Thrilling Thursday – Our “One Trade” Does Good!
by Phil - January 19th, 2012 8:12 am
One trade to rule them all!
That was our goal and our one precious trade for 2012 was BAC on January 5th, buying the stock at $5.75 and selling the 2013 $5 puts and calls for $2.55 for a net $3.20/4.10 entry (see "How to Buy a Stock for a 15-20% Discount" for more on this strategy). On Tuesday afternoon, I modified the entry live on TV at about 3:45, with BAC at $6.70 and you can see the immediate reaction the stock had on my pick into the close.
BAC was $6.49 on Tuesday afternoon at the start of my interview but the 2013 $5 puts and calls were $3.10 so the net was only $3.39/4.20 – not a huge change. BAC came through on earnings this morning and is up at $7.20 pre-market and we're well on our way to our 56% profit target, now with a 30% cushion.
It's no wonder that the TV crowd jumps on my picks as my last two appearances gave them a GNW spread on 10/24 for a 127% gain and an AXP spread from 10/5 for a 140% gain. BAC was, by comparison, a fairly conservative play and that's because, as you know if you've been reading this week – I'm not entirely convinced that this rally is sustainable – but I'm feeling much better about it now that we have BAC earnings out of the way!
This is a great time to thank my friendbuddypal Jim Cramer for chasing all his sheeple out of BAC this year with his SELLSELLSELL rating – without you and your half-assed opinions Jim, we'd have to work for a living! Why just yesterday, my trade idea for Members in the morning Alert was the FAS Feb $67/70 bull call spread at $2, selling the Feb $55 puts for $1.30 for net .70 on the $3 spread but last night – Jim didn't like my bullish Financials pick:
Financials were, in fact, one of my "Secret Santa's Inflation Hedges for 2011" that were published on Christmas Day, 2010 (and you can read that post for the logic behind each trade). All 4 of those trades are done tomorrow so let's see how they performed for the year:
- 30 XHB Jan $15/18 bull call spreads at $1.40 ($4,200), selling
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DiggOptimism Detected In Plum Creek Timber Options Despite Earnings Miss
by Option Review - July 26th, 2011 4:29 pm
Today’s tickers: PCL, XLE, TIN & AEM
PCL - Plum Creek Timber Co., Inc. – Seattle, WA-based Plum Creek Timber Co. posted lower-than-anticipated second-quarter net income of $0.27 a share after the close on Monday, missing average the average analyst forecast of $0.29 a share to send the price of the underlying down as much as 4.2% today to $38.75. Put options on Plum Creek are active post-earnings, but it looks like much of the volume was generated by investors taking long-term bullish views on the stock. Trading traffic in PCL options is heaviest at the Jan. 2012 $38 strike where more than 2,700 puts changed hands against previously existing open interest of just 65 contracts. The majority of the puts exchanged at that strike appear to have been sold at an average premium of $2.32 per contract. Put sellers keep the full amount of premium received on the transaction as long as shares in Plum Creek Timber exceed $38.00 through expiration day in January. Traders short the puts have time erosion working in their favor, and may also benefit from subsiding levels of options implied volatility on the stock. Investors likely expect shares to resist above $38.00 over the next six months, but stand ready to take delivery of the stock at an effective price of $35.68 a share, on average, should the puts land in-the-money at expiration next year.
XLE - Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund – Massive prints in September contract call options covering the Energy SPDR appear to be the work of an investor adjusting a previously established bullish position on the sector. Shares in the XLE, an exchange-traded fund that tracks the performance of the Energy Select Sector of the S&P 500 Index, turned positive this afternoon to trade 0.10% higher on the day at $79.50…
TGIF – Dollar Done Diving or Destined to Drop?
by Phil - May 27th, 2011 8:19 am
It is ALL about the Dollar.
This week, the Dollar was smacked down from 76.37 on Monday to 75.04 early this morning for a 1.7% drop on the week, costing US citizens $1.7Tn of their lifetime savings in order for Goldman Sachs to close out their month on a high note as commodities, once again, skyrocketed – pushing the key wholesale price of gasoline back over $3 so gas stations could mark it up to $4 at the pump and charge US consumers $1.15 more per gallon than last year (up 41%) for an estimated $3.75Bn of additional charges levied against 150M US drivers in the next 3 days.
Hey, that’s only $25 per driver, right? That’s totally right! If you are going to steal $2.5Bn, that’s exactly the way to do it – in small amounts over and over again. If you steal $2.5Bn from one person or from several people, like Madoff, you go to jail but if you steal $25 from every family in America – you go on the cover of Forbes and get to advise the President on Economic policy!
Also, Madoff’s big mistake was robbing rich people. That’s a big no-no in America but robbing poor people is called Capitalism and, if you complain about it, you are some sort of Communist and will be thrown off the island so shut up and give us your $25! Ah, ain’t that America?
As I mentioned yesterday, we won many thousands of tanks of gas betting against $101 oil in the fake rally and this morning we picked up another .40 win in the futures as I sent out an early morning Alert to Members to short oil at $100.90 and we got a nice ride back to $100.50. 40 cents may not sound like much but the QM futures contracts pay $12.50 per penny per contact so that little move nets $812.50 per contract – that’s enough to tank up the Range Rover AND take care of the monthly lease payment!
This is why the investor class doesn’t give a damn about a $25 rise in the price of gas – we may pay $25 just like the little people but we OWN the oil companies and the refiners and the gas stations and even the commodities and we pay $25 but collect $8,000 on just 10 contracts in…
Thursday Thought – Don’t Tax Oil Companies – Nationalize Them!
by Phil - May 19th, 2011 7:08 am
I would like to report a crime.
Yesterday, $112M was stolen from US consumers. It will happen again today and probably tomorrow and that is on top of the $800 Million PER DAY that is being overcharged by oil companies in America alone, ACCORDING TO EXXON’S CEO.
That’s right, Rex Tillerson himself just testified to Congress that "based purely on supply and demand- should be in the $60 to $70 a barrel range." The reason it’s above $100 a barrel, Tillerson explained, is due to the oil majors using futures contracts to lock in current high prices, and speculation that is engineered by the high-frequency trading of quantitative hedge funds.
Other disclosures were made in last week’s testimony that may interest you:
- The average cost of producing 1 barrel of oil was $11 (THAT IS ELEVEN, NOT A TYPO!); the average price of the oil in the marketplace–$92– some 8.5 times the cost of getting the oil out of the ground.
- The profits for the big 6 oil companies was $36 billion in the year’s first quarter. A large part of the $36 billion was used to buyback shares or pay dividends to shareholders.
- The deduction for intangible drilling expenses was given to the oil industry in 1960 when a barrel was worth about $15-17. So, why do they need this favor when oil is $100 a barrel?
Clearly there is no shortage of oil, the US has 1.75Bn barrels of oil in storage, enough to offset 186 days of imports (9.4Mbd) and 60% of those imports come from Canada and Mexico, not OPEC so our 1,750 MILLION barrels of storage would offset over 500 days worth of imports from the Middle East and Africa – even if it was TOTALLY cut off.
Nonetheless, oil shot up from $95 on Tuesday to $101 this morning, costing US consumers an additional $112M per day but that’s an UNDERSTATEMENT – when we buy gasoline at $4, we are paying $168 for a 42-gallon barrel and, of course, rising oil prices also impact our home energy bills and even our food. The cost, in fact is more like $250M PER DAY per $5 increase in oil – and that is just for the US. Globally we’re over $1 Billion per day that is removed from consumer’s pockets for each $5 over that $60-70 range that the…
Energy ETF Options Portend Tough Times Ahead, but Smooth Sailing to Follow
by Option Review - May 13th, 2011 4:07 pm
Today’s tickers: XLE, LIZ, NE & CBST
XLE - Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund – Two massive transactions in XLE options today suggest nearer-term pessimism on the energy sector and longer-term optimism. Shares in the fund started the session in positive territory, but the rally proved to be short-lived as shares are currently trading 0.60% lower on the day at $73.72 just before 12:50pm. The XLE, an exchange-traded fund that corresponds to the performance of the Energy Select Sector of the S&P 500 Index, jumped to the top of our ‘most active by options volume’ market scanner this morning after a huge bull call spread was purchased outright in the September contract. The transaction is a profitable one if shares in the XLE top recent highs to trade at levels not seen since mid-2008. The options player purchased 52,750 calls at the September $79 strike for a premium of $2.23 each, and sold the same number of calls up at the September $90 strike at a premium of $0.28 apiece. Net premium paid to initiate the spread amounts to $1.95 per contract, a price tag of more than $10.28 million. Profits are available to the trader should shares in the fund surge 9.8% over the current price of $73.72 to exceed the effective breakeven point at $80.95 by September expiration. Maximum potential profits implied by the spread’s parameters amount to $9.05 per contract if the price of the underlying fund jumps 22.1% in the next four months to trade above $90.00 at expiration. Meanwhile, a large put spread purchased in the nearer-term June ‘30 expiry suggests a less rosy outlook on the energy sector over the next seven weeks. The spread was likely purchased by the investor, although direction in this case is more difficult to determine as both legs of the transaction traded to the middle of the market. The pessimistic player appears to have purchased 33,330 in-the-money puts at the June $75 strike for a premium of $3.27 each, against the sale of the same number of put options at the lower June $65 strike at a premium of $0.52 a-pop. The net cost of the spread amounts to $2.75 per contract, thus yielding profits below…
Margin Call Monday – Yuan Falls Limit Down to the Dollar
by Phil - April 25th, 2011 8:20 am
It’s amazing what the MSM ignores these days.
The PBOC raised the Yuan exchange by 0.0005 and that microscopic move set off a panic that dropped the Yuan it’s daily 0.5% limit against the Dollar – marking a huge and violent reversal to the recent trend and signaling that China’s usual tight control of their economy may be starting to unravel. Chinese banks scrambled to buy Dollars to meet a Central Bank rule that bars them from having Dollar short positions overnight but it’s doubtful that all were able to comply in that violent action.
The Shanghai Composite fell 1.5% this morning (Hong Kong was closed) but it does not show up in the charts on the WSJ’s main page nor is it mentioned on CNBC – perhaps because it conflicts with the weak-Dollar narrative they are using to drive the speculative commodity frenzy. Ignoring problems in China was a big theme of the summer of 2008 – as we rallied into the second biggest stock market collapse in history from Dow 11,000 in mid-July to 11,782 on Aug 11th and we were still testing 11,600 through Sept 1st but then things started going wrong as we broke below 11,000, then 10,000, then 9,000, then 8,000 – finally stopping at 7,500 (down 33%) on Nov 20th.
Special Report: How to Make Millions in Metal and Oil:
As I keep telling Members, we don’t have to be worried about missing a sell-off, it will be long and relentless when and if it comes as will the rise we get as inflation begins to kick in. Gold is now over $1,500 for a week and, before you waste money on gold – let’s look at an alternative: GLD is the ETF that tracks gold and, if you think Gold is going to $1,600 – rather than plunk $1,500 down on an ounce of gold to make 6.6% on a move up, you can buy the GLD $140/160 bull call spread for $790 (1 contract spread at $7.90). As GLD is currently at $146.74, that spread is currently $674 in the money and carried a $116 premium BUT – for about 1/2 the cost of an ounce of gold, if GLD gets to $160 (approximately $1,600 an ounce) then that spread is worth $2,000 – a $1,210 gain on that same $100 move up in gold!
What’s the catch?…
Fickle Friday – Google Goes Down as Costs Inflate
by Phil - April 15th, 2011 8:19 am
Well who’d have thunk it?
The cost of doing business is rising and GOOG happens to be one of those businesses that lacks pricing power as their rates are generally set through an auction process and their users have to VOLUNTEER to pay more money to advertise. Most advertisers on Google are on fixed budgets, like MSM advertisers and Google has done a great job of replicating that model. Why then, should it be surprising if a maturing Google begins to look more like a traditional media outlet than a dot com company with exploding growth?
Don’t get me wrong, we love Google long-term but we did short them as well as BIDU into Google earnings as we felt Google would disappoint enough to spook BIDU investors as well. We’re taking the short money and running and looking for some bullish plays now – the drop from $630 last month to $545 today is plenty of froth blown off the top for us to get long-term interested again. As you can see from the tag cloud of the Conference Call, growth is still there, especially in mobile display ads (Android a bit disappointing) and no major negatives. I’m not going to write a whole thing about GOOG though, there are thousands of people doing that and our Members know well enough where I stand. I’m more interested in examining the bigger picture.
We expected Q1 earnings to be rough and we’ve already seen FDX, NKE, ORCL, RIMM, FAST, FCS and AA struggle so hopefully you don’t have to be hit on the head with another whole week of earnings before you get a little more cautious. Next week we hear from C, HAL, LLY, TXN, BK, GS, INTC, IBM, SYK, USB, VMW and YHOO on Monday and Tuesday and then we’re off to the races with hundreds of companies reporting each week for the rest of the month. Our job in the first few weeks of earnings season is to get a feel for the quarter and, so far, that feeling is rough.
It’s all about inflation, of course and don’t say we didn’t warn you about that one! We went more bearish up at those 100% lines we’ve been watching and now the question really is – how bad was it? Inflation is, after all, our long-term BULLISH premise. We don’t think corporations…
Contrarian Traders Eye Call Options on Walter Investment Management Corp.
by Option Review - March 28th, 2011 4:08 pm
Today’s tickers: WAC, XLE, HIG & LLNW
WAC - Walter Investment Management Corp. – Shares in the mortgage servicer and investor dropped 12.9% today to touch down at an intraday low of $16.80 on news the company is buying Green Tree for $1.065 billion including debt. Walter Investment Management Corp. will no longer qualify as a real estate investment trust after the deal closes. The sharp decline in Walter’s shares attracted long term bullish traders to the options playing field this morning. Investors expecting WAC’s shares to make a full recovery, and potentially secure new 52-week highs ahead of September expiration, purchased out-of-the-money calls on the stock. Bulls picked up around 137 calls at the September $18 strike for an average premium of $0.98 each, and bought another 209 calls up at the September $19 strike at an average premium of $0.63 apiece. Trading traffic is heaviest at the September $20 strike where more than 3,300 calls changed hands on paltry previously existing open interest of 204 contracts. Most of the calls at the September $20 strike were purchased for an average premium of $0.43 a-pop. Call buyers profit in the event that Walter’s shares surge 21.6% to trade above the average breakeven price of $20.43 in the six months remaining to expiration. WAC’s shares were trading up at a 52-week high of $20.22 as recently as March 9, 2011. Options implied volatility on the stock spiked 32.3% higher in early-afternoon trade to arrive at 26.76% just before 12:15pm.
XLE - Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF – Investors are trading approximately 11 put options on the Energy SPDR this afternoon for each single call option in play on the fund with shares in the XLE rising 0.90% during the session to secure yet another new multi-year high of $79.40. The largest transaction on the XLE, an exchange-traded fund that tracks the performance of the Energy Select Sector of the S&P 500 Index, was initiated in the September contract. An investor positioning for an eventual pullback in…
Put Player Eyes Valassis Communications, Inc. Pullback
by Option Review - March 21st, 2011 4:28 pm
Today’s tickers: VCI, EXPR, XLE & LVS
VCI - Valassis Communications, Inc. – Shares in the media and marketing services company increased as much as 2.2% at the start of the trading day to hit an intraday high of $28.00, but relinquished much of the morning’s gains to stand just 0.20% higher on the session at $27.46 as of 12:50pm. One bearish options strategist appears to be positioning for Valassis Communications’ shares to tumble ahead of June expiration. It looks like the trader purchased a put spread, buying around 1,500 now in-the-money puts at the June $27.5 strike for a premium of $2.30 each, and selling the same number of puts at the lower June $22.5 strike at a premium of $0.50 apiece. Net premium paid to initiate the transaction amounts to $1.80 per contract and prepares the investor to make money should shares in VCI drop 6.4% from the current price of $27.46 to breach the effective breakeven point on the spread at $25.70 by expiration in June. Maximum potential profits of $3.20 per contract are available to the investor should Valassis’ shares plunge 18.1% to trade below $22.50 by June expiration.
EXPR - Express, Inc. – The specialty retailer of apparel and accessories popped up on our ‘hot by options volume’ market scanner this morning after a number of calls changed hands in the front month. Options on Express, Inc. may be more active today ahead of the firm’s fourth-quarter earnings report, which is scheduled for release ahead of the opening bell on Tuesday. Shares in Express earlier rallied 1.6% to secure an intraday high of $17.38, but slipped this afternoon to stand 0.70% lower on the session at $16.98. Options traders exchanged more than 2,400 in-the-money calls…
Bulls Position for an Energy Select Sector SPDR rally
by Option Review - March 17th, 2011 4:05 pm
Today’s tickers: XLE, MHS, GMR & DE
XLE - Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF – Signs of bullish sentiment on the XLE, an exchange-traded fund that tracks the performance of the Energy Select Sector of the S&P 500 Index, appeared in the April contract this morning with shares in the fund rising 2.6% to $75.67 by 11:15am in New York. According to a report out from Bloomberg reporter Arie Shapira, analysts at Goldman recommended buying call options on certain energy stocks, many of which are holdings in the XLE. Like-minded traders looked to Energy SPDR options today to position for a sector rally. A couple of call spreads were purchased on the ETF earlier in the session. The use of this strategy reduces the premium required to get long the closer to-the-money strike calls as opposed to buying the contracts outright. It looks like traders picked up a total of 10,000 calls at the April $79 strike for an average premium of $0.76 each, and sold the same number of calls at the April $82 strike at an average premium of $0.205 apiece. The average net cost of initiating the bullish stance amounts to $0.555 per contract. Thus, call-spreaders stand prepared to profit should the price of the underlying fund surge 5.1% to surpass the average breakeven price of $79.555 by April expiration. Investors could walk away with maximum potential profits of $2.445 per contract if shares in the XLE jump 8.4% over the current price of $75.67 to trade above $82.00 by expiration day next month. Shares in the fund last traded above $82.00 back in July 2008.
MHS - Medco Health Solutions, Inc. – The pharmacy-benefits management company drew heavy options trading volume today with its shares declining as much as 6.3% today to touch an intraday low of…
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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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