Personally I admire and respect you disciplined approach to investing. My style is at the extreme side of aggressive and I have to learn how to be less that way. If I yell " Let it Ride" at my house, no one says a word so I can't use that to temper my behavior. Phil has done a pretty good job of knocking some of my potential moves and as a result, I have increased my portfolio value by almost 25% since late July.
DoubleD
You are doing a fantastic job. I think most of us our very well balanced and consequently have learned how to manage through these ever so short declines in the market without panic.
Dclark41
Being a bear is easy (and I am not convinced we are doing all that well on the whole as an economy), but one cannot fight the trend (didn't Phil say that a while ago)? Just cover, make 5-10-15-20% and move on. It really does add up by chipping away. All I can say is I am back to 2007 levels in my account b'f the crash with this run up and some very nice help on this board….so kudos to us (and me!!)…
Pharmboy
As a retired stockbroker from a major Canadian brokerage firm, I can tell you I would never had access to these type of trade ideas, especially the hedges. Just closed out a July TZA 40/45 call spread today for a 271% gain in less than a month. I would have normally let that run but yesterday Phil commented to another member something to the effect that "you put down a $1 for a $5 upside, now that you are up 250% you have $2.5 in and you are hoping for a double." Just closed out a USO July $38 put that Phil suggested yesterday for a 49% one day gain. Thanks, Bob
RJK
Started my membership in mid-Oct and have since then learned so much about options by reading the site's articles and postings, members' chats and suggested trades – as a bonus, the articles are entertaining as well! Phil's long-term investing strategy makes really good sense as I've seen its effect on my GLW positions. Phil – thanks for sharing your knowledge of the market! I've worked as risk analyst for the investment dept of a $19B insurance company, and the scope and depth of your daily commentaries blows away what I have seen and heard from the PMs and even the chief investment officer! Most of all, I will continue to be a member because you have your priorities right (from my POV) – it's not all about money and power.
Bai2r
Phil/CLK4 – Perfect! Saw the answer 1 min after my post…out with $740 on two contracts. Thanks again for the education.
Jeffdoc2004
Great calls this week!
SNS1
A truly great website with a lot of information for investors. Whether you are a novice, seasoned, or a professional there is a lot to be gained about stock options and options trading from this very informative website.
ZKatkin
Phil, You were on the $ today with your calls almost exactly on the turns – Krap kuhn krup (Thai for thank you very much).
Jomptien
Phil, I wanted to thank you for all of your teaching, advice, and guidance. Because of you I don't chase, don't worry about missed chances, and play things much more selectively. Yesterday's /ES and /TF and today /CL are my first futures plays of the month. Thanks Phil. (Out of /TF and /ES yesterday with a nice gain)
Japarikh
Speaking of the "Man Who Planted Trees", it really works. I bought BTU back in March at $49.87. I practically bought it at the tippy top. However, I soon afterward found this site, started learning Phil's methodology(and those in the strategy section) and began selling calls/puts regularly against my bad position. As of yesterday, I still own the original 100 shares, but have brought my basis down by over $11.00. Couldn't be happier, what started out as a really bad entry, I have managed to work down to a good basis. Had I not watched that video and learned your system, I would sold out of the position, and been kicking myself for making such a bad entry.
Hoss
I have been here a year, and made most of my money back from the 14K fall. The people here are more than willing to help whe Phil cannot get to it. FWIW - This site is my brokerage firm, I was with Wells Fargo Portfolio and it was costing a fortune to trade, the costs here are more than offset with the data, trade ideas and profits you should make.. and I get a chuckle out of Cap and Phil's rantings on healtcare, guns, oh, yeah, and government….
Pharmboy
I don't post much, but I guess this morning has brought me out. This site has made me tens of thousands, every year since I have become a member. It took me nearly two years devoting 3 hours per day to get on the ball, and actually understand portion sizing, and which trades fit my personal trading style. Before that I spent at least two years working on Buffet style fundamental investing. (Intellegent Investor, Security Analysis, ect.). This site really will teach you amazing things if you just pay attention. Literally it has changed my day to day life, has allowed my family and I to move back to the U.S. from overseas with confidence even with a paycut at my day job, and literally put me in a different league financially. Seriously my life and my children's is better because of this site.
Knightpilot
Phil - I am 3 month follower and shout a big thanks for all the good advice and training. I read all the materials and posts as suggested. I am retired CFO and took over my investments 2 years ago from broker after frustration with returns. I followed some conservative advice for retirees and have 60% bonds currently in a 5m portfolio. I had been doing covered calls on my stocks to boost returns and slowly am getting more aggressive after following your site and my son who has been with you for 6 months. I allocated 1.5m to stocks and am scaling up from 30%. I did some of the trades suggested in early June using Aug & Oct buy/writes on CSCO, WMT, MON, WFR, DO in addition to calls on XOM, CVX, PEP, PG, WM, T that I owned. Most are doing very well (4-24%) in 60 days. My good problem is that instead of getting longer, I will be making 6% quickly (50% plus annualized) and getting called away on many positions. What would you advise for getting long again. Thanks again for such a great job advising all of us!
TXChili
You guys gotta give it to phil–the voice of reason yesterday, last nite and this morning.
Corleone
Phil: UNH, hedged stock position, doing great, up over 50 %,
RMM
I would like to thank Phil and PSW crew for the insight and assistance (even the liberals). In December I initiated long stock positions buying stock, writing calls and puts in AAPL, WFR and CHK (scaling in and out). Over the last week I have been trimming back my positions selling stock and taking out my callers and putters. I am now back to my initial 25% position that I started with in December. However this time, my cost basis on shares AAPL, WFR, and CHK is $0! With money to spare from those positions.
Texasmotion
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
Phil, I don't know how I can thank you enough for your guidance this past week. I'm up significantly in my portfolio and I've never been so relaxed watching the market panic. Thanks once again for being here for us.
thechaser
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
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
Hey Phil -- I want to thank you every chance I get for helping me to grow my previous portfolio to being profitable enough to pay off some debts my family had and left me with $1,000 left to use in the markets. You should know that your premium membership is amazing on many levels, You and your readers offer a ton of economic and statistical analysis that I was able to use in my clerical level job in finance. It's a shame that someone as talented and honest as you is not on television each night providing a true service to the investing public and not the clowns and hucksters that are talking up their books to dump on retail investors. Sorry for the long post. I had to say something to you that I never thought I would have the opportunity to. You helped put my family in an almost debt-free life through the stock and option plays that I made during my time as a customer of your service and that has made us very happy. You are a good man and I wish you and your family many years of joy and happiness. I wish I could do ads for you!
DaveJ
Phil/thankyou. Phil, I went over the recording of last weeks webinar. I liked it a lot and wanted to thank you. I thought the case studies (company reviews) were detailed, I learned more about selling puts process and also what happens if stock continues to go down after that, I liked the fact that we discuss so many different avenues like stocks, optiond, futures, oil, commodities etc… I replayed portions of it multiple times to make sure I was grasping it but wanted to say good job. Thanks…
Nramanuja
Phil/ Thanks to your obsessive bearish anxiety over the last few weeks, I made money on the long side this month, phased gradually to bearish, came in net short today and managed to make money both long and short all week, ending today [and each day this week] in the green. I don't know how you do it, but thank you.
Zeroxzero
Phil/BCS - Didn't realise they traded here. Should've known really. Thanks for the tip. managed to pick some up just before the close at a 15% discount to the UK closing price.
DB
Phil/ I hope the next 5 year bear market will be as much fun and as profitable as this 5 year bull market. For those who survived 2008/2009, and who imbibed the wisdom of PSW, what a time it has been. Good to have you by my side. I think you are selling yourself short – you need to triple your prices :)
Winston
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 did the same thing via your logic (sold puts that is). I glanced one time and they were already up 15% which is considered a good return for an overnight hold in most circles. This is PSW though and to us it's just another day…
Kwan
I subscribed to Phils Stock World full service for a year or so and found that it was extremely helpful. Now I just get the Stock World Weekly summary, which I find invaluable. Phil does not baby people and certainly can't make someone into a successful stock operator who does not make the effort on their own behalf, but he is extremely generous with his time in answering newbie questions. Although I found it difficult to follow and implement all his trades in real time, what I did find was that once you got the hang of his methodology and way of thinking, you could work out your own trades and be quite successful. Even just using his patent Rule Number One* alone is worth its weight in gold. Rule Number Two is even better.
Rookie IRA Investor
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
by ilene - December 14th, 2010 1:14 pm
Courtesy of Reggie Middleton, posted at Zero Hedge and originally posted at Reggie’s BoomBustBlog
Goldman has recently issued a strong buy recommendation on Apple, offering a $430 price target. I have been on record many times stating that Apples will be facing the toughest competition of its existence since Microsoft nearly put them out of business. This, of course, appears to be in direct contravention to the Goldman Sachs call which just happened to come out the day Apple hits its all time high. Being that Apple has more than its fair share of fans who ignore common sense, this is enough to set the stock on fire. The question still remains though, “Is Goldman right?” Goldman very well could be right, but not for the reasons most retail investors believe. Despite overwhelming evidence plus plain old history to the contrary, many investors and mainstream media outlets still take the sell side of Wall Street at their word. Sell side analysts are marketing arms for the brokerage sales force, the investment banking sales force and the traders who move inventory in and out of their respective banks. What they are not are wealth and strategy advisers for retail and institutional investors. Their historical performance clearly illustrates this, thus their is not need to take this entrepreneurial investor and blogger’s word for it. Well, for those of you who either don’t know of me or don’t know of Goldman, here’s a quick recap of Reggie Middleton vs. Goldman Sachs:
Who was more accurate concerning Google? Google’s 3rd Quarter Operating Results: The Foregone Conclusion That Was Amazingly Unanticipated by the Street!!! Monday, November 8th, 2010
Who was more accurate concerning Lehman Brothers, the Ivy league, ivory tower boys doing God’s work or that blogger with the smart ass mouth from Brooklyn?
Please click the graph to enlarge to print quality size.
As a matter of fact, who was more accurate during the ENTIRE Asset Securitization and Credit Crisis of the last three years? We believe Reggie Middleton and his team at the BoomBust bests ALL of Wall Street’s sell side research:…
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by ilene - August 31st, 2010 3:46 pm
Courtesy of Mish
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Here is an interesting snip from August 31 Market Commentary by Art Cashin for UBS. Sorry, no link.
Monday’s market evaporated nearly all the gains from Friday’s rally. Despite lighter volume, it was a 90% down day. That means the bears got a lopsided advantage in negative breadth and negative volume. In Friday’s rally, the bulls had had a similar 90% advantage. Robert McHugh of Main Line Investors says 26 of the last 88 trading days have been 90% days – one way or another. Any wonder the public is wary.
Are these 90% Days a Good Thing?
While the big boys push the market around, small investors have thrown in the towel and are not coming back.
Market volume now consists of black boxes pushing all stocks one way or the other on 30% of the days. Is this a good thing? For who? Investors or Goldman Sachs?
Holding the Line
Today, the 1040 level on the S&P held for about the 8th time on "fabulous" news consumer confidence rose to 53. Bear in mind number in the 70′s are typical of recession lows.
How long the 1040 level can hold is a mystery, but each bounce seems to be weaker and weaker.
Last Friday, I noted Market Cheers 1.6% Growth; Treasuries Hammered; while asking "what’s next?"
We have a partial answer already. Treasuries have regained the entire selloff that started (and ended) on the "great news" that 2nd quarter GDP was +1.6% instead of the expected +1.4%. Never mind that growth was revised down twice from above +2.5% to +1.6%.
Looking ahead, I expect GDP to be negative in the 3rd quarter.
Art Cashin’s 17.6 Year Cycles
A little over a year ago Art Cashin commented Dow Trapped in 17-Year Cycle
Art Cashin, director of floor operations at UBS Financial Services, offered CNBC his stock-market insights. Cashin decried the idea of a second stimulus, in light of the "infamous" first attempt.
"There was no ‘stimulus’ in the stimulus package. It was mostly social engineering," Cashin said. Thus, talk of a new plan is shaking markets with fears of even more debt — with "nothing to show for it."
Cashin revisited his theory of "the 17.6-year cycle."
"It’s like the Biblical story of the fat
…
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by ilene - August 30th, 2010 5:40 pm
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Courtesy of Tyler Durden of Zero Hedge
Anywhere one turns these days, bashing HFT is the new market normal. Having written 150 articles on the topic, beginning in April 2009, we are happy to have brought the world’s attention to this most dangerous of market aberrations. Yet until the SEC finally bans the practices of micro churning, quote stuffing, positive feedback loop chasing, flash trading, subpennying, DMA accessing, and all other aspects conceived merely to provide some market participants with an unfair advantage over everyone else, the fight against HFT must continue.
Which is why we draw your attention to two items: the first is a paper by Bluemont Capital "The Marginalizing of the Individual Investor" in which the authors question if HFT has distorted true market valuation (yes) and to what degree. Some relevant soundbites: "Unfortunately, high-frequency trader interaction with computerized algorithms of large-cap financial institutions is providing opportunities for high-speed, virtually undetectable market manipulation", "At a minimum, computerized high-frequency and algorithmic trading are undermining traditional value investing strategies. Short-term liquidity and data movements are distorting information on real business performance", "Essentially, high-frequency trading platforms function as positive feedback loops. Engineers treat positive feedback loops as inherently unstable, as each positive response generates stepped-up repetition of the same actions. Positive feedback loops result in an ever- expanding balloon, but like all balloons, the risk of bursting increases with the balloon’s size." It concludes that the "continuing advances in computerized trading pose challenges for regulators throughout the world—and leave individual investors marginalized… Regulators should not only seek to assure that markets are able to continue to function under stress, but they also need to devise remedial actions that protect individual investors who have fundamentally different objectives from the high-turnover objectives of high frequency traders and computerized algorithms."
The other notable item is the appearance of our friends at Nanex on ABC radio over in Australia, where firm founder Eric Hunsader discusses the previously highlighted concepts of latency arbitrage as a potential progenitor to the May 6 crash, as well as possible ways that the NBBO arbitrage could have provided for unfair and illegal mispricing opportunities for a select few.
Bluemont Capital "On the Marginalizing of the Individual Investor":
Full August 29 interview with Eric Hunsader on Latency Arbitrage…
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by ilene - August 26th, 2010 9:02 am
Courtesy of Tyler Durden
The latest anticipated weekly outflow from equity mutual funds just hit a one month high of $2.7 billion, as reported by ICI, and with that, YTD redemptions by equity investors have hit over $50 billion. Domestic equity mutual funds have not seen a net positive retail inflow since April 28, yet despite this the market has been substantially rangebound and until last week. What is notable is that even during times of relative stock outperformance, courtesy of whoever it is that is left buying stocks, be it HFT algos, or Primary Dealers pumped with cheap Fed liquidity (and don’t forget today is another "free $2 billion courtesy of POMO" day), the investing public refuses to be drawn into owning stocks. CNBC has now failed to sucker its viewers into the stock ponzi for 16 weeks in a row and rising. The clear capital rotation winner- the bond bubble, but that is the topic for another week.
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by ilene - June 15th, 2010 2:55 pm
Courtesy of John Nyaradi’s Wall Street Sector Selector
MarketWatch.com reports today that retail investors “appear to be scaling back their trading activity in June.”
Trading is down approximately -30% in so far in June compared to May, according to a report from Sandler Oneil who says, ”We suspect the May 6 ‘flash crash’ as well as the market performance since then … have shaken the retail investor’s confidence” and that “June trading levels could be at multi-year low levels.”
Not good news probably for ETrade (ETFCD) or Schawb (SCHW).
This report comes on top of recent news that Morgan Stanley (MS) is closing 300 offices and laying off 1200 employees, along with lighter than normal volume in major equities markets and fund outflows of over $1 Billion for the week ending June 2nd as reported by the Investment Company Institute.
It’s a “deer in the headlights” kind of environment wherein retail investors are abandoning the domestic equity market and that could make it a perfect time to “buy” since the “dumb money” almost always gets it wrong.
However, my opinion is that you can’t just buy anything and hold on, “buy and hold” or “buy and hope.”
I’ve said recently that current conditions offer enormous opportunity and that many millionaires will be created over the next few years. But they won’t be buy and hold investors. I’m afraid those days are gone, maybe forever, replaced by this new volatility and challenging markets that will very likely require a disciplined trading plan for success.
John
*****
See also: Meltup "Abysmal Volume" Summer Approaches, Even As Americans Now Openly Shun Stocks, Zero Hedge
John Nyaradi publishes Wall Street Sector Selector, an online newsletter specializing in sector rotation trading using ETFs. John is offering PSW readers a 30 Day Free Membership and Free Special Report, "Slay the Dragon Within: How to Make Your Emotions Work for You Instead of Against You." His service provides signals for going long and short using standard and leveraged ETFs. Free Membership Subscribers also get access to the Wall Street Sector Selector Monthly Webinar and a second Report, "How To Avoid the Buy and Hold Trap." - Ilene
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by ilene - June 10th, 2010 10:42 pm
Courtesy of Joshua M Brown, The Reformed Broker
Yesterday was a great example of a new characteristic of this market that is truly disturbing - I’m calling it "Adult Swim". On many days, at or around 3PM, the market becomes unsafe for human beings as the churning high frequency trading machines jump in to do their thing. This is like the public pool, when all children are called out of the water so that the big kids can cannonball and thrash about – the lifeguard blows his whistle to signal that it’s time for Adult Swim.
On many recent days, we’ve seen the program traders run amok in the last hour of trading, hitting stops and just generally bringing the ruckus.
Take a look at yesterday’s intraday chart of the major averages below for an example:
The damage to the psyche of individual investors and the "slow money" that used to support the markets is snowballing into what may become an outright protest. The $25 billion in US stock mutual fund outflows since the beginning of May is the body I’ll produce as evidence of a crime.
My question to the proponents of the tradebot society is this:
Once you’ve chased the last 401(k) holders, the last retail investors, the last retirees holding blue chips out of this market, whom will you trade with?
Whose stop loss orders will you discover and trigger? Whom will you abuse and scalp? Each other? Actually, I’d very much like to see that.
The 3 PM Adult Swim hour is destroying what last shreds of faith in this market remain.
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by ilene - October 28th, 2009 12:06 am
Here’s Karl’s take on Goldman Sachs’s story that they are doing us all a favor: Oh Really? – Ilene
Courtesy of Karl Denninger at The Market Ticker
Now comes Goldman with yet another pack of misdirection:
Goldman told the Securities and Exchange Commission that computer-driven trading and an increase in stock transactions that occur off public exchanges has reduced consumer costs, increased competition and brought more liquidity to markets.
“The investing community (especially retail) has benefited from the evolving market structure and industry competition,” Goldman Sachs said in a summary of the 55-page report submitted to the agency.
You have to love the general gist of this thing.
Let’s break down what’s really going on here, because it is both instructive and, in my opinion, necessary.
Dark pools and High Frequency Trading reduce transparency. The argument raised by Goldman and others is that these venues "improve price" for retail investors (and others), such as mutual funds (held by many retail investors.) The problem is that this is the wrong metric to apply.
Trading in established stocks is in fact a negative sum game. That is, for every share I get a "better price" on as a buyer, the seller gets a lower price. Worse, since there there are commissions and fees involved in all transactions, the net effect of each trade is to dilute the total capital base in the system.
An example will serve to show this:
$1,100 in total money in the system.
100 shares @ $10 "quoted".
Taxes, commissions and exchange fees of 1% of the transaction.
The buyer and seller transact all 100 shares. There is now $1,090 in total money (the other $10 has been siphoned off in commissions and fees.)
Do it again. There is now $1,080 (another $10 has been siphoned off.)
Perform 10 transactions and oops – there isn’t enough money to transact an 11th time.
Now here’s the rub – the amount of "spread" that the market maker, which would be Goldman (among many others) can make is entirely dependent on the ability to hide the actual bid and offer by real investors!
That is, let’s assume that of the $10 in commissions and fees Goldman…
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by ilene - July 12th, 2009 5:33 pm
Click here for a FREE, 90-day trail subscription to our PSW Report!
Posted by TraderMark at Fund My Mutual Fund
If you’ve been around these markets for a while you generally know by the time the retail investor is piling into a group, chasing huge scores – it’s generally time to run away (at the least) and for the 5% among us who short, begin to think seriously about betting against the small fry. It sounds cold, but this is just the way it tends to work … trust me, I used to be one of these people, so I learned the hard (read: expensive) way. As we read the piece below let us trust in the fact that none of these people were buying in early March, but most likely jumped in when it was "safe" a month or so later.
Contrast the lemmings running into "what’s hot" with what you’ve been reading here – about a month ago I was saying commodities is crowded and I would not want to be exposed highly there. People who heeded that thought process avoided the sand blasting that has gone on for 3 weeks running in this sector. While I do like these emerging
I don’t really talk much bonds but while junk bonds (highest risk) has provided the most juice the past 3-4 months, its basically been a parallel to the stock
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March 18th, 2019 9:20 pm
Courtesy of ZeroHedge. View original post here.
China is currently in the midst of a multi-billion dollar investment cycle to upgrade its supercomputer infrastructure in a bid to pass the United States for fastest supercomputer in the world after the United States regained the title for fastest supercomputer in 2018, ending a five-year reign of Chinese dominance.
As SCMP notes, China had been first on the global Top 500 list of supercomputers sinc...
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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