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
Phil: I have 263 positions - 70% in options ( balance stocks) in three portfolios with a value of 3 mil. YTD profit is about $750,000. Thanks!
Gel1
Looking over your main themes last week, the "China may fall first" and "if you missed it previously, Thurs am gives you a second chance to short" were absolutely on target. I had to rely on stop-losses because of my schedule but just those two calls could have been worth a small fortune. Keep it up and I look forward to your new portfolio.
Ocelli
GOOG, NFLX and AAPL all bought last hour Friday. Sold into the excitement the first hour today for an average of 15% on the options. And lots of them. Thanks again Phil for teaching me so well.
lflantheman
I have been a member off and on for years. Using these techniques I do consistently beat the S&P 500. Phil's Stock World has been the most important site in my financial life. It's impact on me over the past years has been huge. As have my tax bills!
Knightpilot
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
Phil: UNH, hedged stock position, doing great, up over 50 %,
RMM
I have followed a lot of Phil's picks over the last several years and made money using the exact option strategies he outlines. Of all the contributors on SA, he offers the most actual and ready to implement advice that has put money in my account. Many of us on SA actually are sad when we don't see Phil's postings for an extended period.
Brenteaz
USO, QQQ- Phil, thanks for these plays. Out of USO for about 65% gain today and just keeping 1/4 QQQ.
Ksone88
Oxen (directly) and Wilkinson (indirectly) are making me a great day trader! Props to Andrew for another little nugget last night: HIG. $20 Dec calls paid 6% quickly this morning. And helloooo STJ - a few days, but nice pick nonetheless - esp with early cover premium.
Dstillwe
Well I want to thank P. Davis for his style and for the fact that he affirmed my thoughts for a correction. He was right and his confirmation of my bias saved me thousands. Mr. Davis is amoral when it comes to money. He realizes the poor are screwed but we must fight to win. A measure of sarcasm and dark humour and it is great reading. 100% right on the correction.
Chaffey
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
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
Hello Phil,
Thanks for the heads up on the comming sell off on friday, and the bs job yesterday. your our guiding light!
Microflux
Thanks, I managed to make 2k today so I am happy…and feel like I am finally getting it. New equipment and a quiet place to work helps a lot. I am happy for all the members that took your /NKD advice….that was fun I am sure! coke Take your vitamins…I don't know how you do all this! but, keep it up!
Coke
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
Phil- I want to let you know that you really helped me make some money this morning when I probably would have lost on my own. I was stuck in doctors waiting rooms most of the morning starting at 8AM. By following the game plan you laid out and using my smartphone, I went short on oil whenever we got to 61.50 and long at 61 waiting for the spikes ahead of inventory. When 10:30 rolled around I was out after selling longs at 61.60 a few minutes earlier. I went short at 61.75-61.80 and voila, rode it down to 60.60 or so. Thank you.
craigsa620
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
Praising PSW for enlightenment is a bit akin to praising the Pope for being holy. I've been reading PSW for about two months now and have learned more about investing technique and the world in general than I've learned from the books and seminars I've paid for. Thanks for the enlightenment, the education, the guidance and the truth, which is not a commodity these days, but a virtue in short supply.
Andy Morris
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
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
Phil- I am a former portfolio manager and now retired. I have been following you for about six months and I now know why you have so many followers you are very insightful and knowledgeable.
Mkozberg
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
Bought some QQQ's today on the dip. Added a little bit more to my son's account. Up about 8% in 2 months! I think I've learned some stuff here. Thanks to all that contribute, and of course to the boss. Thanks Phil!
JeffDoc
I would like to thank Phil and PSW crew for the insight and assistance (even the liberals).
In December I initiated long stock positions buying stock, writing calls and puts in AAPL, WFR and CHK (scaling in and out). Over the last week I have been trimming back my positions selling stock and taking out my callers and putters. I am now back to my initial 25% position that I started with in December. However this time, my cost basis on shares AAPL, WFR, and CHK is $0! With money to spare from those positions.
Texasmotion
Phil/ et al- Thanks for the answers to my spread questions last night, as I really needed that little piece of knowledge to crystallize my understanding of spreads. Your help is much appreciated and I have been doing really well for the last couple of months with fewer and fewer missteps as I embrace the PSW ways and watching my portfolios grow.
Craigsa620
Aapl/Phil
Thanks for your advice, always appreciated.
So, not so much a tax issue, but more to protect against a 5% or greater drop.
Here is what I did before their earnings…sold 25% of my stock at 147.50
Against the rest, I sold the June $140 calls for $8.25, protecting down to $140 if needed.
And just for fun, I bought the weekly $145 puts for $1.50( small price to pay if they bombed on earnings)
So, overall, I am happy with the insurance I was able to 'generate' for 1% of the price of stock.
Now, depending on what happens, I have the luxury of deciding and being in the driver's seat with respect to whether to sell and buy your spreads or not.
Having done all that meandering, I must say it was fun!
More important, I could not have done something like that 2 or 3 years ago and reading and thinking about your teachings has been a tremendous asset.
Thanks!
Maya1
Thanks for all the work you put into this site. I have looked at a few other option advisory or "mentoring" services this year, but no one offers even a fraction of the content or the level of services you provide at PSW!
Jelutuck
Phil, thanks for the webinar and options subject…I wasn't shown as attending but I was there for most of it. Your memory amazes me, your speed on the computer amazes me, your math skills blow me away. coke
Coke
That was a quick double on the DIA calls. trailing stop in place.
Yet another huge disappointment for markets to digest — ADP’s June employment report showed just 13,000 new jobs were added from May to June on a seasonally-adjusted basis, vs. 61,000 expected. That’s clearly a huge miss.
While the report continued to show job creation, the rate of new jobs fell substantially from the 55,000 reported last month. The latest 13,000 new jobs is also far below the five month average of 34,000 new jobs per month, based on ADP. Thus there has been an obvious deceleration.
ADP:
Recent ADP Report data suggest that, following steady improvement through April, private employment may have decelerated heading into the summer. The slow pace of improvement from February through June is consistent with other publicly available data, including a pause in the decline of initial unemployment claims that occurred during the winter months.
Small businesses have even begun to cut jobs:
Large businesses, defined as those with 500 or more workers, saw employment increase by 3,000 and employment among medium-size businesses, defined as those with between 50 and 499 workers increased by 11,000. Employment among small-size businesses, defined as those with fewer than 50 workers, decreased by 1,000 in June.*
This is a huge change from the 13,000 jobs ADP said small businesses created in the previous month.
Just some random market thoughts and observations as we head into the holiday weekend doldrums…
* The S&P 500 looks to finish the 2nd quarter 2010 down 11%. An absolute slaughterhouse from the end of April on.
* You know the bulls are spent when we couldn’t even get the traditional End Of Quarter Markups. Brian Shannon (Alpha Trends) called it "end of quarter window-smashing" yesterday with the indexes down close to 4% apiece.
* I’m hearing chatter about the possibility of a short squeeze but I’m not sure I see one brewing. You would need something on the horizon that adds a little fear for the shorts. You’re going to tell me that they’re afraid of tomorrow’s ADP report? Or the employment numbers due out Friday?
* (Supposedly) positive news from Europe’s banking wreck yielded little or no reaction here in the States this morning. But we all know how negative news is reacted to lately. A sentiment indicator if ever there was one: Good News = Blah, Bad News = Death & Dismemberment.
* Apple finishes down more than ten bucks on news of a Verizon iPhone launch in 6 months. So apparently, 10 million plus new iPhone users is an underwhelming possibility. Another sentiment touchstone for sure. Verizon was down, too. Oh boy.
* No one running big money is looking to do anything heroic this week, regardless of stocks having gotten, shall we say, a bit cheaper. Other than BP (because of Exxon rumors) and the Tesla IPO (hyped beyond belief), I saw little appetite for anything this week. The selling has stopped in many stocks as of this writing, but now what?
***
Anyway, these are just some random observations as I take the market’s temperature. I realize that taken together they are incredibly negative, but that’s the mood.
Investors are likely to be increasingly concerned about rate increases over the coming months due to the much better than expected non-farm payrolls report. Using the last few recessions as a reference point it is likely that equity gains could become increasingly difficult to come by as the Fed is pressured to remove their accommodative stance and other programs are wound down.
Despite higher rates coming shortly, MS expects the rally to continue in the near-term. I can’t disagree with this outlook. Stocks are very buoyant heading into Christmas and it’s unlikely that this report will force the Fed’s hand immediately. Like Draaisma, I believe the rally could move higher into year-end based on this optimism, but could then begin to sputter out as 2010 becomes a year of higher rates and transition into an economy without a government crutch. MS analysts report:
We expect the sweet spot to last a bit longer. The cyclical bull market has some further to run, in our view. We expect 20%+ earnings growth in 2010, equity valuations are still attractive versus rates, and sentiment is not ultra-bullish yet. We prefer equities to fixed income, and we expect a further 9% upside to reach our 1200 bull case target for MSCI Europe based on the mid-cycle multiple on mid-cycle earnings of 15x 12% ROE.
Lessons from past tightening cycles. The start of tightening phases tends to lead to some indigestion and a defensive rotation in equity markets, for two quarters or more. The 1994 and 2004 episodes led to a 16% and 8% fall in MSCI Europe over eight and five months. Sector performance was defensive, but Oil and Materials outperformed, too. In the aftermath of secular bear markets tightening phases have been more severe, with equities falling on average 25% over 13 months.
Draaisma notes that it’s silly trying to jump on the back end of a 70% rally in an attempt to time the final leg up. As we wrote earlier this week:
The consensus from what I’m reading about the employment report is that the superficially good numbers should not be taken as confirmation of ‘recovery" due to the effect of temporary influences. - Ilene
In today’s Lunch With Dave Dave Rosenberg shows how US Payrolls Less Than Meets The Eye.
Today’s employment report is being treated as a ‘green shoot’ of major proportions. While it was by far the best jobs performance of the year, much of the better-than-expected tally in nonfarm payrolls reflected the bounce in auto production as well as the distortion from the federal census workers. Combined, these two influences effectively “added” 100,000 to the headline number, so net-net, the consensus view of -325,000 was not as far off the mark as the market believed at first glance.
The auto sector added 28,200 to the industry payroll in July, which was the highest tally in 11 years. To show you just how big that really is, it is a 69% annualized surge. Normally, the industry, which is in secular decline, posts job losses of between 20,000 and 30,000 consistently, so this alone represented roughly a 50,000 swing. We estimate that there was about a 30,000 swing in the rest of the manufacturing sector due to the spillover from the current inventory adjustment in the motor vehicle industry. The 0.3% MoM increase in the workweek was also skewed by the 4.1% MoM jump in the auto sector.
As we mentioned, there have been large fluctuations in the federal government payroll too. After hiring a slew of Census workers in the spring, there were 57,000 layoffs in May-June and then we saw in today’s report that 12,000 federal workers were “hired” in July. Again, mathematically, this contributed about 20,000 to today’s headline number. In other words, and we have no intent on raining on anyone’s parade, there was about 100,000 non-recurring payrolls in that top-line figure. It may be dangerous to extrapolate today’s report into a view that we are about to fully turn the corner on the job market front.
Yes, the income number was also firm; average weekly earnings popped 0.5%, but again, this reflected the bounce in the auto sector as well as the 10.7% increase in the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour. Again, this is a
The economy is getting worse more slowly. That’s just about the only clear reading that’s coming from the economic reports, including this morning’s important one on employment. The pace of job losses slowed — payrolls fell by 247,000, after a 443,000 loss in June, and the official jobless rate dropped from 9.5 to 9.4 percent.
Be careful with these figures, though. They don’t include the increasing numbers of people working part-time who’d rather have full-time jobs. Nor do they include a large number who have given up looking for work. They don’t reflect the many millions who have found new jobs that pay less than the old ones they lost. And they don’t include one of the shortest typical workweeks on record, for those who still have full-time jobs. (On this score, though, another indication that things are worsening more slowly — the workweek went up very slightly from 33 hours.) Nor, for that matter, do the numbers reflect the 130,000 people who are coming into the labor force each month ready and willing to work, who can’t find jobs.
If all these people are included, my estimate is that one out of five Americans who would otherwise be working full time are now underemployed. We are still experiencing the biggest decline of any post-World War II economic slump.
The overall economy continues to contract but more slowly than before. Consumers are not buying, exports are still dropping, and business investment is still in the doldrums, so the only clear reason is that the stimulus is beginning to kick in. Yet — here’s another important thing to watch — job losses continue to outpace that contraction. In other words, employers are using this downdraft to lay off more workers, proportionately, than they have since the Great Depression. The late economist Arthur Okun, after reviewing economic history, once pronounced a rule of thumb that every two percent drop in economic growth generates a one percent rise in unemployment. This time, that rule has been broken: The fall in growth has resulted in a much greater rise in unemployment. And if underemployment is figured in, a truly astonishing rise.
So let’s be grateful that the economy is getting worse more slowly than it was. But don’t be
The stock market has been on fire of late, rallying up to the edge of price resistance on several indexes. Today, we look at one of those stock market indexes: the Wilshire 5000.
The Wilshire 5000 tracks all of the stocks in the US market, so it is a broad-based index that carries significant importance when gauging the health of the overall US stock market.
Looking at the long-term “weekly” chart above, it is pretty clear that the index is at an important price juncture.
The Wilshire 5000 spent the last 25 years trading within a rising price channel (1)...
My Chart o’ the Day this weekend comes to us from Jonathan Krinsky at Baycrest Partners, who’s out with some significant insights about the week that was.
He looks at the possibility that both the dollar and bond prices have hit a high and are now about to roll over. A drop in USD below support, which appears to be imminent, would have all sorts of implications for the recent breakout in gold extending and for the potential of emerging markets stocks outperforming US stocks. A drop in bond prices (rates going up) could mean a reversion in the bond proxy rally (REITs and Utes) and a boost for the banks and brok...
Draghi’s shenanigans get hilarious, months before his term ends.
So here’s ECB President Mario Draghi, whose term ends in October, and he’s at the ECB Forum in Portugal, and in a speech on Tuesday titled innocuously, “Twenty Years of ...
When valuations for the boring water company or the boring electric company is trading like your Facebook, Apple, Amazon or Netflix or Google (ie FANG) you know something is wrong.
This is when a seriously over valued market is screaming at you.
Of course the reader must understand in a world where money printing goes super nuts (Zimbabwe style) the stock market may go hyper inflationary and picking a time frame for a top is never a good idea, but we are not there yet. There is no Ben Bernanke helicopter money to the masses yet (ie MMT).
To see when water company's (and such like) are nearing the crazy FANG like valuations a review of the Dow Jones Utility Index channel shows us how history can repeat. The c...
Here’s some catnip for the Tesla bulls on this email list: my analyst, Kevin DeCamp, a longtime TSLA shareholder and car owner, took a test drive of the Jaguar I-PACE and, while it “looks great and is fun to drive… it is lacking in a few areas where Tesla really shines.” He concludes that “Tesla may end up killing itself, but the “Tesla killer” car is nowhere in sight.”
The Tesla Killer Hasn’t Arrived Yet: My Test Drive of the Jaguar I-PACE
The 21st-century revolutionaries who have dominated cryptocurrencies are having to move over. Mainstream financial institutions are adopting these assets and the blockchain technology that enables them, in what ...
Back in 2016, Helen (a pseudonym) took three different direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic tests: AncestryDNA, 23andMe and FamilyTreeDNA. She saw genetic testing as a way...
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...
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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.
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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