Phil – great calls this past week, esp. friday and monday. in the old days I would have let Prechter et al scare me into trimming my longs and going short at just the wrong time. your feel for the markets is Tiger-esque. CHK, HOV, BX, TLT and XLF are big winners for me today. My biggest up day in a long time. Thanks!
Terrapin22
Peter D, Just a note of thanks. Eight weeks ago, I entered my first RUT strangles, when the RUT was at 625. Tomorrow, I will let them expire, with the RUT at 625 (give or take). I didn't care when the RUT went to 650, nor when it dropped to 590. Easiest, no touch money I've made in a long time.
Judahbenhur
@Philip Davis, Per my review you are the best options trader that I have seen. You've made money for your investors and those that subscribe to your service. Many cudos to you for a just ahead of the curve buying or selling opportunity. Yes, you've hit HRs when others were hitting singles.
153972
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
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
You are doing a fantastic job. I think most of us our very well balanced and consequently have learned how to manage through these ever so short declines in the market without panic.
Dclark41
Phil – BTW, the new STP/LTP coupled with the income portfolio is Perfect! I do not trade all of them, very few actually since I work during market hours. However, following the trades real-time is very educational.
I did enter the ABX call if you recall, I rolled to July on that nonsense news that sent it tumbling. Out today for 110% gain (2.00 stop) not counting covering the loss from the earlier roll. Nonetheless, a good trade.
Keep it up…. Thanks
JFawcett
Nice call on the QQQ puts this morning Phil. I bought 10 at .13 this morning for fun day trade. Just closed at .95. Sweet hedge for the day!
RevTodd64
Thanks for you guidance – Your "student" will be passing on the McMuffins and having Lobster dinners tonight!
Aquila
I went LEVEL 4 because of YOU! That's right, buddy!! And I started putting my options trades in my comments...also because of YOU! That's hard to do. I Love PD!! He's just a man about Work!
Chris Valley (author)
Peace of mind / I have a portfolio mainly consisting of long term long calls, short term short calls and puts, and long term BCS. Three years, ago when I started my journey on this board I would be freaking out panicking as to what to do, as many of the short calls are ITM, Three years later (today) I look at the screen and serenely process the information. Three years ago, I inevitably made the wrong decisions which cost me a lot of money. Three years on I calmly roll the positions to whatever makes sense. No drama, no hair pulling, and a great cost saver. I guess they call that the power of education.
Winston
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
I really would like to meet all of the posters here who seem like an intriguing bunch of intelligent, opinionated (without being obnoxious or condescending most of the time), and well spoken people. Not so easy to find in this age of instant gratification and me first attitudes. Usually this results in groups where misinformation is used to gain an advantage, or whatever it takes to beat the other guys. I love the one for all, all for one vibe here, sharing your best ideas and helping each other work together for a common goal, to be successful investors!
craigsa620
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
Phil
Killed it tonight trading copper. Anyone who jumped in right after election is up about 75k on one contract!
Thanks
Kapella
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: UNH, hedged stock position, doing great, up over 50 %,
RMM
Against all prognostics (bears) Phil pointed in the morning the correct direction, and in middle of day he pointed the possible move to 2.5% Incredible… I'm starting to serious believe on the program trading and the human nature behind the programing those "trade-bots".
Spider
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
Have been a member for about 6 months or there abouts. Signed up for a quarter at first and then for a year. To me, and it's only my opinion, it's an investment and I have made the membership fees back many times over on the strategy advice. Since joining and implementing the strategy of buy/writes and hedges I have cut my portfolio losses for the year and have a really good chance of going positive this year. If I would have continued down the road I was on, I would still have been fumbling around without a strategy and completely inept in what I was doing. I feel now the strategy is working and I am far more comfortable with the risks I am taking. I still have a lot to learn but I feel the fees have been one of the best investments I have made. The returns have been fantastic. Still have problems with the politics but hey nobody is perfect
DKGuy
PSW AC Conf: For those who may be on the bubble, I attended my first PSW LV in November. It was a real eye-opener. What I accomplished in a couple of days of exposure to Phil, Pharm, Craig, et al made my previous couple of years of hanging around the web site seem silly. If you are inclined in the slightest, you really should go. Just rubbing shoulders with other PSW members proved to be really valuable. Strictly on the basis of value, it's a great deal. You will have real time conversations with Phil and the gang and they will get to your questions and agenda items.
Mjjwo9b
Phil: Once again thanks for those inciteful comments, and the old links to Sage's portfolio management (I hadn't read before). I'm an experienced stock trader, but over the last 3 or 4 months have come to appreciate options trading here at PSW, and the consistency of your many premium-selling strategies. It is liberating to have to worry less about getting direction right and being able to generate 5% MONTHLY returns with close to delta-neutral positioning. Much appreciated!
Neverworkagain
Opt, I think the hardest thing is being disciplined enough to trade with you. Atleast now when I see something go in the red I know how much I'm going to loose and that I will profit somewhere else and have enough money left at the end of the day to trade again. Thanks for all your hard work! My stress levels are down 75% and I have even made a small profit in the short time I've been here
Mopar
Phil - I caught the interview…. terrific!. Your host recommended that the viewers should " go to your site, as you will be entertained ". That is for sure if you consider entertainment is laughing while you read, learn and make unbelievable leveraged profits that you never thought were possible. That is my kind of entertainment !
Gel1
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
Hey Phil,
You called all the trends and market movements with perfection this week. I enjoyed it! Thanks for keeping us sane!
GClay
New members – a word of advice: you should check out the track record of Phil's last few trades of the year, and what the return would be if you just rolled all the gains into the next years trade of the year. Remember – trade of the year is one he's virtually sure of, and he rarely misses on those
Deano
Just closed out my V put for 50% in 24 hours thanks Phil!
Humvee
10/15/2014: Phil…..been travelling more than not but reading and watching you guys every night. This is to say a big thank you. Even though I don't have the time to trade every day now I set up hedges and base long term strategy on PSW. I now it may sound like BS to some readers but my 401k is down a mere 3%. It hardly gets my attention when I open my brokerage portfolio accounts. And that is by using your longer term hedges and strategies. I don't need to be a day trader to take advantage of PSW. At this time in my life when I cant trade every day……. not losing what we've gained moves front and center. It's just a great feeling to watch your brokerage account hold steady in a sea of red. Thanks Teacher.
Livingfull
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!
From this chart sent out this morning by David Rosenberg, we can see that the GDP deflator is at a five decades low.
I tend to believe that the modifications to the inflation measures, including the deflator, that have accumulated by the federal bureaucracy over the past ten years are greatly understating the actual inflation in the economy.
There are very positive benefits for the government to do this. The lower the deflator, the better and higher the real GDP figures will appear. And a low measure of official inflation reduces increases in payments in Social Security and other programs with Cost of Living Adjustments (COLA), including official debt payments on the bonds and the TIPS.
Gold gives the lie to this, which is why it is so hated by financial engineers and statists.
On the other hand, the inequality of income distribution in the US is at level not seen since the 1920′s.
There is some good reason to think that government tax and fiscal policies, as well as the monopolistic makeup and subsidized growth of the Banking sector facilitates this wealth transfer and concentration, which has a highly negative impact on real economic growth.
There will be a change, and the trends will be reversed. How they are reversed and what changes will accompany those reversals are very much open to debate, and divergent historical examples. But these changes almost invariably involve a shift from individualism to statism.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable."
John F. Kennedy
Change will come if the system remains as unsustainable as it is now. And what gives me a somewhat pessimistic view is that people never seem to learn the lessons of history.
This is beyond a doubt the story of the week. Neil Barofsky has been a thorn in the side of the Treasury Department and the Fed since he first took office.
I doubt there will be criminal charges filed against Turbo Tim personally, since in his case the clueless CEO defense may have some traction. Unless, that is, they have wiretaps and/or emails showing collusion with some of the bailed out banks, in either insider trading or the manipulation of assets for extraordinary gains.
It is a boiling scandal, but emblematic of the corruption that has pervaded financial regulation in Washington for the past ten years at least. It did not start with Obama, but it may still bring down key members of his Administration.
April 28 (Bloomberg) — …That tense relationship [between Treasury and Barofsky] has grown out of Barofsky’s mandate to monitor and root out fraud and waste in the management of TARP, the $700 billion program passed in October 2008 to remove toxic debt from the banks. The special inspector general, in a series of reports, interviews and congressional hearings, has heaped criticism on the Treasury Department’s operation of the program.
Barofsky’s most recent broadside came on April 20, when a SIGTARP report labeled a housing-loan modification program funded with $50 billion of TARP money as ineffectual.
…The TARP watchdog has also criticized Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner in reports and in congressional testimony for his handling of the process by which insurance giant American International Group Inc. was saved from insolvency in 2008, when Geithner was head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
The secrecy that enveloped the deal was unwarranted, Barofsky says, adding that his probe of an alleged New York Fed coverup in the AIG case could result in criminal or civil charges.
In Senate Finance Committee testimony on April 20, Barofsky said SIGTARP would investigate seven AIG-linked mortgage-related securities similar to Abacus 2007-AC1, the instrument underwritten by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. that is at the center
This article by the Financial Times should remove any doubt in anyone’s mind that Goldman Sachs was willfully selling fraudulent financial instruments. It appears that they were working in conjunction with Ratings Agencies, Mortgage Origination Firms, and Hedge Funds to cheat investors.
"Cheat" means to circumvent or distort the normal price discovery process through misrepresentation, price manipulation, and omissions and distortion of key data.
Carl Levin summarized the situation in his opening statement this morning in tying together various Congressional hearings and investigations into aspects of the recent financial crisis and the underlying frauds. It sounds remarkably like the frauds that Enron had so recently inflicted on the American public.
In particular, Congressman Levin gave a good description of the key role that derivatives played in this control fraud.
"Of special concern was Goldman’s marketing of what are known as “synthetic” financial instruments. Ordinarily, the financial risk in a market, and hence the risk to the economy at large, is limited because the assets traded are finite. There are only so many houses, mortgages, shares of stock, bushels of corn or barrels of oil in which to invest.
But a synthetic instrument has no real assets. It is simply a bet on the performance of the assets it references. That means the number of synthetic instruments is limitless, and so is the risk they present to the economy. Synthetic structures referencing high-risk mortgages garnered hefty fees for Goldman Sachs and other investment banks. They assumed an ever-larger share of the financial markets, and contributed greatly to the severity of the crisis by magnifying the amount of risk in the system.
Increasingly, synthetics became bets made by people who had no interest in the referenced assets. Synthetics became the chips in a giant casino, one that created no economic growth even when it thrived, and then helped throttle the economy when the casino collapsed."
This is also a good description of the basis of the emerging scandal in the silver market, and other commodity markets such as those that Enron manipulated, in which synthetic bets are being used to manipulate price, and improbable sales are being misrepresented under the cover of secrecy and opaque markets as…
Here is a video interview on France 24 television with Max Keiser speaking on Goldman Sachs from almost one year ago.
By the way, NO ONE who is a serious player on Wall Street is legitimately surprised by this, and probably no one in regulatory bodies are either, unless they are just showing up to collect a paycheck and obtain free Internet access.
The antics of Goldman Sachs have been getting by on a ‘wink and a nod’ from the regulators and the market for some time. Why? Because they are powerful, and because like Lehman and their off balance sheet frauds, they are almost ALL doing it on Wall Street as part of the franchise. Goldman has just been a pig about it, and probably burned some insiders and powerful investors in their fraudulent Abacus trade.
The excuses being made for Goldman by some on Bloomberg Television and CNBC are setting new lows in journalism. It was just a simple failure to disclosure Paulson’s involvement right? Almost a technicality. No one forced the customers to buy those fraudulently packaged and labeled assets or stocks (this was a favorite excuse from Joe Kernan during the Internet/tech bubble collapse). No involvement from the Ratings Agencies in the purposeful crafting of a fraudulent financial instrument. Guest Calls Cramer a ‘PR Man for Goldman Sachs’ and is ejected from the show by the resident money honey.
As you may recall, Mr. Cramer represents himself as highly experienced in manipulating stocks using CNBC reporters from his days as a hedge fund manager. So it might not be so outre to inquire if he is working the other side of that Wall Street scam these days.
Why, these derivatives were SO complex that the poor Goldman management barely understood them themselves. They were tricked by Paulson. Tourre is a rogue trader. Bernie Madoff ate their Series 7 cheatsheets. Compliance was seconded to the Riviera. Lloyd was busy doing missionary work in Bangkok. More regulation will just hurt the recovery.
Don’t just regulate them. Break them up. And audit the Fed.
I am glad the professor is from HEC. I did my international business MBA sequence (an extended field trip for adults, but the refreshments were good) at the ‘other’ business school in Paris at La Defense, ESSEC.
Two parties is really no party at all. Ever see that cute Southpark episode about the futility of voting, Giant Douche and the Turd Sandwich? So true. (Warning, bad language and offensive to PETA members) - Ilene
An alternative title for this might be, "Of Rats and Sinking Ships."
Larry Summers is reportedly leaving later this year, and Andrew Cockburn reports that Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s acutely verbal Chief of Staff is said to be looking for other employment, preferably a high paying job on Wall Street with little work and enormous perks and privileges.
This is the sort of thing that one would expect to be happening at the end of the first term of a President, five years into the job. Perhaps that event is being moved up because Obama is likely to be a one term president, in one of the most spectacular flame outs from high, and in retrospect misplaced, expectations since the Segway.
Obama was clearly the wrong man for the job. He might have been the kind of reformer for the good times, when you really do not need him, dedicated to getting the various squabbling parties to hold hands and sing Kumbaya. Unfortunately, a crisis demands leadership, and Obama is all fluff in that department. Leaders lead, they do not hold other people up as the leaders, and take them to task for their failure to do the risky things when their leader hides behind a non-existent consensus. I hate to say this, but both Clinton and W were far superior leaders, unfortunately with deeply flawed visions and moral compasses.
The Democrats are most likely looking at a November massacre in the election, unless some event occurs to pull the nation together such as an externally focused crisis.
The problem of course is that if one looks at the alternatives, there are none too attractive in the Republican Party which is also deeply tarnished with the financial corruption that actually came to full flower under their stewardship with George W. And part of the reason that legislation for reform languishes is that the Republicans are openly in the…
Warren Mosler is "an economist specializing in monetary policy and running for Senator Dodd’s Senate seat in the November elections." He has written the following piece for the Huffington Post. He is so incredibly off the mark that I thought a bit of correction to that spin might help his thinking before he hits the campaign trail.
Mr. Mosler. I have been following this case closely. No one atGATA, or anyone else looking at the state of the regulatory climate in Washington and the quality and tarnished reputation of US markets, is complaining about the normal sort of trading that has been going on ‘for thousands of years.’ Most of the people with whom I have spoken and questioned are seasoned traders with a profound understanding of the commodity markets, and equity markets, and derivatives.
What many people are complaining about is fraud. In this case fraud can loosely be defined as doing something and then lying about it. Saying you did not do something, or disguising the nature of what you have been doing, can turn even a prima facie benign action into a fraud, depending on the intention and degree.
Many people around the world are not complaining that the US has lent out its gold, and the ‘depositories are filled with paper,’ which may some day be replaced by gold again. Although they do point out that it will be replaced at MUCH higher prices if their suspicions are correct. They are pointing out that government officials have said repeatedly that they have never lent it out in the first place but refuse to submit to audits and transparent accounting. And if it did occur, such lending may be of questionable legal status, which is why so many have denied it has occurred. Only the Congress can allow for the attachment of binding claims to sovereign assets. Have they? And if, in exercising some new presidential prerogative, the executive has done so, where is the public disclosure? Where is the law?
And further, in the case of commercial entities like the TBTF bullion banks JPM and HSBC, they are not complaining about short selling that is backed by physical metal, duly paid and accounted for. They are asking questions about what appear to be enormous…
One of the first things that ‘put me off’ of Obama was the choice he made of key appointments to his Administration, selecting the two Robert Rubin acolytes Tim Geithner and Larry Summers to his team, marginalizing Paul Volcker, and then making no place for Robert Reich.
Make no mistake, the Fed looks to have been abusing its secrecy and its position, and Bernanke and Geithner are culpable. Reich makes the points as well or better than I could so here is his recent piece on the subject. All the blog’s are picking it up.
As I recall, the Fed said they were only acquiring ‘investment grade’ instruments, which would be taken on its balance sheet in support of the US Dollar, in addition to the usual Treasury Debt. The recent exposures of the holdings of Maiden Lane show these to be more like junk bonds, and certainly not as represented.
The Fed must be audited, and it role as the ‘master regulator’ and as the place where the Office of Consumer Financial Protection would be located is a farce, a cruel joke. Chris Dodd must either be senile, entirely cynical, or believe the American people to be complete idiots. The only reason I could even imagine for considering it is that the Fed is a ‘cost plus’ agency, meaning that they are self funding out of the mechanism of creating money, taking all their costs out before they turn over the interest income from the public debt back to Treasury. This is also a source of their growth and power. The problem that public agencies often have is that the industries that are regulated by them use their donations and lobbyists to stifle approrpriations for the agencies that regulate them in order to hamper and stifle them.
How can you even think of putting an office of reform and consumer protection in the very institution that was at the epicenter of a historic fraud? And shows itself completely willing to mislead the public, and some even believe perjure itself to the…
"Successful crime is dignified with the name of virtue; the good become the slaves of the wicked; might makes right; fear silences the power of the law." Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Restoring Glass-Steagall is such an obvious move that one has to wonder why it is not being more seriously considered.
Granted, it took a multi-year lobbying effort and the expenditure of many millions of dollar to subvert a national regulatory and political process to overturn it, largely led by Sandy Weill of Citigroup. Frontline: The Long Demise of Glass-Steagall.
And with the return of the Clinton crowd as Obama’s key financial advisers, led by Larry Summers and young Tim, supplemented by more mercenaries from the-investment-bank-that-must-not-be-named, perhaps it is unreasonable to expect the Reformer to enact such a simple, time-tested reform.
Perhaps Barney Frank and Chris Dodd can bring the Princes of Wall Street down to Washington again, profusely thank them for taking time from their busy day to speak to the people’s representatives, privately thank them for their generous campaign contributions, and simply ask them what they will accept as regulation again.
It is important to bear this in mind, because it tends to knock down the assertion that the current financial crisis is somehow an act of God, something that just happened. There was an intent to subvert the regulatory process, to increase leverage beyond what has long been known to be prudent, and to engage in systemic fraud with a group of enables and agencies, such as the ratings firms, in order to reap fabulous personal profits for a small group at the expense of the many. There was planning, premeditation, malice aforethought. They may not have intended to harm; they just did not care. They really truly did not care, if they got theirs.
Until the banks are restrained, and the financial system reform, and balance restored to the economy, there will be no sustained recovery.
And there can be no better start than to stop the gambling with the public money that is the core of the existing US banking system. The parallels with organized crime and the subversion of the public interest through graft and corruption are compelling. And one thing we must accept is that the financiers will never be able to reform themselves, to regulate themselves, to
On the passage of the Paycheck Protection Flexibility Act in House today, Executive Director of the Main Street Alliance Amanda Ballantyne has this to say:
How coronavirus contact tracing works in a state Dr. Fauci praised as a model to follow
Pairing widespread testing with fast, effective contact tracing is considered essential for controlling the coronavirus’s spread as the U.S. passes 100,000 deaths. AP Images/Rick Bowmer
After weeks of keeping people home to “flatten the curve,” restrictions on U.S. businesses are loosening and the coronavirus pandemic response is moving ...
The S&P's remarkable stretch of posting gains in the overnight session continued for another day, with the S&P rising as high as 3,053, and last trading 9 points higher at 3,044, tracking global stocks higher, with Europe's Stoxx 600 rising 1.3% to session highs as investors weighed again increased friction between America and China and the official passage of China's National Security Law in defiance of Trump, against fresh fiscal stimulus promised by the European Union. Treasuries edged up, while the dollar was modestly lower even as traders "treaded water...
Tech stocks have been the clear leader of the stock market recovery rally, this year and since the lows back in 2007!
But within the ranks of leadership, and an important ratio may be sending a caution message to investors.
In today’s chart, we look at the ratio of large-cap tech stocks (the Nasdaq 100 Index) to the broader tech market (the Nasdaq Composite) on a “monthly” basis.
The large-cap concentrated Nasdaq 100 (only 100 stocks) has been the clear leader for several years versus the ...
M2 Velocity is the measurement of capital circulating within the economy. The faster capital circulates within the economy, the more that capital is being deployed within the economy to create output and opportunities for economic growth. When M2 Velocity contracts, capital is being deployed in investments or assets that prevent that capital from further circulation within the economy – thus preventing further output and opportunity growth features.
The decline in M2 Velocity over the past 10+ years has been dramatic and consistent with the dramatic new zero US Federal Reserve interest rates initiated since just after the 2008 credit crisis market colla...
The number of new COVID 19 cases has been falling in the Northeast, but the South is not having the same experience. The number of new cases per day in each Southern state has been rangebound for the past month.
And that’s assuming that the numbers haven’t been manipulated. We know that in Georgia’s case at least, they have been. And there are suspicions about Florida as well, as the State now engages in a smear campaign against the fired employee who built its much praised COVID19 database and dashboar...
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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Warren Mosler is "an economist specializing in monetary policy and running for Senator Dodd’s Senate seat in the November elections." He has written the following piece for the Huffington Post. He is so incredibly off the mark that I thought a bit of correction to that spin might help his thinking before he hits the campaign trail.
One of the first things that ‘put me off’ of Obama was the choice he made of key appointments to his Administration, selecting the two Robert Rubin acolytes Tim Geithner and Larry Summers to his team, marginalizing Paul Volcker, and then making no place for Robert Reich.
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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.