Phil- I am a former portfolio manager and now retired. I have been following you for about six months and I now know why you have so many followers you are very insightful and knowledgeable.
Mkozberg
Phil/Everyone here/Thank you - What everyone here with their insightful comments (including yourself) has helped me with is that I'm greatly increasing my ability to trade more psychologically neutral, although I've got a ways to go. Two years ago I'd wake up early and my heart would race if futures weren't pointing exactly how I wanted… I've noticed an exponential leap in my discipline skills especially over this past two weeks. The old me would have ran with that trade for profits without even asking. Now I know that there are ALWAYS more trades and that I have PLENTY of options to turn a bad trade even. Also, it's more logical and less emotionally draining which lets me focus my faculties on my wife, college, my job, and studying for the ol' Series 7. Would it be safe to say that one of the most important skills to develop is the ability to adjust? I'd love to get to the point where I can look at a bracket and know, for example, what I need to sell for cover in what month in order to get my desired results. Both COF and my past DMM venture have been excellent learning experiences. Thanks, everyone. I look forward to further lessons.
Skasiah
Phil: UNH, hedged stock position, doing great, up over 50 %,
RMM
What a quarter! (AAPL, etc.) "People react; PSW'ers anticipate." Thanks everyone for a vibrant board.
Silentstorm
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
I traded with Phil for approximately three years, and consistently averaged 80% returns yearly... some of which was due to my skills as a trader, but much was a direct result of what I learned as a member of Phil's site.... both from Phil, and the many talented traders that hang out there. Phil... if you are reading along... thanks, again for the approximately $ 3 mil I made tagging along with you.... in order to make you feel good for the work you did... I gave the government 50% of it all, so you made your contribution....
1234Gel
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
Happy holidays to all members of PSW. Just completed my 6th year and still my favorite site to read. Thank you all for your contributions and support especially you, Phil!
DClark41
Phil, I was so impressed with the personal note in the comments that I went ahead and paid for a months trial of premium that I have been on the fence for awhile about. Just reading the comments makes me already glad for the purchase.
Smasher
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
I have been a member off and on for years. Using these techniques I do consistently beat the S&P 500. Phil's Stock World has been the most important site in my financial life. It's impact on me over the past years has been huge. As have my tax bills!
Knightpilot
Hey Phil,
You called all the trends and market movements with perfection this week. I enjoyed it! Thanks for keeping us sane!
GClay
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
Maya, After years of being pretty good at picking stocks I still managed to lose almost as much as I made.All the reading Phil asked us to do as a new member (And everything else I can get my hands on lately) has revealed my Achilles Heal.Good stock picks do not necessarily make money. My problem was swinging for the fences. Since becoming a member Jan 1 this year and getting into to scaling into small trades I am amazed at the steady profit growth I have experienced already while not worrying about getting killed. And having fun doing it.. Phil, Thanks for the education, the help you give and the chance to learn more and get better. Also thanks to all the members who have answered the few questions I had when your not around.
Ricpar
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've been trading/investing since the early 80's (my dad started me out young). I've had seven figure accounts (in the past) and I've done lots of trading, so I can say that I'm a well seasoned investor. Phil is the real deal. His trades make sense and his strategy is sound. He sees things that others miss and he's one of the best at finding price anomalies. When he makes a mistake, he has an exit strategy already planned. He hedges very well and he has an instict which tells him to go to cash or to be all in.
Autolander
I am struck by several things over the last few days. First is how level-headed we all are as Greece and China develop. Second is how very helpful it is to see the different trading styles we have, partly because of personal preference and partly because of different stages of development and education. It's very helpful. Well-done, Phil, to have developed this community.
Snow
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
There are a lot of us that have been here a long time and we all learn something everyday. Just keep asking questions, there are a lot of smart people here and they are willing to help and then of course, you have Phil.
Jr Mints
This is my first month here. Today was a money train with futures. I gained 7500 USD with KC, RB, CL, NG.
I took RB almost every direction up and down. And I only used 1 contract or maximum 2.
Thank you. I think it was a good investment to subscribe…
Kgabor
It is amazing how much confidence you engender, Phil………..I knew the 1% a day trades and repeated often were possible as I had done in stretches, and I knew kill zone trades were also possible and 5% to 10% returns per month were very possible with practice, experience and smart risk management all without having to take a lot of risk, but I guess I was talking to the disbelievers and since I have dropped them into my 'why bother to try to explain it' file and come over to the dark side at PSW I feel soooo much more content not only with the returns, but with the company and a comments and the obvious opportunity to learn and learn and learn some more.
It all helps the mental and emotional discipline of the trading too. So thanks again.
Roro
I have learned more about options in the past 2 weeks as a full PSW member that the previous 5 yrs of making more bad than good option plays. The educational material alone is worth several times the price of admission. I have had an expensive education on what not to do- what is past is past- I am looking forward to profitable/fun future.
Pstas
In options trading, one must remain flexible with the ability to adjust to take advantage of the unexpected moves in the market. It is like chess - spend most of your time strategizing the next move. A good understanding of options is necessary to change direction and make adjustments as the market moves against you. I have a friend that honed his option skills while a member of Phil's elite membership over a period of two years. With the education acquired, he made over $2 Mil in that period, trading options and following the plays put on by Phil. If making money is your goal, then he is the go-to guy, as he knows option strategies better than anyone, and market timing is also a skill he has mastered.
1234gel
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
Don't expect to get rich quick here, but you can get easy 30 - 50 % per year, just by buying good stocks at discount (as we often discuss), selling monthly premiums of calls and puts.
Tchayipov
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 really appreciate your sentiment and commitment! Just want to thank you for what you do for all of us.
JBaker
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
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!
People have been throwing around numbers in the millions and billions and trillions since the crisis started. Over time, the data deluge has turned into a flood, and, occasionally, it is even hard for someone like me — who has been tracking and analyzing this stuff for a while — to get a grip on what it all means.
Maybe that’s the strategy: overwhelm the masses with endless zeroes and hope they either zone out or lose sight of the fact that those numbers represent decades of poor decisions, misguided policies, and illegal acts.
That said, sometimes all it takes to get to the bottom of some of those numbers is to recast the data in graphical form — because, like they say, "a picture is worth a thousand words." In "The Jobs Gap," the Washington Independent highlights research from one think tank that does just that, and what it says about the state of the employment market is pretty striking:
In light of last week’s dismal September jobs report, Heidi Shierholz, of the Economic Policy Institute, updates her estimates of how many jobs the United States needs to create to get back to where it was, employment-wise, when the recession started.
The labor market remains an estimated 8.1 million payroll jobs below where it was at the start of the recession in December 2007. This number includes both the 7.8 million jobs lost in the payroll data as currently published plus the announced preliminary benchmark revision of -366,000 jobs to last March’s employment level. And even this number understates the size of the gap in the labor market by failing to take into account the fact that simply to keep up with the growth in the working-age population, the labor market should have added around 3.4 million jobs since December 2007. This means the labor market is now roughly 11.5 million jobs below the level needed to restore the pre-recession unemployment rate (5.0 percent in December 2007).
In graphic terms:
That begs the question: How will the economy get there? And leads to the worrying answer: It won’t, at least not anytime soon. Government spending — the kind that might, say, hire hundreds of thousands of construction workers — is out of the question. And that means private businesses will chip away at unemployment when the economy picks up a bit more, adding workers slowly, very slowly.
Since I started publishing Financial Armageddon in late-2006, I’ve often railed against the incompetence and tomfoolery of highly-paid Wall Street "strategists" (note the double quotes). Many of these so-called experts are clueless data-regurgitators or ivory tower economists with above average communications skills. Indeed, it seems to me that most of the "stars" of the forecasting game are simply being rewarded for having the gift of gab, rather than their ability to look past the trees and size up the layout of the forest.
But as with most generalizations, there are exceptions. Surprisingly — yes, I am cynical — a very small number of those who know what they are talking about, have something intelligent to say, and know how to translate their insights into clear and interesting prose have been recognized as such. I am referring in particular to Albert Edwards, the number-one ranked global strategist for I-don’t-know-how-many-years running, and his sidekick Dylan Grice, who placed second overall in the 2010 Thomson Reuters Extel Survey, both of whom are members of the strategy team at Societe Generale.
In his most recent Global Strategy Weekly, Mr. Edwards touches upon two topics near-and-dear to my heart: the real state of the economy and the utter cluelessness of most equity investors [italics mind]:
The current situation reminds me of mid 2007. Investors then were content to stick their heads into very deep sand and ignore the fact that The Great Unwind had clearly begun. But in August and September 2007, even though the wheels were clearly falling off the global economy, the S&P still managed to rally 15%! The recent reaction to data suggests the market is in a similar deluded state of mind. Yet again, equity investors refuse to accept they are now locked in a Vulcan death grip and are about to fall unconscious.
The notion that the equity market predicts anything has always struck me as ludicrous. In the
Reports like those that follow help make it clear that the problems we face are structural rather than cyclical. Myriad bad policies and a distorted sense of economic reality — no doubt fed by ruthlessly self-interested corporate and political interests — encouraged large numbers of Americans to acquire knowledge, skills, and perspectives that are really only relevant in an easy-money-fueled economy.
Once the bubble bursts, however, they are as unprepared for changing times as a proverbial fish out of water. And yet, we still have a growing chorus of mindless Keynesians, ivory tower economists, Wall Street strategists, and assorted other pseudo-experts pushing for more stimulus, more borrowing, more tax cuts — more of the hair of the dog that bit us to begin with.
If government is going to do anything at all — which seems inevitable, like it or not — wouldn’t it be better if the those in charge focused on telling people the cold, hard truth about where things stand; directed efforts towards helping Americans adjust to a new operating environment, instead of the one that is not coming back; and, rejigged policy incentives — like those that favor borrowing and homeownership — in ways that might prove more beneficial in the long run?
As the United States continues its battle with high unemployment, policy makers are confronting a troubling question: What if they’ve been taking the wrong approach to fixing the ailing job market?
…
Some prominent economists and policy makers are…suggesting the real problem isn’t lack of consumer spending – it’s that the unemployed don’t have the right skills to fill the jobs that are open.
These people are now theorizing that the financial crisis has altered the structure of the U.S. labour market, perhaps permanently.
If they’re right, the Obama administration and the Federal Reserve will need to change their approach to increasing employment because their current one, which is aimed at stoking spending, could end up exacerbating the conditions that led to the financial crisis.
Raghuram Rajan, a professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, argues the U.S.’s high unemployment rate is the result of structural changes rather than a cyclical downturn in demand. He reasons the U.S. housing bubble
In my latest column for DailyFinance, "The Disconnect Between Consumer Confidence and Retail Sales," I argue that the yawning gap between these two measures is telling us something. Chances are, it’s saying that consumers know better than the official statistics about what’s really going on in the U.S. economy.
Morgan Stanley’s Stephen Roach is the featured guest on the Wall Street Journal’s Big Interview, and unlike many of his peers, he relies on facts rather than fantasy in formulating his economic outlook. Given what you and I already know about the reality on the ground, it’s no surprise to find that Mr. Roach is less than sanguine about where things stand:
WSJ: You’ve been warning of a disappointing U.S. recovery, so I’d like to ask you right off the bat: Just how likely do you see the prospects of a double-dip kind of event?
Roach: I give it a higher probability than most — maybe 40% at some point over the next year. We have a weak recovery, weak labor market, weak consumer purchasing power, and a consumer — 70% of the economy — that is still massively overextended in terms of debt; unprepared in terms of savings; and unable to rely to rely on property and credit bubbles to support consumption. So, if you have a disappointing consumer and any kind of an unexpected shock, you can go down again.
OK, let’s go through this one more time. Despite what we keep hearing from the politicians and moneymen, things are not getting better. Yes, we have seen the economic equivalent of a dead cat bounce — how could we not, given the trillions that have been thrown at the system — but it is simply not sustainable.
The reality is that we’ve just careened through decades of overborrowing and malinvestment, which created an array of dangerous imbalances and undermined our nation’s economic foundations. Now that the party is over, the wreckage is going to weigh on our prospects for years, if not decades.
Unfortunately, those who live in a bubble (i.e., Washington) or who’ve come to depend on them (e.g., Wall Street) have not seen through the fog of funny money policymaking. But as Bloomberg reports in "Americans Grow More Pessimistic on Economy, Nation’s Direction," the average Joe (and Jane) seem to have their eyes wide open when it comes to today’s depressing reality.
[Click on table to enlarge]
Americans have grown gloomier about both the economy and the nation’s direction over the past three months even as the U.S. shows signs of moving from recession to recovery.
Almost half the people now feel less financially secure than when President Barack Obama took office in January, a Bloomberg National Poll shows.
Those concerns have put consumers in a miserly mood as they head to the mall for holiday shopping, with half the country planning to spend less on gifts than last year and few buyers willing to run up credit-card debt for Christmas.
“The recession may be over, but the administration seems to be losing the battle when it comes to winning the hearts and minds of Americans,” says Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist for Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. in New York. “This is important because the spending of consumers is the main factor that will turn the economic recovery into a self- sustaining one.”
Obama yesterday addressed anxiety over the economy with a speech proposing new spending on the nation’s transportation system, tax credits to spur hiring by small businesses and incentives to make homes more energy efficient.
Unemployment in November stood at 10 percent, a drop from 10.2 percent in
Just over a week ago, Bloomberg revealed in "Geithner Says Commercial Real Estate Woes Won’t Spark Crisis," that the U.S. Treasury Secretary did not appear to be overly concerned about the threat posed by brewing problems in the commercial property sector:
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said commercial real estate woes won’t set off a new banking crisis, in remarks to the Economic Club of Chicago.
“I don’t think so,” Geithner said, when asked whether commercial real estate could set off another banking meltdown. “That’s a problem the economy can manage through even though it’s going to be still exceptionally difficult.”
The global economy has accelerated since the worst of the recession and banking crisis last year, Geithner said, noting a U.S. Commerce Department report today showing the economy expanded 3.5 percent in the third quarter.
“You can say now with confidence that the financial system is stable, the economy is stabilized,” Geithner said. “You can see the first signs of growth here and around the world.”
Is he serious? All you have to do is spend about 15 minutes reading through just a few of the reports that were published recently and it quickly becomes apparent that a tsunami of red ink is forming in the sector, ready to come crashing down on the whole of the banking sector — as well as the economy — in the immediate period ahead:
Unrealistic assumptions, layers of investors, sky-high prices, and possible fraud will make it hard to clean up the mess in commercial real estate
When Goldman Sachs (GS) sold complex bonds backed by the Arizona Grand Resort and other commercial properties in 2006, it suggested the returns would be strong. The 164-acre luxury Arizona Grand, set against the Sonoran Desert in Phoenix, boasted an award-winning golf course, deluxe spa, and several swank restaurants. The on-site water park was named one of the best in the country by the Travel Channel. With the resort’s new owners planning to refurbish hotel rooms and common areas, Goldman told investors that the renovations would help boost cash flow.
As was so often the case during the real estate boom, the lofty projections didn’t pan out. When the economy softened and business travel
On Monday, I was among a group of eight bloggers who attended a discussion with "senior Treasury officials" in Washington. Several nice accounts of that meeting have already been posted (see roundup below). Here’s mine.
First, I’d like to thank the "senior Treasury officials" for taking the time to meet with us, and for being very gracious hosts. Whatever disagreements one might have, in statistical if not moral terms it was an extreme privilege to sit across a conference table and have a chance to speak with these people. And despite the limitations of the event, I’d rather there be more of this kind of thing than less. So a sincere tip o’the hat to all of our hosts. Thank you for having us.
The second thing I’d like to discuss is corruption. Not, I hasten to add, the corruption of senior Treasury officials, but my own. As a slime mold with a cable modem, it was very flattering to be invited to a meeting at the US Treasury. A tour guide came through with two visitors before the meeting began, and chattily announced that the table I was sitting at had belonged to FDR. It very clearly was not the purpose of the meeting for policymakers to pick our brains. The e-mail invitation we received came from the Treasury’s department of Public Affairs. Treasury’s goal in meeting with us was to inform the public discussion of their past and continuing policies. (Note that I use the word "inform" in the sense outlined in a previous post. It is not about true or false, but about shaping behavior.)
Nevertheless, vanity outshines reason, and I could not help but hope that someone in the bowels of power had read my effluent and decided I should be part of the brain trust. The mere invitation made me more favorably disposed to policymakers. Further, sitting across a table transforms a television talking head into a human being, and cordial conversation with a human being creates a relationship. Most corrupt acts don’t take the form of clearly immoral choices. People fight those. Corruption thrives where there is a tension between institutional and interpersonal ethics. There is "the…
Our freedom depends on our government enforcing and abiding by the law. It’s apparent that we are headed down the slippery slope Justice Louis Brandeis describes in Olmstead v. United States (1928):
"In a government of laws, the existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipotent teacher. For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If government becomes a lawbreaker it breeds contempt for law: it invites every man to become a law unto himself. It invites anarchy."
We have the Federal government’s massive and flagrant display of lawlessness, and population somewhere on the way from apathy to dependency in the Fatal Sequence cycle of civilization. – Ilene
Before the era of Frankenstein Finance and the fanatical focus on fee-based income, lenders tried to hold themselves out as models of probity (for the skeptics out there, I did say "try."). Those responsible for making credit-granting decisions and looking after the interests of shareholders also demanded that borrowers meet certain standards before they would see even a dime of their employers’ money. These criteria are known as the "5 C’s of Credit," which are the
key elements a borrower should have to obtain credit: character (integrity), capacity (sufficient cash flow to service the obligation), capital (net worth), collateral (assets to secure the debt), and conditions (of the borrower and the overall economy).
In an interesting twist of fate, the firms that have traditionally decided who should get credit have been put in the position of needing extraordinary amounts of other people’s money just to stay alive. Unfortunately, based on what we’ve seen so far, including reports like those that follow, it’s doubtful whether most, if not all, of today’s troubled financial institutions would even qualify for a loan based on traditional measures of suitability — like "character," for example — if their friends in high places weren’t so intimately involved in the process.
In Financial Armageddon, I wrote about "four impending catastrophes": debt, government guarantees, the retirement system, and derivatives. But well before the first pages of my manuscript saw the light of day, I was particularly concerned about the latter aspect.
In fact, I’ll let you in on a little secret: the article I published in November 2005, "The Coming Disaster in the Derivatives Market," was actually derived from material in my original book proposal, tentatively entitled FWMDs: Financial Weapons of Mass Destruction, after Warren Buffett’s famous remarks on the subject in Berkshire Hathaway’s 2002 annual report.
Eventually, the publisher and I decided that there was a bigger story there, which proved to be far more accurate than anybody (including me) realized at the time, and I set forth my vision of how the derivatives menace would come to interact with the various other threats I saw lurking in the shadows.
Yet even with all that has happened so far, it’s hard to ignore the fact that the house of cards that was built on this labyrinthine mass of paper promises remains a serious threat to the financial system and the economy.
Derivatives caused the market Armageddon of recent years and if left unchecked by global leaders, the same market could cause another catastrophe, Mark Mobius, executive chairman of Templeton Asset Management, told CNBC Monday.
When asked by a CNBC viewer what kind of Armageddon could be expected if the derivatives problem is not addressed, Mobius replied: “The same kind of Armageddon that we just had, what we just saw in the last few years has been caused by derivatives.”
The lack of liquidity, transparency, coupled with its sheer size means the derivatives market poses a major risk to financial stability, according to Mobius. The currency derivatives market is especially at risk of causing problems, but interest-rate derivatives also, he said.
Mobius thinks that global leaders meeting for the G20 summit in Pittsburgh next week should focus almost solely on the derivatives trade. Debates over how much bankers are paid in bonuses should be bumped down the agenda,
The stock market has been on fire of late, rallying up to the edge of price resistance on several indexes. Today, we look at one of those stock market indexes: the Wilshire 5000.
The Wilshire 5000 tracks all of the stocks in the US market, so it is a broad-based index that carries significant importance when gauging the health of the overall US stock market.
Looking at the long-term “weekly” chart above, it is pretty clear that the index is at an important price juncture.
The Wilshire 5000 spent the last 25 years trading within a rising price channel (1)...
Farmer buying power will remain pressured for 2019, but this will change for the better next year and will help support Deere & Company (NYSE: DE), according to Jefferies.
The Analyst
Jefferies' Stephen Volkmann upgraded Deere from Hold to Buy with a price target lifted from $150 to $190....
When valuations for the boring water company or the boring electric company is trading like your Facebook, Apple, Amazon or Netflix or Google (ie FANG) you know something is wrong.
This is when a seriously over valued market is screaming at you.
Of course the reader must understand in a world where money printing goes super nuts (Zimbabwe style) the stock market may go hyper inflationary and picking a time frame for a top is never a good idea, but we are not there yet. There is no Ben Bernanke helicopter money to the masses yet (ie MMT).
To see when water company's (and such like) are nearing the crazy FANG like valuations a review of the Dow Jones Utility Index channel shows us how history can repeat. The c...
Here’s some catnip for the Tesla bulls on this email list: my analyst, Kevin DeCamp, a longtime TSLA shareholder and car owner, took a test drive of the Jaguar I-PACE and, while it “looks great and is fun to drive… it is lacking in a few areas where Tesla really shines.” He concludes that “Tesla may end up killing itself, but the “Tesla killer” car is nowhere in sight.”
The Tesla Killer Hasn’t Arrived Yet: My Test Drive of the Jaguar I-PACE
The 21st-century revolutionaries who have dominated cryptocurrencies are having to move over. Mainstream financial institutions are adopting these assets and the blockchain technology that enables them, in what ...
Back in 2016, Helen (a pseudonym) took three different direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic tests: AncestryDNA, 23andMe and FamilyTreeDNA. She saw genetic testing as a way...
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.
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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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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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