Phil - Moved today to send kudos. You're in my top 5 to see/read daily. I do not trade...
but as former econ-finance adjunct faculty near Stanford U. I give you lots of attaboys....
and provide your links to many to spread some understanding of the mess we are in. Best to you and yours,
HJ Kobbeman
Thank you Phil we appreciate all the work you put in to teach us valuable lessons about investing.
Pat Swap
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-
I would like to echo the sentiments of dclark41. Joining this site was the best thing I have ever done to aid my growth as a trader/investor. There are so many smart and experienced people here sharing their ideas that regardless what your investing style is you will learn something daily. Thank you and all the regular contributors for your generosity.
Acd54
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
Phil, thanks for the call on the SKF puts earlier, I'm riding that horsie downhill right now, giddyup!
MrMocha
Cory Booker for President. :) . Thanks for all the good futures guidance Phil! Having one of my best months yet. Account is up 75% YTD!
Traderd
Phil: well, often you say, just for FUN, great comment, TXS,
closed 2 SKF positions, one with 10 % , the other with 6 % gain,
RMM
Phil — gotta thank you for your advice this week, and especially today. I took many aspects of your advice this morning, with all of my shorts -- being prepared on the short side, selling into intial excitement, taking the money and running, not being greedy. I also made money on the your /QM and /YM calls. It used to be I would be terrified of weeks like this one. Now, it feels somewhat comfortable, for want of a better word.
Escohen5
Phil/ et al- Thanks for the answers to my spread questions last night, as I really needed that little piece of knowledge to crystallize my understanding of spreads. Your help is much appreciated and I have been doing really well for the last couple of months with fewer and fewer missteps as I embrace the PSW ways and watching my portfolios grow.
Craigsa620
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
I have followed a lot of Phil's picks over the last several years and made money using the exact option strategies he outlines. Of all the contributors on SA, he offers the most actual and ready to implement advice that has put money in my account. Many of us on SA actually are sad when we don't see Phil's postings for an extended period.
Brenteaz
WISH TO EXTEND A BIG THANK YOU! I netted about $18,000 on the short Jan puts and the annualized ROI/M is mind boggling! Hope to meet you some day and buy you and your significant other a nice dinner.
Best Regards
Newt
Newthugger
Phil- great call in oil this morning! Now that Im no longer studying and am back in the real world I can only check this in the morning, at lunch, and after work. Anyways, you've been killing it on oil ( even more than you usually do) so I made a point to wake up extra early and made .25 off your ‘buy oil if you're brave'recommendation. It's nice to wake up and scalp 100+ bucks before I even start my real job. You lay those golden eggs everyday Phil! I thank you for that!
Jromeha
What a quarter! (AAPL, etc.) "People react; PSW'ers anticipate." Thanks everyone for a vibrant board.
Silentstorm
Phil - DIA 107 Calls. As suggested I am taking the money and running to home depot for some shelter supplies! This is the grand finale of several successful trades from you through this roller-coster and as you have further suggested it is time for me to sit back and relax in cash. May even be able to talk my wife into the premium membership after these intelligent trades in a stupid market.
DOStrade
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
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 - It is nice being more discipline with my trading. Generally, I am out earlier than most, but my results, overall, are much better than they were when I was trying to squeeze 80 cups of lemonade out of one lemon! On the other side, I am learning the value of rolling and turning losses into non-losses or small gains. I so appreciate the time you have spent with me and others who have benefited greatly from your knowledge. Thank you!
Dclark41
Phil,
thank you for the thorough response(s). I joined this group last week to take my education to the next level. the school i am involved with very good at calling out levels but very little live trading and little help in managing a position going against you.
I like the combo of knowing where the major levels are coupled with your approach to getting in. learned a lot this week.
thank you!
DawnR
Phil, Thanks for the long calls@ $ 85 on AAPL. A quick $4900. Paid for my subscription!!
Newthugger
GMCR – Just bought back my Jan $90 callers on GMCR for a nice $10,000 gain. Thanks for the recommendation Phil! It was nice to cash in on a momo.
Palotay
BTW Phil, I wanted to relate a conversation I had with my business partner yesterday. I told him that I have been much more relaxed about my investments ever since I joined your site. It's funny how a 15-20% cushion does to your nerves. My returns have increased dramatically and my risk diminished. Many thanks for the guidance and patience. Good thing I am doing better financially as you might have increased my life expectancy as well!
StJeanluc
hil, I hit my targets for the year in my 401K (thanks in no small part to your site), so I cashed out of all positions a couple of weeks ago. Feels good... I'm conservative with this money –looking for 2% per month, which i've been able to do… thx.
Lunar
Phil - I celebrate today, having reached my goal for the year, trading in sync with your education and guidance, of 1 million in profit. I learned a lot, achieved much, and am profoundly grateful. To be honest, when I set the goal I thought it was daunting, as I have for many years been an investor in equities but did very little with options. Learning and doing has for me been a blast!
I reached my goal by following Phil's strategies - lots of Buy/Writes, covered calls on equities , naked put entries for income production. I did it with 2.5 mil and kept 600,000 in cash in case I got in trouble. I concentrated on stocks (many of my own choosing) that had decent dividends and wrote front month calls against (OTM) which has worked well in this market run. 25% of my gain is in dividends and premium selling, with the balance in appreciation.
Gel1
CZR – well that was fun! Opened the play yesterday. As the arb premium was now almost all gone from the box spread today, I just decided to close it. The rundown, after all commissions: my net was $183.51 profit for an overnight trade tying up $2000 margin in an IRA account. That's a 9% overnight return (3200% annualized!) …And all that learning, too! Thanks PSW!
Scottmi
Being on this board is better than successfully completing the Times crossword. Phil's panoply of comments manage to excite, illuminate, frustrate, exasperate, confuse, enlighten, outrage, invigorate and stupefy (and that's par for the morning session only!). But goddammit, it's addictive, informative and when it all goes right extremely profitable.
Winston
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 for helping make this a much, much better year this year than last. Your tutelage has been so very helpful. Don't think I can say Thanks enough. And I thanks all the members here who were work hard in helping us all to become better traders, and I would say better people as well. The support many of you offered when we evacuated during the fire this past year helped me immeasurably.
Happy New Years to you all!
JBur
Phil, I've got to give you props on the ICE spread play. Tremendous call! I jumped in on Friday when you made the recommendation and closed out today. Nice 57% return ($2,300) over a mere 3 trading days! This is why I dig your site!
March 21 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve must disclose details of emergency loans it made to banks in 2008, after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an industry appeal that aimed to shield the records from public view. The justices today left intact a court order that gives the Fed five days to release the records, sought by Bloomberg.
A huge win for transparency.
Statement from Matthew Winkler, editor in chief of Bloomberg News:
As a financial crisis developed in 2007, "The Federal Reserve forgot that it is the central bank for the people of the United States and not a private academy where decisions of great importance may be withheld from public scrutiny. The Fed must be accountable to Congress, especially in disclosing what it does with the people’s money."
“The board will fully comply with the court’s decision and is preparing to make the information available,” said David Skidmore, a spokesman for the Fed.
The order marks the first time a court has forced the Fed to reveal the names of banks that borrowed from its oldest lending program, the 98-year-old discount window. The disclosures, together with details of six bailout programs released by the central bank in December under a congressional mandate, would give taxpayers insight into the Fed’s unprecedented $3.5 trillion effort to stem the 2008 financial panic.
“I can’t recall that the Fed was ever sued and forced to release information” in its 98-year history, said Allan H. Meltzer, the author of three books on the U.S central bank and a professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
I used to smile sophmorically at the sight of a Dentist named Dr Fang, or a Plastic Surgery clinic named Dr Tuck, just as I have long-chuckled at the sight of the The Wyly Brothers moniker in print. Monday morning quarterbacking is always easy, but I can tell you that there was always something fishy about the way their stocks traded (both Sterling Software and Sterling Commerce) – and now, of course, we know why.
Wealthy self-made Texans (however grey their machinations), it seems, are inherently disdainful of regulation and authority, and a sucker for low-hanging fruit irrespective of prevailing law. But rather than being "men" about it (so to speak), and simply taking their operation private at an early stage, or checking out and becoming a citizen of Belize (like Tory Chair Michael Ashcroft or paper-cup scion Kenneth Dart) or creating their own island state with its own zero-tax and regulatory regime (like the Berkley Brothers), the Wyly’s chose to speaketh in forked tongues, milking the system for its benefits, while systematically gaming it in reasonably cynical fashion. Even sadder, they authored a now-dubious book about their formula success – one which undoubtedly excluded a few ignoble "trucs de chef". The Wyly’s, it would seem, expected nothing more than proverbially "having their cake whilst eating it too" versus paying more than their share of tax, forgoing illegal trading gains, or limiting their presence in their beloved fire-ant state to 180 days per calendar year.
There are lessons for the contrarian here, and ammunition for those trying to explain the price momentum phenomena: The Wyly brothers were not alone. I do not mean "alone" in the sense of being in the company of Mr Waksal or Mrs Stewart. Rather, I mean that their entourage, like the Remoras (or sucker fish) feeding upon their hosts errr umm crumbs, was omnipresent in riding the coat-tails of each abuse of material non-public information. Indeed, the daisy-chain is unlikely to have stopped there. Humans DO learn quickly where the fish are hiding, and all manner of observant executing trader, back-office clerk, and/or personal assistant, will surely have suspected the cause and effect of winning trades. Beyond that, information is power, and is often used to curry favor for those looking to reward or impress.
In short, it is a picture-postcard of inside information…
If you haven’t seen Larry Doyle’s website, Sense on Cents, it’s worth a visit and bookmark. Larry has over 20 years of experience on Wall Street, from trading mortgage-backed securities to serving as National Sales Manager for Securitized Products at JP Morgan Chase. Through his writing and radio program, Larry hopes to help his audience better understand the complexities of the economy, global finance and the markets.
Timely access to information as to who is buying/selling what, how much they are buying/selling, and why they are buying/selling is absolutely invaluable. The Wall Street banks fight tooth and nail to protect their information franchises.
That said, there are supposed to be rules as to how information is handled and processed so that trading complies with the rules of the road. Banks are not supposed to front run clients. Banks are not supposed to give up client names. Do the banks practice what the regulators preach?
Given the fact that Wall Street banks run both customer operations and proprietary desks, there are supposed to be Chinese walls in place to make sure that information is handled properly between desks. At the firms where I worked, the proprietary desks were either on a different floor from the customer desk or in an entirely different building.
Thank you to a friend of Sense on Cents for sharing a recently released report which would seem to indicate that the Chinese walls at Goldman Sachs would appear to be neither tall nor long (said in jest), but virtually non-existent.
Asset-Backed Alert, a Wall Street trade publication, reports:
Data-Sharing Worries Grip Goldman Clients
Investors are accusing Goldman Sachs of violating Wall Street code by permitting information-sharing between two types of collateralized debt obligation traders: those who work on behalf of clients and those who handle proprietary capital.
Goldman currently has the two desks situated next to each other in its Lower Manhattan headquarters. They also have a common supervisor, managing director Jerry Ouderkirk. Such a lack of separation is
It happened almost every earnings season. Our hedge fund would own a million shares in some company and two weeks before it was to report quarterly earnings, its stock would start dropping. There was no news to explain it. We were in the dark, even though it was my job to know. Inevitably, the company would report a disappointing quarter, missing Wall Street’s earnings expectations by a penny or two. Someone knew. A salesman’s brother-in-law heard a few deals didn’t close. Or maybe an insider was singing.
The recent arrest of Galleon Group hedge fund’s Raj Rajaratnam on insider trading charges puts a spotlight on this game. Is trading on industry knowledge widespread? Absolutely. That’s how many hedge funds and mutual funds get an edge. Is insider trading also widespread? Only the Securities and Exchange Committee’s wire-tappers know for sure.
It’s a short walk from running an information network to being an insider.
Stock markets trade on information. Millions of people generate billions of trades every day. Each trade contains a tiny piece of information built into it. ("I think Apple is killing Nokia" or "I think GM is toast.") Eventually we are proved right or wrong, and we make money or we don’t. In the long run, the market is always right. On any given day, your guess is as good as mine.
As long there have been markets, there have been those who have tried to get an edge. Whoever could get the first news from a battlefield, of an oil discovery, or figure out that a company’s earnings were better than anyone expected could reap almost instant profits. Edward Calahan invented the stock ticker (later improved by Thomas Edison and Alfred Vail) just so J.P. Morgan could sit in midtown and get stock quotes from the New York Stock Exchange faster than anyone else. Everyone else had to wait for the Dow Jones Customers’ Afternoon Letter with closing prices.
Now it has come to the point where firms are spending millions and putting wicked fast computer servers next to exchanges so they can have an edge and, through a system of high-speed or "flash" trading, figure out which way individual stocks or the markets are heading before anyone else.
In early March I turned quite bullish for the first time in 2009. My reasoning behind the bullishness was relatively simple. The market had overshot the mean to the downside and psychology was far too negative. This created a market that was like a loaded spring. All it needed was a catalyst. That catalyst came in the form of the M2M rumors. In other words, the government was going to directly intervene in the market and stop the bleeding. What resulted over the ensuing months was even larger than I ever could have expected.
At the end of March I began referring to the rally as the “government run rally”. Although the actual underlying fundamentals were not improving, the government had created a series of events and catalysts that forced the shorts out of positions and changed the psychology of the market:
The last of these well crafted maneuvers were the capital raises and the stress tests. This series of events created a foundation for a market bottom and helped form the most important portion of the current rally in stocks. It would sound conspiratorial if it weren’t entirely true. What has ensued since has confounded even the most veteran of traders. The market has continued higher in a nearly straight line.
There is no doubt that the economy has rebounded sharply from the days of ISM 35 and GDP -6%. The overshoot to the downside was extreme to say the least, but what is less clear is why the market has rallied an astounding 60% off its bottom and effectively priced in 20%+ earnings growth and 4% GDP going forward when the real underlying problems that caused this entire mess are still apparent. We have simply implemented the failed Bank of Japan policies of the 90’s combined with the failed bank policies of Maestro Greenspan – crank up the printing press, turn on the liquidity spigot, implement quantitative easing and let the banks earn their way out of their problems. It sounds great in theory, but Greenspan’s policies failed miserably as did the Bank of Japan’s. Neither approach proactively attacked the root of the problems. The results speak for themselves.
Mr. Bernanke has declared an end to the recession, but we continue to…
Historically its been positive to see Financials doing well at the same time the broad market is pushing higher! If financial stocks are lagging bit time, should stock bulls be concerned?
This chart compares banks and in the U.S.(XLF) & Europe (EUFN) to the S&P 500 over the past 18-months.
Currently, XLF is lagging the S&P by more than 11...
Tesla, who wants you to know that they are definitely, certainly not facing a demand problem, has again dropped the price of its Model 3 while bumping up starting prices of its Model S and Model X in what appears to be a push to drive more Model 3 sales and higher margin Model S and X sales. The move comes days after the company reported record Q2 deliveries, according to ...
ValueWalk’s Q&A session with Professor Shubha Ghosh, a professor of law and the director of the Syracuse Intellectual Property Law Institute. In this interview, Professor Ghosh discusses his background, the Human Genome Project, the current state of gene editing, 3D printing for organ operations, and gene editing regulation.
Charts show us the golden brick road to high prices.
GLD Gann Angle has been working since 2016. Higher prices are expected. Who would say anything different, and why and how?
Click for popup. Clear your browser cache if image is not showing.
The GLD very wide channel shows us the way. - Conservative: Tag the 10 year rally starting in 2001 to 2019 and it forecasts $750 GLD (or $7500 USD Gold Futures) in 10 years. - Aggressive: Tag the 5 year rally starting in 1976 to 2019 and it forecasts $750 GLD (or $7500 USD Gold Futures) in 5 years.
Click for popup. Clear your browser cache if ima...
For most people, the purpose of investing is to build up enough wealth to allow you to retire. In general, that's usually enough money to reliably generate a year's worth of your average income, each year into your retirement so that that, plus you Social Security, should be enough to pay your bills without having to draw down on your principle.
Unfortunately, as the last decade has shown us, we can't count on bonds to pay us more than 3% and the average return from the stock market over the past 20 years has been erratic - to say the least - with 4 negative years (2000, 2001, 2002 and 2008) and 14 positives, though mostly in the 10% range on the positives. A string of losses like we had from 2000-02 could easily wipe out a decades worth of gains.
Still, the stock market has been better over the last 10 (7%) an...
The threat to America is this: we have abandoned our core philosophy. Our first principle of this nation as a meritocracy, a free-market economy, where competition drives economic decision-making. In its place, we have allowed a malignancy to fester, a virulent pus-filled bastardized form of economics so corrosive in nature, so dangerously pestilent, that it presents an extinction-level threat to America – both the actual nation and the “idea” of America.
This all-encompassing mutant corruption saps men’s souls, crushes opportunities, and destroys economic mobility. Its a Smash & Grab system of ill-gotten re...
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.
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Phil has a chapter in a newly-released eBook that we think you’ll enjoy.
In My Top Strategies for 2017, Phil's chapter is Secret Santa’s Inflation Hedges for 2017.
This chapter isn’t about risk or leverage. Phil present a few smart, practical ideas you can use as a hedge against inflation as well as hedging strategies designed to assist you in staying ahead of the markets.
Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the site
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There is no doubt that the economy has rebounded sharply from the days of ISM 35 and GDP -6%. The overshoot to the downside was extreme to say the least, but what is less clear is why the market has rallied an astounding 60% off its bottom and effectively priced in 20%+ earnings growth and 4% GDP going forward when the real underlying problems that caused this entire mess are still apparent. We have simply implemented the failed Bank of Japan policies of the 90’s combined with the failed bank policies of Maestro Greenspan – crank up the printing press, turn on the liquidity spigot, implement quantitative easing and let the banks earn their way out of their problems. It sounds great in theory, but Greenspan’s policies failed miserably as did the Bank of Japan’s. Neither approach proactively attacked the root of the problems. The results speak for themselves.
German
Spanish
French
Italian
Portuguese
Japanese
Korean
Russian
Chinese
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