Technical Tuesday – Rejected, Rejected, Rejected!
by phil - September 23rd, 2014 8:07 am
So much for 2,000 holding.
Fortunately, our Big Chart kept us cautiously bearish into the weekend and the hedges in our Short-Term Portfolio functioned perfectly, gaining $13,000 on the day and completely offsetting the drop of $8,000 in our Long-Term Portfolio.
That's without our big hedge, DXD, kicking in yet, as the Dow is still over 17,000 but, should it fail, we'll see those STP gains multiply quickly.
For those of you who are not Members, and don't have access to our various Member Portfolios (and you can by subscribing here), we have done our best to prepare you for this drop as well. Last Thursday, right in the morning post, I shared our short stance with the general public, saying
It's going to be crazy into the weekend but, in our Live Chat Room this morning, I said to our Members:
Futures pumped back up to yesterday's highs at 17,125, 2,001.50, 4,080 and 1,156.5 so I like shorting below 17,100, 2,000, 4,075 and 1,155 – short the laggard, out of any of them cross back over – very simple!
That's our plan into the weekend. As I've mentioned before, we're also using DXD ($24 at the time), TZA ($14.68) and SQQQ ($35.26) to hedge our long portfolios – just in case things unravel over the weekend. We also discussed FXI ($40.30) puts earlier in the week as a play on China melting down so PLENTY of ways to profit from the downside.
This morning, the Futures are 17,050 on /YM (up $375 per contract), 1,979 on /ES (up $1,125 per contract), 4,035 on /NQ (up $900 per contract) and 1,116.50 on /TF (up $4,000 per contract) – so that strategy went pretty well.
In last Wednesday's post, we also shorted Oil Futures at $95 and oil fell to…
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Testy Tuesday – 50 DMA Spectacular!
by phil - August 19th, 2014 8:06 am
You've gotta love those trend lines.
Chart people sure love them and we love chart peopel because they are SOOOOOOOO predictable and predictable behavior is behavior we can bet on and that makes us happy. Today we'll be seeing the 50-day moving averages on the Dow, the NYSE and the Russell all tested at the same time – what happens next will tell us a lot about this rally.
As I pointed out to our Members in our Live Chat Room this morning, though we may be past our bounce levels and though we are now challenging the 50 dmas, we still have 3 of 5 of our Must Hold levels red on the Big Chart – that's not too impressive. Consider what a 50-day moving average is. It means that, over the last 50 days, half the time the index has been above the line and half the time it's been below – so how impressive should it be to see the index back in the middle?
Nonetheless, Chart People believe it's some mystical symbol that gives them a rally signal and half the time they are right – so the religion of TA continues to prosper! As you can see from Dave Fry's SPY chart from yesterday, 75% of yesterday's gain came on no volume as we gapped up in the Futures and the rest of the day's trading was one of the lightest of the year.
The reason I like Dave is because he's one of the only TA people who actually pay attention to volume and this volume is total BS. Still, it's enough to stampede the retail suckers back in and God bless them because they throw money at us to sell them the things we liked when they were out of favor.
In May and June, for example, we compiled a Buy List for our Members, which had 29 trades we liked for the rest of 2014. Here's a few that we are done with already:
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Meaningless Monday – Waiting for Yellen to Testify Tomorrow
by phil - July 14th, 2014 8:25 am
We're got our strong bounces on Friday – now we'll see if they hold up! .
As you can see from our big chart, we still have Spitting Cobra patterns forming on all but the Russell, which has turned into a Vomiting Cobra, spilling all the way down to the 50 dma at 1,150. We're still below the Weak Bounce Line on the NYSE – so we'll watch that closely and the Russell needs to get over their Strong Bounce at 1,170 to confirm:
- Dow 17,050 to 16,800 is 250 in 3 days so you need to make a strong bounce in 1.5 days in order to have a chance at a V recovery. Bounces would be 50 points so 16,850 and 16,900 are what we'll watch.
- S&P 1,985 to 1,955 is 30 points so 6-point bounces to 1,961 and 1,967 will be our targets.
- Nasdaq 4,485 to 4,360 (now I'm rounding) is 125 so 25-point bounces to 4,385 and 4,410.
- NYSE 11,100 to 10,900 is 200 points so 40-point bounces to 10,940 and 10,980.
- Russell 1,208 to 1,140 is 68 points and we'll call that 14-point bounces for 1,155 (rounding) and 1,170.
Also key, of course, is the 3 of 5 red signals on our Must Hold line on our Big Chart™ - only the NYSE is likely to make it over today, with a 64-point move (0.5%) taking it back to 11,000 – certainly that's not asking too much before we flip to some more bullish betting, is it?
We still have 29 stocks on our Buy List (Members Only) and, since they dynamically update, it's very easy to see that about 1/2 of them haven't gotten away yet and are still playable for dip buying. We also have 29 more stocks from our old Long-Term Portfolio, which we liquidated on May 29th – and that is full of great trade ideas as well.
We just did Week 4 for our our May Trade Review over the weekend and we slipped to 73% that week (ending 5/23) which brought us down to 84% for the month with 158 out of 197 trade ideas on the winning side. Still, going from 125-17 to 158-29 was an early indicator that we were losing…
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Toppy Tuesday – S&P 1,950 Edition
by phil - June 10th, 2014 8:34 am
Here we go again!
As you can see from Dave Fry's S&P chart, we're back in the top of the channel on a Tuesday and I will refer you to April 1st's "Triple Top Tuesday" and December 31st's "Terminal Tuesday" – both of which were points we thought the market was topping out before.
Actually, in both cases, we did have a mild pullback, but nothing that broke the trend – so far.
Back in that December post, we were playing gold (/YG) bullish at $1,185 to finish the year, based on our premise of MORE FREE MONEY in 2014 keeping the markets afloat. We also went bullish on SHLD at $40, which is like $30 post-spit.
In the April post, it was our 3rd try at 1,880 on the S&P and we had just cashed out our Income Portfolio and I we lost $10 betting the Nasdaq would be above 4,200 at April expirations on a TQQQ spread (now 4,350 – so bad timing) but our support held and kept the damage to a minimum. We also (in the morning post) called for selling the AAPL Jan $450 puts for $5.90 to pay for those spreads and AAPL just split 7:1 so those are now the $64.29 puts at .25. 7 x .25 = $1.75 so up $4.15 (70%) already on that play.
We also had bullish trade ideas for HOV, CHL, FCX, ABX and RIG – right in the morning post! Our best play, however, was shorting the Russell Futures (/TF) at 1,180 in Member Chat at 10:53 – as that was the beginning of an $9,000 per contract pullback on that index – all the way back to 1,090 (where we went long).
As you can see from Dave's Russell chart, we're just playing a channel with our trades – it's really not that complicated. Yesterday the Russell hit 1,180 and – guess what – we shorted it again! Now you are catching on to our "secret" strategy!
Already this morning the Russell Futures are down to 1,170, which is +$1,000 per contract from 1,180 but our…
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The End of May – Heading into June with CASH!!!
by phil - May 30th, 2014 8:21 am
I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that's real – Nine Inch Nails
Were we wrong to cash out?
It's hard to feel bad about taking a 19% profit off the table after just 6 months (in our $500,000 Long-Term Portfolio) but we had another low-volume pump-job yesterday that sent some of the positions we closed up sharply and left us regretting our timing – just a little.
Still, the time to sell your positions is when other people are buying, not while everyone is panicking. We got great exit prices and, on the whole, it was fairly stress-free. S&P 1,920 was our predicted top and we pulled the trigger to take the money and run at 1,910 because, as experience has taught us – it doesn't pay to be greedy!
Last week and this week, I laid out my case for why the economy is not as good as it seems and certainly not good enough to be paying all-time highs for stocks. As you can see from the chart on the left – I'm certainly not the only one who thinks so as the "smart money" has flown out of the market this year, taking advantage of each record high to sell, Sell, SELL!!!
We were a little more patient, we moved our Conservative Income Portfolio ($500,000) to cash at the end of March and avoided the April sell-off and have since been buying bargain stocks in that portfolio. We had left our more aggressive Long-Term Portfolio ($500,000) on the table but this last leg of the rally left it up a ridiculous 19% for the year – and that's halfway to our best-case goal so it's a good time to take a break, step back, and see how the market handles early June.
It's not like we can't find anything to do with our cash. In additions to our usual Futures trading, we still have our Short-Term ($100,000), Butterfly ($100,000) and $25,000 Portfolios to play with and, since Wednesday…
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Tempting Toppy Tuesday – 7th Time’s a Charm?
by phil - May 27th, 2014 8:34 am
Welcome back!
Not just from your holiday weekend but welcome back to the top of the S&P as we attempt our 7th breakout of the year. That's right, a month never goes by when we don't have a new rally that takes us back to the top of the channel, nor does a month go by when we don't re-test the bottom of the channel either – but let's ignore that as it's unpleasant.
Interestingly, as you can see from Dave Fry's S&P chart, there have only been 9 positive weeks out of 19 in 2014 but oh boy did they make them count – with almost every one of them setting a new record – before the selling resumed. Despite all these "records" being set, the average capital allocation strategy hasn't performed all that well in 2014, so far:
Thank goodness we're not pursuing any of those! Thank goodness also that we didn't give our money to any hedge fund managers, as hedge funds are off to their worst start of the year since the Financial Crisis. Not listed here is our "Be the House – Not the Gambler" strategy, which we will be reviewing live today at 12:15 EST in a Live Webinar (sign up here for free).
Selling risk to others in our Member Portfolios has given us 10%+ gains for year (so far). In fact, the only strategy we agreed with from the above chart was gold, which we bet heavily (along with DBA) at the beginning of the year. We were still knocking it out of the park in early May, with 40 of our 47 trade ideas in early may coming up winners already (see our May Trade Review).
Remember, this isn't about making good picks, per se – it's about having a good strategy that gives you a high probability of success – even when you are wrong about a trade. BEING THE HOUSE and selling risk (through options) to others is the closest thing we get to a "sure thing" in trading. It's not fast, it's not sexy - but it works!
Actually,…
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Thrilling Thursday – Dow Hits Record Highs on Lower Earnings!
by phil - May 1st, 2014 8:04 am
Why should we worry?
The Dow is at 16,580 so all must be well, right? The fact that we're up here on low volume and even lower earnings is just one of those nit-picky things that won't matter a year from now, when TA people use the movement to draw new, bullish trend lines.
That's what the Fed is controlling, they are painting charts in broad strokes to keep things moving along – even when they aren't.
Sure the US economy is only growing at a 0.1% annual pace and sure that's down shockingly from 2.6% last quarter but, hey, we EXPECTED to only grow at 1% – so it's ONLY a 90% miss – what, us worry?
The Fed says it's just bad weather slowing us down and, whether or not you believe that, they also promise to continue to stimulate the economy long after it is necessary. The Fed is like Santa Claus, only they don't have to put in any effort to make their toys, so Christmas comes 365 days a year for the top 0.01%. For the bottom 99.99% – well, it's 0.1% growth on the "trickle down" effect.
In fact, if you take out the Banksters, who are piling up the Fed's free money in their vaults and using it to manipulate the stock and commodity markets (and higher costs for Energy, Food and Health Care were the only reason our GDP wasn't -1% instead of +0.1%), then you can see that those companies not protected by the Fed are in big trouble.
Not since 1999 has there been less cash relative to debt in Corporate America. Yes, money is cheap, so why not borrow some but that money isn't being used to invest in plants, equipment or, God forbid, hiring and training more people – it's being used to buy back stock and pay out dividends to give the ILLUSION that earnings are improving, when it's actually only the share count that's being reduced.
As you can see from this chart of the S&P, earnings are up just 25% from where they were in 2009, when the market…
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“Be The House, NOT THE Gambler!” Webinar – Encore Presentation
by Promotions - November 21st, 2013 5:34 pm
Traders and Investors,
Did you miss today’s training webinar with Phil Davis –“Be the House, NOT THE Gambler?”
If you did, don’t worry – because you now have a SECOND CHANCE.
For today only, you have the opportunity to watch an encore presentation.
Follow this link to watch the presentation now
During this training presentation, you're going to discover:
- Why Phil’s way of trading and investing sets you up for long-term wealth potential and presents clear opportunities for short-term cash flow potential.
- Why you need to approach your stock selection as if you were preparing to buy the company, and the exact process you need to follow to achieve the desired effect of profit.
- Century-old investing secrets his grandfather taught him that have stood the test of time and will potentially bring you profits today and tomorrow.
- Three ways to buy ANY stock for a discount, and how to turn that stock into a dividend payer.
- And more!
Follow this link to watch the presentation now
See you there!
The PhilStockWorld.com Team
www.philstockworld.com
REMINDER: Do NOT forget your pen & notepad!
The strategies you’ll discover in this presentation will show you how to combine the GREATEST Fundamental Investing Techniques with the Most Effective Options Tactics to potentially grow and hedge your portfolio EXPONENTIALLY!
Follow this link to watch the presentation now
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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.