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

I’ve recently done exactly what Phil described. I upgraded my ability to trade the IRA acct. by transferring acct. from TDA to TOS. TDA would not allow spreads; TOS does. Neither will allow naked options. With spreads I am able to buy calls or puts several months out then sell front month calls or puts over and over. This allows me to collect premium, which is, of course, the goal. This wasn’t an original idea. Phil put me onto it. Since the transfer I’ve substantially increased my performance in the IRA!

- Iflantheman, Feb 8, 2010

Phil I have been applying your arsenal (matresses, Edz plays, Ugl verticals etc.) to my gold holdings . So a big thank you for \"teaching me how to fish\" rather than just giving me the fish...

- Magret, Nov 27, 2009

I can’t believe it. After 2 Months of reading every post of every section on this site, the light bulb finaly went on. I was begining to think this was beyond me capacity to understand. Thanks Guys. Specifically Phil, Pharm, Cap, Matt. Im still Green as a leprechaun but I pulled the trigger on that SRS Vertical you laid down yesterday Phil. Very Clever. Now if I can just figure how to roll I migh make some money. Thanks for sharing, This community you have here is quite remarkable.

- Zucko, Sep 4, 2009

Looking over your main themes last week, the \"China may fall first\" and \"if you missed it previously, Thurs am gives you a second chance to short\" were absolutely on target. I had to rely on stop-losses because of my schedule but just those two calls could have been worth a small fortune. Keep it up and I look forward to your new portfolio.

- Ocelli, Aug 18, 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

Phil - I followed your great pick re F and sold short the 1011 2.50 puts (200 contracts) and paid for the next 10 years of membership fees…. Thanks!

- Gel1, May 3, 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

By the way thank you Phil for the DNDN idea. 3x till this morning and will 4x my small investment by next OE THANKS !!!!

- Microflux, Apr 15, 2009

I have been a member of Phil’s site for three years and counting, and my advice is that all investing takes time. There are o shortcuts, no secret way to riches. Same with Phil’s site- you need time and patience to start benefitting fully from his advice. But it is often spot on and also very useful, especially to me as I try to keep a level head in this turbulent stock market environment.

- Jordan, Jan 26, 2009

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Posts Tagged ‘high frequency program trading’

More on the Massive Trading Volumes in Troubled Financial Stocks

by ilene - August 30th, 2009 1:55 pm

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Growing evidence, number trails and a culture of greed support a connection between high frequency program trading and market manipulation and, by all appearances, the pumping up of stocks of troubled financial companies… - Ilene

More on the Massive Trading Volumes in Troubled Financial Stocks

By Brett Steenbarger at TraderFeed

This story began with simple reader inquiries concerning a stock market indicator called TRIN and their perceptions that TRIN was "broken". For the uninitiated, TRIN assesses the proportion of stock exchange volume that is going to advancing stocks to the volume attributable to declining issues. When TRIN is below 1.0, it means that volume is relatively concentrated in rising shares; above 1.0 means that volume is concentrated in declining stocks.

TRIN appeared to be broken because we were getting huge swings in its values from moment to moment in the market. It would swing wildly, sometimes going far above 1.0 and sometimes far below. I pointed out that, from a purely mathematical vantage point, this could only occur if a disproportionate share of NYSE volume was occurring in one or a handful of stocks.

Further inquiry revealed that this was, indeed, the case: I found that, not only were the trading volumes of such stocks as C, AIG, FNM, and FRE elevated, as noted the by Big Picture blog, but that their composite volumes (their volumes traded across all exchanges) exceeded that of all other NYSE stock trading! Indeed, I discovered that the 20-day TRIN was at its lowest level since 2000 because volume was highly concentrated in rising stocks. This was not just unusually heavy volume; it was unusually heavy to the buy side.

Since this volume was directional–all of these stocks had made spectacular percentage gains–and because the highly unusual activity was unique to troubled financial firms (not stable companies such as GS and JPM), I surmised that something might be afoot: a systematic attempt to bolster the shares of taxpayer supported companies that–for political reasons–could not return to the bailout well. Why such an attempt? Perhaps to reimburse the largest shareholder of the institutions and position these companies to raise capital on their own. They certainly weren’t going to raise their own capital as languishing two-dollar zombie stocks.

Of late, we’ve seen articles in the mainstream media suggesting that the volatility in these troubled financial companies’ shares is attributable to short-covering. "When large numbers…

Rogue Algorithms And Other Mutually Assured Destruction Program Trading Alternatives

by ilene - July 10th, 2009 5:34 pm

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Rogue Algorithms And Other Mutually Assured Destruction Program Trading Alternatives

destruction, high frequency program trading Courtesy of Tyler at Zero Hedge

Why Institutional Investors Should Be Concerned About High Frequency Traders

By Sal L. Arnuk and Joseph Saluzzi of Themis Trading

A Themis Trading LLC Mini White Paper

It is now generally understood that high frequency traders (HFTs) are dominating the equity market, generating as much as 70% of the volume.

HFTs are computerized trading programs that make money two ways, in general. They offer bids in such a way so as to make tiny amounts of money from per share liquidity rebates provided by the exchanges. Or they make tiny per share long or short profits. While this might sound like small change, HFTs collectively execute billions of shares a day, making it an extremely profitable business.

Why should institutional or retail investors care? After all, aren’t HFTs adding liquidity? That’s what they and the exchanges, who court their business, say.

There’s a lot to worry about.

1. HFTs provide low quality liquidity.

In the old days, when NYSE specialists or NASDAQ market makers added liquidity, they were required to maintain a fair and orderly market, and to post a quote that was part of the National Best Bid and Offer a minimum percentage of time. HFTs have no such requirements. They have no minimum shares to provide nor do they have a minimum quote time. And they could turn off their liquidity at any time. When an HFT computer spots a real order, the HFT is not likely to go against it and take the other side. The institution is then faced with a very tough stock to trade.

2. HFT volume can generate false trading signals.

This can cause other investors to buy at a higher price, or sell at a lower price, than they would otherwise. A spike in HFT volume can cause an institutional algorithm order based on a percentage of volume to be too aggressive. A spike can attract momentum investors, further exaggerating price moves. Seeing such a spike, options traders can start to build positions, which, in turn, can attract risk arbitrage traders who believe there’s potential news that could affect the stock.

3. HFT computer servers are faster than other trading systems.

Because most HFT servers are co-located at exchanges, they can beat out institutional or retail orders, causing them to pay more or sell for less than they should…

Tags: high frequency program trading, trading algorithm

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

“Principal Program Trading Is A Way To Get The Market Go In Your Direction”

by ilene - July 1st, 2009 8:38 pm

Courtesy of Zero Hedge, earlier today. The evidence of manipulation with program trading keeps growing, like green shoots.

Themis Trading: "Principal Program Trading Is A Way To Get The Market Go In Your Direction"

Joe Saluzzi of Themis Trading on Bloomberg TV, discussing several critical topics previously covered extensively on Zero Hedge: the real state of the economy, high frequency program trading and outright market manipulation.

To quote Joe:

"I have a feeling one day the door is gonna close, everyone is going to be running for the exits, there is going to be a major move in the market and everyone is going to wonder "what happened?"

There is problem structurally in the equity markets that nobody wants to talk about. There is intervention, there is manipulation going on. No one has exact proof of what is going on but it’s out there, and the real liquidity has been gone for a while. People don’t understand, the liquidity is not coming back."

Must Watch.

Tags: equity markets, high frequency program trading, Market manipulation

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

China's Fragile Economy, Its Housing Bubble, and What It Means To Us: Download

March 20th, 2010 1:41 am

Courtesy of Econophile

As promised, here is the complete article, China's Fragile Economy, Its Housing Bubble, and What It Means To Us, in a downloadable PDF. You can download it, print it out, and read the entire piece at your leisure. The conclusions aren't encouraging, for them or us.

...

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.

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Note: The material presented in this commentary is provided for informational purposes only and is based upon information that is considered to be reliable. However, neither Philstockworld, LLC (PSW) nor its affiliates warrant its completeness, accuracy or adequacy and it should not be relied upon as such. Neither PSW nor its affiliates are responsible for any errors or omissions or for results obtained from the use of this information. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. Neither Phil, Optrader or anyone related to PSW is a registered financial adviser and they may hold positions in the stocks mentioned, which may change at any time without notice. Do not buy or sell based on anything that is written here, the risk of loss in trading is great.

This material is not intended as an offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any security or other financial instrument. Securities or other financial instruments mentioned in this material are not suitable for all investors. Any opinions expressed herein are given in good faith, are subject to change without notice, and are only intended at the moment of their issue as conditions quickly change. The information contained herein does not constitute advice on the tax consequences of making any particular investment decision. This material does not take into account your particular investment objectives, financial situations or needs and is not intended as a recommendation to you of any particular securities, financial instruments or strategies. Before investing, you should consider whether it is suitable for your particular circumstances and, as necessary, seek professional advice.

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