Phil - Wow…wow. The vision and inate grasp of the options world you posess is rather staggering. It's this type of experience that I really hope to develop. I'm afraid I still can't see the moves, but I WILL learn. I cannot thank you enough for the patience, knowledge and effort you put into this place. Please keep it going!
Where
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
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
Hey Phil, Your HOV suggestion about 3 months ago basically paid for my Philstockworld subscription for years to come. My average cost is about $1.
Ether
Thanks Phil another great week of guiding us!
Steven Parker
Best year I've ever had…sitting on a 52% YTD return. I would also echo Nat's shout out for Phil's talent. I've been a member for the 6 years or so. Just stay true to the strategy I've learned over the years of selling premium, keeping the bulk of my portfolio in long-term buy writes ("armchair" trades).
JJennings
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
WOW!!!!!!!!!!!! How will I ever do anything else in my life that will compare to the wild ride you get trading an ultra etf in the most volatile sector in the stock market the day before option expiration?
Matt1966
Phil…..You have absolutely NAILED IT! This is not a bull market, nor is it a bear market. It is a Rangeish market, and it's going to stay that way for a long time (the latter is my prediction. I love the word. What I love more is the fact that I've found someone with some investing intelligence greater than mine who can assist me in playing this type of market. Your description today of how it's playing out is right on. I predict some media ‘guru' will steal your word and your description within the next few days and we'll all get to read about what ‘they' discovered about this market. Thanks Phil!
Iflantheman
I have been very fortunate over the years as an investor. Last year was on of my best in terms of percentage gains. I have to attribute much of this success to my membership in PSW which gave me the best education available anywhere when it comes to the understanding of option trading , discipline and general trading strategies. I will be forever grateful to Phil and the many "highly skilled" traders that have offered their advice.
Gel1
I have definitely learned to take smaller wins early and be happy with that. Lately, I've aimed for $250 profit per day. Doing that daily/weekly x 48 weeks (assuming I take some time off) works out to 60k per year. That's a lot of money!! $250 moves happen all the time if you just wait for them.
JeffDoc
I have been around for many years now, was a modest inexperienced investor when I started, and I can honestly say I would not be at the point in my portfolio I am today without the guidance of Phil and JeanLuc and Yodi and all the others I've had the pleased of learning from and, on a few occasions meeting, over the years. Truly been a great experience.
RPeri
Phil, I don't know how I can thank you enough for your guidance this past week. I'm up significantly in my portfolio and I've never been so relaxed watching the market panic. Thanks once again for being here for us.
thechaser
Phil/BCS - Didn't realise they traded here. Should've known really. Thanks for the tip. managed to pick some up just before the close at a 15% discount to the UK closing price.
DB
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
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
The wonderful resource that Phil has created for us and nourished by its members is so powerful in what it can teach us going forward, but also what we can learn from the past. I never say it often enough, but Phil – thanks for all the work you do for us.
Winston
Phil: That NFLX call was awesome. The speed at which NFLX options decayed was precipitous. The blow out spike that allowed me to double and roll my callers to 190(!) and the ridiculous 170 weeklies @3.50 a day away from Op-Ex. The gains I realized in that trade floored me when I took a long at my portfolio value on Friday. What a great way to start the 3rd Quarter.
Kinkistyle
Phil - Another excellent teaching article - when you write like that it blows me away. Thank you!
I had the ideas from earlier articles but what I didn't have was enough understanding. The familiarity of ideas through repetition, re-working, revision - over time - the variation, the pulling out of implications - it all contributes to understanding and mostly thats on the student - but a good teacher (worth their weight in gold) makes understanding a pleasure.
I wanted to learn about trading options because it makes my brain feel better - fitter, healthier. Actually mostly it makes me happy to think about the trade and trading options.
You are a good teacher and I know that or I wouldn't value the subscription the way I do. It pays for itself through the pleasure of understanding alone.
Redfern1
Dear Phil, 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. It is hard for me to follow all evening as I am in Tokyo but I can join you at the beginning of the market and read the next day.
Tokyolife
Thank you Phil for this site – the trade discussions on PSW are mind boggling. Future trading while learning to be a value investor. Priceless
Joseph
I must give kudos to Phil for changing my way of thinking. I'm a gambler by nature and used to just play the indexes with 3x etf's… well I still do, but the options give far better returns than I ever dreamed of. With these wild swings I've been catching 50-100% winners in days.
Mkucstars1
Phil,
thank you for the thorough response(s). I joined this group last week to take my education to the next level. the school i am involved with very good at calling out levels but very little live trading and little help in managing a position going against you.
I like the combo of knowing where the major levels are coupled with your approach to getting in. learned a lot this week.
thank you!
DawnR
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
I am a Registered Nurse, so is my wife. We work hard to take care of seven kids that are the joy of our lives. The cost for a basic membership is ALOT from our our monthly budget of spending and saving…but well worth it! Phil has allowed me to really ramp up the savings we put away for our children's college funds and our retirement.
David
Being on this board is better than successfully completing the Times crossword. Phil's panoply of comments manage to excite, illuminate, frustrate, exasperate, confuse, enlighten, outrage, invigorate and stupefy (and that's par for the morning session only!). But goddammit, it's addictive, informative and when it all goes right extremely profitable.
Winston
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
I have been a member for over six years and I still learn something new every day. This site gives you the skills to trade without having to be spoon fed. More importantly it teaches you about risk which is WAY more important than profit. Honestly, it is not a get rich quick scheme!
Malsg
Thanks for you guidance – Your "student" will be passing on the McMuffins and having Lobster dinners tonight!
Aquila
Thanks, Phil!!! I just crushed today with it with silver (SLV) calls today, thanks to your persistent reminders of how ridiculously cheap it has become, and watching my TSLA this week $240 puts dissolve into chump change added an extra note of amusement.
Yes, we know, and Bernie Madoff agrees; Timothy Naegele has thought so all along. Who’s Timothy Naegele? Read my interview with him to learn more. – Ilene
Convicted swindler and consummate narcissist Bernard Madoff is serving a 150-year sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Butner, North Carolina for his $65 billion Ponzi scheme. He was interviewed by New York Magazine, and its terrific article states in pertinent part:
From the beginning, Madoff . . . had a chip on his shoulder, along with a certain contempt for the industry he’d chosen. “It was always a business where you had to have an edge, and the little guy never got a break. The institutions controlled everything,” he said in a voice surprisingly thick with emotion. “I realized from a very early stage that the market is a whole rigged job. There’s no chance that investors have in this market.”
. . .
At first, Madoff ground out a modest but steady income on the scraps of business tossed his way by Goldman Sachs and Bear Stearns, action that was too much trouble and too little profit for them. “I was perfectly happy to take the crumbs,” he said. Madoff was a market-maker, a middleman between those who wanted to buy and sell small quantities of mostly bonds—odd lots. “It was a riskless business,” he said. “You made the spread,” buying at one price and selling at a higher one, and in those days the spreads could be substantial, 50 or 75 cents or even a dollar a share. Madoff increased his profits by trading on the side.
. . .
Madoff wanted to grow his trading business, and a good way to do that was to expand his market-making business. But that meant going up against the New York Stock Exchange, the heart of the club. At the NYSE, a few firms controlled market-making, executing most large trades while getting rich on the spread. Madoff was one of the first to see that technology could match buyers and sellers more efficiently and cheaply than a human trader shouting orders amid a blizzard of paper on the floor of the exchange. By 1970, Madoff had hired his brother, Peter,
Citigroup ignored warning signs of Bernard L. Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, and a bank executive knew the con man’s stated trading strategy couldn’t generate the reported returns, the trustee liquidating Madoff’s firm said in a lawsuit.
The unidentified Citibank executive, who was responsible for making recommendations to clients on derivatives, “concluded” by June 2007 that returns reported by a Madoff feeder fund, Fairfield Sentry Ltd., couldn’t have come from the strategy, trustee Irving Picard said in a complaint unsealed yesterday. The executive reached his conclusion after meeting with analyst Harry Markopolos, a whistleblower who also alerted U.S. regulators to the fraud, Picard said.
The Citibank official later communicated with Markopolos orally and in writing, specifically discussing the fraud before the Ponzi scheme was exposed in December 2008, Picard alleged.
“Citi knew, and was on notice of, irregularities and problems concerning the trades reported by BLMIS, and strategically chose to ignore these concerns in order to continue to enrich themselves,” Picard said in the complaint, referring to Madoff’s firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC.
Picard laid out in the complaint details of a lawsuit he filed under seal in December against New York-based Citigroup and other banks. He is demanding $425 million from Citigroup – money it received “in connection with” a loan to a Madoff feeder fund and a swap transaction with a Swiss hedge fund linked to a second feeder fund, Picard said.
We first got an inkling of Picard’s filing from this Bloomberg story in December.
Citigroup, Bank of America Sued by Madoff Trustee
Citigroup Inc.’s Citibank, Bank of America Corp.’s Merrill Lynch unit and five other banks were sued by the trustee liquidating Bernard Madoff’s firm to recover more than $1 billion for the con man’s defrauded customers.
The banks, which include Natixis SA, Fortis Prime Fund Solutions Bank (Ireland) Ltd., ABN Amro Bank NV, Nomura Bank International Plc. and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA, received money through Madoff feeder funds when they knew, or should have known, that Madoff’s investments were a fraud, the trustee, Irving Picard, said yesterday in a statement.
Picard, who faces a two-year legal deadline that runs out Dec. 11, has filed hundreds of suits in the past month, seeking more than $34 billion from banks, feeder funds, investors and others alleged to have profited from Madoff’s decades-long Ponzi scheme, the biggest in…
Here’s the hypocrisy of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority* (FINRA); it dumped a portfolio of Auction Rate Securities* (ARS) before the ARS market froze up in early 2008. People are asking legitimate questions and FINRA is refusing to answer. When FINRA wants its questions answered, it knows how to get the answers through its subpoena power. Why won’t FINRA fess up and be transparent about its dealings in the ARS market?
I recently caught up with my friend Larry Doyle and asked him whether there had been any progress in uncovering the events behind FINRA’s timely liquidation of its ARSs in 2007 since our last conversation. Here’s a transcript of our conversation about FINRA and FINRA’s ARS sales. Larry touches on a number of important topics including transparency, the incestuous relationship between Wall Street and Washington, the absurdity of self-regulation and twisted logic of granting a quasi-government entity government-style immunity, while allowing it to be free from the reach of the Freedom of Information Act.
FINRA’s Timely Auction-Rate Securites (ARS) Sales
Before we continue, please read my previous interview with Larry Doyle here. Excerpt:
"The ARS market operated smoothly until the credit markets seized up. First signs of trouble emerged in 2007 when the spreads started to blow out (widen significantly). Spreads widened because dealers realized the true nature of the risks and backed away from supporting the market. Selling intensified as investors were trying to get out in the late spring and summer of 2007. Investors stopped buying, though the dealers maintained an intermediary market for a while. Finally, sellers so overwhelmed buyers that Wall Street had to stop serving as an intermediary. This developed over a period of months, but was not shared with the clients. Wall Street was trying to lay these ARSs out on investors. When the market collapsed in February 2008, the “cash equivalency” disappeared."
[...]
Going into 2007, FINRA had $647 million dollars of ARSs. It was holding ARSs as the credit markets started to freeze in mid 2007. FINRA says it did nothing nefarious when it sold its ARSs. But that fails the smell test. It sold its ARS holdings before the markets collapsed. Meanwhile, investors got stuck with approximately $150 billion of ARSs.
One would have to be exceptionally naïve to think FINRA officials did not have material,
Sam Antar, former CFO of the criminal enterprise "Crazy Eddie," will tell you all about his crimes while insisting he will burn in Hell. He now teaches accountants, lawyers, and FBI agents about white-collar fraud and how to catch white-collar criminals. I met Sam in Portland, at his seminar for healthcare fraud investigators.
Sam opened his lecture by asking the audience, “Can anyone guess why I’m here?” A man in the audience suggested “because you got caught.” (That was the first correct answer in twelve years.) Sam, who was energetic and seemed to be enjoying himself, spoke of Crazy Eddie, fraud, and the investigators charged with bringing criminals to justice. Below, I've posted a summary of Sam's presentation followed by our interview and some background information.
1. Presentation
About fraud
All fraud is basically the same. All fraud is personal in nature. It’s done on a one to one basis. Your humanity, ethics, and sense of fairness are weaknesses that we – white collar criminals – seek to exploit. We have no morality. The more likable and friendly we are, the easier it is for us to commit our crimes. We build walls of false integrity. You never know who the real person is behind a criminal’s carefully choreographed wall of false integrity. Bernie Madoff had a wall of false integrity around him and the lawyers investigating him at the SEC were enamored by his status. That’s why they didn’t properly follow through on whistleblower Harry Markopolos’s tips about Madoff’s criminal activities.
Punishment does very little to prevent crime. It’s not a great deterrent. Criminals don’t stop because they see other people getting caught. While Bernie Madoff committed his crimes for almost two decades, he saw many other criminal get caught. Did that stop him?
When I cooperated with the government it was only to save my own skin. I only cooperated with the US Attorney’s Office, the FBI, the SEC, and lawyer representing victims of my crimes because I did not want to bend down
Here’s another great gem we just found in the big SEC document dump on Madoff [below]. It concerns the independent fraud investigator Harry Markopolos, who tried for years and years and years to blow the whistle but tno avail. How were his efforts viewed in the SEC? Basically, they dismissed him as an anti-Bush crank.
The SEC just made a MASSIVE document dump related to its failure to catch Madoff. Of course, it’s all embarrassing, so it’s on a Friday afternoon, when everyone’s too lazy to go through it. There are 536 documents in total. Joe Weisenthal
Jerry Brown, California’s Attorney General, is tying himself to just about every problem stemming from the financial crisis.
Overkill? Perhaps. But Brown is probably running for governor.
Today, Brown wrote at the Huffington Post about Beverly Hills financial adviser Stanley Chais, who pocketed some $270 million over the decades by feeding money to Bernie Madoff.
"Sadly, the rise of super-sized swindlers like Madoff and Chais was inevitable given the mindless deregulation-mania of the last decade — abetted and made possible by a complicit Congress, SEC, and inattentive White House," Brown writes.
Last week, Brown piled on to the rating agency bashing, launching an investigation into their role in fueling the financial crisis and subpoenaing Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch to determine "whether the firms violated California law when they recklessly gave ‘stellar ratings to shaky assets.’"
In April, Brown Jr. today filed suit against three Wells Fargo affiliates to recover $1.5 billion for California investors who purchased auction-rate securities based on "false and deceptive" advice that these financial instruments were "as safe and liquid as cash."
Want more? Check out these press releases: there are suits against predatory lenders, health insurers acting badly, mortgage scam artists, and many more, almost one ever other day.
Bernard Madoff arrives at federal court in New York, Thursday, March 12, 2009.
Mary Altaffer / AP
A long-awaited report from the Inspector General at the Securities and Exchange Commission concludes the SEC received six "substantive" complaints between June 1992 and December 2008 that could have uncovered disgraced financier Bernie Madoff‘s Ponzi scheme as far back as 1992 if it had "properly examined or investigated" Madoff’s trading practices.
In a 450-page report, released Wednesday, the report outlines a series of fumbles, where SEC staff either failed to follow up on complaints, wrongly accepted Madoff’s confusing and inconsistent answers to questions or, in some cases, involved junior staff who didn’t understand options trading and Ponzi schemes.
"Despite three examinations and two investigations being conducted, a thorough and competent investigation or examination was never performed," the report said.
The report said at least six complaints raised questions about Madoff’s trading practices, with some even suggesting a Ponzi scheme was involved. They questioned "Madoff’s incredible and highly unusual fills for equity trades, his mispresentation of his options trading and his unusually consistent, non-volatile returns over several years," and how Madoff’s alleged strategy and purported returns could not be duplicated by anyone else and had "no correlation to the overall equity markets in over 10 years." One tipster even nudged the SEC that "it may be of interest to you that Mr. Madoff keeps two sets of records — the most interesting of which is always on his person."
Yet, SEC staff failed to adequately follow up or seek third-party verifications on the trades, the report said. In many cases, the report said, "an inexperienced examination team" was assigned the investigation, many of whom were not familiar with trading practices and simply accepted Madoff’s explanation that he used his "gut feel" to time the market based on "his observations of the trading room." According to the report, examiners stated "there was no training" and that "this was a trial by fire kind of job." It also stated that examination team was "composed entirely of attorneys, who … did not have much experience in equity and options trading’ but ‘rather, their experience was in general litigation.’" (See pictures of a Madoff family album.)
So remember how we wondered whether Frank DiPascali was getting enough from the feds for his cooperation in the investigation in Bernie Madoff’s scam?
Well, it turns out that part of his deal is having the feds overlook his history of taking illegal drugs, carrying an illegal firearm right up until the time of his arrest and reporting that he had no income during a year when he earned $4 billion.
According to documents released yesterday by federal prosecutors, DiPascali, the former CFO at Madoff’s investment firm, agreed to spill the beans about Madoff in part to guarantee the feds didn’t go after him on "use of controlled substances prior to 1992" and for possessing illegal firearms up until last Friday.
The 52-year-old Queens native, who is cooperating with prosecutors in the Madoff scandal, is also avoiding criminal prosecution for evading taxes, the documents show.
Indeed, DiPascali cheated Uncle Sam out of several million dollars between 2002 and 2007 through a number of shady schemes, including depositing his income into accounts under other names and filing false returns. In 2006, for example, DiPascali reported zero dollars in taxable income even though he actually earned $4 million that year. He also reported no income in 2002 and 2005.
Memo to regulators: be forewarned about frauds in the credit-default swap market. They’ll make Bernie Madoff’s $65 billion fraud "look like small-time."
That’s what Harry Markopolos — Madoff’s whistleblower ignored by federal investigators — is saying anyway.
New York Post: [Markopolos] says there are evildoers out there who will make the Ponzi scum "look like small-time." Markopolos gave a speech to 400 of the faithful at the Greek Orthodox Church in Southampton and predicted major scandals will soon be revealed about the unregulated, $600 trillion, credit-default swap market. "To put it in simple terms, it is like buying fire insurance policies from five different insurance companies on your neighbor’s house and then burning down the house," he said.
It’s not clear if there are frauds that he knows of, specifically, that he’s not disclosing publicly, or if it’s just his how the market works — in which case, he’s basically just parroting what a lot of people who hate "naked" CDS have been saying. Either way, we suggest Mary Schapiro or the CFTC pay him a call and get a clarification.
The upcoming issue of Vanity Fair portrays the lives of Bernard Madoff’s sons and asks "Did The Sons Know?" Mark and Andrew Madoff feel betrayed by their father, David Margolick writes for Vanity Fair. Page Six today highlights some of the juicier details:
Blame mom as an enabler. Andrew and Mark Madoff aren’t speaking with their mother Ruth Madoff. They don’t suspect that she was involved with the scheme, but they believe her tendency to side with Bernie regardless of the the circumstances enabled his crimes.
Avoding using the Madoff name. Andrew Madoff and his fiance Catherine Hooper (pictured with a fish, above) use her name when making restaurant reservation. Andrew’s estranged wife, Deborah, orders groceries from FreshDirect using her maiden name.
Excessive self-pity. * Jeff Wilpon, whose family owns the Mets and lost hundreds of millions in Madoff’s scheme, remains friendly with Mark Madoff. But that is being strained by Mark’s "excessive self-pity. "
Strained relations. Hooper gave Andrew a birthday card in April that said, "Hope you have a fun day doing all the things people in prison wish they could do." When Andrew told her that his real wish was to have his parents back, she shot back, "Yeah, they were a really nice idea."
When Andrew complained to an African American friend that he is unemployed, broke, and "just trying to stay out of jail — my name is mud," his friend replied: "Well, now you’re just like every black man in America."
There’s more at Page Six, including the shunning of the Madoff grandchildren by classmates at the New York City private school, Dalton. If this sampling is any indication, we really can’t wait to read Margolick’s full piece in Vanity Fair.
Reuters reveals that the article says Mark Madoff scrutinizes every story and blog on the scandal. Andew, on the other hand, appears to have detached himself emotionally. He calls the situations "a father-son betrayal of biblical proportions." Cue the violins!
Overall, arms sales increased in 2017, with total global sales nearing 400 billion dollars, marking a 2.5 percent increase from last year and the third year of continued growth for the industry.
Newmont Mining (NEM) is a gold stock with plenty of institutional interest. This means due to its huge following it is a good candidate for Gann Angles.
Gold and gold stocks are waiting for the FED and other central banks to swing to dovish monetary policy, Powell hinted this in last speech, and next week the FED is expected to hike 0.25% to 2.5%, however the 3 previously planned hikes in 2019 look very doubtful.
In short the hike from near 0% to 2.5% is all the US economy can take, as things start to break (ie corporate credit funding stuff like share buy backs.) with the US 10 yr above 3%. A concern to Powell is the US stock market gain contributes to a huge amount of tax revenue to the US treasury and higher interest rates will take this away (April 20...
The bull market is experiencing its first real test since the 2014/2015 stock market correction. Volatility is high and key sectors are heading lower.
One such sector is the Transportation Sector(NYSEARCA: IYT) and select stocks.
The age-old Dow Theory call for the Industrials and Transports to lead the market (and confirm each others moves). Currently, both are struggling. But the Dow Transports are on the precipice of a major breakdown. Looking at the chart below, you can see that the Transportation Sector ETF (IYT) is attempting to break down below its 12-month trading range and 9-year rising support line.
If the market doesn’t reverse higher soon, this break down will send a negative message to investors about the economy… and the broader stock market.
Listening to the crypto bulls of yesteryear continue to defend their case for new new all-time highs, despite a growing mountain of evidence to suggest that last year's rally was spurred by the blind greed of gullible marginal buyers (not to mention outright manipulation), one can't help but feel a twinge of pity for Mike Novogratz and Wall Street's original crypto uber-bull, Fundstrat's Tom Lee.
Cheri Jacobus is a widely known political consultant, pundit, writer and outspoken former Republican and frequent guest on CNN, MSNBC, FOX News, CBS.com, CNBC and C-Span. Cheri shares her thoughts on the political landscape with us in a follow up to our August interview.
Updated 12-10-18
Ilene: What do you think about Michael Cohen's claim that the Trump Organization's discussions with high-level Russian officials about a deal for Trump Tower Moscow continued into June 2016?
The friction came to a head in early 2017 when senior officials offered Trump charts and graphics laying out the numbers and showing a “hockey stick” spike in the nationa...
By Jacob Wolinsky. Originally published at ValueWalk.
The Vilas Fund, LP letter for the third quarter ended September 30, 2018; titled, “A Bull Market in Bearish Forecasts.”
Ever since the financial crisis, there has been a huge fascination with predictions of the next “big crash” right around the next corner. Whether it is Greece, Italy, Chinese debt, the “overvalued” stock market, the Shiller Ratio, Puerto Rico, underfunded pensions in Illinois and New Jersey, the Fed (both for QE a few years ago and now for removing QE), rising interest rates, Federal budget deficits, peaking profit margins, etc...
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