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
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
Once again, many muchos for the SODA trade of last week. Finally out of all three legs. I didn't want to wait for expiration tomorrow and the possible peg at $70.00, following your dictum to not get greedy.
flipspiceland
I am an investor, not a trader. The information at Phil's World is top-notch and always relevant. It is great to see your website thriving.
Prof
I have definitely learned to take smaller wins early and be happy with that. Lately, I've aimed for $250 profit per day. Doing that daily/weekly x 48 weeks (assuming I take some time off) works out to 60k per year. That's a lot of money!! $250 moves happen all the time if you just wait for them.
JeffDoc
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 - Your logic not only makes sense, but it made a lot of premium profit for me over the past 12 months. I have recovered much of the massive equity losses of last year. My Monday play is the sale of long term puts on FXI. Love the premium!
Gel1
10/15/2014: Phil…..been travelling more than not but reading and watching you guys every night. This is to say a big thank you. Even though I don't have the time to trade every day now I set up hedges and base long term strategy on PSW. I now it may sound like BS to some readers but my 401k is down a mere 3%. It hardly gets my attention when I open my brokerage portfolio accounts. And that is by using your longer term hedges and strategies. I don't need to be a day trader to take advantage of PSW. At this time in my life when I cant trade every day……. not losing what we've gained moves front and center. It's just a great feeling to watch your brokerage account hold steady in a sea of red. Thanks Teacher.
Livingfull
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: well, often you say, just for FUN, great comment, TXS, closed 2 SKF positions, one with 10 % , the other with 6 % gain,
RMM
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'm up 34x what I paid in fees for your service, and that only counts the trades I didn't think of myself. Thanks!
Barfinger
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
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
Phil, thanks for the webinar and options subject…I wasn't shown as attending but I was there for most of it. Your memory amazes me, your speed on the computer amazes me, your math skills blow me away. coke
Coke
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 - Rode the /QM down from 99.65 at 7pm and now I'm taking your advice, taking the $$ and going to enjoy a restful night sleep. I don't post often so I want to say thanks for sharing your incredible market acumen with all of us. Your site has a unusually talented group of investors (and some characters) and I enjoy my days trading more because of it.
DaveW
Probably the best approach and method I have ever seen for the public and I have worked for some serious traders at the biggest houses doing research. Those guys all have various forms of inside info that you and I do not and cannot have. Davis simply has a great system based on a very deep understanding and experience that gives him market savvy that is very real. A very smart guy and he shares it for a fee. He knows how to use options to great advantage and make money trading.
DowntoEarthThinking
Phil - Thanks for the welcoming gift of the POT at a buck Just paid for this month and my membership is not even 24 hours old! looking forward to many more - bk
Bjkeck
WOW, look at DRYS go. Nice call on the entry the other week Phil. I got 200 at $6.66 and sold a 7.5 call for $.50, then on the tear today sold another 7.5 call for $1. This should puts me in at an average of $5.91 and called away at $7.5 for a profit of $300+ after commisions. Once again another Phil trade pays for this months membership.
Craigzooka
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
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
What a quarter! (AAPL, etc.) "People react; PSW'ers anticipate." Thanks everyone for a vibrant board.
Silentstorm
Why were the analysts wrong? If I were a Japanese investor who purchased US stocks prior to November at Y80 yen to the dollar, with the US market up an average of 15% or more and upon selling the asset I covert dollars to Yen, also realizing an additional 25% gain (one dollar now converts to 100+ Yen rather than the 80 I used at time of purchase), I think I would be unloading US assets also. But analysts never do the math in their articles nor very rarely bring up or discuss the ramifications of currency fluctuations. I don't include Phil in this group as this is a valuable lesson I am learning from him.
Denlundy
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 – just wanted to say a sincere thank you for teaching me how to offset, hedge, roll, and not panic. My account is up 10% in the last two weeks, and far from panic, this is becoming great fun. Thanks again,
Deano
Tesla et. al. – I've spent many months getting hammered shorting overvalued Momos, until, finally, I internalized Phil's message. Play small; give yourself plenty of room to double/move up the [lack of value] chain in terms of price. Play short; take [Musk's, eg.] latest bleep and sell the spike for a short time frame, because his tweets always come to naught. I've been coining money doing it, I just watch that premium melt away with scarcely veiled amusement. Swinging for the fences is for suckers [me, for a long time]. Those little gains really add up — $2k per week of evaporated premium and you could actually buy a Tesla by the end of the year!!
zeroxzero
Thanks for the oil tip Phil: Bot & sold the USO May 29 calls for net $125. Not bad for few minutes work.
JWick1981
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 been reading the "free" PSW for about a year and have always liked Phil's style as it closely resembled the way I like to trade (mostly naked put options). I have been a paid subscriber for about 5 weeks and I have been learning a lot from Phil and other members. I had made some money on Phil's "free" ideas in the past and I joined because one of Phil's futures ideas paid for my subscription within the same day (NG). Phil deserved my subscription and I was eager to learn more. I just did a quick tally and within the last 5 weeks the ideas that I chose to follow from Phil generated over 25K in options profits and 12K in futures profits (some of my trades were more conservative than what Phil's had suggested). I have a lot to learn, experience and confidence to gain. Thanks again Phil and Successful Trading to all.
Verreaul
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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October 17th, 2018 2:33 pm
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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
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Contact Ilene to learn about our affiliate and
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