Friday August Finally – Dressing that 2,000 Window
by phil - August 29th, 2014 8:24 am
Saved by the bad news!
August has been a spectacular month in which we ignored the most bad news ever ignored by a species that is still not extinct. With any luck, an asteriod will head straight for us next month and we can rally the markets another 5% in anticipation of more Fed easing on impact. The asteriod struck the other side of the Earth this morning as Russia Invaded Ukraine and Euro Zone Inflation plunged to 0.3%, miles below the 2.0% target considered "healthy".
This is, of course, GREAT NEWS, because it means Super Mario is free to go ahead and do something – like he always says he will do but never does. That doesn't stop people from believing it because they WANT TO BELIEVE – they want to think someone is going to save them and make all their hardships go away. 11.5% of the people in Europe are still out of work, double the rate in the US. Over 25% of the people under 25 are out of work, about the same as the US. These are horrific figures – of course people are eager to hear the words of a potential savior.
Since it's Friday, we're not going to debate the merits or discuss what a farce it all is – we've done that this week. Today we'll talk about making money.
On Tuesday, in the morning post, I suggested the TNA Sept $72.50/76.50 bull call spread at $2, selling the Sept $68 puts for $2. 10 of those would not have cost you a penny (since it netted out to $0), though about $7,500 in margin on the short puts. Today the spread is $2.50 and the short puts are $1.15 for net $1.35 or +$1,350 in 3 days, which is an 18% gain on the committed margin despite the fact that TNA has essentially gone nowhere.
I don't point this out to brag, we have plenty of trade ideas that have done much better – I point this out because it was a free trade idea, right in the morning post which anyone could have done and it…
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Options and My Patience Expire Today
by phil - March 19th, 2010 8:33 am
Well now we're officially cashed out!
As I always do before options expiration I reviewed our Buy List, which, this quarter, is a list of 37 stocks we've been playing since late December and, sadly, after reviewing 37 of our favorite investments very carefully this week – I could only conclude that cashing them out was the only decision I could be comfortable with this week. Of 66 trades we had on our 37 stocks, 64 are winners with an average return since 2/8 of 28% – since most of the trades were designed to make 40% for the year – it just seems silly not to take the money and run now, on March 19th.
You are not supposed to have 64 out of 66 winners in 6 weeks, you are not supposed to make 3/4 of what you anticipate for the year in 6 weeks – that is NOT how the markets are supposed to work! When the markets go against you in some ridiculous "black swan" fashion, it is easy to throw up your hands and walks away but when the markets go in your favor in some ridiculous, "white swan" fashion – maybe it's also a good idea to use those same hands to stuff your pockets with cash and walk away.
There's nothing wrong with cash – the Fed tells us there will be no inflation in the foreseeable future and, in fact, they are fighting deflation so our sideline dollars will gain more and more buying power while we wait. Actually, despite my best efforts, there are still 15 positions that weren't worth getting rid of (too much reward, not enough risk), even in a worrying market. Generally they are positions we expect to get at least another 20% from by January – still a pretty good return in this low-VIX market.
Our plan is to take opportunistic trades between now and April earnings – we're still expecting a pullback and I'd be very motivated to go back into our old friends if they go back on sale but most of those picks were made for a defensive market posture that won't be necessary if we break over our levels from here and they certainly weren't worth riding back down after hitting 75% of our goal in 25% of the year! …
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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