Very nice in and out on those USO puts again, easy way to get the subscription covered in just a couple of hours.
Thanks again Phil and everyone here contributing to such intelligent and informative discussion! I have wasted countless hours reading "professional newsletters" and message board blather over the years. Have learned a great deal here in a very short time. I have sent out a number of invites to friends and family for stockworld!
Eyezz
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
PHIL: The most important lesson I have learned is how to hedge using SQQQ, SDS and TZA. A big thanks.
IHS4God
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
Phil is a master at keeping you laughing, as well as making you money. - It is like " laughing all the way to the bank!"
Gel1
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
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/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
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
Great calls this week!
SNS1
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
WOW, glad I went bearish… Phil, thanks for the help on the QID calls yesterday, I turned it into a partial cover rolling down to the Feb 52s selling the 55s 1/2 covered. Sold 1/2 and now lowered my cost basis to $4.38 on the $52s (fully covered).
Texasmotion
Phil, 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!
Samlawyer
It is hard to learn the process that Phil teaches, but it is worth the effort. I think it is finally sinking in & so I say Thanks teacher for your patience & expertise! I've had a very good week so far & I know it is because of persisting in this learning process that you teach.
Pirateinvestor
Phil: I cleaned up today. A rather stark contrast to my untutored performance April/May 2009, after I had written to you to explain how wrong-headed your bearishness was. Many thanks.
I ran into someone once who played on the Bulls with Jordan for quite a few years. He was asked what he had learned from playing with MJ for so long. He smiled and said "Give him the ball."
Zeroxzero
I have to say, hands down, this is one of the best educational experiences I've had in my life. I've even gotten my wife (accountant) into the webinars and she wants to master this concept of selling premium and making smart, conservative investment decisions. She'll eventually use this knowledge to manage her clients' wealth and make smart investment choices for them. Bib big thanks Phil!!
AmalfiCoast
Hey Phil - writing to thank you!
First of all, and I know you have heard this a few times form some others - the portfolio updates you have done - with entries and targets and even margin reqs are invaluable!
I find myself understanding what is done here IN THEORY most of the time..however, there is a much bigger difference in placing and setting up the hedges properly than just understanding…This has been eye opening for me and Ifeel like I just took a major step in trading during the last week.
Bcfla
Hi Phil,
Thanks for the free disaster hedge ideas. I implemented variations of two of them on SDS bull call spreads and EEM bear put spreads (haven't done the TZA yet) and they really hedged my short term longs nicely today. Makes it seem a lot less like gambling.
You are the man (of the people)!
Howard Roake
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 I have been telling you for a while how I feel like I am really understanding you now and thanking you. Well today may have been my most successful futures trading day since I began here and the week has been spectacular! It has just seemed so easy when you give us a range and I execute properly. Thanks once again for teaching me to fish. My portfolio gained over 10% this week which is just amazing.
Craiga620
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
Phil – I think I finally figured out your "crystal ball" time frame. You're about 5-14 days AHEAD of what the market is going to do. It's taken me a long time to realize this, but boy it's been profitable. I go in when you recommend something at about 25% allocation, and then add to it each day it "goes the wrong way" Then BOOM, one day it's all good…. The long put list was literally exact in it's timing.
Burrben
1,000% on SKF - It was a freakin' monster into the center field bleachers! I saw it play out live and squawked it from the StockTwits ID which 14k people follow: Home run trade of the week @philstockworld just knocked cover off ball w $SKF puts. http://bit.ly/piBL Great trade bud!
Phil Pearlman - StockTwits
Gel1…..I've been here 6 months, mostly watching and learning. Lots of smart people on the site and I've learned a lot from Phil and many others. //// Inflan - I have to trump your sentiments regarding the wisdom of the board. I have to thank Phil and the many contruibutors for a 80% profit for 2009. I have learned a lot and am still learning ( even occasionally about political issues - ha! )
Iflantheman & Gel1
On Optrader's section yesterday he was asked how he works with AAPL as an investment. He replied that he just ‘plays with the covers'. I've got a separate portfolio where I use primarily this technique over the past 6 months. Up 60% The principles involved are stock selection, patience, patience, using covers to protect profits, rolling covers to maximize premium return, and exiting when covers are gone and stock price is high. Sometimes it's hard to remember where you learn to do this stuff, but much of it is from integrating principles I've learned here with thing I already knew. Thanks for the help on this, Phil and others.
Iflantheman
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 - 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
What a quarter! (AAPL, etc.) "People react; PSW'ers anticipate." Thanks everyone for a vibrant board.
Silentstorm
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
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!
The idea of secret banking cabals that control the country and global economy are a given among conspiracy theorists who stockpile ammo, bottled water and peanut butter. Wednesday’s hearing described a secretive group deploying billions of dollars to favored banks, operating with little oversight by the public or elected officials.
We’re talking about the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, whose role as the most influential part of the federal-reserve system — apart from the matter of AIG’s bailout — deserves further congressional scrutiny.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was head of the New York Fed at the time of the AIG moves. The hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform also focused on what many in Congress believe was the New York Fed’s subsequent attempt to cover up buyout details and who benefited.
By pursuing this line of inquiry, the hearing revealed some of the inner workings of the New York Fed and the outsized role it plays in banking. This insight is especially valuable given that the New York Fed is a quasi-governmental institution that isn’t subject to citizen intrusions such as freedom of information requests, unlike the Federal Reserve.
This impenetrability comes in handy since the bank is the preferred vehicle for many of the Fed’s bailout programs. It’s as though the New York Fed was a black-ops outfit for the nation’s central bank.
As Representative Marcy Kaptur told Geithner at the hearing: “A lot of people think that the president of the New York Fed works for the U.S. government. But in fact you work for the private banks that elected you.”
Let’s take Geithner at his word that a failure to resolve the insurer’s default swaps would have led to financial Armageddon. Given the stakes, you might think Geithner would have coordinated actions with then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Yet Paulson testified that he wasn’t in the loop.
“I had no involvement at all, in the payment to the counterparties, no involvement whatsoever,” Paulson said.
Fed Chairman Bernanke also wasn’t involved. In a written response to questions from Representative Darrell Issa, Bernanke said he “was not directly involved in the
Darrell Issa, the ranking Republican on the House Oversight Committee (which is the committee that has the lead on all this AIG stuff) sent an angry letter to his counterpart Congressman Edolphus Towns, complaining about intransigence and footdragging at the New York Fed.
The essence here is that the New York Fed should be in contempt of Congressional subpoena for not having given forth enough documents related to AIG
Of course we must include the NY Fed and The Federal Reserve generally, which apparently believes it is either above the law or has a "special exemption," as evidenced here:
Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, then led by Timothy Geithner, told American International Group Inc. to withhold details from the public about the bailed-out insurer’s payments to banks during the depths of the financial crisis, e-mails between the company and its regulator show.
Remember, this was when Geithner was the head of the NY Fed. Remember too that President Obama promised us that his administration would operate entirely "above board" and "in the sunshine."
This, of course, is why he later nominated (and The Senate approved) a man who intentionally concealed what AIG had done – and what The Fed had covered up.
I suppose this is the sort of thing we should have expected to discover, given that our President-elect (at the time) did indeed nominate an admitted tax cheat to be the nation’s chief tax collector!
“It appears that the New York Fed deliberately pressured AIG to restrict and delay the disclosure of important information,” said Issa, a California Republican. Taxpayers “deserve full and complete disclosure under our nation’s securities laws, not the withholding of politically inconvenient information.” President Barack Obama selected Geithner as Treasury secretary, a post he took last year.
It is not just Taxpayers who deserve disclosure.
Stockholders not only deserve disclosure, they have a LEGAL RIGHT to it!
AIG’s Dec. 24, 2008, filing was challenged privately by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which polices the adequacy of disclosures by publicly traded firms. The agency said in a letter to then-CEO Edward Liddy six days later that AIG should provide a Schedule A, which lists collateral postings for the swaps and names the bank counterparties that purchased them from the company. The Schedule A was disclosed about five months later in a filing.
Five months later. By which time the damage to those who were harmed was…
The release of the Special Inspector General of the TARP’s (SIGTARP) report on the Federal Reserve’s bailout of AIG’s counterparties to the tune of 100 cents on the dollar has triggered some debate among commentators. It seems clear that the Fed had the leverage to negotiate a better deal on behalf of the taxpayers, but utterly failed to do so. But just how horrendous was the Fed’s failure? - Ilene
"No matter how many times you save the world, it always manages to get back in jeopardy again. Sometimes I just want it to stay saved, you know? For a little bit? I feel like the maid: ‘I just cleaned up this mess! Can we keep it clean for … for ten minutes?!’"
The indefatigable blogger and soon-to-be-published author is really showing the strain of commenting from the front lines of the global financial crisis, as she has done, admirably, from the very beginning. Today, she lit into Neil Barofsky’s SIGTARP post mortem on the New York Fed’s disbursement of billions of taxpayer dollars to cancel credit default swaps written by the pathetic boobs at AIG. AIG sold those swaps, you may remember, under the cheerfully naive assumption that, as long as you hold a AAA credit rating and employ a bunch of overpaid financial engineers in a fancy office on Curzon Street, you can write as many naked puts on as much toxic crap as you like with no consequences. Much as I would be delighted to learn otherwise, I believe we may safely consider that presumption to be dead, buried, decayed, mixed into topsoil, and completely absorbed into the Earth’s mantle via tectonic subduction by now.
In the meantime, however, the rest of us continue to live with the consequences of AIG’s tomfoolery, and Ms Smith remains understandably upset about this state of affairs. So much so, in fact, I think she rather unfairly pans Mr. Baroksky’s report as unacceptably timid and mealy-mouthed. I read her to say she would rather have the report blast the Fed’s mishandling of the AIG crisis in no uncertain terms, not sugarcoat its…
At least 11 sailors have died after two ships caught fire while moving through the Kerch Strait separating Crimea from mainland Russia - the location of the latest escalation in tensions between Russia and Ukraine in November - after one of them was apparently rocked by an explosion the Russian Maritime Agency said. One vessel was "allegedly struck by a blast" ...
If Martin Luther King Jr. still lived, he’d probably tell people to join unions.
King understood racial equality was inextricably linked to economics. He asked, “What good does it do to be able to eat at a lunch counter if you can’t buy a hamburger?”
After entering the week quite overbought, indexes took a small retreat Monday before hurling back upwards. This is typical of the “V” shaped moves up after any significant selloff, we’ve seen most of the past decade and watching them unfurl is quite amazing actually. Thought maybe this time would be “different” but not so much. So two week’s ago we asked “Has the Fed solved all the market’s problem in 1 speech?” – and thus far the market has answered resoundingly yes. The word of the year thus far in 2019 is “patience” as that simple insert into a speech change the whole complexion of everything.
China has also been busy stimulating; on Tuesday:
An announcement from the People’s Bank of China that ...
By Michelle Jones. Originally published at ValueWalk.
After a difficult few trading days in the beginning of the year, U.S. stocks are bouncing back with meaningful gains on Monday following Friday’s strong rally. The S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq 100 were all up by more than half a percent by midday. It looks like investors could be taking advantage of the end-of-the-year declines, but is this a wise time to be buying?
Trying to time the bottom of the market will almost always be a fool’s errand, but one firm suggests equities could have much farther to fall before they hit bottom in 2019.
We often hear “Stocks take an escalator up and an elevator down!” No doubt stocks did experience a swift decline from the September highs to the Christmas eve lows. Looks like the “elevator” part of the phrase came true as 2018 was coming to an end.
The first part of the “stocks take an escalator up” seems to still be in play as well despite the swift decline of late.
Joe Friday Just The Facts Ma’am- All of these indices hit long-term rising support on Christmas Eve at each (1), where support held and rallies have followed.
Blockchain has already proven its huge influence on the financial world with its first application in the form of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. It might not be long before its impact is felt everywhere.
Blockchain is a secure chain of digital records that exist on multiple computers simultaneously so no record can be erased or falsified. The...
Bill Eddy (lawyer, therapist, author) predicted Trump's chaotic presidency based on his high-conflict personality, which was evident years ago. This post, written in 2017, references a prescient article Bill wrote before Trump even became president, 5 Reasons Trump Can’t Learn. ~ Ilene
Today, the scientific community is aghast at the prospect of gene editing to create “designer” humans. Gene editing may be of greater consequence than climate change, or even the consequences of unleashing the energy of the atom.
The friction came to a head in early 2017 when senior officials offered Trump charts and graphics laying out the numbers and showing a “hockey stick” spike in the nationa...
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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...
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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
