Phil, I have to hand it to you. It seemed that you were the only person on the planet that thought stocks falling was still possible. I am glad I listened. About the end of the year I was really beginning to second guess though. Thanks for suggesting taking some profits last Nov. It no longer looks like I missed much.
rj_jarboe
I remember that call (to sell gold at $1,850) as well... and the many Buy-Writes that were created on your site during that period... thanks to you, I had an average ROI of close to 70% for over 2 years, averaging 4,000 trades per year. Busy trading, but lots of fun and memorable trades.
1234gel
I have been trading for quite a few years and in good years made about 25%. After joining PSW, I followed closely the PSW strategy and my trading profit for this year is close to 70% to date. For fun, I like to mix in a few "Hail Mary" plays that really worked out well, but overall the simpler Buy/Write strategy, as presented by Phil so often, created the majority of the profit.
Gel1
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 enjoy your informative materials, Phil... as it is obviously beneficial to so many "styles" of trading the markets... long term, swing or day trading the market moves. As a longer term trader, I really like you long term calls, as I for one recognize the difficulty of calling these, because the further out you go in time, projecting price movement becomes more difficult. I have to congratulate you for your accuracy... You called the March 2009 market upward reversal almost to the day, and the AAPL reversal to THE day. Only one who has been a student of the economy and the markets over a period of time could have done this, and so many other accurate calls. I'm sure it was difficult and consistent work, but it did pay off... thanks from one who benefited big time !
1234Gel
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!
Jromeha
I think that Phil is super, I am up 39.3% YTD. Thank you for your kindness and the opportunity to observe Phil from February.
KMisko
TBT - Many thanks, Phil. I join you in your opinion favoring the Jan expirations. That's a great play. I can never thank you enough for what I have gained educationally as well as monitarily. Here it is late Sunday evening and I am able to get world class advice, just by asking for it. I feel like I am staying in a 5 star hotel, and room service is just a telephone call away!
Gel1
I have been with this site since the beginning and i have learned more the past 3 years than the previous 10. Information and great commentary are abound. The traders on the site are second to none and my portfolio has benefited greatly.
Kustomz
Phil - I'm with you just little bit longer than a month and you can not imagine how happy I am now, and not just because my P/L improved ( and I'm sure that it will be even better), but I found that the worst thing in trader's carrier is a LONELINESS. Here I found so many bright good guys, I looked for this service for years. THANK YOU AND TAKE GOOD CARE OF YOURSELF BECAUSE I PLAN TO STAY HERE AND RIDE THIS CREASY MARKET WITH YOU FOR ANOTHER 20-30 YEARS
Tchayipov
As a retired stockbroker from a major Canadian brokerage firm, I can tell you I would never had access to these type of trade ideas, especially the hedges. Just closed out a July TZA 40/45 call spread today for a 271% gain in less than a month. I would have normally let that run but yesterday Phil commented to another member something to the effect that "you put down a $1 for a $5 upside, now that you are up 250% you have $2.5 in and you are hoping for a double." Just closed out a USO July $38 put that Phil suggested yesterday for a 49% one day gain. Thanks, Bob
RJK
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
Thank God for Phil. A few months ago (April) I didn´t even know what hedging was, and someone recommended I should check out some of Phil´s plays, especially on the retirement portfolio. When I first started to read it, none of it made a blind bit of sense to me, but I stuck with it and gradually began to work through some of the trades to see how it worked. Now I am putting on 5:1 SPY backspreads combined with bear put spreads, entering and leaving positions after consulting the VIX, and engaging in other esoteric maneuvers that are keeping my portfolio above water.
jmm1951
Phil, I don't know if I told you lately but you da man! I'm doing so much better following your guidelines. It's like you actually know what you are talking about. 8-) I've tried a lot of services and none of them are as comprehensive or honest AND successful. I appreciate all youz other guys/gals input as well…learning tons as a relative newbie to this game.
Aclend
WOW, glad I went bearish… Phil, thanks for the help on the QID calls yesterday, I turned it into a partial cover rolling down to the Feb 52s selling the 55s 1/2 covered. Sold 1/2 and now lowered my cost basis to $4.38 on the $52s (fully covered).
Texasmotion
PHIL: The most important lesson I have learned is how to hedge using SQQQ, SDS and TZA. A big thanks.
IHS4God
HOTT / Got great trades with it: Enter 6.75 at open, out at 7.18 (avg) at 10:13 Reentered at 7.00 and out all 7.11 few minutes ago- Was a small play but I collected enoght for next month PSW subscription.
Spider
You may wonder if anyone gets anything out of you seminars (or may not wonder). Anyway, I almost never day trade because of my job. Today, I was home due to the snow and since I was behind by 2 weeks on watching your recorded seminars I though I would watch one of them. I set up my pivot point charts in TOS to match the ones in your seminar and made the QQQ trade from this morning. I only bought 5 puts. While I watched the seminar, I would pause then switch back and forth and watch the live QQQ chart. I ended up stopping out for a $170 gain, but it was pretty cool to have the dip and recovery at the same time I was learning the art of stopping out when a pivot line was taken out.
rj_jarboe
Phil/thankyou. Phil, I went over the recording of last weeks webinar. I liked it a lot and wanted to thank you. I thought the case studies (company reviews) were detailed, I learned more about selling puts process and also what happens if stock continues to go down after that, I liked the fact that we discuss so many different avenues like stocks, optiond, futures, oil, commodities etc… I replayed portions of it multiple times to make sure I was grasping it but wanted to say good job. Thanks…
Nramanuja
Phil: well, often you say, just for FUN, great comment, TXS, closed 2 SKF positions, one with 10 % , the other with 6 % gain,
RMM
I cannot believe the success I have had in the last 6 months because of what I have learned here! It has been truly life changing. It's like the old adage about teaching someone how to fish instead of just giving them a fish. Thank you Phil, I am forever grateful and hope I have helped someone else along the way.
Craigsa620
Phil/ Thanks to your obsessive bearish anxiety over the last few weeks, I made money on the long side this month, phased gradually to bearish, came in net short today and managed to make money both long and short all week, ending today [and each day this week] in the green. I don't know how you do it, but thank you.
Zeroxzero
Thanks Phil another great week of guiding us!
Steven Parker
As a fellow "low-end" investor I like Phil's Buy/Write strategy on solid stocks. Before I came here I loved to try to "figure things out" with very little success "TRYING TO FIGURE THINGS OUT"! I traded too much and fell in love with stocks that "should have done" what they didn't do. Now a majority of my accounts are in Buy/Writes suggested here or cash (waiting for a better time for more Buy/Writes). I use 15-20% of my total holding to short term trade and hedge. This is manageable with my full time job as a business owner. I have found Phil's system a more discipline way to achieve the returns I want without relying on my ability (more like inability to "figure things out").
DCalrk41
USO, QQQ- Phil, thanks for these plays. Out of USO for about 65% gain today and just keeping 1/4 QQQ.
Ksone88
Phil: I cleaned up today. A rather stark contrast to my untutored performance April/May 2009, after I had written to you to explain how wrong-headed your bearishness was. Many thanks. I ran into someone once who played on the Bulls with Jordan for quite a few years. He was asked what he had learned from playing with MJ for so long. He smiled and said "Give him the ball."
Zeroxzero
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
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
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.
Zeroxzero
I have been here a year, and made most of my money back from the 14K fall. The people here are more than willing to help whe Phil cannot get to it. FWIW - This site is my brokerage firm, I was with Wells Fargo Portfolio and it was costing a fortune to trade, the costs here are more than offset with the data, trade ideas and profits you should make.. and I get a chuckle out of Cap and Phil's rantings on healtcare, guns, oh, yeah, and government….
Pharmboy
by ilene - May 2nd, 2010 4:24 pm
Courtesy of Edward Harrison at Credit Writedowns
I have written a number of posts which point to a shift in the center of power on Wall Street from the client-facing advisory business to the market-making trading business. I think understanding this shift is vital to understanding what caused the financial crisis and to understanding the defense that Goldman Sachs has proffered for its actions in the Abacus AC1 deal.
What has happened is that major international investment banking groups have taken on a sales & trading ethos of caveat emptor where once the client was king. In my view, this is a direct result of the rise of securitization, structured products and derivatives as a profit center in financial services and is the major contributor to Wall Street’s new unfortunate public image as a casino.
I took on different aspects of this shift in these posts:
I suggest you read them to get more colour on various aspects of Wall Street culture which have eroded the ethics of bankers and led to self-preservation over client-focus.
Here’s the statement in all of those posts I want to dwell on. It came in my post on Goldman’s earnings announcement from July of last year. I wrote:
The Goldman press release is here. What I find notable is the order in which the press release presents the earnings, with a statement on the advisory business first, followed by equities and then fixed income even though fixed income was where the most revenue and profit came. That is revealing – and shows Goldman execs still consider the advisory business of relatively more importance from a reputational perspective. (emphasis added)
Reputation is one thing, reality is another. Former banker turned journalist Bill Cohan gets at the heart of this in his recent blog post "Goldman: Still Greedy, No Longer Patient." He writes:
Once upon a time, Goldman Sachs’ raison d’etre was to serve the ongoing needs of
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by ilene - February 23rd, 2010 2:23 pm
Courtesy of John Carney at Clusterstock/Business Insider
Today’s bleak consumer confidence number is undoubtedly bad news for the economy. The bigger than expected drop suggests that consumers have lost confidence in the recovery, which will drive down home prices and consumer spending.
Consumer confidence is typically our "first look" at the state of the economy. While most government aggregated data come out with a two-month lag, or more, consumer confidence hits with just a one month lag. Studies have shown that consumer confidence is a good predictor of consumer spending numbers. Basically, people surveyed seem to be good at accurately reading their own economic situation, and those surveyed accurately reflect the broader economy. When consumer confidence drops to such deep unexpected levels--today’s were the worst in 27 years--then it is a flashing red-light about the economy.
There wasn’t anything good about today’s numbers. Every part of the survey was awful. On jobs, the optimistic folks who say jobs are plentiful fell to 3.6 percent from 4.4 percent. The pessimistic people who said jobs are hard to get increased to 47.7 percent from 46.5 percent. The gauge of expectations for the next six-months fell to 63.8, from 77.3 the prior month. The share of people who believe their incomes will increase over the next six months fell to 9.5 from 11 percent. The share of those expecting more jobs fell to 12.4 percent from 15.8 percent.
The message: the economy sucks.
The recovery we were supposed to have.
You’ll read a lot about how the consumer confidence numbers are a lagging indicator. Indeed, they are a lagging indicator when measured against the stock market. The real time data conveyed by the stock market is often a better indicator than any survey or government data. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pay attention to the consumer confidence number, especially since stocks have declined for most of this year.
Lets be clear here. The story-book recovery was dependent on a recovery of the consumer and a decline in the saving rate. If consumers lost some of their apprehension about future income prospects and future employment, they might begin to spend more on both retail goods and to purchase homes again. Anticipating this return of the consumer, businesses would increase capital spending and inventory.
We got half of that equation. Business spending…
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by ilene - February 20th, 2010 8:33 pm
Courtesy of Vincent Fernando at Clusterstock/Business Insider
ETFs bill themselves as low-cost alternatives to standard mutual funds or even hedge funds. The idea is that their management fees are lower and trading costs are low since you can simply buy and sell them easily through a discount online broker.
But here’s the problem -- it’s only true if ETFs are actually tracking their benchmarks effectively. Unfortunately they aren’t.
In 2009, ETFs missed their targets by an average of 1.25 percentage points, a gap more than twice as wide as the 0.52-percentage-point average they posted in 2008, according to a study of ETF returns released this week by Morgan Stanley.
Part of this so-called tracking error stems from the recent proliferation of ETFs targeting exotic investments or areas where trading is less frequent, such as emerging-market stocks and junk bonds.
Last year, 54 ETFs showed tracking errors of more than three percentage points, up from just four funds the prior year. And a handful of the 54 missed by more than 10 percentage points.
1.25% is more than the management expense of some actively managed funds, or some hedge funds even (before performance fees).
We think ETFs are great for tracking broad, liquid benchmarks such as the S&P 500 where they are likely to be worthwhile in terms of cost and trading ease. But ETF products for niche investments are highly suspect. The more illiquid investments the worse off ETF investors will be, especially since savvy traders will likely be able to line up and pick-off trades ahead of the ETF.
For anything niche, investors are probably better off with old fashioned mutual funds once all of their real expenses are factored in.
Yet we’re fully aware of the fact that expenses of an ETF such as the above are near-invisible, especially if someone is been trading in and out of an ETF. So we’ll expect investors to keep lapping these products up. In investment management, products with the least visible expenses, and best ability to avoid blame, win.
(Tip via Abnormal Returns)
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by ilene - February 8th, 2010 11:39 am
Courtesy of Joe Weisenthal at Clusterstock/The Business Insider
What are banks doing with the billions upon billions of dollars they’ve taken from the taxpayer?
The St. Louis Fed has just updated its latest data on bank health and activity, and the charts paint a great picture of what’s really going on in our banking system.
The bottom line: lending is still tanking (unless you count lending to the government)
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by ilene - February 2nd, 2010 1:13 pm
Courtesy of Vincent Fernando at Clusterstock/Business Insider
Anyone who thinks that the business of derivatives ended with the financial crisis had better check out the recent trading volumes released by the derivatives exchange company CME Group.
Just this January, total derivatives trading volume shot up 19% year over year, with particularly feverish activity in interest rate derivatives (for fixed income, Up 33%), foreign exchange derivatives (Up 78%), and metals derivatives (Up 65%).
Traders are loving derivatives like never before:
Also, keep in mind that CME Group just began clearing infamous credit default swaps (CDS), which comprise an enormous market for further trading growth. The sky’s the limit, until it comes crashing down again.
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by ilene - January 25th, 2010 8:31 pm
Courtesy of Jesse’s Café Américain
Here is an interesting chart that shows the ascendancy of the financial sector in the US.
Commercial banking is largely an administrative function, with a few highly paid decision makers, and many lower paid functionaries and clerks that make a decent if unspectacular wage commensurate with a utility function.
Starting with the Reagan privatization revolution, the finance sector began to grow in importance, moving from a utility serving the capital distribution and storage needs of the real economy taking a relatively small percentage of real output, to a dominant force in the national decision making process, controlling the allocation of capital through its powerful influence and lobbying in Washington, placement of its supporters in political positions of power, and the consolidation of the mainstream media into an oligopoly of four or five major corporations.
Now we have a financial sector dominated by a relatively few number of multinational corporations that are certainly not utilities serving the productive economy. In reality the big multinational banks have become hedge funds speculating in a broad range of markets, often in competition if not contrary to the interests of their customers, relying on other people’s money for capital to sustain an outsized leverage and a steady stream of rents and speculative winnings, and to cushion any losses in the event of the occasional market downturns.
And if we do not give the banks their demands, if we do not maintain the status quo, then they threaten that they cannot protect the world from financial ruin and a collapse of the money system, which they themselves control. And this is no mere extortion, no corruption of a single party or person, but the foundation of an enduring modern tyranny.
“Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate, systematic plan of reducing a people to slavery." Thomas Jefferson
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by ilene - December 27th, 2009 1:05 am
Courtesy of Henry Blodget at The Business Insider
This includes retirees who did exactly what they were supposed to do--save. Their incomes are now getting clobbered.
Meanwhile, for those who prefer to borrow money, the ongoing bailout has created the world’s easiest way to make $1 billion. Borrow short-term from the taxpayers and lend the same money back to the taxpayers--and get a guaranteed risk-free spread.
Here’s Bill Gross:
“What the average citizen doesn’t explicitly understand is that a significant part of the government’s plan to repair the financial system and the economy is to pay savers nothing and allow damaged financial institutions to earn a nice, guaranteed spread,” said William H. Gross, co-chief investment officer of the Pacific Investment Management Company, or Pimco. “It’s capitalism, I guess, but it’s not to be applauded.”
Mr. Gross said he read his monthly portfolio statement twice because he could not believe that the line “Yield on cash” was 0.01 percent. At that rate, he said, it would take him 6,932 years to double his money.
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by ilene - December 20th, 2009 11:40 am
Arnold Kling explains why our political leaders won’t break up the Too Big To Fail banks:
My answer to both relates to what I call the Harvard-Goldman filter.
The Harvard-Goldman filter works like this.
1. To get into a position of power, you have to pass through a filter. The easiest way to show that you can pass through the filter is to go to Harvard and then work for Goldman.
2. If you do not go to Harvard and work for Goldman, then you have to show that you can get along with people who did.
3. The best way to show that you can get along with people who pass the Harvard-Goldman filter is to show that you believe in applying the Harvard-Goldman filter.
Why was Tim Geithner regarded as such an obvious, in fact necessary, choice to be Treasury Secretary? Because he satisfies the Harvard-Goldman filter, particularly point (3). He is not going to bring people from the wrong social caste into the policymaking arena.
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by ilene - December 7th, 2009 1:40 pm
Two articles on collections of second mortgage debt being attempted, prior to resolution of the first mortgage. 
Normally, first mortgages have priority, but it appears owners of second mortgage obligations – debt collection agencies – are cutting ahead and demanding payback early and then using questionable tactics to accomplish their goals (e.g., filing suit without giving notice). – Ilene
Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. Justice Louis Brandeis
By Vince Veneziani, courtesy of Clusterstock
Housing Doom: Josh Zinner of the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project in Manhattan said some lenders or trusts for banks that went out of business are selling off second mortgages today to debt collectors for pennies on the dollars. Those debt collectors are then going after the homeowners’ bank accounts or pay checks to recoup whatever money they can.
And if a bank or debt collection agency goes after you, for god’s sake, respond to the complaint in a timely manner:
Perhaps in part because they are not notified, people sued in New York City often fail to appear in court to protect their interests, according to a study released last year by MFY Legal Services, a nonprofit law firm in New York.
MFY found that just seven law firms filed nearly one-third of all the cases seeking to collect $25,000 or less in
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by ilene - November 27th, 2009 12:05 pm
Good morning! Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. – Ilene
Kian Abouhossein at J.P. Morgan delivers some excellent insight into the Dubai crisis. The wealthy UAE will be able to easily bail out Dubai if need be, this time. It just might not be so optimistic to do so in the future.
We are less concerned for global banks about Dubai World’s direct $59bn outstanding debt exposure with $4.3bn due to mature in Dec-09 and a further $4.9bn in 1Q10, considering “only” $13bn of syndicated loans across global banking sector based on Dealogic data. Assuming a 10% “hold” strategy, the most exposed banks would be RBS with $0.23bn, DB and CS with $0.17bn each.
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The view from our MENA team is that this event reflects cash flow challenges rather than refinancing ability. They believe that obligations on Dubai World and its property unit Nakheel PJSC are likely to be fulfilled at the new May 2010 earliest repayment date, and that Dubai should be eventually be able to fulfill its debt obligations maturing in the short-term ($4bn in Dec-09, relating to Dubai World, and $9 to $10 in 2010) with continued Abu Dhabi support. Abu Dhabi is strong financially with fiscal and current account surpluses, ~$150bn in FX reserves and a ~$300bn sovereign wealth fund. However it seems that Abu Dhabi will no longer be happy to underwrite all debt, and rather will differentiate more strongly between supporting Dubai’s strategically important assets (such as DEWA, and Dubai Ports), and the non strategic assets – hence the concurrent timing of the Dubai World debt restructure and the Abu Dhabi underwritten government of Dubai debt raising.
Here’s one rough measure of relative bank exposure to Dubai, based on Dubai World syndicated loans since 2007. Overall, JP Morgan believes the exposures are relatively small compared with the major banks involved.
Here’s probably a better estimate of relative exposure, by loans made to the UAE as a whole. The amount of direct loan exposure to Dubai specifically, within this UAE-wide figure, are apparently very difficult to know.
Conclusions for some of the major banks exposed:
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Overall
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May 24th, 2019 8:23 pm
Behold, the power of compounding! And fall to your knees in the presence of its invincibility!
Okay, this one was really fun to make. I hope you like it. Make sure to let my bosses at CNBC know and maybe they’ll let me make more of these!
Reply to this tweet:
Here it is – the world premiere of my new video:
How to Double Your Money in the Market
Hope you love it! https://t.co/yqRDtS32O5...
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
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