better as we can ride back in and do some bargain hunting. If the market takes off on good GDP and Greece is "fixed" and Spain is "fixed" and Portugal and Ireland are not really a problem (especially for MS and JPM) and the CRIMINAL charges against Goldman look beatable and and the Financial Reform Bill doesn’t disrupt the market with a disorderly breakup of the big banks and the Bank of International Settlements Report continues to be ignored and the run on the Greek banks doesn’t spread to other STUPID counties – well, then we can BUYBUYBUY because, if all this doesn’t matter, then it’s very likely that the entire planet Earth could explode but Wall Street will keep ticking higher.
Yep, I can’t wait to ride this baby mindlessly higher! After all, what can go wrong? BIDU is ONLY $710 a share, BLK is $190, CMP is $76, GOLD is $84, BUCY is $65, FAST is $56, MMM is $90, FOSL $40, F $13.50, DECK $149, SHOO $55, TPX $35, LZB $14, CTB $22, NOG $16, CEO $176, FTI $75, CLB $150, CIB $46, BBD $19, TD $75, BCA $45, BAP $87, ITUB $22, EDU $94, WYNN $93, FFIV $72, CY $14, CREE $77, UPS $70, UNP $78…
These were stocks I was looking at last week, when I told members I thought it was easier to construct a Sell List than our usual Buy List for this market but, if we’re heading…
Option Bulls Buy Calls to Celebrate New Coverage of NuVasive Spinal Treatment
by Option Review - February 26th, 2010 5:49 pm
Today’s tickers: NUVA, TRE, FXE, BBY, DECK, LEN, AA, ESRX, JDSU & UNH
NUVA – NuVasive Inc. – The spinal surgery equipment maker’s shares are up sharply today by more than 32.50% to $39.38. NuVasive’s shares surged on news health insurance company, Aetna, is changing its policy to allow reimbursement for surgical spine treatment know as lateral interbody fusion. Bullish posturing in call options was observed today following the news about extended coverage for the treatment, which was previously excluded for being an experimental procedure. Plain-vanilla call buyers picked up nearly 2,000 contracts at the March $40 strike for an average premium of $1.34 apiece. Investors long the calls are prepared to pocket profits if NUVA’s shares rally above the effective breakeven point on the calls at $41.34 by expiration day next month.
TRE – Tanzanian Royalty Exploration Corp. – British Columbia, Canada-based gold mining company, Tanzanian Royalty Exploration Corp., attracted heavier than usual two-way trading traffic in put options today. The firm, which explores and acquires gold properties in Tanzania, realized a 2.30% rally in its shares during the session to $4.05. More than 25,000 in-the-money put options changed hands at the October $5 strike with the majority of the volume trading to the bid. Approximately 14,200 puts were sold for an average premium of $1.31 per contract, while 5,200 put contracts were purchased at that strike for roughly the same amount of premium. In-the-money put sellers are perhaps anticipating continued bullish movement in the price of the underlying by October expiration. Investors short the puts keep the full $1.31 premium per contract if TRE’s shares rally above $5.00 by expiration day. Put sellers stand ready to have shares of the underlying stock put to them at an effective price of $3.69 apiece in the event that the put contracts remain in-the-money through expiration day.
FXE – CurrencyShares Euro Trust – Shares of the FXE exchange-traded fund, which reflects the price of the Euro, are up 0.45% to $135.88 in afternoon trading. A decent-sized put butterfly spread on the fund indicates one investor does not expect the current rally to continue. On the contrary, the parameters of the spread benefit the trader most if shares decrease roughly 2.25% in value by April expiration. To enact the bearish butterfly play, the investor purchased 5,000 puts at the April $134 strike for a premium of $1.50 apiece [wing 1], and picked…
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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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