Phil, have to thank you for saving me today. I think the discipline I have learned from this site has helped me as much if not more than the actual picks.
Rustle123
Fed days are fun! Just for grins I decided to see how much money I could make in two clicks. I bought DIA calls right when the surge started and then sold them the minute they hit my account. Net gain of 20% in 20 seconds. Can't do that very often…
MrMocha
What a great post today, Phil. A veritable feast of ideas! I've been reading your posts for years and have modeled my whole trading style after yours. You should be taking 2 and 20 off of me at this point ????
Jablams
Phil - I just referred 10 people. Last week was a 50% gainer for me. There are companies that want to sell mentoring service for thousands of dollars. This is far better of a deal with very good advice.
Steve
I am not a user of phil's site now, but was for a couple years. His advice and information is excellent. Perhaps even better, you get access to real-time trades of additional traders on his site (OptTrader, etc) and the other members who post what they are buying and selling. Overall, its a very valuable information tool. Expensive, but paid for itself many times over. I did not renew my membership because I switched jobs and did not have time to trade nearly as much.
XRTrader
Phil - I followed your great pick re F and sold short the 1011 2.50 puts (200 contracts) and paid for the next 10 years of membership fees…. Thanks!
Gel1
Thanks for the USO directions today. Made it 3 times (up/down/up) for a very nice win.
Doro165
I have followed along with your commentary and alerts and have been flabbergasted at your quick analytical skills and your journalistic skills to explain it clearly. In a little over three weeks I have cleared almost 1000.00 dollars and got an intensive education at the same time. I would like to immediately upgrade my membership.
TokyoLife
Its been a "perfect" month. Every stock I wrote calls against looks like it will be called away next week, every put I wrote will expire worthless. Thanks Phil, now I need some new buy/write candidates, or the new 100K portfolio….
Barfinger
Thank you Nantucket. It is hard to be a complete beginner in the market with this complicated, fast moving, and very advanced group. Phil is the Great One, but the membership is absolutely amazing! Had I known this ahead I would probably log in as "awe struck" everyday.
Coke
In options trading, one must remain flexible with the ability to adjust to take advantage of the unexpected moves in the market. It is like chess - spend most of your time strategizing the next move. A good understanding of options is necessary to change direction and make adjustments as the market moves against you. I have a friend that honed his option skills while a member of Phil's elite membership over a period of two years. With the education acquired, he made over $2 Mil in that period, trading options and following the plays put on by Phil. If making money is your goal, then he is the go-to guy, as he knows option strategies better than anyone, and market timing is also a skill he has mastered.
1234gel
Market manipulation…. One of the things I've gained from this site is the concept of market manipulation. I never thought it was so prevalent, but now I know it is. I actually consider its effect when I make trades. Several days ago, when AAPL was moving toward 220 I sold 210 calls. My reasoning was that they will probably pin this month at 210. They came in big time as the stock moved ever closer to 210. I agree with Phil's comment that one of the things we need to do is find out what they are manipulating, and how, and hitch a ride. They are doing this with several equities. I've actually seen one article describing several equities that were being manipulated to pin at expiration each month, and describing how it was done, and of course Phil has described it well. In some ways it's easier to figure this out than it is a ‘normal' market behavior, and thus easier to make money in certain equities.
Iflantheman
Hi Mr. Phill, I am a Venezuelan lady tormented by our politicall situation, who use to be an emerging market trader, and many other executive positins in the finance "arena" and now is trying to built a new concept and service for asset management for clients on my own, I am in the trial and learning process at the moment, I also invest for some friends and myself. I want to congratulate you , because reading you fill my days with a touch of irony (besides ,of course the spectacular market insight) that happens to give me energy, its a joy the remarks and comments even the pictures used, sometimes I just read it for the fun, I completily agree with your thouhts, though we belong to totally different cultures and enviorements and certanly realities Your readings is like a little hand helping me out to be in the market and fight for my devastated country where every single day we looe inches and yards of liberty. You shoul try to writte a book!
Mindeyes
Phil, I was so impressed with the personal note in the comments that I went ahead and paid for a months trial of premium that I have been on the fence for awhile about. Just reading the comments makes me already glad for the purchase.
Smasher
You guys gotta give it to phil–the voice of reason yesterday, last nite and this morning.
Corleone
Phil/CLK4 – Perfect! Saw the answer 1 min after my post…out with $740 on two contracts. Thanks again for the education.
Jeffdoc2004
Peter D: great write-up for Short Strangles, Part 1, looking forward to Part 2, particularly the adjustment part.
RMM
Way back did 20 of your suggested short BP Jan 11 26 P @ 4.3 now .85 — sold half. this am —
paid for a years sub AGain!! thank you very much!
Ban2
I remember that call (to sell gold at $1,850) as well... and the many Buy-Writes that were created on your site during that period... thanks to you, I had an average ROI of close to 70% for over 2 years, averaging 4,000 trades per year. Busy trading, but lots of fun and memorable trades.
1234gel
Phil, I don't know if I told you lately but you da man! I'm doing so much better following your guidelines. It's like you actually know what you are talking about. 8-) I've tried a lot of services and none of them are as comprehensive or honest AND successful. I appreciate all youz other guys/gals input as well…learning tons as a relative newbie to this game.
Aclend
Phil, you are the man. My positions in ABX and CLF are up massively this year, and doing very nicely with USO and UNG. TSR is another winner. Just waiting for the TSLA short now!
Rookie IRA Investor
Started my membership in mid-Oct and have since then learned so much about options by reading the site's articles and postings, members' chats and suggested trades – as a bonus, the articles are entertaining as well! Phil's long-term investing strategy makes really good sense as I've seen its effect on my GLW positions.
Phil – thanks for sharing your knowledge of the market! I've worked as risk analyst for the investment dept of a $19B insurance company, and the scope and depth of your daily commentaries blows away what I have seen and heard from the PMs and even the chief investment officer! Most of all, I will continue to be a member because you have your priorities right (from my POV) – it's not all about money and power.
Bai2r
Well that was a fun day. Cashed out my GS 140 calls for about 35% profit and my AAPL calls for 38% gain. Not bad for 40 minutes of work. Back to 85% cash.
Singapore Steve
Phil is a fundamentalist to his fingertips. His ability to value a stock goes well beyond p/e, as he understands the essence of many businesses, what gives them value and how they make their money. As such, his recommendations are invaluable to a investor who takes a value-oriented approach.
Zeroxzero
Phil – Not that you dont usually, but you have DEFINITELY earned your money this week. THe recommendations have been PERFECT. Selling into the initial excitement (MULTIPLE TIMES), hedges, everything. Im reading this when I get home from work and want to cry b/c I cant trade at work! I might have to start getting up at 3 AM though to catch those trades bc youre killing it then too! May you and yours have a blessed weekend!
Jromeha
PHIL: The most important lesson I have learned is how to hedge using SQQQ, SDS and TZA. A big thanks.
IHS4God
Thanks for you guidance – Your "student" will be passing on the McMuffins and having Lobster dinners tonight!
Aquila
We are lucky to be in America and it is great to be part of the PSW tribe. Keeps me thinkin' and gatherin' the profits. ~ 42 % gain in my trading account year to date, which keeps me happy. Half to a third of the trading account is reserved in margin capacity that Is not committed. So, again thanks Phil and all of you other members.
Newthugger
Great call on expe Phil! Went long 50 shares and sold for a nice profit! And Great call on the nkd shorts as well. I didn't use a stop that tight and was able to cover for a $400 gain. Works been keeping me pretty busy and I'm jealous of all the members who are able to check in here more often! It's almost always quite profitable! Looking forward to Vegas!
Jromeha
Phil, 26% on the week for the 20% I day-trade, and since drinking the kool-aid last fall, the whole portfolio has doubled. Have a great weekend !!
It’s time again for the weekend update of our "Real" Mega-Bears, an inflation-adjusted overlay of three secular bear markets. It aligns the current S&P 500 from the top of the Tech Bubble in March 2000, the Dow in of 1929, and the Nikkei 225 from its 1989 bubble high.
This chart is consistent with my preference for real (inflation-adjusted) analysis of long-term market behavior. The nominal all-time high in the index occurred in October 2007, but when we adjust for inflation, the "real" all-time high for the S&P 500 occurred in March 2000.
Here is a nominal version to help clarify the impact of inflation and deflation, which varied significantly across these three markets.
Introduction: Richard Davis is President of the Consumer Metrics Institute (CMI). At the Institute, Rick measures real-time consumer transactions as an objective indicator of consumer demand and the associated health of the US economy. In this interview, we explore the history behind the government-published numbers and the reasons prompting Rick to devise better ways to measure the state of the economy.
History
Ilene: Rick, what got you interested in measuring economic numbers?
Rick: I first became frustrated with the current state of economic data after learning about the history of the collection process and the government’s continued reliance on 70 year old concepts. The government began collecting economic data during Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s (FDR) second term, around 1937. There was concern that the recovery from the 1937-1938 recession (i.e., a recession nested within the Great Depression) was stalling. The economy had been improving significantly from early 1933 through 1936 before the wheels came off the recovery in mid-1937. FDR’s administration realized it did not have adequate data to monitor the economy and the administration asked the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) to look into this problem. Wesley Clair Mitchell set out to find data that would help FDR’s administration address its concerns about the U.S. economy.
Wesley Clair Mitchell was a once-in-a-generation economic genius when it came to data collection. He collected over 500 interesting data sets measuring items such as sales, employment, railcar loadings--items that would allow him to constantly monitor the health of the economy. Most of these things are still measured, and the numbers have evolved into the core reports put out by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).
What frustrated me was that the data sets measured by Dr. Mitchell were developed in the 1930s and designed to capture those things that were important to the 1930s economy. They are not geared for today’s economy. Things that mattered in the mid-20th century simply cannot completely describe what is happening in the 2010 economy.
For instance, to find out what was happening in the music industry in 1950, someone could have gone to a neighborhood music store, counted the Doris Day 45’s in the retail bins…
Here’s another perspective on the comparison charts of the Dow Jones between the 1929 crash and recovery and the 2009 crash and recovery.
Let’s take a quick view of the line charts of the daily Dow Jones in 1929 structure and how it compares with today’s weekly Dow Jones structure.
First, the Daily Dow Jones: 1929 Crash and Recovery
I drew the numbers not so much as an Elliott Wave notation, but so that comparing key swing highs and lows would be easier.
The peak to trough crash lasted 72 days as the Dow Jones fell 47% (peaking in September 1929 at 386 and falling to 195 in November 1929). It unfolded roughly in a 5-wave progression.
The rally began off the November lows and lasted 155 days, peaking up 47% at 295 during April, 1930.
This shows an important principle in investing and trading, namely that if your account (or an index) falls 50%, then it would take a full 100% rally off the lows to recapture the prior highs, and not a 50% rally off the lows as seen above.
The rally phase took twice as long as the ‘crash’ phase and also unfolded in a 5-wave affair (with smaller waves).
I found it interesting that the daily chart showed an almost identical head and shoulders reversal pattern that failed – which is similar to the June/July failed head and shoulders pattern in 2009.
Because the 2008-2009 crash and recovery took longer, I am showing the weekly line chart of the Dow Jones.
Finally, the Current Weekly Dow Jones 2008-2009 Crash and Recovery:
Again, we see a similar 5-wave slow-crash down to the final March 2009 lows.
Price peaked in October 2008 at 14,198 and then fell 52% to the March 2009 lows of 6,469 – 72 weeks (510 days). The decline also fell in a similar 5-wave decline (with the 3rd wave ‘fractalizing’ into its own mini-five wave decline).
From the March 2009 lows, price has – so far – rallied 65% to the January high of 10,723 over the last 320 trading days… or almost all of 2009.
Again, despite the 65% rally, price is still 5,000 points lower than its 2007 peak.
The current rally also unfolded in a mini-five wave affair on a steeper…
It’s been 80 years since Black Thursday. On that day in 1929 stocks plummeted on record volume. Big banks got together and propped up the market by buying huge blocks of shares. That only delayed the pain, of course. It reminds me of our current short-sighted attempts to prop up the markets. More info.
In the spirit of “those who don’t learn from history…” I suggest watching The Crash of 1929, a great documentary from PBS. There are some fascinating first-hand accounts from the people who lived through it. Ignore the fuzzy image, that’s just Google Video being wonky. It’s a full 53 minutes long, and the picture isn’t bad. (For more historical perspective, see these cartoons from the Great Depression.)
In an UNBELIEVABLE move off the bottom over the past 6 months and one week, we have gained 58% on the S&P and have finally crossed into our 33% levels (from the highs) that we first set as upside targets back in our July Big Chart Review. At the time I said "I just don't see that happening without a pullback" yet here we are, with barely a wiggle down since I wrote that on July 27th and up 20% from our July 13th S&P base at 880.
Have we been too bearish? Is it now natural for the market to rise 20% in 2 months without a pullback? Are we really 20% better off than we were 2 months ago? History tells us not to mess with the 5% rule so we SHOULD encounter powerful resistance here as we approach the zone of a roughly 60% move off the March lows as well as 30% off our highs – it's going to be a rough 2.5% from here. As you can see from the above chart, we have already exceeded all previous recoveries by almost 100% at this point in the cycle. And why not, our government spent $9 TRILLION dollars to do it so we damn sure better have a pretty chart as a souvenir! The other rally that had a spectacular recovery was the the great crash of 1929 (the grey line).
In the 1929 crash, the stock market fell first, not the banks, which didn't begin failing until 1932 as lack of electronic data and next-day mail meant it took a lot longer for the late payment and foreclosure cycle to start impacting bank balance sheets. Also, of course, they were nowhere near as maniacally levered as today's institutions. In 1929 the banks did not play the market, they simply lent money to people who invested in stocks, businesses and properties that went bust so there were two distinct waves to the market crash in the Great Depression: First the people went broke, then the banks.
Unemployment in the US in 1930, a year after the crash, was only 8.7% - less than it is now. No one at that time thought it was important to help the average American get back on their feet after…
Dshort has an excellent chart out comparing the road to recovery using the rebounds that occurred following similar bear markets. Excluding the 1929 data, I’ve used the S&P 500 oil crisis recovery and the tech crash to calculate potential future returns. Assuming a total recovery of 61% (the average) from the bottom we can expect just 8.2% total returns in the coming 2 years after the incredible 5 month run we’ve already experienced. That’s a whopping 4% compound annual growth rate.
There is no doubt that the rally off the bottom has been swift and incredible, but now investors have to begin wondering whether or not the stock market is substantially ahead of itself in the near-term? 4% annual returns would certainly imply a very poor risk/reward environment which is in-line with our current thinking. Two pieces of data are by no means a solid scientific study, but the questions remain: is the stock market ahead of the road to recovery? Is it different this time?
Unfortunately, taking the long-term perspective comes to much the same conclusions. As I’ve mentioned before, one of the primary problems with bubbles is that the effect can often be as long and drawn out as the cause. The only reasonable explanations for a v-shaped stock market recovery would be either 1. a miraculously quick de-leveraging & turnaround in the U.S. consumer (which isn’t occurring) or 2. rampant inflation caused by the Federal Reserve. Unfortunately, the latter is unlikely to occur as borrowing remains extraordinarily low, banks continue to hoard cash and the consumer fails to recover quickly. The only logical expectation is that this recovery and stock market performance will be similar in terms of performance as all of those bubbles that preceded it:
The directors of RWE, a German energy company, had probably never heard of the small village of Huaraz, Peru before 2015. But Saúl Lliuya, a mountain guide and farmer there, sued RWE for climate-related harms that year.
Silver (NYSEARCA: SLV) is an important cog in the precious metals world. Not only is it a core precious metal but it is often a leading indicator for metals bulls.
Silver is a good risk-on / risk-off indicator. When it is out-performing Gold, it is risk-on. When it is under-performing, it is risk-off. It’s been the latter for the better part of the past 8 years.
And when the trend remains down, which historically means that metals rallies will be sold.
ValueWalk’s Q&A session with Professor Shubha Ghosh, a professor of law and the director of the Syracuse Intellectual Property Law Institute. In this interview, Professor Ghosh discusses his background, the Human Genome Project, the current state of gene editing, 3D printing for organ operations, and gene editing regulation.
Charts show us the golden brick road to high prices.
GLD Gann Angle has been working since 2016. Higher prices are expected. Who would say anything different, and why and how?
Click for popup. Clear your browser cache if image is not showing.
The GLD very wide channel shows us the way. - Conservative: Tag the 10 year rally starting in 2001 to 2019 and it forecasts $750 GLD (or $7500 USD Gold Futures) in 10 years. - Aggressive: Tag the 5 year rally starting in 1976 to 2019 and it forecasts $750 GLD (or $7500 USD Gold Futures) in 5 years.
Click for popup. Clear your browser cache if ima...
For most people, the purpose of investing is to build up enough wealth to allow you to retire. In general, that's usually enough money to reliably generate a year's worth of your average income, each year into your retirement so that that, plus you Social Security, should be enough to pay your bills without having to draw down on your principle.
Unfortunately, as the last decade has shown us, we can't count on bonds to pay us more than 3% and the average return from the stock market over the past 20 years has been erratic - to say the least - with 4 negative years (2000, 2001, 2002 and 2008) and 14 positives, though mostly in the 10% range on the positives. A string of losses like we had from 2000-02 could easily wipe out a decades worth of gains.
Still, the stock market has been better over the last 10 (7%) an...
The threat to America is this: we have abandoned our core philosophy. Our first principle of this nation as a meritocracy, a free-market economy, where competition drives economic decision-making. In its place, we have allowed a malignancy to fester, a virulent pus-filled bastardized form of economics so corrosive in nature, so dangerously pestilent, that it presents an extinction-level threat to America – both the actual nation and the “idea” of America.
This all-encompassing mutant corruption saps men’s souls, crushes opportunities, and destroys economic mobility. Its a Smash & Grab system of ill-gotten re...
Reminder: OpTrader is available to chat with Members, comments are found below each post.
This post is for all our live virtual trade ideas and daily comments. Please click on "comments" below to follow our live discussion. All of our current trades are listed in the spreadsheet below, with entry price (1/2 in and All in), and exit prices (1/3 out, 2/3 out, and All out).
We also indicate our stop, which is most of the time the "5 day moving average". All trades, unless indicated, are front-month ATM options.
Please feel free to participate in the discussion and ask any questions you might have about this virtual portfolio, by clicking on the "comments" link right below.
To learn more about the swing trading virtual portfolio (strategy, performance, FAQ, etc.), please click here
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Phil has a chapter in a newly-released eBook that we think you’ll enjoy.
In My Top Strategies for 2017, Phil's chapter is Secret Santa’s Inflation Hedges for 2017.
This chapter isn’t about risk or leverage. Phil present a few smart, practical ideas you can use as a hedge against inflation as well as hedging strategies designed to assist you in staying ahead of the markets.
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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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 site
