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
WOW, look at DRYS go. Nice call on the entry the other week Phil. I got 200 at $6.66 and sold a 7.5 call for $.50, then on the tear today sold another 7.5 call for $1. This should puts me in at an average of $5.91 and called away at $7.5 for a profit of $300+ after commisions. Once again another Phil trade pays for this months membership.
Craigzooka
Your board has been fantastic helping the less experienced (includes me) navigate through all the turmoil. The contributions from your members has been well rounded, objective, and extremely helpful. Sans the politics you have built a fantastic community and that is a tribute to you. I thank you and all fellow members for there contributions over the past few days. Fantastic group!
dclark41
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
New member/1st time posting: Thanks Phil and Pharm for the rec on TOS. I've emailed Scott to get myself setup so I hope to hear back soon. As a newbie on PSW for a month now, I've been readin' and readin' and readin'. Gonna start paper-trading for a while. See how I do before putting a single dime into it. New at options but seems like this is the best training and educational platform out there.
I'm a long-time mortgage broker who got too involved with real estate investing. LOVED your article, Phil, on mortgage interest scams. Right on!! Let me know if and how I can contribute back to the community here. Cheers! - Mark
Mark
Thanks, Phil. I really appreciate your sentiment and commitment! Just want to thank you for what you do for all of us.
JBaker
Phil/Eric/Cwan/Matt/Cap/etc.. - I've learned so much from all of you and want to thank you. I'm up 23% this month thanks to all of your advice - Thanks, guys!
Josiah
Phil...The hundred grand portfolio updates are helpful...Fun ..and have been profitable...really like em... made some nice entries into USB, KEY today... and I better add those FAZ calls tomorrow... Really glad you put that up this morning...
Becker
Phil, Thanks for the long calls@ $ 85 on AAPL. A quick $4900. Paid for my subscription!!
Newthugger
Phil - Rode the /QM down from 99.65 at 7pm and now I'm taking your advice, taking the $$ and going to enjoy a restful night sleep. I don't post often so I want to say thanks for sharing your incredible market acumen with all of us. Your site has a unusually talented group of investors (and some characters) and I enjoy my days trading more because of it.
DaveW
Phil I have been applying your arsenal (matresses, Edz plays, Ugl verticals etc.) to my gold holdings . So a big thank you for "teaching me how to fish" rather than just giving me the fish...
Magret
Thanks for you guidance – Your "student" will be passing on the McMuffins and having Lobster dinners tonight!
Aquila
Way to go Phil! Have I said how much I appreciate your site lately! Your ability to teach and your willingless to give others a forum to demonstrate their own skill sets makes your site remarkable. I got great help from you, jmm1951, and Iflantheman (special thanks!) today. Hell, if I have many more days like this I may even be able to sign up for a full year rather than doing it just quarterly. Tomorrow is another day but, fabulous job today!
dclark41
Thanks Phil another great week of guiding us!
Steven Parker
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
Phil has some great insight into the market. He's given me a different perspective on the market and I know I'm a better trader/investor because of it.
I've been trading options since the late 80's and Phil is right. Unless you know what is going to happen (how can you, unless you have insider information), then do what the smart money does - be the house. Remember guys, we're allowed to sell options. If you're afraid to be short, then do a spread to limit your liability. When I think about the money I've made and lost on options, a good approximation is that I win 30% of the time when I do a straight buy; I win about 70% of the time when I do a spread; I win nearly 90% of the time when I sell naked.
Autolander
I'd like to wish Phil and everyone else that contributes to this board a very Merry Christmas and happy New Year. The wealth of knowledge on here is incredible, and it has greatly contributed to my understanding of markets, politics, and the world in general. This year was when Phil's teachings all seemed to click in place, and my portfolio's performance shot up, and for that I am very grateful. Thank you!
Palotay
Peter D: great write-up for Short Strangles, Part 1, looking forward to Part 2, particularly the adjustment part.
RMM
By the way thank you Phil for the DNDN idea. 3x till this morning and will 4x my small investment by next OE THANKS !!!!
Microflux
Probably the best approach and method I have ever seen for the public and I have worked for some serious traders at the biggest houses doing research. Those guys all have various forms of inside info that you and I do not and cannot have. Davis simply has a great system based on a very deep understanding and experience that gives him market savvy that is very real. A very smart guy and he shares it for a fee. He knows how to use options to great advantage and make money trading.
DowntoEarthThinking
Phil - FAS - I dont know whether to be happier I averaged down and sold calls or that I got myself out of FAZ the other day…thanks for that help
BCFla
Thank you so much for the good daily news in review Phil. I love your commentary! It is such a breath of fresh air in the smog cluttered news networks.
RJRoberts
Thanks Phil, I have adjusted my position by getting rid of the IYF puts, and selling the FAZ puts. You have so many of these awesome little tricks in your playbook that it really amazes me. I toally love your analogy by the way: Do you want insurance that you have to pay for, or do you want insurance that pays you?
Craigzooka
Phil / TNA – On Monday you put out the TNA BCS 41/47. As I mentioned I work during market hours so on Tuesday morning on my way out the door (premarket) I put in an advanced TOS '1st trigger sequence' order to fill the BCS. I can control the entry using this method vs. the vertical entry that TOS allows for the BCS. I filled the June 41 long call but never filled the 47 short call. I let that ride into today. OMG ..TNA popped 7.5%!… the $3.60 entry is almost a double! Tomorrow will be a OCO bracket to get out of TNA before Ben speaks. I should be able to preserve 85% – 100% on the trade. For the income portfolio plays in my IRA's, doing very well… I do like collecting premium! Well done and thanks!
JFawcett
I have followed along with your commentary and alerts and have been flabbergasted at your quick analytical skills and your journalistic skills to explain it clearly. In a little over three weeks I have cleared almost 1000.00 dollars and got an intensive education at the same time. I would like to immediately upgrade my membership.
TokyoLife
Man, what a week: Bought C at 1.40, sold half at 1.59 (relatively big position), another quarter at 3.04 just now. Ran SKF down from 270 with one April put, still holding some 115's expiring in a couple days. I'm going to gamble this position like a champion Friday. Bought FAS at all sorts of levels and started cashing out. Long HOV, stock and some nickel calls for fun - Mocha up your buy-out from 5 to 8 and that's 10,900% return for the May-2.50's . Ha!
Biodieselchris
I have been a member for over six years and I still learn something new every day. This site gives you the skills to trade without having to be spoon fed. More importantly it teaches you about risk which is WAY more important than profit. Honestly, it is not a get rich quick scheme!
Malsg
Thanks Phil, for banging the table on getting short and getting to cash. Usually when this happens in the market I am freaking out but I actually made money this week thanks to you. That HOV trade was a great way to re-deploy some of my cash.
Julian
Phil, I have the SRS 2011 $7.50 short puts you recommended awhile back. I sold them for $2.20 and now $1.51 (up 31%) although SRS has been down since inception. This was a nice mellow way to play it like you said, thanks.
Jomptien
Phil,
3 for 3! Sold on initial excitement and made a double on USO, 70% on AMZN and 70% on SPY options from Friday.
Thanks and much appreciated for the suggestions.
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
For Americans growing up between the 1950s and the 1980s, religion was not a regular presence on television. Aside from Sunday morning shows or occasional commercials, religious programming issued end-time warnings, sought monetary contributions, or staged ...
The market had initially reacted to Trump's decision to cancel his North Korean summit before coming to its senses and finishing where it left off yesterday.
For the Russell 2000 it was a bullish doji to follow the 'hammer'; those brave enough to buy the morning dip will be feeling confident as technicals remain bullish.
The US government could start, or officially endorse an existing crytpo coin. What they would do is build a fee into the software protocol that went to a single address that they control. This is effectively a tax. The fee could be a transaction fee, a percentage of the next block award, or a combination of both. How this works is every single transaction that occurs everywhere wihtin the system, the fee scalped goes directly to this single address that is owned by the IRS, in this case, the "New-IRS." Forget postcards. We're down to a single dude in one office chair in front of one computer. Imagine that being the IRS, because that's where this is going.
The consequences of this mechanism are dramatic. First off the IRS is now one guy. Granted, this guy controls the private key for the most valuable thing in the world. This key would be the single most important key right up there with the nuclear launch code, but the system would most definitely still work. More strikingly, the US...
The Breakthrough Prize is not to be sneezed at. Founded in 2013, the prize “honours transformative advances toward understanding living systems and extending human life.” It’s also the most financially attractive aw...
By csinvesting. Originally published at ValueWalk.
Bear with me as I share a bit of my history that helped me create SkyVu and the Battle Bears games. The University of Nebraska gave me my first job after college. I mostly pushed TV carts around, edited videos for professors or the occasional speaker event. One day, Warren Buffet came to campus to speak to the College of Business. I didn’t think much of this speech at the time but I saved it for some reason. 15 years later, as a founder of my own company, I watch and listen to this particular speech every year to remind myself of the fundamentals and values Mr. Buffett looks for. He’s addressing business students at his alma mater, so I think his style here is a bit more ‘close to home’ than in his other speeches. Hopefully many of you find great value in this video like I have. Sorry for the VHS...
The definition of a bull market or bull trends widely vary. One of the more common criteria for bull markets is determined by the asset being above or below its 200 day moving average.
In my humble opinion, each index above remains in a bull trend, as triple support (200-day moving averages, 2-year rising support lines, and February lows) are still in play ...
"You’ve probably heard by now that Cambridge Analytica, which is backed by the borderline-psychotic Mercer family and was formerly chaired by Steve Bannon, had a decisive role in manipulating voters on a one-by-one basis – using their own personal data to push them toward voting ...
The original tobacco strategy involved several lines of attack. One of these was to fund research that supported the industry and then publish only the results that fit the required narrative. “For instance, in 1954 the TIRC distributed a pamphlet entitled ‘A Scientific Perspective on the Cigarette Controversy’ to nearly 200,000 doctors, journalists, and policy-makers, in which they emphasized favorable research and questioned results supporting the contrary view,” say Weatherall and co, who call this approach biased production.
A second approach promoted independent research that happened to support ...
Reminder: OpTrader is available to chat with Members, comments are found below each post.
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.
Please feel free to participate in the discussion and ask any questions you might have about this virtual portfolio, by clicking on the "comments" link right below.
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Bill Olsen from NewsWare will be giving us a fun and lively demonstration of the advantages that real-time news provides. NewsWare is a market intelligence tool for news. In today's data driven markets, it is truly beneficial to have a tool that delivers access to the professional sources where you can obtain the facts in real time.
To learn more, sign up for David's free newsletter and receive the free report from All About Trends - "How To Outperform 90% Of Wall Street With Just $500 A Week." Tell David PSW sent you. - Ilene...
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Another crazy day ahead.
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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
