Author Archive for OptionSage
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3 Steps to Successful Investing

by - June 12th, 2016 7:44 am

In the words of Warren Buffett’s mentor, Benjamin Graham:

“Investing does not require genius. What it needs is, first, reasonably good intelligence; second, sound principles of operation, third, and most important, firmness of character.”

Since the first item on Graham’s list – “intelligence” – simply means the ability to read, add and subtract, we can skip quickly to “sound principles of operation.” This is where most investors come to a grinding halt, and with good reason. Survey the financial landscape and you will be bombarded with a plethora of investment vehicles including stocks, bonds, options, futures, forex, treasuries, municipals and so forth. Not only is it a challenge to figure out where to begin but, within each choice, the challenge is to figure out what system to apply! So how do you choose?

Follow those that have successfully traversed the rugged terrain already.  Even the man considered to be the greatest investor of all time, Warren Buffett, had a mentor!  At PSW, we love to educate as well as enrich.  In numerous comments and articles, Phil expounds “sound principles of operation”, meaning a system of trading that has consistently worked for him.  The reason the system has been successful is it evolves with the market! 

Although this is a simple concept most fail to trade this way.  Most investors simply sell losing positions and suffer from emotional trading.  In contrast, the approach Phil and I take is to modify our positions as necessary to account for changing trends or unexpected surprises.  We had a great conversation recently about how so many will simply “give up” on a position when in reality there is just no need.  With a little patience, positions can often be turned around and virtual portfolios made profitable.

While the goal of the Short-Term Portfolio is often to make attractive gains over the short-term, Phil’s contingency should a position move against him is to offset an unexpected trend with appropriate options in order to salvage a trade (see "Stupid Option…
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Posted in Appears on main page, Immediately available to public | 1 Comment »



Portfolio Margin – Useful and Dangerous Leverage

by - February 7th, 2009 9:16 am

 

Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand and I will move the entire Earth

 - Archimedes

 

 Margin Basics

Whether you examine the property portfolio of a real estate tycoon or the portfolio of a successful private equity company, you will find a common thread that magnifies returns for each… leverage!  It is no different in the stock market.  In fact, each of us who trades options takes advantage of the leverage they afford us every day.

Leverage simply means using financial instruments, or borrowed capital, such as margin, to increase the potential return of an investment. 

Since we spend our days on the member's site discussing leverage through options, the use of margin sometimes gets less attention than it should, so here’s a quick refresher:

 1.You CAN use margin (borrow from your broker) to purchase stock.

2. You CANNOT use margin to purchase options but there are MARGIN REQUIREMENTS for certain spread positions that we like to take.

This is intuitive when you think about the movements of options relative to those of stocks.  Options can move by 20%, 50%, 100% or more on any given day, even if the underlying stocks move just a fraction of those amounts.  In fact, the frequency with which a stock will drop 50% in price in a very short time period is so low that brokers are currently willing to lend you your entire cash reserves to purchase stock.

Example

If you were to deposit $100,000 in your account, you can borrow another $100,000 from your broker to purchase more stock.  This is represented in our account as follows:

Cash:  $100,000

Stock Buying Power:  $200,000

Option Buying Power: $100,000

Let’s assume we purchase 2,000 shares of a $100 stock, costing us $200,000.  If the stock doubles in value to $200, our $200,000 turns into $400,000 and since we borrowed $100,000 from our broker, we can pay that back with interest and keep…
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Posted in Appears on main page, Education, Immediately available to public | 2 Comments »



The Dawn Breaks…

by - January 19th, 2009 11:47 pm

The hammer dropped Thursday.  The market held firm Friday.  And this next week will be seen in retrospect as the week the market bottomed out and started to rise again – at least for quarter 1 2009. 

Detractors might argue that Circuit City is laying off thousands and Bank of America might be closing locations and commercial real estate is dead and shopping malls are vacant and….

And it may all be true.  But the beauty of integrating fundamental and economic analysis with technical and sentimental analysis is that the big picture appears.  The fundamentals of many stocks are certainly impaired.  Even Kudlow will find it hard to argue in favor of a bullish economy.  But the sentiment is changing.  Watch the VIX over the next few months.  I anticipate it will be lower by March than where it is now even if not within the next few days.  And the technical charts tell stories once you know how to read them.  The news is reflected in the charts and the story the charts tell is bullish.  The markets should go higher in the next few months. 

Can I be certain?  With 100% probability, no!  But actions speak louder than words.  And as the dawn breaks on the coming week I plan on backing the rhetoric with purchases and those purchases shall be on the SSO to amplify the expected gains.  And what of Gold…Gold goes higher too.  Time to get on board the train to $1,000/oz.

To confidently predict direction is not enough.  I need to know I can figure out how to protect myself if I am wrong.  That’s how I made money in 2008 when most lost their shirts.  All you need is a system that works.  And the system I use I also teach.  If you’re interested you too can thrive and prosper.



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Bankster Quotations

by - January 17th, 2009 1:47 am

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."  Thomas Jefferson
 
"I sincerely believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.  The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs"  Thomas Jefferson
 
"History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance" James Madison
  
"Most americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international moneylenders…the accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited.  It operates outside the control of congress and manipulates the credit of the United States." Sen Barry Goldwater
 
"Neither a borrower nor a lender be" (Shakespeare)
 
"The Federal Reserve definitely caused the Great Depression by contracting the amount of currency in circulation by one third from 1929 to 1933"  Milton Friedman
 
"If our nation can issue a dollar bond it can issue a dollar bill.  The element that makes the bond good make the bill good also.  The difference between the bond and the bill is the bond lets money brokers collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20% whereas the currency pays nobody but those who contribute directly in some useful way"  Thomas Edison
 
"It is absurd to say that our country can issue $30m in bonds and not $30m in currency.  Both are promises to pay, but one promise fattens the usurers and the other helps the people"  Thomas Edison
 
"We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled governments in the civilized world – no longer a government of free opinion, no longer a government..by a vote of majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men" President Woodrow Wilson
 
"The Federal Reserve Board has pumped so many billions of dollars into Germany that they dare not name the total"  Senator Louis McFadden prior to

…
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Danger + Opportunity

by - December 20th, 2008 2:19 pm

 

As 2007 drew to a close, Phil predicted ‘Asian-style’ moves in US indexes and I wrote an article projecting 2008 would be a very difficult year to trade due to ‘unprecedented volatility’. As 2008 draws to a close it looks like both predictions were realized but pleasure does not necessarily accompany vindication. As John Maynard Keynes wrote: 
“It is usually better to be conventionally wrong than unconventionally right”
In short, when you are right about bad news, little benefit is experienced because so many will have suffered whereas being wrong with the crowd means comfort in numbers.
As I watched CNBC’s Year in Review last night I was struck by how many times the commentators noted that nobody could have foreseen the carnage. In fact, many were anticipating a recovery in the middle of the year including Hank Paulson! When history judges such projections unfavorably, credibility quickly diminishes. And in the financial industry, credibility is more important than almost any other criterion. With the credibility of so many in tatters, the onus is on you the individual to acquire the financial knowledge necessary to protect your own virtual portfolio and to anticipate the future based on facts rather than on opinions.
For example, if we were to evaluate the current economic situation with that of the 1930s we might find interesting comparisons that would lead us to be concerned about the future. For example, the 1930s manufacturing based economy has largely been replaced by a services economy, home owners have been replaced by home borrowers, a national surplus has been replaced by a national deficit, and a reliance on saving has been replaced by a reliance on credit. Counter arguments could be made such as the US, unlike many countries which have experienced economic turmoil, has a substantial capability to be self-sufficient, university education is world class, and an indomitable spirit of optimism pervades the culture.
This same spirit can be the catalyst to success in spite of the perils that may lie ahead. It is well known that in Chinese the word crisis is written as a composition of symbols representing ‘danger’ and ‘opportunity’. But preparation is a pre-requisite to taking advantage of opportunity. So, although the danger may be high, opportunities will present for those who are prepared. And to truly be prepared one must

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Posted in Education, Immediately available to public | No Comments »



Danger + Opportunity

by - December 20th, 2008 2:16 pm

 As 2007 drew to a close, Phil predicted ‘Asian-style’ moves in US indexes and I wrote an article projecting 2008 would be a very difficult year to trade due to ‘unprecedented volatility’. As 2008 draws to a close it looks like both predictions were realized but pleasure does not necessarily accompany vindication. As John Maynard Keynes wrote: 

“It is usually better to be conventionally wrong than unconventionally right”
In short, when you are right about bad news, little benefit is experienced because so many will have suffered whereas being wrong with the crowd means comfort in numbers.
As I watched CNBC’s Year in Review last night I was struck by how many times the commentators noted that nobody could have foreseen the carnage. In fact, many were anticipating a recovery in the middle of the year including Hank Paulson! When history judges such projections unfavorably, credibility quickly diminishes. And in the financial industry, credibility is more important than almost any other criterion. With the credibility of so many in tatters, the onus is on you the individual to acquire the financial knowledge necessary to protect your own virtual portfolio and to anticipate the future based on facts rather than on opinions.
For example, if we were to evaluate the current economic situation with that of the 1930s we might find interesting comparisons that would lead us to be concerned about the future. For example, the 1930s manufacturing based economy has largely been replaced by a services economy, home owners have been replaced by home borrowers, a national surplus has been replaced by a national deficit, and a reliance on saving has been replaced by a reliance on credit. Counter arguments could be made such as the US, unlike many countries which have experienced economic turmoil, has a substantial capability to be self-sufficient, university education is world class, and an indomitable spirit of optimism pervades the culture.
This same spirit can be the catalyst to success in spite of the perils that may lie ahead. It is well known that in Chinese the word crisis is written as a composition of symbols representing ‘danger’ and ‘opportunity’. But preparation is a pre-requisite to taking advantage of opportunity. So, although the danger may be high, opportunities will present for those who are prepared. And to truly be prepared one must have the knowledge necessary to

…
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A MUST Read!

by - October 3rd, 2008 11:06 pm

"Life will teach you the lessons, it’s up to you to learn them"  

Don’t read any further if you are happy with your trading results this year.

If you know in your heart you could have done better trading this year then you MUST learn a lesson from your trading performance.  You MUST or are you are destined to repeat it again.  And if it feels painful the first time, it will feel much more painful next time around!  The lesson you MUST learn is simple but immensely powerful; it is truly a paradigm shift in trading. 

You MUST learn to adjust your trades to the market trend.  That’s it.  If you understand what that means and how to successfully execute, read no further.

What does this ‘adjusting’ really mean?  It means no longer buying and hoping, it means no longer is a binary trading system appropriate; binary meaning no longer will you win if you are right and lose if you are wrong.  What if you could screw up on picking the direction and still win??  Well, you can when you know how to ‘adjust’  to the market trend. 

The power of knowing how to successfully and competently adjust is immeasurable.  At the very least what it accomplishes is ZERO fear and ZERO greed.  When you pre-define your risk and reward levels prior to every trade AND know exactly what Contingency Exit Plan you should execute EVEN if you are wrong, you reach a trading level few will ever conceive of - let alone reach. 

You can learn how to do this from the masters but the knowledge is guarded by most and the cost to learn is usually very expensive because you will rarely be told everything at first (and will be charged more to learn the rest!).

So, why am I telling you all this?  Because I paid the price.  I learned a most powerful trading system of adjustments which I am confident is truly the last trading system anybody needs to know.  I learned it so well, I was invited to start hedge funds and teach around the world.  But as the days went by this past year and I realized how tough trading was for many friends and how they were losing their shirts I decided I had to get the knowledge to everyone without them paying crazy fees. 

And then BAM!  Like lightning the idea came to me and I started Stock…
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Posted in Education | 11 Comments »



Trivia Time!

by - August 18th, 2008 11:37 pm

Let’s say you decide to deposit $100,000 into a brokerage account.  You decide you will check your virtual portfolio on a weekly basis.  Now let’s further assume that the first week has passed and you are about to log in to your account.  But before you do, you are told that one of two things has happened in the past week.

[1]  Your virtual portfolio went up $10,000 and then dropped $10,000

[2]  Your virtual portfolio went up 10% and then dropped 10%.

So, the trivia question is:  In case [1], what should you expect your account value to be and is that the same figure as in case [2]?

If you answered $100,000 in case [1], you would be absolutely correct!  If you answered that this is the same as in case [2] you would be absolutely incorrect!  Why?  Well let’s take a look at what happens when the virtual portfolio rises 10% first; it goes from $100,000 to $110,000.  But then we’re told it drops 10%.  10% of $110,000 is $11,000.  So the virtual portfolio drops from $110,000 to $99,000. 

Now how can this help us in our trading decisions?  In its simplest form, this tells us that if we were to simply buy stocks that over the long run had a tendency to rise up substantially and fall down substantially ie starting at 0% and rising up and ultimately falling back to 0%, the volatility is impacting long-term returns.  In statistics, that percentage swing would denote variance, which in turn is often equated with risk.  Another term for risk is beta.  High beta stocks tend to move more than the market and tend to have greater variance.

So, if you are in the market for the long-term, you should certainly pay close attention to the impact of variance.   Over time the impact to the $100,000 virtual portfolio is not just a drop of $1,000 as in the period shown above, but that virtual portfolio erosion continues over time to the detriment of overall wealth.  Unless….

Unless, you know how to take advantage of such volatility.  Buying and holding stocks is about as advanced a trading technique in this day and age as owning a cell phone that simply operates as a phone.  Why accept bare functionality when you can combine the basics with so much more.  In the stock market, this means using options.  (In cell phones we…
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Vacation Proofing Your Virtual Portfolio

by - July 25th, 2008 6:43 am

 

NEW INFORMATION = TAKE ACTION

Save it.  Post-it.  Record it.  Use it.

When driving a car and some object appears on the road ahead do you usually run right over it or do your best to avoid it?  Don’t we all take action in real-life based on the new information we receive that changes the old paradigm?  Take the first two guys in this video:  Who would you rather be, the first or the second guy?  While the second gentleman reacts and looks ridiculous in so doing, he’s the guy that is more likely to survive when real disaster hits because he’s reacting to new information.  In fact he doesn’t even know what’s making everyone else react, he just knows that when 99% are moving one way in panic, it’s best not to fight the crowd or he will be trampled.  It’s no different in the market.  Pride, ego and old theses have no place when new information directly contradicts an existing trade.

When the market is up, we use DIA puts and calls to "react" to quick changes in the market while we wait for better information before making more permanent changes in our positions.  This gave us the benefit of the quick reaction of gentleman #2, the one who went unquestioningly with the crowd, while also giving us the "wisdom" of gentleman #1, who was confident (or oblivious) enough to soldier onward, despite the fact that the world seemed briefly to be against him.

When new information does arrive, one of the first things I look to do is minimize risk - hedging the existing position.  The next step for me is to become more aggressive in reacting to the new information and shifting the bias of the trade in the opposite direction.  In this article, I will outline our basic strategy for protecting your virtual portfolio from a major dip, which can then be used to adjust your risk profile, based on changes in outlook arising from new information. 

The strategy outlined can be applied also when you know that you will be…
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Posted in Education | 1 Comment »



The Trading Virus

by - July 23rd, 2008 10:22 am

This article is best read after a substantial rise has occurred in the market following a period of sustained bearishness.  Why?  Because it is precisely the time when many will have seen the direction of the virtual portfolios turn.  Some may even have caught the bottom in stocks like Bank of America, up 50% in less than 10 days!  When wealth is attained so rapidly, a tendency towards confidence or more particularly over-confidence is natural.  Short-term results vindicate decision-making at the bottom to ‘bet heavily’ or ‘go all in’.  And they solidify a belief that the next bottom can be called successfully also.  This may indeed occur.  But a danger exists, which I call the Trading Virus.
 
The Trading Virus affects almost every trader.  The victim is affected soon after a successful outcome in the stock market.  The virus manifests as excessive confidence and belief in one’s ability to time the market.  For most the virus is a lifelong condition.  Bulls and bears are equally affected.  As stock markets rise, bulls are infected and ride the glorious waves higher and higher until the inevitable crash cycles around again.  And bears rarely hold out long enough in sustained bull markets to enjoy those crashing sounds. 
 
For both bulls and bears, the virus implants a disease called ‘Results-Focus’.  Each is a keen market observer driven to action or inaction by the latest direction of streaming quotes, media hype, account value or some other short-term mechanism.  And a dependency is soon created; a dependency that demands information in the short-term that produces adrenalin rushes that lead to action that further lead to hopeful and expected results.  This is not to say that, in the short-term, talented traders cannot profit. Of course, they can.  But for most, the disease is a lifelong incurable condition because something very important is overlooked – the process of wealth accumulation.
 
Those successful shorter-term traders succeed not because they are results-oriented but because they are process-oriented.  And those victims who cure themselves do so precisely because they transition from the trap of attempting to time the market perfectly all the time to creating a process that succeeds at all times.  You will quickly see at PhilStockWorld that Phil and Optrader are both highly successful traders.  Both use options to take advantage, albeit in slightly different manners.  And that’s the key.  Each

…
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Posted in Education | 2 Comments »



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Phil's Favorites

How high will unemployment go? During the Great Depression, 1 in 4 Americans were out of work

April 5th, 2020 4:33 am

 

How high will unemployment go? During the Great Depression, 1 in 4 Americans were out of work

Unemployed people wait outside a government office in NYC in 1933. AP Photo

By Jay L. Zagorsky, Boston University

CC BY-ND

The U.S. unemployment rate climbed from a half-century low of 3.5% to 4.4% in March – and is expected to go a lot higher.

But could the rate, as ...



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Zero Hedge

Mysterious Colorado Doomsday Shelter For When "Law & Order Breaks Down" Sees Spike In Interest

April 4th, 2020 11:15 pm

Courtesy of ZeroHedge View original post here.

As the pandemic unfolds across the US, city dwellers are getting the hell out of dodge and escaping to rural areas. We noted this last week, with many leaving large metro areas in California, fleeing for the mountains and rural communities to limit their probabilities of ...



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Biotech/COVID-19

Why wear face masks in public? Here's what the research shows

April 4th, 2020 6:45 pm

 

Why wear face masks in public? Here's what the research shows

People have resorted to using scarves and bandanas as face masks to protect against spreading coronavirus. While cloth masks aren’t as effective as surgical masks, research suggests they can limit the spread of droplets. Jens Schleuter/Getty Images

Hector Chapa, Texas A&M University

With the coronavirus pandemic quickly spreading, U.S. health officials have changed their advice on face masks and now recommend people wear cloth masks in public areas where social...



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ValueWalk

Junior gold stocks offer a place of refuge in a falling market

April 3rd, 2020 5:53 pm

By Michelle Jones. Originally published at ValueWalk.

Junior gold stocks have taken a beating alongside other stocks, but history suggests this could be the time to dive in. The Vaneck Vectors Junior Gold Miners ETF is down from where it was in February, although it’s starting to show signs that it could revive soon.

Q4 2019 hedge fund letters, conferences and more

Crescat likes junior gold stocks

In their March update to investors, Crescat Capital said junior gold stocks retested the lows of a nine-year bear market. ...



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Kimble Charting Solutions

Depression Coming or Is the Bottom Already In? Joe Friday Says Your Answer Lies Here!

April 3rd, 2020 8:52 am

Courtesy of Chris Kimble

Are we headed towards a Depression or is the worst already behind us? In today’s world, comparisons to the great depression are easy to find.

Are the Depression concerns well founded or are the declines of late already pricing in a bottom?

In my humble opinion, this chart and the upcoming price action of this index will go miles and miles towards telling us if we are headed towards very tough times or if the huge declines of late are actually in a bottoming process.

This chart looks at the Thomson Reuters Equal Weighted Commodity Index on a monthly basis over the past 54 years. The index has been heading south, reflecting weakness in demand for basi...



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Insider Scoop

Economic Data Scheduled For Friday

April 3rd, 2020 12:00 am

Courtesy of Benzinga

  • Data on nonfarm payrolls and unemployment rate for March will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET.
  • US Services Purchasing Managers' Index for March is scheduled for release at 9:45 a.m. ET.
  • The ISM's non-manufacturing index for March will be released at 10:00 a.m. ET.
  • The Baker Hughes North American rig count report for the latest week is scheduled for release at 1:00 p.m. ET.
...

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The Technical Traders

Founder of TradersWorld Magazine Issued Special Report for Free

April 2nd, 2020 10:44 pm

Courtesy of Technical Traders

Larry Jacobs owner and editor of TradersWorld magazine published a free special report with his top article and market forecast to his readers yesterday.

What is really exciting is that this forecast for all assets has played out exactly as expected from the stock market crash within his time window to the gold rally, and sharp sell-off. These forecasts have just gotten started the recent moves were only the first part of his price forecasts.

There is only one article in this special supplement, click on the image or link below to download and read it today!

...

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Chart School

Big moving Averages and macro investment decisions

March 30th, 2020 1:56 pm

Courtesy of Read the Ticker

When price is falling every one wonders where demand will come in.


RTT black screen Tv videos study the simplest measure of price (simple moving average). What has happen before guides us now. 














Changes in the world is the source of all market moves, to catch and ride the change we believe a combination of Gann Angles, ...

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Members' Corner

10 ways to spot online misinformation

March 29th, 2020 9:31 pm

 

10 ways to spot online misinformation

When you share information online, do it responsibly. Sitthiphong/Getty Images

Courtesy of H. Colleen Sinclair, Mississippi State University

Propagandists are already working to sow disinformation and social discord in the run-up to the November elections.

Many of their efforts have focused on social media, where people’s limited attention spans push them to ...



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Digital Currencies

While coronavirus rages, bitcoin has made a leap towards the mainstream

March 29th, 2020 4:29 am

 

While coronavirus rages, bitcoin has made a leap towards the mainstream

Get used to it. Anastasiia Bakai

Courtesy of Iwa Salami, University of East London

Anyone holding bitcoin would have watched the market with alarm in recent weeks. The virtual currency, whose price other cryptocurrencies like ethereum and litecoin largely follow, plummeted from more than US$10,000 (£8,206) in mid-February to briefly below US$4,000 on March 13. Despite recovering to the mid-US$6,000s at the time of writin...



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Promotions

Free, Live Webinar on Stocks, Options and Trading Strategies

February 26th, 2020 12:21 am

TODAY's LIVE webinar on stocks, options and trading strategy is open to all!

Feb. 26, 1pm EST

Click HERE to join the PSW weekly webinar at 1 pm EST.

Phil will discuss positions, COVID-19, market volatility -- the selloff -- and more! 

This week, we also have a special presentation from Mike Anton of TradeExchange.com. It's a new service that we're excited to be a part of! 

Mike will show off the TradeExchange's new platform which you can try for free.  

...

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Lee's Free Thinking

Why Blaming the Repo Market is Like Blaming the Australian Bush Fires

January 8th, 2020 8:00 pm

 

Why Blaming the Repo Market is Like Blaming the Australian Bush Fires

Courtesy of  

The repo market problem isn’t the problem. It’s a sideshow, a diversion, and a joke. It’s a symptom of the problem.

Today, I got a note from Liquidity Trader subscriber David, a professional investor, and it got me to thinking. Here’s what David wrote:

Lee,

The ‘experts’ I hear from keep saying that once 300B more in reserves have ...



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Mapping The Market

How IPOs Are Priced

July 24th, 2019 8:35 am

Via Jean Luc 

Funny but probably true:

...

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About Phil:

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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About Ilene:

Ilene is editor and affiliate program coordinator for PSW. Contact Ilene to learn about our affiliate and content sharing programs.