Wednesday Wheeeee – We Love it When a Plan Comes Together!
by Phil - January 11th, 2012 8:21 am
Once again, we're done with our day before you get up.
In my 5am note to Members, I said: "I see nothing in the news to justify this pre-market "recovery" and I hate to sound like a broken record but I like shorting oil (/CL) if we get below that $102 line with tight stops and the Dow (/YM) is right at 12,400, which is a great spot to short. RUT (/TF) is at 762 and below 760 (same as yesterday) will confirm a downturn but 12,400 is a great line so why wait?" By 6:26, I was able to follow it up with:
And wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! There go the Futures!
It's 7:07 and we're still going down, with oil at $101.24 (up $760 per contract) and the Dow at 12,340 (up $300 per contract) and, as Dennis said: "Good enough for steak and eggs for me!" Roro got up late but still caught the Dow at 6:16 and that was right on the nose for the oil drop as well as we hit it right on the nose this morning and now we're done and waiting for the next good set-up.
Of course we scale in and scale out of positions as there's no need to get greedy in the Futures, where a single remaining contract catching a $1 move down in oil (now $101.25 again) pays $1,000. This week, we have even stationed our own Craigzooka in New Zealand, where it's tomorrow – which makes it much easier to bet on today's action as he can tell us what happened already! Not that today was all that hard to predict, right? My comment to Members LAST Wednesday was:
It’s been a pretty reliable bet that they tank the markets into the longer-term note auctions because it scares people into T-Bills and keeps the rates low. From this line-up, it seems to me they intend to jack us up on Friday and then zap us on Tuesday as Esther George releases something hawkish ahead of the 3-year and it’s no coincidence that Plosser, by far the biggest Hawk, is given the floor at 12:30 on Wednesday – just 30 minutes before the critical 10-year auction. Coincidence? Surely you cannot be that naive!
So that's how we've been playing the past 7 days and it culminated in pressing our…
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn 
del.icio.us
DiggJust Another Manic Monday – Value Investing
by Phil - September 26th, 2011 8:27 am
Up, up and away!
As I mentioned in Friday’s morning’s post, we did a lot of bottom-fishing on Thursday as we began to develop Disaster fatigue with long plays on XLF at $11.50, shorting TLT at $123, shorting VXX at $49.50, TNA at $34.50, BRK.B at $65, AA at $10.20, VLO at $19, IMAX at $15.75, BA at $58.32, AGQ at $170, CHK at $27.50, DIS at $30.14 and ABX at $47.50. They were hedged, of course and, for the most part, you still had a nice chance to make those entries on Friday – but not so much this morning as the futures are up about 1.5% already (7:30).
Friday morning, in my Alert to Members, I reminded them that BCS looked like an excellent VALUE to me, no matter what the PRICE was ($8.75 after hitting $8.40 the day before) and this morning, that PRICE is up well over 10% in EU trading. Did the VALUE of BCS change materially over the weekend? Of course not, certainly not by the $4Bn their market cap gained – like the song, the VALUE remains the same – only the highly variable price of a share of BCS is undergoing ch-ch-changes…
I pointed out similar hedged, long-term plays could be made on GS ($94), MS ($13), BAC ($6) and C ($24). Of course we hedged them per our discussion in the morning post (TZA was our morning choice but we’re out over 650 on the RUT) but then we went long on EWG (Germany) again with the very aggressive Oct $16,18 bull call spread at $1.30, offset by the sale of the $17 puts for .90 for net .40 on the $2 spread. 10 of those in our virtual $25,000 Portfolio cost $400 and can return $2,000 in less than 30 days if EWG is over $18 and, guess what – they’re over $18 this morning!
Another bullish bet we placed was USO Nov $28/30 bull call spread at $1.30, selling the $27 puts for $1.10 for net .20 on the $2 spread with a 900% upside if USO simply doesn’t drop from where it is now. That’s what’s nice about options – you don’t need the market to go up to make money good money. On this trade idea, your worst-case scenario is owning USO at net $27.20, about 10% lower than it…
TGIF – Stop the Week, We Want to get Off!
by Phil - September 23rd, 2011 8:35 am
What a disaster!
Of course, that’s why we have Disaster Hedges, right? August 11th was the last time we did a "Hedging for Disaster" post which included a LONG trade idea on gold that’s done now (we’re short) after gaining over 300%. We’re a little mixed in our results on the other hedges but that means we can SWITCH HORSES – from the trades that have already worked to the ones that haven’t yet. That’s how we cash out our winners on a regular basis – it’s the pony express of investing. Our other Disaster Hedges from that post were:
- DXD Oct $23 calls at $2, selling Oct $27 calls for $1.15 and the Oct $19 puts for .70 for net .10. That spread is currently -.05 so down 150% so far and a nice horse to switch to, offering a .05 credit on the $4 spread.
- FAZ Oct $65 calls at $22, selling Oct $72 calls for $20 and selling JPM 2013 $20 puts for $2.05 was a net .05 credit as a backstop to our long financial plays. FAZ is now at $71.34 and the October FAZ spread is now $3.70 but the JPM puts are now $3 so net .70 is only up 1,500% so far. Should the financials stay low, we get the full $7 from the spread and we’re obligated to buy JPM for $20 (now $29.27) in 2013.
- SDS Sept $26 calls at $3.20, selling Sept $32 calls for $1.65 and selling VLO Jan $15 puts for $1.20 for net .35. SDS is only at $25.73 so far (not a disaster yet) and the spread is now net $1.25 and the short VLO puts are .17 so net $1.08 on this one is up 208% and we’re not even at goal – that’s pretty good! Note the spread is LOWER than when we started so this can also be used as a fresh horse with a different offset, like X Jan $15 puts for $1.20 for a net .05 trade.
- TBT was stopped out with a small loss at $24 (fortunately). My comment at the time, with TBT at $24.88 was: "Keep in mind though, that the Fed has said rates will stay low through 2013 so it would be wise to uses stops on the puts, at least, if TBT fails to hold $24!"
- EDZ
…
All Eyes On IMAX Corp. Calls As Shares Soar
by Option Review - August 29th, 2011 2:30 pm
Today’s tickers: IMAX, AMZN, HAL & MU
IMAX - IMAX Corp. – Call options on the entertainment technology company are in demand this morning after shares in IMAX jumped 9.1% roughly 40 minutes into the trading session to an intraday high of $17.63. The sizable move in the price of the underlying coupled with increased trading in IMAX options lifted the stock’s reading of implied volatility 10.3% to 82.95% by 11:05 am ET. The sharp rise in shares and volatility are a boon to investors who appear to have purchased September contract calls on the stock on Friday. Open interest in the Sept. $20 strike call suggest some 1,400 contracts were picked up at an average premium of $0.25 apiece during the final trading session last week. Investors long the calls at $0.25 per contract now hold contracts that have more than doubled in value over the weekend. Traders eyeing the Sept. $20 strike calls this morning exchanged more than 3,800 of the options, exceeding the 2,116 previously existing positions at that strike. It looks like investors purchased around 2,700 of the calls this morning for an average premium of $0.40 each. Call buyers profit if shares in IMAX Corp. jump 15.7% over today’s high of $17.63 to surpass the average breakeven price of $20.40 at expiration in a couple of weeks. The September $20 strike call currently commands an asking price of $0.75 per contract as of 11:15 am in New York.
AMZN - Amazon.com, Inc. – Shares in online retail giant Amazon.com gained 2.8% to $204.76 this morning, but call buyers in the front month are positioning for far more substantial gains in the price of the underlying come September expiration. Call options on AMZN are trading roughly 1.7 times for each single put option in action today, with…
TGIF – Are We There Yet?
by Phil - August 19th, 2011 8:29 am
Where is the bottom?
We are now officially getting silly, with Germany falling another 3% this morning, now down close to 30% in less than a month (see David Fry’s chart) with the banking sector off 50% and more. To keep that in perspective, the S&P is down less than 20% and even our super-lame Transports (which go down with oil for some reason) are down "just" 24%. So – do we have another 10% (at least) left to fall or is it kind of ridiculous that AAA-rated Germany, with arguably the World’s strongest economy, should drop 30% in 30 days?
It looks like EWG is going to open around $19.50 this morning and you should be able to sell the Sept $19 puts for $1+ or the Jan $17 puts for $1.25+, giving Germany another 16% buffer before you have to give that $1.25 back at net $15.75, which is back at the non-spike lows of the crash.
The VIX spiked up to $42.50 yesterday, that’s higher than it was in April’s sell off and that made an excellent short at the time. You can sell VXX Sept $45 calls for $3.25 and buy the $45/40 bear put spread for $3.40 for net .15 on the $5 spread. If the VIX and VXX do move higher, a 2x roll to the Sept $55s (now $1.60) is about even or the Dec $62 calls are currently $3.10 so it would take a pretty major, sustained move up in volatility for the short puts to really hurt.
Here we are, back at our March lows for the Nikkei and 15% BELOW the March lows for the DAX and 10% below the March lows for the S&P. REALLY? Were we too optimistic in March by 15%? We just had earnings reports and the numbers were generally fine – it’s the outlook that got gloomy, due to all the economic uncertainty. That’s what happens when your Congress is a bunch of buffoons who are willing to sacrifice the Nation and it’s Citizens in order to improve their political posture…
Other than the imaginary problems of debt (it’s been worse) and austerity (a poor solution to address the debt non-issue) and the real problem of the deficit (easily fixable by collecting taxes and cutting military spending) and a slightly slowing economy (caused by the idiotic austerity measures),…
Income Portfolio – Month Four – Stormy Weather!
by Phil - August 13th, 2011 7:57 am
Riders on the storm
Into this house we’re born
Into this world we’re thrown
Like a dog without a bone
An actor out alone
Riders on the storm
What a crazy couple of week’s we’ve been having! Very fortunately, in last month’s update of our virtual income portfolio, we had already cashed out $33,084 – more than enough to take us through our first 8 months (our planned $4,000 a month to live on). We did that using just $200,000 of our $1M in buying power ($500,000 portfolio), staying very conservative and waiting for a bigger dip than the one we had had in June.
Well, here we are! We are now 10% below June’s bottom and we did do a little bottom fishing, adding positions in WFR, SONC, IMAX, VLO, OIH, TBT and HOLI – positions we’ll be reviewing below. To a large extent, we followed the strategy I called "Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There" during this sell-off although it was (and still is) a nail-biter as we tested my August 2nd prediction of the "worst-case" scenario of a 20% drop from the top.
We stuck to our guns this week and had a lot of fun playing the wild gyrations with our short-term betting but the Income Portfolio is an exercise in managing a "low-touch" portfolio – one that does not require us to make daily adjustments. I am aware that can be frustrating for people who stare at the markets every day but that is what our short-term trade ideas are for in Member Chat. That goes for people who are retired or semi-retired too. You don’t HAVE to play every day – or any day for that matter but you do need to work one week a month and that would be this week – the week of…
Falling Up Friday – Closing the Week GREEN!
by Phil - August 12th, 2011 8:20 am
In case you were on vacation, here’s what you missed:
The Dow is down 2.6% for the week, the S&P is down 2.3% and the Nasdaq is down 1.2%. Very likely, by the end of the day, these losses will be erased and we should have a nice, green close. For some reason (can’t imagine why) the VIX went up to 45, where we shorted the Hell out of it. One trade idea we had was on Wednesday Morning, where we sold the Aug $45 calls for $1.45 against the Sept $45 calls at $1.40. Even yesterday that one was looking good with the Augs down to .85 and the Sept $45s still $1.30 so the net .05 spread turned into net .45, a nice 800% gain in two days.
On Wednesday afternoon, Nicha had a great idea to short VXX as well, so we did the Sept $36/32 bear put spread at $2.50, selling the Aug $38 calls for $1.55 for net $1 on the $4 spread. Those Aug $38 calls have already dropped to $1 and the bear put spread is $2.60 so that’s net $1.60 – up 60% in two days on that one. This is why we ALWAYS sell into the initial excitement. On the whole, we have been TRYING to follow my philosophy, which I reminded everyone of of in last Friday’s Member Chat, of "Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There!" – which is still some of the best crisis management advice I can give people.
What does our Big Chart look like since last Friday?
Wow, those were four very silly days, weren’t they? As I noted above, we’re down about 2.5% for the week but the week isn’t over and we could still turn this puppy around and do you know what that would be? It would be a VERY bullish bottom candle on a weekly chart! In fact, if we can finish August back at that +5% line (a 10% gain into the month’s end), THAT would form a VERY bullish candle on a MONTHLY chart.
So Greece blah, blah and Italy, blah, blah and Merkel, Sarkozy, B-B-B-Bennie and the Fed, Inflation, Deflation, Unemployment, Debt and Taxes – whatever… Just wake us up when it’s over and we’ll consider pulling our cash off the sidelines. Meanwhile, as I lectured Members in…
Two Trillion Dollar Tuesday – Still No Deal!
by Phil - July 26th, 2011 3:22 am
Hey buddy – would you like to buy a rally?
For just $2,000,000,000,000 I can give you a 2% pop on the S&P, what do you say? Am I talking about QE3? No, QE3 would be cheap compared to the gang-rape that the Dollar is enduring this week at the hands of the Europeans, the Australians, Canadians, the Swiss (all-time high today) and the Japanese – who have been taking their turns pushing our beloved dollar down to the ground and having their way with it. Not a pretty picture? How about picturing the loss of 2% of your net worth in 5 days?
That’s where we are this morning as $2Tn of US wealth has been extracted this week (via political dithering over our debt ceiling) and shipped overseas in the form of relative buying power for or foreign friends while our stock indexes and commodities "rally" – which is to say they re-price higher to reflect the lower buying power of the currency they are priced in – the ever-declining green-back.
As you can see from the above charts, which are our major indexes and oil adjusted for the Dollar – we’re critically close to failing our 20-day moving averages for the first time since early June, when the markets went into free-fall – also on the heels of an end-of-month run-up that took the S&P from 1,311 to 1,345. 1,345 just so happens to be where we topped out last week and where we topped out yesterday and where we popped to on the futures early this morning (3am, of course) as the Dollar was shoved a full percent lower in overnight trading.
![[Futures Trading, U.S., Composition by Type of Futures Contract, 1970 to 2004]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Futures_Trading_Composition.jpg)
We were all over this, of course, and I sent out a 3:55 am Alert to Members saying:
Dollar bottomed out at 73.69 and that should be it for our 3am "rally" with the RUT (/TF) at 835.6 and S&P (/ES) at 1,340, Dow (/YM) at 12,600 and Nas (/NQ) at 2,435 – all make good shorts here as long as the Dollar goes no lower (and I’ve already started the morning post with a chart that shows how dangerous this is getting).
We rode that puppy hard – all the way down to RUT 830 at 5:30 (up $560 per contract), S&P 1,331 ($450 per contract), Dow 12,530 ($350…
Retail Bears Abound
by Option Review - February 23rd, 2011 4:12 pm
Today’s tickers: XRT, IMAX, ADSK & OI
XRT - SPDR S&P Retail ETF – Options traders are positioning for shares in the Retail ETF to fall substantially in the coming months. Massive bearish bets popped up on the XRT in the first half of the trading session with shares slipping further from last week’s new highs. The familiar outline of a put butterfly spread unfurled in the March contract, but was preceded by a large debit put spread initiated in the April contract within the first 15 minutes of trading. Pessimistic players are perhaps speculating that consumers, who now face heftier prices at the pump, are likely to tighten their grip on discretionary dollars going forward. Shares in the XRT, an exchange-traded fund designed to track the performance of the S&P Retail Select Industry Index, are currently down 2.4% at $48.02 as of 12:00pm in New York. In the past week shares in the ETF have pulled back 5.1% from an all-time high of $50.61 last Wednesday. One big put player is well-positioned to benefit from additional weakness in XRT shares in the near term. The investor purchased 20,000 puts at each of the March $46 and March $42 strikes, and sold 40,000 puts at the central March $44 strike, all for a net premium of $0.22 per contract. The net cost of the pessimistic play pales in comparison to the $1.78 per contract in maximum potential profits the investor enjoys if shares in the ETF drop to $44.00 ahead of March expiration. Meanwhile, the buyer of a 17,000-lot April $44/$47 put spread for a net premium of $0.57 per contract could walk away with up to $2.43 per contract in profits if shares in the fund slip beneath $44.00 by April expiration. Options implied volatility on the Retail SPDR has been on the rise throughout the trading session, and currently stands 12.6% higher on the session at 27.35% in early afternoon trade.…
Weekend Reading – Reviewing the Reviews
by Phil - January 1st, 2011 8:28 am
I am still trying to get more bullish.
I was thinking about writing something cute like I resolve to get more bullish but that would be wrong. I try, in my own humble way, to "get" the market right. That means I am not bullish or bearish but Truthish (to further botch Stephen Colbert’s use of the word) and, as Buddah says: "There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting." Confucious reminds us that there are three methods by which we may learn wisdom: "First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest."
In that spirit, we will spend the day in reflection so that we are better able to start on that long road to the truth so that we will be better able to imitate the things that will work in the year to come while trying to avoid making mistakes that will give us bitter experiences.
This post is not about me – We had a fantastic year and I’ve already given some outlook for 2011 back on the 19th in that weekend’s "It’s Never too Early to Predict the Future" and our current position is short-term bearish in the Jan-April time-frame, looking for a pullback to at least 1,200 on the S&P and possibly back to 1,150.
After that, we are expecting a return to steady gains but without the irrational exuberance we’re currently experiencing. So no, I am not bearish – I simply think we’ve gotten ahead of ourselves. Since we don’t know where the rally train will stop, we have our "Breakout Defense – 5,000% in 5 Trades or Less" from Dec 11th, which were a set of very bullish, highly levered plays where a little bet can pay off a lot if we simply hold our long-established breakout levels.
How much is "a lot"? Well my GE trade idea, for example, was to sell the 2013 $12.50 puts for $1.10 (net $1.15 in ordinary margin according to TOS) and to use that money to buy the 2012 $17.50/20 bull call spread for .95, which was a net .15 credit on a $2.50 spread that was on the money at the time. GE has gained about .75 since the 11th and…
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
(