Oil – thanks Phil,
got in late at 0.53 on the 38p today, set a sell for 0.75 and took the dog for a walk – 70% gain and more than enough $$ to buy dog food. TZA Aug 35/40 BCS – closed out for a 100% gain in under a month – thanks again for introducing me to these trades.
CanuckBob
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
Great calls this week!
SNS1
Thanks super helpful re: UGN example…..other inflation/market-correction-defensive-related play you threw out that has jammed UP in less than a month is TITN 6/14 $15 puts, up 40%. Excuse my enthusiasm but haven't had those types of gains in multiple plays in years let alone days doing it on my own…….maybe I should host the PSW infomercial!!!!
stevegeb200
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
We are lucky to be in America and it is great to be part of the PSW tribe. Keeps me thinkin' and gatherin' the profits. ~ 42 % gain in my trading account year to date, which keeps me happy. Half to a third of the trading account is reserved in margin capacity that Is not committed. So, again thanks Phil and all of you other members.
Newthugger
I've recently done exactly what Phil described. I upgraded my ability to trade the IRA acct. by transferring acct. from TDA to TOS. TDA would not allow spreads; TOS does. Neither will allow naked options. With spreads I am able to buy calls or puts several months out then sell front month calls or puts over and over. This allows me to collect premium, which is, of course, the goal. This wasn't an original idea. Phil put me onto it. Since the transfer I've substantially increased my performance in the IRA!
Iflantheman
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
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
My watch list looks like a grid where Phil's recommendations went UP and everything else went DOWN! It looked something like an ad for Philstockworld. I am half in cash, followed the recommendations (AAPL TASR YHOO) on a 20K portfolio and still up 1% for the day. Thanks!
Sn0gr00ve
Phil… My portfolio, in the past few months, has acheived a high degree of stabilization. I've noticed that on up days, down days, even days, it doesn't matter, my portfolio rarely varies more than 2%. And over the long haul it just slowly increases in value. I attribute this not to investment choices, but to style. Thanks to you and others on this site I'm paying close attention to position size, delta neutrality, downside protection, and concentrating on selling premium rather than buying it. I've developed increasing patience, not having to trade daily, or even weekly. I'm concentrating on the finer points of trading, letting the profits come to me, rather than the other way around. I appreciate the help everyone here has given in getting me focused on this principle. I'm pumped!…in a calm sort of way.
Iflantheman
Phil: UNH, hedged stock position, doing great, up over 50 %,
RMM
Phil.... I remember back in March of '09, you stated " Unless you think the country is going to hell in a hand-basket, NOW is the time to do your buying". Do you remember ?
I took your advice, and bought leap $2.00 calls on F, approximately 200,000 shares using the options, for just pennies. Now that was the best Ford I ever owned.... made over $1 mil - thanks go to you Phil. I now drive a Mercedes but still "love" the Ford.
1234Gel
Blessings, ALL: So we have completed two months of 2015. So far it has been a good ride with my PSW all short put portfolio showing a 15.73% gain with $83K in profits harvested in 2015.
IHS4GOD
Phil: I am always able to figure out your trades, including the rational when put in the right context of previous comments, etc. Keep doing what you're doing. It is much appreciated, and invaluable. Your hit rate of successful trades has been very high in my 1.5 months as a member, but even more importantly is your teaching of how to repair and DD positions that haven't gone your way yet. As with most members, we all have our ‘pet' trading interests, and learning how to think about trading is much more important than a specific trade, which could see the conditions behind it change an hour later. This is the classic case, of ‘Teach us to Fish', rather than just giving us a fish once in a while. Thank you!
Neverworkagain
I have been reading the "free" PSW for about a year and have always liked Phil's style as it closely resembled the way I like to trade (mostly naked put options). I have been a paid subscriber for about 5 weeks and I have been learning a lot from Phil and other members. I had made some money on Phil's "free" ideas in the past and I joined because one of Phil's futures ideas paid for my subscription within the same day (NG). Phil deserved my subscription and I was eager to learn more. I just did a quick tally and within the last 5 weeks the ideas that I chose to follow from Phil generated over 25K in options profits and 12K in futures profits (some of my trades were more conservative than what Phil's had suggested). I have a lot to learn, experience and confidence to gain. Thanks again Phil and Successful Trading to all.
Verreaul
You guys gotta give it to phil–the voice of reason yesterday, last nite and this morning.
Corleone
Brilliant covering of the arcane, the profane , but never the mundane!
Easy to understand the reason for your huge following, Phil, and why you have become a must read on my daily agenda. Please accept my complete appreciation.
Seeking Truth
Speaking of the "Man Who Planted Trees", it really works. I bought BTU back in March at $49.87. I practically bought it at the tippy top. However, I soon afterward found this site, started learning Phil's methodology(and those in the strategy section) and began selling calls/puts regularly against my bad position. As of yesterday, I still own the original 100 shares, but have brought my basis down by over $11.00. Couldn't be happier, what started out as a really bad entry, I have managed to work down to a good basis. Had I not watched that video and learned your system, I would sold out of the position, and been kicking myself for making such a bad entry.
Hoss
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
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
Greetings Phil,
I am an Economist at Harvard and some of my colleagues and I would like to let you know that we follow your posts on SA, and find your analysis refreshing, rigorous, and acute. Great work! Though many of us (including myself) have our work covered in the Wall St Journal, in many ways your macro commentary is more fearless and accurate than what is generally found in that venerable publication.
Kind regards,
Daniel
Daniel
Phil, I followed your investing ideas in LTP quite closely. It seems your insightful fundamental analysis knowledge serves you v. well. I get entertained and they are profitable.
Investwizard
Market manipulation…. One of the things I've gained from this site is the concept of market manipulation. I never thought it was so prevalent, but now I know it is. I actually consider its effect when I make trades. Several days ago, when AAPL was moving toward 220 I sold 210 calls. My reasoning was that they will probably pin this month at 210. They came in big time as the stock moved ever closer to 210. I agree with Phil's comment that one of the things we need to do is find out what they are manipulating, and how, and hitch a ride. They are doing this with several equities. I've actually seen one article describing several equities that were being manipulated to pin at expiration each month, and describing how it was done, and of course Phil has described it well. In some ways it's easier to figure this out than it is a ‘normal' market behavior, and thus easier to make money in certain equities.
Iflantheman
Phil - I am 3 month follower and shout a big thanks for all the good advice and training. I read all the materials and posts as suggested. I am retired CFO and took over my investments 2 years ago from broker after frustration with returns. I followed some conservative advice for retirees and have 60% bonds currently in a 5m portfolio. I had been doing covered calls on my stocks to boost returns and slowly am getting more aggressive after following your site and my son who has been with you for 6 months. I allocated 1.5m to stocks and am scaling up from 30%. I did some of the trades suggested in early June using Aug & Oct buy/writes on CSCO, WMT, MON, WFR, DO in addition to calls on XOM, CVX, PEP, PG, WM, T that I owned. Most are doing very well (4-24%) in 60 days. My good problem is that instead of getting longer, I will be making 6% quickly (50% plus annualized) and getting called away on many positions. What would you advise for getting long again. Thanks again for such a great job advising all of us!
TXChili
Every time I read Mr. Davis' market analyses and reports about his super profitable trades I feel admiration mixed with envy for the overall brilliance of this man, intellectual and verbal, his extraordinary savvy in the exotic art of options and, last not least, his moral passion with which he writes, even if in passing, about the darker aspects of capitalism.
RussianBear
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
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
Wishing Phil and all fellow PSW members a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year 2017! Thanks to all of you for your insights and comments which help make me a better investor every day. Wishing everybody the best of luck for 2017
Learner
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.
What else is new in this market? As you can see from Dave Fry's SPY chart, the pattern is holding up of high-volume (relatively) sell-offs following low-volume run-ups. This is how the Institutional Investors manipulate the markets to dump unwanted shares on retail investors. I've been telling you all week how it works and now we can see it in action.
Of course, it's nice to have this knowledge ahead of time – that's the edge we strive to give to our Members at Philstockworld. Even if you are just reading us for free and don't have access to our Live Member Chat Room, you would have done very well to follow our advice on Tuesday and go with the DIA puts at $166.80 and the DXD longs at $26.20 – it was right there on top of the morning post (which you can have mailed to you every day, pre-market by SUBSCRIBING HERE)! In our Member Chat, the previous day, our trade ideas were:
A 5% pullback on DIA is 8.3 points (830 Dow points), back to $158.40 from here. The June $161 puts are .95 so, if you have $100K to protect against a 10% drop, you can buy $5K worth of the June $161 puts and a 5% drop pays you back $8,000 and a 10% drop to $150 (15,000) would net you $11 per contract so a 10x return is $55,000 back – that's overhedged actually!
On DXD, the July $25/28 spread is $1.10 and is $1.25 in the money so you get all the upside on DXD up to a 140% profit on a very small move down in the Dow. We already have July $28 calls in the STP and it's a little too soon to roll but we will.
On a new trade – you can just get out if the S&P holds 1,900 for more than a day – that's not too far from here.
Once again Anthony Watts, the namesake and force behind WattsUpWithThat.com has come through with an excellent posting on the topic of manmade global warming, this time citing the letter of resignation written by Harold Lewis, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, to the head of the American Physical Society over that organization’s unscientific approach to the issue of manmade global warming.
You can, and should, read the entire text of Prof. Lewis’s letter by following the link here.
However, for the time-pressed among you, I will share just a couple of excerpts.
It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.
And…
I do feel the need to add one note, and this is conjecture, since it is always risky to discuss other people’s motives. This scheming at APS HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don’t think that is an issue. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club. Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. Since
There’s a question oft-posed by the proponents of global warming… or of “climate change,” as the new term of art has it, thus allowing warmists to claim both the snowstorm now blanketing America’s East Coast, as well as the melting of that snow, as evidence for their theory.
“To what end?” the warmists ask the skeptics. Or, in the lingua franca of conspiracy theorists everywhere: “Cui bono, my friend, cui bono?”
Well, lots of people are benefiting from the practical implications of this theory. There’Nobel Laureate Al Gore for one, who is on track to become the first green billionaire:
Then, at the UN there is the organization that shared Gore’s Nobel Prize, the IPCC, and its controversial director Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, a railway engineer with no back ground in climate science who lives what has been described as a lavish lifestyle in Delhi. Publicly he oversaw a report issued with the imprimatur of the UN that the Himalayan glaciers that feed India’s rivers will have melted by 2035. Privately he has been acting as a director or advisor to a score of companies, including Pegasus Capital Advisors, GlorOil, Toyota, and Deutsche Bank, as revealed by Christopher Booker of the Telegraphhere and here.
But hard-core warmists, intent on skepticizing the skeptics, invariably ask: “why would the media go along with this poppycock?”
Yes, why are the media so invested in the warming notion, given the countervailing evidence, the fact that the last climate theory (the global cooling scare of the 1970s) was so quickly disproven, and that it is self-evident that CO2, that most persecuted of molecules, is essential for life… for plant life. (When an elephant sighs, a tree smiles.)
Well, the BBC, a prime proponents of warming theory, or AGW, has heavily invested its pension fund in the theory, and thus have had a major non-Scientific reason for their bias. As revealed this weekend in The Express:
The corporation is under investigation after being inundated with complaints that its editorial coverage of climate change is biased in favour of those who say it is a man-made phenomenon. The £8billion pension fund is likely to come under close scrutiny over its commitment to promote a low-carbon economy while
Across the South, Midwest, and Eastern seaboard [of the United States], a stubborn “arctic outbreak," tacked onto an already cold return to work for many Americans, augurs what meteorologist at AccuWeather.com are calling “the coldest winter in many people’s memory.”
The disappointment with Obama is reaching new heights. He ran for office making certain representations to the American people; and he proceeds to ignore his own pre-election promises, as if they were meaningless. Here’s a video showing the eight times Obama said health care negotiations would be televised on C-SPAN. Below is an assessment by Timothy D. Naegele (the interview here) of Obama’s performance thus far. - Ilene
Just days after announcing the surge of 30,000 more U.S. troops in his Afghan war, Barack Obama was in Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize that was announced shortly after he became president—before he had done anything. Next, he was in Copenhagen accepting a deal without any teeth to address “global warming,” in the midst of a blizzard that dumped snow on the Danish capital, suggesting to most people that the issue is a “hoax.”
Straddling his back-to-back trips to Europe, he was in Washington, D.C.—where he was met by a blizzard on his return from Denmark—pushing for the enactment of ObamaCare that Americans oppose[2]. The legislation is so reckless that it had to be rammed through the U.S. Senate on a partisan vote. Also, the Democrats’ leadership hid the exact nature of the health care bill from senators, who surely had a right to know what they were voting for.
Then the president jetted off to spend the holidays in Hawaii[3], having irresponsibly saddled the people with ObamaCare—after the legislation clears a joint Senate-House conference committee and he signs some version of it into law—which is reprehensible, certainly with respect to its impact on Medicare patients[4]. His recent travels alone create a carbon footprint globally that boggles the mind, especially when so many Americans are suffering from an economic meltdown that shows few real signs of abating. Indeed, 49 States have lost jobs since his so-called “Stimulus Package” was enacted.[5]
Hispopularity poll numbers have been plummeting[6], but he is seemingly oblivious to the will of the people and determined to remake the United States and the world in his own image. Never mind that his life was shaped by years growing up in Hawaii and Indonesia, he
The fall out from climate gate is much deeper and broader than hoped for by the global warming network--the web of corporate interests, academics and bureaucrats exposed as rigging the climate change debate. But it is also more fun than anyone anticipated.
Regardless of where you fall on the climate debate, this jib-jab style video is fun.
He just says it under his breath, right as he’s going off the air, but at the 2:36 mark of this video, you can hear University of East Anglia professor Andrew Watson saying "what an a**hole" in reference to a critic.
Yes, the embattled scientests just keep digging. (via CBS News and Drudge)
Have a couple of hours? What do you think of this politically controversial movie--how much is true and how much reflects conspiracy theory extremism? – Ilene
This is another must-read post by Mish on science vs. propaganda. Unfortunately it seems that propaganda trumps science, at least long enough to cause immense damage. - Ilene
Many were from religious zealots of global warming theory, and as you might surmise they were not printable.
A few common sense comments came my way suggesting that the hackers or insiders (I believe the latter) did not prove global warming was a scam, only that that there is proof scammers are involved in global warming.
I have to admit that is true. Apologies offered. That admission aside, even more damning data has surfaced in regards to data manipulation.
It seems Dr. Tim Ball was aware of the data manipulation but could not prove it. Here is a partial transcript but I assure you the video is worth listening to entirely.
"[The Emails] confirm suspicions that I have had in 30 years of working in climate science that I saw the hijacking of climate science particularly by computer modelers and then by a small group of people associated with the intergovernmental panel on climate change. The difficulty was that even though I sensed there was these thing going on, proving it is extremely difficult. But now with the exposure of these public files it is not only a smoking gun, it’s a battery of machine guns. … On A global scale it’s frightening. This group of people not only controlled the Hadley Center which controls the global data on temperatures, so that the global temperature record is in their hands, they also control the IPCC. … The IPCC is the basis in all governments for the Kyoto Protocol, the Copenhagen Accord, and so on. ….. The problem they had is they kept saying the 20th century and the latter part of it is the warmest ever. And of course skeptics like myself [and several other names] were saying it was warmer 1000 years ago when the Vikings were in Iceland and Greenland and that’s
The Really Big News™ is actually that there is no really big news. Much is being made of the recent hack of the Hadley Climatic Research Center (the "CRU") whereby over a thousand emails along with documents as well as data and code were lifted and published to an FTP site before being linked to by "The Air Vent" blog and then… the world.
The leak appears to show climate scientists shaping results, strategizing on how best to conceal data and analysis from the public, planning public relations to get their message out irrespective of the most recent data setbacks, debating the best way to influence the "man on the street," discussing means to deal with critics via the press and otherwise, and reacting with barely contained glee to the news of an opponent’s untimely death. While the general consensus is that the most damaging emails appear to reference the now semi-famous "hockey graph" illustration that has been a favorite of the United Nations (and everyone else pushing radical climate change policy) for a decade, I think something much more insidious (and actually quite ordinary) emerges from between the many subject lines. Rank corruption.
Shock and surprise at the conduct of particular individuals within the CRU seem the order of the day. I’m not quite sure why. If, indeed, the disclosures are genuine (and it certainly appears on first blush that they are) how is it news that "scientists" embroiled in what long ago ceased to be scientific research and now amounts to a political campaign would cut corners, sabotage critics, conceal or even destroy data and analysis, massage results and graphics and otherwise act exactly like politicians, particularly where their careers, the body of their life’s work and their continuing income stream were at risk?
It isn’t of course. They are politicians.
The surprise should be that something like this wasn’t revealed earlier. (Well it was, but no one seems to count the glaring errors in Al Gore’s public presentation as relevant for some reason- polish always
Authored by Adam Virgadamo, Morgan Stanley equity strategist
Wrapping up our annual gathering this past week, three common themes across regions and sectors stood out. As 2020 unfolds, we’ll have more to say on these topics, but in the meantime, here are the broad outlines of our dialogue.
Disruption: Few themes are as evergreen as identifying disruptors and the disrupted, so it was no surprise that we spent much of our day on the subject. Our ideas around the poster children for disruption – e-commerce and the retail...
For decades, Fox News has been spreading false information and hooking its audience into an angry, xenophobic and paranoid world view. It's no mystery that Fox was instrumental in the 2016 election -- but how did it do it? Tobin Smith, CEO of Transformity Research, Inc. and former Fox News contributor and talk show host, explores this phenomenon and discusses Fox News’ emotionally predatory and dangerously seductive partisan propagand...
Are Gold Mining stocks about to be sent a bullish signal they haven’t received in years? Possible says Joe Friday.
This chart looks at the Senior Miner/Junior miner (GDXJ/GDX) ratio over the past few years. Historically when the ratio is heading up, miners tend to do very well.
The ratio has created a series of lower highs just below the falling line (1), since the summer of 2016. The ratio is currently testing the strong falling resistance line and the June 2019 highs at (2).
Joe Friday Just The Facts Ma’am; If the ratio succeeds in a double breakout at (2), it sends miners a long-awaited bullish message.
A shareholder in Twitter Inc. (NASDAQ: TWTR) and New York University business professor wrote an open letter Friday to the company's board calling for the replacement of CEO Jack Dorsey.
What To Know
Scott Galloway, who owns more than 330,000 shares of Twitter stock a...
The Fed bought $2.2 billion in notes today in its POMO, “not QE,” operations. Actually $2.15 billion because they sold back a whole $50 million. Must have been a little glitch in the force.
This brings the Fed’s total outright purchases of Treasuries to $170 billion since it started Not QE, on September 17.
It also did $107 billion in gross new repo loans to Primary Dealers to buy Tre...
The big players in the market are looking for the next swing off good value lows. This means more money is finding it way into the gold and silver sector, and it is said gold and silver stocks actually lead the metal prices.
The cycle below shows prices are ready to move in the months ahead (older chart re posted).
Click for popup. Clear your browser cache if image is not showing...
Sacha Baron Cohen accepted the International Leadership Award at the Anti-Defamation League’s Never is Now summit on anti-Semitism and hate Thursday. And the comedian and actor used his keynote speech to single out the one Jewish-American who he believes is doing the most to facilitate “hate and violence” in America: Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
He began with a joke at the Trump administration’s expense. “Thank you, ADL, for this recognition and your work in fighting racism, hate and bigotry,” Baron Cohen said, according to his prepared...
The VIX is warning that a market peak may be setting up in the global markets and that investors should be cautious of the extremely low price in the VIX. These extremely low prices in the VIX are typically followed by some type of increased volatility in the markets.
The US Federal Reserve continues to push an easy money policy and has recently begun acquiring more dept allowing a deeper move towards a Quantitative Easing stance. This move, along with investor confidence in the US markets, has prompted early warning signs that the market has reached near extreme levels/peaks.
Vix Value Drops Before Monthly Expiration
When the VIX falls to levels below 12~13, this typically v...
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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