Thrilling Thursday – Can We Make Another Billion Today?
by Phil - June 2nd, 2011 7:42 am
Wheeeee!
$1,129,860,000! That’s how much money was made shorting 376,620 NYMEX contracts at $103 yesterday, as we planned! Congratulations to those of you who got your share playing along with us and, to the manipulators who got stuck with the bill – screw you bastards, we have your number and we’re going to ring it now! I called a cash-out at the $100 line in Member Chat as 2.9% was more of a drop than we expected in one day and we will re-load on the bounce as we cross back below the $100.50 line – as discussed in this morning’s Member Chat - assuming the Dollar has bottomed out at 74.35.
This isn’t complicated people – what’s the 2.5% line off of $103? $100.425. That’s where we’ll look for oil to consolidate but below that line we’ll be comfortable with our shorts again, looking for those next legs down to $98.88 (down 4%) and then $97.85, where we will once again look for a 20% retrace to $98.88 and then a nice short there when it fails. So come on – you can play along at home – don’t miss out on making the next $1.129Bn!
Meanwhile, what’s a 20% bounce off a $3 drop? 60 cents, right? Where did oil bounce to in the futures? $100.60? This is not rocket science folks… We teach these little tips to our Members every day at Philstockworld. Sure you may find it disturbing that the chart we drew up (above) in early April is hit almost to the penny on the NYSE yesterday (2 months later) as it halted right on our red line – but that just shows us that Bots are running this market (as we keep telling you) and it also means that we can rely on our ranges and that makes it EASY to make good trading decisions.
Also in Member Chat last night, I reviewed 8 short put ideas (bullish) that can net us over $3,000 in 15 days if we get a bounce and hold our "Must Hold" levels. This is the nice thing about hedging – we make money on the way up OR on the way down and, when we are trading in a range – like we hopefully will this summer – then we make money both ways on a regular basis! Let the market manipulators play their…
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DiggFickle Friday’s Jobs Report
by Phil - January 7th, 2011 8:29 am
I don’t know what the Jobs will be but I’m betting on disappointment.
I had said to Members yesterday that I liked the Jan QQQQ $56 puts at .77 and the Weekly (next week, not today) QQQQ $56 puts at .53 as good ways to play a jobs miss. My comment in Member Chat was that I felt the ADP figures pushed expectations up significantly higher and now we would be much more likely to disappoint with almost any number short of 250,000 jobs added.
The key is the seasonal adjustments but there was already some very disturbing jobs numbers in the Gallup Poll, which came out last night and showed unemployment RISING from 9.3 to 9.6% in December and, even worse, the number of Underemployed workers shot up from 18.5 to 19%, just 0.5% lower than we were in January of last year.
Gallups Job Creation index showed no improvement in December but it is holding +10, which is the best net level we’ve had since October of 2008. So we have ADP going one way, yesterday’s unemployment numbers were flat and Gallup says things are getting worse. 8:30 will be very interesting indeed.
While we wait for the number, let’s take a look at last week’s post to see how things are tracking. Monday morning I mentioned we liked FCX short at $120 (a trade that was reiterated Tuesday morning) as we felt the run in copper was overdone. It was a rough week but FCX is down at $116 now so we’re on track at the moment of course we took a spread in chat, which was the Feb $119/110 bear put spread at $3.60, selling the Jan $120 calls for $3.60. That spread is now $4.60 and the calls have dropped to $2.30 for a nice net $2.30 gain already.
I said that $90 was already ridiculous for oil and we shouldn’t go any higher. We picked up the USO Feb $40 puts on Tuesday morning in Member Chat at $2.10 and those are now $3.70 so a nice $1.60 gain there, which is about the same as if we had just shorted the stock as it dropped from $39 that morning to $37.68 now. That’s where puts are very useful, you don’t have to commit as much as a short on the stock, you limit…
Testy 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…
RIMM Bear-Butterfly Strategist Prepares for the Worst
by Option Review - August 31st, 2010 4:22 pm
Today’s tickers: RIMM, HRB, CAT, DF, XLE, SKS, OCR & NEM
RIMM – Research in Motion, Ltd. – Shares in BlackBerry maker, Research in Motion Ltd., took a severe beating today after a Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd. survey revealed more firms are choosing rival devices such as the iPhone, a sign the firm is relinquishing its share of the corporate market to its competitors. RIMM’s shares dropped 6.30% to an intraday- and new 52-week low of $42.72 in the final hour of trading. The price of the underlying stock, which reached a 13-month high of $88.08 on September 23, 2009, has since collapsed 51.5% lower to reach today’s value of $42.72. But, one options trader populating the longer-dated January 2011 contract today positioning for RIMM’s shares to nearly halve again by expiration. The investor initiated a bearish put butterfly spread, buying 1,100 puts at the January 2011 $27.5 strike for premium of $0.80 apiece, selling 2,200 puts at the January 2011 $22.5 strike for premium of $0.37 per contract, and buying 1,100 puts at the January 2011 $17.5 strike for premium of $0.18 each. The net cost of the spread amounts to $0.24 per contract. The investor stands prepared to accumulate profits if shares of the mobile device maker plummet 36.2% from the current price to breach the effective breakeven point at $27.26 by expiration day. Maximum potential profits of $4.76 per contract are safe inside the trader’s piggybank if the Canadian company’s shares collapse 47.3% lower to settle at $22.50 at expiration. The majority of options traders populated the near-term September contract where the September $40/$42.5/$45 strike puts were the most active.
HRB – H&R Block, Inc. – Bearish investors bombarded the provider of tax, banking, business and consulting services in afternoon trading after Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services lowered its rating outlook on the company to stable from positive. The downgrade weighed heavily on HRB’s shares, which fell as much as 6.20% to an intraday- and new 52-week low of $12.54. Shares are currently down 4.95% at $12.71 with one hour remaining before the closing bell. Given the new 52-week low of $12.54, HRB’s shares are down 21.5% since trading at $15.97 on August 2, 2010. The stock has lost a total of 46.15% of its value since January 21, 2010, when shares reached the current 52-week high of $23.29. Investors wary of continued bearish movement in…
Options Player Positions for Recovery in Beleaguered Bank of America Shares
by Option Review - July 21st, 2010 5:54 pm
Today’s tickers: BAC, JNJ, EXP, KO, YHOO, VVUS, SKS & STJ
BAC – Bank of America Corp. – A large-volume bullish risk reversal initiated in the September contract on Bank of America in the first half of the current trading day indicates one options strategist is positioning for a rebound in the price of the underlying stock by expiration day in a couple of months. BAC’s shares, which fell 2.85% to $13.38 this afternoon, are currently down more than 32.7% since the stock reached a 52-week high of $19.86 back on April 15, 2010. Analysts at Goldman Sachs removed Bank of America from the conviction buy list on Monday. But, one optimistic individual is rooting for BAC to come roaring back to life by September expiration day. The investor appears to have sold 20,000 puts at the September $12 strike for a premium of $0.26 apiece in order to purchase the same number of calls at the higher September $15 strike for a premium of $0.36 each. The net cost of the transaction amounts to $0.10 per contract. If financial services firm’s shares fail to rally above $15.00 by expiration, the investor will lose the full premium paid to purchase the trade. However, if the price of the underlying increases 12.85% over the current price of $13.38, the risk reversal player will start to make money above the effective breakeven price of $15.10 through September expiration. Finally, the short position in put options at the September $12 strike suggests the investor is willing to have Bank of America shares put to him at an effective price of $12.10 apiece should the puts land in-the-money at expiration.
JNJ – Johnson & Johnson – Shares of the provider of consumer products, pharmaceuticals and medical devices fell more than 2.85% in afternoon trading to arrive at $56.89 just before 3:00 pm (ET). The health care company’s shares slipped lower after the firm said second-quarter revenue was flat and lowered its 2010 profit forecast by $0.15 a share. JNJ still reported a 7.5% increase in net income, earning $1.23 a share in the second-quarter, but revising full year earnings lower took its toll on the price of the underlying stock today. One contrarian options player populating JNJ LEAPS caught our eye this afternoon. The investor appears to have purchased a plain-vanilla debit call spread using sky-high strike prices in the January 2012 contract. The…
Investors HOG-Wild for Harley-Davidson, Inc. Options
by Option Review - June 10th, 2010 4:24 pm
Today’s tickers: HOG, SKS, MDRX, DFS, NFLX, IGT & DOW
HOG – Harley-Davidson, Inc. – Motorcycle maker, Harley-Davidson, Inc., attracted hoards of options investors during the session with its shares rallying as much as 5.85% in morning trading to secure an intraday high of $27.71. Harley’s shares are currently up a more modest 1.80% to $26.65 just before 12:40 pm (ET). Bullish tactics dominated activity in the June contract, with optimistic traders picking up some 4,300 calls at the June $28 strike for an average premium of $0.52 apiece. Call buyers at this strike price make money only if Harley-Davidson’s shares exceed $28.52 ahead of June expiration. Optimism spread to the higher June $30 strike where 1,100 calls were purchased at an average premium of $0.15 each. The calls are not a profitable acquisition for traders unless Harley’s shares jump more than 13.1% over the current price of $26.65 to exceed the average breakeven price of $30.15 by June expiration day. Investor sentiment is mixed in the July contract. While bulls purchased call options at the July $30 strike for an average premium of $0.82 apiece, bearish traders employed different strategies. It looks like some pessimistic investors essentially opted to sell call options in order to finance the purchase of debit put spreads. These traders appear to have purchased roughly 4,000 puts at the July $25 strike for an average premium of $1.23 each, and sold about the same number of puts at the lower July $20 strike for $0.23 apiece. Additional financing for the bearish spread was provided by the sale of approximately 4,000 calls at the July $30 strike for an average premium of $0.82 each. Thus, the average net cost of the combination play amounts to $0.18 per contract. Investors employing this strategy are prepared to profit should HOG’s shares decline 6.9% to breach the effective breakeven price to the downside at $24.82 by July expiration. Maximum available profits of $4.82 per contract accumulate for bearish individuals if shares of the underlying stock plummet 24.95% from the current price of $26.65 to break through $20.00 by expiration day.
SKS – Saks, Inc. – Some investors made bullish moves on Saks, Inc. today with shares of the underlying stock up as much as 5.2% in the first half of the trading session to an intraday high of $8.50. The luxury retailer’s share price rose on optimism consumer spending…
Thank Jobs It’s Friday!
by Phil - April 2nd, 2010 8:21 am
US Markets are closed today.
Most markets are closed. Japan was open and they went up 41 points (0.37%) and the MSCI Asia Pacific Index also went up 0.3% in Tokyo 1trading and Russia fell 0.1% but markets in Australia, Hong Kong, China, New Zealand, Singapore, India, the Philippines, Indonesia, the U.S. and all of western Europe are closed today for holidays. Strangley though, the Futures Market is open this morning so that can make things very tricky on a big data day like today.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index has gained 1.7 percent this week as growth in China’s manufacturing and an increase in U.S. consumer spending bolstered optimism the global economic recovery is gaining momentum. The index this week completed its fourth consecutive quarterly advance with a 3.9 percent increase in the three months through March 31. Shares in the gauge trade at 16.4 times estimated earnings, compared with 14.8 times for the MSCI World Index of 23 developed nations. “The global macroeconomic recovery is behind the current uptrend in equities,” said Tomomi Yamashita, of $3.8Bn Shinkin Asset Management. “That trend is unlikely to change though the market is getting overheated.”
We get Non-Farm Payrolls at 8:30 and, obviously, investors are expecting a report that shows the US firmly on the road to recovery but I have already been reading a Gallup poll on Underemployment that suggests otherwise. According to the March tracking poll, 20.3% of the US workforce was UNDERemployed and that is UP 0.5% from February. . Gallup classifies respondents as underemployed if they are unemployed or working part-time but wanting full-time work. Gallup employment data are not seasonally adjusted.
Those underemployed people are mainly counted as employed in the NFP report and are a major distortion of the numbers, especially as the main delta component was a huge rise in part-time workers, from 9.2% to 9.9% and, like temps, they tend to be counted by the government as happy, happy workers. Unemployment (no job at all) measured by Gallup decreased from 10.6% to 10.4% and you can see from the following chart how those two are related:
According to Gallup, as unemployed Americans find part-time, temporary, and seasonal work, the official unemployment rate could decline. However, this does not necessarily mean more Americans are working at their desired capacity. It will continue to be important to track underemployment — to shed light on the true state of the U.S. workforce, and the millions of Americans who are searching…
Semiconductor HOLDRS Options Heat Up in Late Trading
by Option Review - March 24th, 2010 4:30 pm
Today’s tickers: SMH, X, WMT, SYMC, MOS, SKS, GE, GENZ, DVN & ADBE
SMH – Semiconductor HOLDRS Trust – Massive bearish positioning on the Semiconductor HOLDRS Trust, which holds shares of common stock issued by 20 different companies engaged in the semiconductor business, indicates shares of the underlying stock may be set to tumble lower ahead of expiration day next month. Shares of the SMH are down 2.40% to $27.92 with thirty minutes remaining in the trading session. It appears one investor purchased 50,000 put options at the April $27 strike for an average premium of $0.41 per contract. Such a large stake in bearish put options suggests the purchaser is perhaps paying for the privilege of securing downside protection on a long underlying stock position. If this is the case, the put contracts yield protection should shares of the SMH trade beneath the effective breakeven price of $26.59 ahead of expiration. Of course, it is also possible the trader does not currently own shares of the SMH. In this scenario the investor makes money if shares fall another 4.75% below the current price to breach the breakeven point on the puts at $26.59. The sudden flurry of options activity on the Semiconductor HOLDRS Trust lifted the overall reading of options implied volatility 7.8% to 26.35%. SMH-investors exchanged more than 131,900 contracts this afternoon, which represents nearly 72% of total existing open interest of 183,473 contracts.
X – United States Steel Corp. – Shares of iron and steel producer, United States Steel Corp., rallied 0.65% during afternoon trading to $63.75. Bullish traders anticipating continued share price appreciation for U.S. Steel purchased out-of-the-money call options in the October contract. Nearly 5,600 calls were coveted at the October $75 strike for an average premium of $4.68 apiece. Investors holding these call contracts stand ready to accrue profits if shares of the underlying stock surge 25% to surpass the effective breakeven share price of $79.68 ahead of expiration day in October. We note that U.S. Steel’s share price last traded above $80.00 during the final days of September 2008.
WMT – Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. – The largest retailer on the planet experienced a slight pullback in the value of its shares this afternoon perhaps on news the firm may sell $2 billion of 5- and 30-year senior notes. Shares edged 0.40% lower during the session stand at $55.68. Options traders expecting lower volatility…
Thrill-Ride Thursday – Retail Sales and Maybe Some Jobs?
by Phil - January 7th, 2010 7:50 am
Beware the data!
The first thing you will hear this morning is that COST had a 9% rise in sales, with International sales up a whopping 25%. What you are less likely to hear is that COST sells a lot of gasoline, which has doubled in price since last December and, excluding inflation in gas prices, same-store sales are up just 2%, a tremendous miss of the 7.9% expected. Out of the 25% increase in International sales, 15% is attributable to currency exchange so up 10% is the real number.
This is nothing against Costco, I like that company, but it’s a caution sign to look carefully at the retail numbers we’re going to be seeing today as there are several outside factors that are skewing the results drastically – to the point where the numbers, whether good or bad, are almost meaningless. It’s also good to keep in mind that we are comping sales to the WORST CHRISTMAS EVER so anything less than double digit gains over last year is still pretty sad.
Mish did a good job yesterday of pointing out the statistical nonsense known as the Non-Farm Payroll Report, where "Birth/Death" model revisions that were as much as 356,000 a month last year (January) make the data beyond useless for any kind of serious analysis. Nonetheless, analyze it they will and if we manage to avoid posting our 24th CONSECUTIVE month of losses, surely they will be pouring champagne on CNBC and acting like Capitalism has once again triumphed over evil (evil being people without money who still want to live with dignity).
Speaking of dignity – if you know 100 people in Nevada then, statistically, 3 of them went bankrupt this year, up 61% from last year as our economy "recovers". In Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama, just 2 of your 100 friends filed while California, surprisingly "only" had one in 66 households file for bankruptcy so you can go almost a whole day and not run into someone who lost everything in California – too bad the same can’t be said for the State overall! California needs $21Bn over the next 18 months to keep the lights on. This doesn’t seem so bad, GMAC is losing $13Bn this quarter and we’re bailing them out but if we bail out CA then NY, NJ and 47 other states will come knocking to the tune…
Friday – Is Anybody Working For the Weekend?
by Phil - October 2nd, 2009 8:28 am
Wheeee, what a ride!
Just like any good roller coaster, market plunges can be fun when you are strapped in safely and prepared for them. Our members have been so prepared we’ll have to hand our Eagle Scout badges (we don’t need no stinkin’ badges) for riding out a toppy market for two tedious weeks, which I won’t rehash here but you can go back to my Sept 19th "Wrong Way Weekly Wrap-Up" to see how hard it was to stay bearish in the face of all that "great" news that the media kept throwing at us. Nonetheless, had you followed our trading ideas in that post, you’d be a VERY happy camper right now!
Now we are down 300 points from that Friday’s finish, about halfway to our 9,100 target, which is the top 5% of our original trading range around Dow 8,650. We’d love to see 9,100 hold, especially on a nice volume sell-off so we can move our range up 5% and make 9,100 our new mid-point, putting the 33% (off the top) lines withing striking distance of a proper breakout but suddenly the news-flow has turned sharply negative. This is something I warned members about way back on August 11th, the last time I thought we were getting toppy (and we were) at Dow 9,400 when I said: "Watch the newsflow in the MSM. If it starts to get negative, look out below."
Yesterday we talked about GS’s about-face on the REIT sector and, later that day, we noted during Member chat that JPM had decided to downgrade SKS, hitting the retail sector hard in the afternoon. I called a slightly early top on Retail on 9/16, when I said to Members: "Right now all retail is being played like a huge winner, as if no segment will lose market share to another. This is amazingly stupid in a declining wages and declining consumer credit environment." RTH was $88.76 that day after running up just about 20% from July 7th so we were looking for a pullback at least to $85, but I think worse as I see nothing in the data that makes me believe in Santa Clause this year or the rally he often brings.
As you can see from David Fry’s chart of the XLY (another Retail tracker) we topped out at technical resistance and are now looking for a completion of a 5%…
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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...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the Favorites backup site
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