4,480.
That's the strong bounce line on the S&P 500 and we've been failing it all week and now we're failing it FOR the week and that's a big negative on the weekly charts. We predicted that we would fail the strong bounce line on Monday, when it was 4,490 (we made a lower low on Wednesday, which lowered the bar for a bounce) based on the Fundamental Outlook for the week and so far, so right, I suppose.
I'm feeling good about going to CASH!!! last month, September has not been kind and we've been finding some good bargains along the way to refresh our portfolios. Our slimmed-down LTP still made $44,533 for the month but those gains were largely offset by our too-bearish (for now) STP, which we adjusted yesterday. Of course, we didn't adjust it to be less bearish – a bit more so, if anything.
Our defense if the market goes higher will be to buy more longs. There are plenty of bargains out there as some stocks have come down quite a bit like Las Vegas Sands (LVS), which is back in the realm of reality now at $37.50, which is $28.66Bn in market cap and, before Covid, LVS was making $2.5Bn per year. I'm not suggesting we race right into this one (we just bought BYD) because China has changed the rules in Macau and, of course, Covid – but it's a good example of a stock we wouldn't have bought because it was way too high that has now become attractive again.
There are always bargains to be had – if you are patient!
Money Talk Portfolio Review: Patience is what our Money Talk Portfo is all about, as we only trade it when we're on the show – roughly once per quarter. We can't touch it otherwise so the picks have to be ROCK SOLID and we made a few changes in our last cycl – when I was on the show on September 1st (it taped on Aug 31st). We cashed out our winning positions on IBM and SKT and we added HPQ and the afore-mentioned BYD. The portfolio is down $962 for the month at $194,944 but that's up a healthy 94.9% and, best of all, we have $167,589 of lovely, lovely CASH!!!
- BYD – Brand new trade from last time and no action so still a chance to grab this $40,000 spread for net $7,362.
- GOLD – We widened this spread by dropping the long calls and GOLD has taken a turn for the worst but it's a great inflation hedge and we're still $7,500 in the money on this net $2,950 spread that has the potential to pay $30,000 at $27, which would put Gold (the metal) a bit over $2,000.
- HPQ – Another newbie and I love the bargain. It's cheaper than we bought it for with a net $2,350 credit on the $20,000 spread so that's $22,350 upside potential at $35.
- PFE – Big pullback recently but we still love them, long-term. We got in early so not worried at all.
- SPWR – If they are this low at Thanksgiving, they will be my Stock of the Year for 2022 as this is a crazy-low price for an industry leader in the solar sector with every World Government looking to move to much more solar for the rest of this decade. It's a $15,000 spread, currently at net $4,125 – easy money!
- VIAC – Or maybe this should be my stock of the year… They have got to be joking with this price but someone has had a sell program running at this level since April. Will they ever run out of shares to dump? I think so and then we are left with VIAC at a $26Bn valuation – despite making $2.6Bn for the year. Even better – they made $2.4Bn last year – this stock is Covid-proof!
Why is there so much upside potential in these stocks? Why are they all good for a new trade? Becasue these are the ones we kept BECAUSE they have great upside potential and BECAUSE we would take them all as new trades. That's how a great portfolio should look – especially a passive on that you can't adjust often.
IN PROGRESS
Good Morning.
you got your oil drop again phil congradulations
Good morning!
Holy crap the Nasdaq is power-diving!
15,400 not even bounce – very bad sign.
We call this pattern "too far, too fast".
Sorry, may not be obvious to all:
On the monthly chart, we ran from 8,000 to 12,000 (4,000) with 1,000-point (25%) pullback before going from 12,000 to 16,000 (not yet) so, even in a strong rally, we should get an 800-point pullback as a weak retracement (20% of the run) but, as we haven't had a strong retracement since 8,000 – it's very likely we pull back 1,600 points to 14,400 but 15,200 is the least we expect before rallying over 16,000 – even in a fantastic market.
Merry F'ing Christmas:
TROX/Phil – you suggested yesterday to roll the 25 long Feb $15 calls to 50 of the Jan 2024 calls for $4,000. Our call spread then will be 50 Jan 2024 $20 calls/25 Dec $20 calls. Assuming the deal with Apollo goes through at $27 (the current proposal), the Jan 2024 calls go up from 5.75 to $7 (so we end up making $3125 on 25 of those, the other 25 cancel out the Dec $20 calls); i.e. less than the $4K it took to roll them. Is your expectation that the deal price will be higher? Or that you are going to roll the 25 December calls to 50 of a later date/higher strike before the deal is announced? Won't it be better to not do anything and just cash out if the deal goes through?
W- would like your take on Wayfair as a continuing short play. I am holding 22-Jan 300/260 bear put spread (cost $20.90), now $ $20.50, so essentially b/e. Fortunately I have sold several out of the money calls (320's and 300's) all to be expired as of today so overall , nicely profitable play. So, my question is your suggestion on holding the bear put position, close it or reposition ?
Snow- Bug question- Is it true that a covid infected/recovered/non-vaxed person has the same ongoing immunity as a non infected vaxed individual?
W/Pstas – I think they will drift lower. This is a furniture store with a $29Bn market cap with just $14Bn in sales and $400M in profits and that's only because Covid has closed their competition. Shopping for furniture on-line is not likely to be a huge trend that justifies $29Bn. I would simply take the opportunity to roll the long puts out in time when it's cheap and then you can roll the short puts if you have to or, when they expire, the next sale will pay for the roll.
Nas touched 15,300 briefly.
Blame the Quad witching or blame the Dollar:
Totally buying /GC off the $1,750 line!
/SI at $22.50 too.
Future is Now Portfolio Review: $194,472 (up 94.5%) is up $5,245 since our last review and is flat for the day, despite the Nasdaq's steep decline. That's a good sign and we killed JETS but we loved our other positions and we even added KRBN as a new trade (just the short puts for now).
We love these positions but this portfolio requires some patience as we're playing large macro trends – not short-term catalysts.
Thanks Phil for the updates and the big effort that goes into it.
I have a starter position on WU of 500 shares + 5 short puts. It is relentlessly going south. What's your take long term for them?
WU/Jeddah – This is their current issue:
Sounds worse than it is but absolute nightmare for them if it starts spreading.
Russell pulled it back together and went green.
The Bug/pstas – not sure if the data's solid enough to say, especially on the population level. You'd need a bunch of covid infected/recovered/non-vaxed people to compare to a bunch of non infected vaxed individual for breakthrough infections. Given how rare breakthrough infections are, that's challenging. However, lab data and tentative epidemiologic data seem to say immune levels are similar in those groups. An interesting tidbit, though – apparently if you vaccinate previously infected people, they have a stronger immune response than anyone else. Who knows if that means anything on a population level, though.
Snow-Bug- thx. We have answers which then leads to more questions, rinse and repeat. That's why I still cringe at the "science is settled" meme as challenging convention is the whole point?
speaking of MGI, see the unusual activity in the 2023 calls
in july there was some talk of a takeover
I mentioned AES a few days ago. There was a recent $700K insider buy from a director and the stock has been green since then
* I'm not recommending to buy anything. See Phil's note about lines above
Dividend Portfolio Update: $394,862 is up 97.4% overall and up $4,810 since our last review where we killed off short puts on F, M and SPG but added more short puts on TWO. We added full plays on KHC and LYB as well. This is also a very low-touch portfolio and, in the interest of time, I won't have much to say as we wait for a clear indication of market direction.
Earnings Portfolio Review: $308,931 is up 208.9% overall and up $7,028 since our last review, so I guess we're on the right track. The Earnings Portfolio is self-hedging, with the SQQQ position but, wisely, we use it to sell calls against as well. We are almost all cash, which is fantastic – so we are ready to do a bit of bargain-hunting as we only have 6 positions using net $17,585 in cash – yet still they made $7,028 in the past month. Aren't options fun? We cashed out INTC and X positions and short puts on HBI and WBA as they were both too far in the money to keep risking.
Butterfly Portfolio Review: This is what happens when we let our positions run (compound interest). Unlike our other portfolios, the Butterfly Portfolio has been running since Jan of 2018 and, at $1,240,427, it's up 520.2% overall and up $66,060 since our last review. Flat markets are great for the Butterfly positions, as we sell premium puts and calls and both sides go worthless in a flat market. We made a lot of moves to sell more premium last month and we're pretty well set into January.
Wow, missed it by a couple of minutes but we got them all done!
Crappy close – even the Russell fell back to red.
Phil
Are we still in NAK ?
Thanks
qc yes still in the lottery of Nak.
NAK/QC – If they ever get approved they go right to $5.