Phil you are great, and not only is your market info spot on but you have the courage to call it like it is and write about it in a great tone.
Flanger
Phil - DIA 107 Calls. As suggested I am taking the money and running to home depot for some shelter supplies! This is the grand finale of several successful trades from you through this roller-coster and as you have further suggested it is time for me to sit back and relax in cash. May even be able to talk my wife into the premium membership after these intelligent trades in a stupid market.
DOStrade
I have been with this site since the beginning and i have learned more the past 3 years than the previous 10. Information and great commentary are abound. The traders on the site are second to none and my portfolio has benefited greatly.
Kustomz
CZR – well that was fun! Opened the play yesterday. As the arb premium was now almost all gone from the box spread today, I just decided to close it. The rundown, after all commissions: my net was $183.51 profit for an overnight trade tying up $2000 margin in an IRA account. That's a 9% overnight return (3200% annualized!) …And all that learning, too! Thanks PSW!
Scottmi
PSW – Price/Value; The value of PSW on a regular basis exceeds by far the price of the annual subscription. The edition of February 26 'Which Way Wednesday – Popping or Topping?', – priceless for the serious investor.
Winston
I love volatile days like this when you can make a bunch of money on these big swings. As long as you have Phil on your side calling the bottoms and the tops of course.
craigsa620
Aapl/Phil
Thanks for your advice, always appreciated.
So, not so much a tax issue, but more to protect against a 5% or greater drop.
Here is what I did before their earnings…sold 25% of my stock at 147.50
Against the rest, I sold the June $140 calls for $8.25, protecting down to $140 if needed.
And just for fun, I bought the weekly $145 puts for $1.50( small price to pay if they bombed on earnings)
So, overall, I am happy with the insurance I was able to 'generate' for 1% of the price of stock.
Now, depending on what happens, I have the luxury of deciding and being in the driver's seat with respect to whether to sell and buy your spreads or not.
Having done all that meandering, I must say it was fun!
More important, I could not have done something like that 2 or 3 years ago and reading and thinking about your teachings has been a tremendous asset.
Thanks!
Maya1
TBT - Many thanks, Phil. I join you in your opinion favoring the Jan expirations. That's a great play. I can never thank you enough for what I have gained educationally as well as monitarily. Here it is late Sunday evening and I am able to get world class advice, just by asking for it. I feel like I am staying in a 5 star hotel, and room service is just a telephone call away!
Gel1
Thanks, after years of blood and blunders, I have reached a significant milestone – I don't lose money. Net net, I rarely have a losing week, market up, market down. And that I owe to you. Balanced positions. More premium sold than bought. Fundamental criteria applied to good companies, not momentum/ news headlines/ stock du jour/ triangle squeezies. But rather earnings, P/E, dividends, competitive position — the boring stuff that takes study, thought,….and patience. You have been a great teacher, and I have embarassed myself repeatedly day with how slowly I learn.
And it's a funny thing – if you don't lose, the gains start to pile up. The arithmetic is cruel to the downside, and becomes a gift in the other direction. And I'm in this for the long run, having made myself unemployable through a need for diversification. Moreover, what I've learned here has also elided into other areas, including real estate and ex-U.S. investment. Pretty cool. Have a great weekend.
Zeroxzero
Praising PSW for enlightenment is a bit akin to praising the Pope for being holy. I've been reading PSW for about two months now and have learned more about investing technique and the world in general than I've learned from the books and seminars I've paid for. Thanks for the enlightenment, the education, the guidance and the truth, which is not a commodity these days, but a virtue in short supply.
Andy Morris
I have been a member off and on for years. Using these techniques I do consistently beat the S&P 500. Phil's Stock World has been the most important site in my financial life. It's impact on me over the past years has been huge. As have my tax bills!
Knightpilot
Phil, I wanted to thank you for all of your teaching, advice, and guidance. Because of you I don't chase, don't worry about missed chances, and play things much more selectively. Yesterday's /ES and /TF and today /CL are my first futures plays of the month. Thanks Phil. (Out of /TF and /ES yesterday with a nice gain)
Japarikh
I would like to thank Phil and PSW crew for the insight and assistance (even the liberals).
In December I initiated long stock positions buying stock, writing calls and puts in AAPL, WFR and CHK (scaling in and out). Over the last week I have been trimming back my positions selling stock and taking out my callers and putters. I am now back to my initial 25% position that I started with in December. However this time, my cost basis on shares AAPL, WFR, and CHK is $0! With money to spare from those positions.
Texasmotion
Well I want to thank P. Davis for his style and for the fact that he affirmed my thoughts for a correction. He was right and his confirmation of my bias saved me thousands. Mr. Davis is amoral when it comes to money. He realizes the poor are screwed but we must fight to win. A measure of sarcasm and dark humour and it is great reading. 100% right on the correction.
Chaffey
I am an investor, not a trader. The information at Phil's World is top-notch and always relevant. It is great to see your website thriving.
Prof
I have followed a lot of Phil's picks over the last several years and made money using the exact option strategies he outlines. Of all the contributors on SA, he offers the most actual and ready to implement advice that has put money in my account. Many of us on SA actually are sad when we don't see Phil's postings for an extended period.
Brenteaz
Phil: I loaded up big time yesterday on your suggestion of the AMZN September 75 naked puts. They are up 43%!
Gel1
Phil
Killed it tonight trading copper. Anyone who jumped in right after election is up about 75k on one contract!
Thanks
Kapella
I have to say, hands down, this is one of the best educational experiences I've had in my life. I've even gotten my wife (accountant) into the webinars and she wants to master this concept of selling premium and making smart, conservative investment decisions. She'll eventually use this knowledge to manage her clients' wealth and make smart investment choices for them. Bib big thanks Phil!!
AmalfiCoast
Phil, thanks for the call on the SKF puts earlier, I'm riding that horsie downhill right now, giddyup!
MrMocha
Phil I must say that it was really nice to have a portfolio that was looking very stable in the face of a rough day for the markets. I ended the day up 0.3% which includes another successful day of futures trading. So with a portfolio of mostly cash, a few of our faves like Apple and LL, JO, TOL, DIS, etc., along with a couple of hedges that paid off nicely today, and my futures trades, I never had to break a sweat during that madhouse today. Yes, by George (or Phil), I may be learning this system!
Craig
Wow, Phil, we pretty much made your levels.
Your levels:
Dow 7,404, S&P 775, Nas 1,466, NYSE 4,839 and RUT 402
My sceen is showing:
Dow 7,404, S&P 777, Nas 1,462, NYSE 4,868 and RUT 404
Jordan
Sold the BG puts I got yesterday at $1.30 for $2 just now. Might be a little early, but I'm happy with that gain. Thanks Phil.
Smasher
HOTT / Got great trades with it: Enter 6.75 at open, out at 7.18 (avg) at 10:13
Reentered at 7.00 and out all 7.11 few minutes ago- Was a small play but I collected enoght for next month PSW subscription.
Spider
Phil// Cashing out of my LT holdings have been going on for over two weeks. However, I have elected not to cash all of the holdings including my AAPL, Jan 16 Short Puts at $470 and $480. Plus, I am being opportunistic in selectively putting on those positions for beat down stocks by selling 2016 Puts. That said, YTD harvested profits now stand at $135k on a current account balance of $683K or a 19.81% YTD return. Thanks for your expertise in teaching me how to be patient, be the banker, but also not being greedy, cashing out and harvesting profits.
IHS4GOD
I doubled down on our USO June $35 puts on Tuesday afternoon and listened to your posting yesterday and sold 1/2 midday and the rest I sold (luckily) at the top of the market yesterday with the last 1/4 of my contracts at 100% return in less than one day!
Samlawyer
What a quarter! (AAPL, etc.) "People react; PSW'ers anticipate." Thanks everyone for a vibrant board.
Silentstorm
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
You guys gotta give it to phil–the voice of reason yesterday, last nite and this morning.
Corleone
/NKD- Kownichiwa Cowboy!! One week of patience and scaling in and out pays off. This is a testament to Phil's fundamental analysis with the PSW technique. Thanks Phil.
When I was a kid I played ‘Pong’ and ‘Space Invaders’ and Coleco Football and Mattel ‘Intellivision’.
In college I stopped.
Maybe if there were smartphones and no women, I would still be a ‘gamer’, but my generation was looking up not down.
I found the markets because I needed a first job and I was hooked.
It has been a battle of wits and behavior since. The markets have brought me to panic and fear on many occasions but mostly they bring me joy.
I have no time or energy for the grind of ‘poker’ which so many of my friends tell me to try, or any video or mobile games. I do see Rachel playing mobile smartphone games while watching Netflix shows.
I have spent the last year mostly at home and staring at my laptop so I have been happily fascinated by the insane growth in new investors/traders and the investor in me continues to wonder what is next.
Gaming is such a part of the human life experience, but as a non gamer it is very hard for me to participate in the mega trend because I don’t use the products. Between Tencent, Riot, xBox, Nintendo, Skillz, Zynga, Roblox, Playtika…I have no idea how to analyze the sector and opportunities.
The great thing about the markets as I think about the gaming platforms is the markets have basically one playing field…price and volume. Of course there are tickers and now a whole world of decentralized tickers and exchanges, but it is still just one giant platform of tickers and prices and fundamentals and opinions and behavior and wit.
I think this ‘game’ of the markets is more a game than ever because onboarding is so much easier and fractional ownership allows for people to play the game in a much more enjoyable way.
So while everyone is yelling that the markets and stocks are overvalued and due for a long bear market and that this ‘bubble’ will pop I am contemplating the idea that we just have a massive supply/demand imbalance and the game creators (bankers and founders and venture capitalists and SPACers) need to create more supply. They are of course.
The federal government’s core civilian workforce has long been known for its professionalism. About 2.1 million nonpartisan career officials provide essential public services in such diverse areas as agriculture, national parks, defense, homeland security, environmental protection and veterans affairs.
Less than two weeks before Election Day, Donald Trump signed an executive order that threatens to return the U.S. to a spoils system in which a large share of the federal government’s workforce could be fired for little or no reason – including a perceived lack of loyalty to the president.
While President Joe Biden appears likely to reverse the order, its effects may not be so easily undone. And he may have his own reasons for keeping it temporarily in place.
People seeking government jobs crashed the White House on the day of Andrew Jackson’s inauguration.Library of Congress
Birth of the spoils system
The government of the early republic was small, but the issue of whether civil servants should be…
Senator Ron Wyden at Senate Finance Committee Hearing, January 19, 2021
The mood among Democrats in Washington was captured at the Senate Finance Committee’s confirmation hearing on Tuesday for former Fed Chair Janet Yellen to become the new Treasury Secretary. Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and the Ranking Member of the Committee (who is expected to become the new Chair), said this in his opening remarks:
“This is the second time in 12 years that a Republican President leaves office with the economy in ruins. Today there’s also a surging pandemic and armed troops guarding our Capitol from far-right insurrectionist attack. The Biden administration isn’t going to begin with inaugural balls; it’s going to begin with all-out triage.”
Wyden also made clear that he doesn’t intend to be bullied into the same failed strategy that governed the response to the Wall Street implosion of 2008. Wyden stated:
“My top economic priority going forward is avoiding the mistake Congress made in the last recession – which was taking a foot off the gas pedal before recovery took hold. Congress didn’t do enough in 2009 to help the unemployed and struggling homeowners. If stepping off the gas wasn’t bad enough, two years later House Republicans passed policies that yanked out the spark plugs and let the air out of the tires, as well. In Oregon, it took seven and a half years for unemployment to return to its pre-recession level. That cannot happen again, or else millions and millions of people will go through years of needless hardship. Some will never recover the lives that they had prior to the pandemic.”
Senator Maria Cantwell at January 19, 2021 Senate Finance Committee Confirmation Hearing for Janet Yellen as Treasury Secretary
Joe Biden got a big judicial win for his climate agenda just hours before his inauguration as U.S. president. The case involved plans for cutting power plant emissions and a big gamble by the Trump administration.
Nearly a third of the U.S. carbon emissions driving climate change come from electricity generation. To try to cut those emissions, the Obama administration in 2014 issued the Clean Power Plan – a set of rules targeting high-emitting power plants, particularly those burning coal.
The industry sued, and before the Clean Power Plan could go into effect, the Supreme Court suspended it so the legal disputes could be resolved. It was still in limbo in 2019 when Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency formally repealed the Clean Power Plan and issued an extremely weak substitute called the Affordable Clean Energy rule that had far looser limits on pollution.
In issuing its own rule, the Trump administration took a big gamble. Trump’s goal was not only to replace the Obama administration rule but to ensure that no future president could ever adopt anything similar.
Trump’s substitute rule merely required limited retrofits of existing coal fired power plants, whereas Obama’s rule involved moving the power system toward cleaner energy sources. To prevent similar future actions, Trump’s EPA placed all its chips on an argument that EPA had no legal power to do anything beyond the retrofits.
The most significant investing trends over the last 10 years can be summarized as follows…
1. Large Caps over Small Caps.
2. US over International.
3. Growth over Value.
4. Tech over Everything.
5. Long Duration over Short Duration (Yields Falling, Curve Flattening).
6. Stocks over Commodities.
7. When Covid-19 first hit the US last February and March, all of these pre-existing trends accelerated.
And that made perfect sense.
The narrative: a global Depression coming, and during a Depression a) large companies were more likely to survive than smaller companies, b) the US should do better than much of the world given the enormous monetary/fiscal stimulus, c) growth companies would be bid up in a world starved for it, d) technology would thrive as people were forced to stay at home, e) bond yields would plummet as deflationary pressures took hold, and f) commodities would crash from the lack of demand.
These narratives seemed inevitable, and prices were confirming.
But then, with no advance warning, a strange thing started happening. One by one, these trends began to reverse course…
Take the time to read because it is excellent and you will have an idea of the subtle changes we are keeping an eye on, but the gist of the research on these big trend changes is as follows:
When secular trends reverse, no bell is rung, and no one can believe that a shift has actually occurred.
But as narratives follow prices, the longer they are sustained, the more the story changes and the more people believe it.
That has already begun, with the current narrative of a Depression averted, with a) small companies benefitting more from stimulus measures than their larger counterparts, b) global stocks benefitting from a falling dollar
Forecasting how the economy will perform under a new president is generally a fool’s errand. How much or how little credit the person in the White House deserves for the health of the economy is a matter of debate, and no economist can confidently predict how the president’s policies will play out – if they even go into effect – or what challenges might emerge.
Regardless, voters tend to believe it makes a difference. And going into the election, 79% of registered voters – and 88% of Donald Trump supporters – said the economy was their top concern. Given that, historical data suggests that those who are concerned with the economy have reason to be fairly satisfied with the election results: The economy generally fares better under Democratic presidents.
Inheriting a struggling economy
Biden inherits an economy with serious problems. Things have improved markedly since last spring, but the economy remains in a dire state.
The FBI has asked the public for help in collecting evidence surrounding the siege at the Capitol on January 6 — an insurrection that left five people dead, dozens injured, and Congressional members’ offices ransacked and laptops stolen. The violent scenes at the Capitol played out live on TV, humiliating the United States around the world. The world will watch President-Elect Joe Biden’s inauguration today, surrounded by 25,000 National Guard Troops in Washington, D.C. These images will further undermine the standing of the United States among world leaders.
Because the FBI seems to have ignored for decades the serial warning signs regarding Charles Koch, Koch Industries and their intrusions into elections, we’re providing the FBI a simple and clear roadmap today.
Charles Koch is the billionaire Chairman and CEO of Koch Industries, one of the largest private corporations in the world. Koch Industries is a conglomerate with interests in fossil fuels, refineries, chemicals, paper products and extensive trading operations. For the past forty years, Charles Koch has been involved in a stealthy network of front groups that seek to gut the federal government of its regulatory functions and kill off popular federal programs like the U.S. Post Office, Social Security and Medicare.
To understand the full scope of Koch’s involvement in the events of January 6, let’s first remember what actually fomented the attack on the Capitol. It was based on the Big Lie that the election had been stolen from Donald Trump through voter fraud — something that Trump’s own cyber security chief, Chris Krebs, and Attorney General, William Barr, dismissed as lacking a factual basis. The playbook for the Capitol attack on January 6 was to intimidate Republican members of the Senate and House into refusing to certify the election results, thus withholding the Presidency from Joe Biden.
These are the red flags that lead to the doorstep of Charles Koch and Koch Industries and should play a significant role in any serious investigation conducted by Congress, the FBI, or U.S. intelligence agencies.
Small businesses got absolutely decimated by the economic shutdown. It’s no surprise, therefore, that small stocks also led the decline. The S&P 500 had a peak-to-trough decline of 34%, whereas the Russell 2000 fell 41% and the even smaller Russell Micro Cap index fell 43%.
Over the last few weeks and months, however, all that was lost was made up and then some. It’s hard to believe, but over the last year, microcap stocks have done twice as well as large-cap stocks. Given that small businesses are still in a world of pain, generally speaking, the market must be discounting a combination of continued fiscal stimulus and a reopening of the economy.
I wanted to look under the hood to see what’s driving the returns in small stocks. The answer, mostly everything. 83% of stocks in the Russell 2000 have positive returns over the last 6 months.
Here’s a wild data point: The top 10 stocks by market cap in the Russell 2000 are up 160% on average over the last 6 months. Over the last 6 months, the index is up 26%.
How is it possible that the 10 biggest stocks have done six times as well as the index? Because unlike the S&P 500, the Russell 2000 does not have any concentration issues.
Please allow me to explain what you’re about to see. I tried creating a pie chart of the Russell 2000 to compare it with the S&P 500, but since the slices are so thin, it just didn’t work. You could only see a quarter of the chart and the rest was just white space. In order to correct for this, I sorted by alphabetical order. Feast your eyes.
The takeaway for me is that the Russell 2000 is way more diversified than the S&P 500.
1% of the S&P 500 make up nearly a quarter of the index. The Russell 2000 also exhibits a top-heavy construction, but not nearly to the extent that large-cap stocks do. 5% of the index holds a quarter of the market cap.
Josh and I got into this and much more in the latest episode of What Are Your Thoughts?
By Jacob Wolinsky. Originally published at ValueWalk.
(Chicago IL, January 21, 2021) Today, lawyers representing victims of Pegasus Flight 2193, announced that a lawsuit was filed against The Boeing Company and the aircraft owner. The lawsuit asserts claims of Negligence, Product Liability, and Breach of Warranty regarding a Boeing aircraft that crashed in Istanbul, Turkey.
On February 5, 2020, a commercial flight operated by Pegasus Airlines was scheduled to depart from Izmir Adnan Menderes Airport and arrive in Istanbul-Sabiha Gökçen ...
While essentially placing sole blame on Trump and his top officials, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in the latest press briefing remarks that "kind angels can triumph over evil forces" in America.
"In the past years, the Trump administration, especially (former Secretary of State Mike) Pompeo, has laid too many mines that need to be removed, burned too many...
Since the 2000 tech bubble and crash, tech stocks have regained their leadership form. Especially large-cap tech stocks.
Headlines have varied in focus from the “4 horseman” to “FANG” and “FANGE”, but one thing remains: Large-cap tech stocks have been the bull market leader.
So what about when large-cap tech lags the market? Not so good.
In today’s chart, we look at a “monthly” chart of the performance ratio of the Nasdaq 100 Index to the Nasdaq Composite. It’s basically a look at how large-cap tech stocks perform against the broader tech stocks world.
This regularly updated infographic keeps track of the countries with the most confirmed Covid-19 cases. The United States is still at the top of the list, with a total now exceeding the 22 million mark, according to Johns Hopkins University figures. The total global figure is now over 85 million, while there have been more than 1.9 million deaths.
Bitcoin achieved a remarkable rise in 2020 in spite of many things that would normally make investors wary, including US-China tensions, Brexit and, of course, an international pandemic. From a year-low on the daily charts of US$4,748 (£3,490) in the middle of March as pandemic fears took hold, bitcoin rose to ju...
Our Adaptive Fibonacci Price Modeling system is suggesting a moderate price peak may be already setting up in the NASDAQ while the Dow Jones, S&P500, and Transportation Index continue to rally beyond the projected Fibonacci Price Expansion Levels. This indicates that capital may be shifting away from the already lofty Technology sector and into Basic Materials, Financials, Energy, Consumer Staples, Utilities, as well as other sectors.
This type of a structural market shift indicates a move away from speculation and towards Blue Chip returns. It suggests traders and investors are expecting the US consumer to come back strong (or at least hold up the market at...
The numbers of new cases in some of the hardest hit COVID19 states have started to plateau, or even decline, over the past few days. A few pundits have noted it and concluded that it was a hopeful sign.
Is it real or is something else going on? Like a restriction in the numbers of tests, or simply the inability to test enough, or are some people simply giving up on getting tested? Because as we all know from our dear leader, the less testing, the less...
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...
When I was a kid I played ‘Pong’ and ‘Space Invaders’ and 
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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...
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