Testy Tuesday – 1,975 or BUST!
by phil - October 7th, 2014 8:28 am
I told you it was going to be a wild week!
Not that you can draw any conclusions from yesterday's low-volume action. The Fed doves have their say for the next two days and then we go into a hawkish nosedive on Thursday and Friday, so this little drama is just getting started. All went according to plan yesterday – per our set-up in the morning post:
As a hedge, for our Member Portfolios, we're favoring SQQQ (now $36.55) and DXD (now $24.52) to protect us from another slide but the real tilt to hawkish doesn't start until Thursday, after the Fed minutes, so we can assume they will be spun bearish from there into the weekend and we'll look to take nice, short positions against any run-up that comes from doveish Fed statements early in the week.
As you can see from yesterday's action, that was the perfect way to play it and our short positions on the Futures gave us several quick victories as it was all downhill from the open until 1pm. Even our oil short gave us a nice $600 win – the one that was right there in the morning post at $89.60 and oil was below $89 by 10:45, less than 3 hours for that trade idea to play out!
That's good because we REALLY needed the money because GTAT, one of our good-sized positions in two of our portfolios, declared a surprise bankruptcy yesterday. Bankruptcies are not supposed to be surprising but this one was and GTAT dropped 90%, essentially wiping out a $25,000 position and costing us 1/4 of our year's profits in the Long-Term Portfolio.
There's an excellent article in Bloomberg and another one from Seeking Alpha outlining what happened and where it stands so I'll spare you the gory details other than to say that this is why we stress diversification and portion control in investing. Even so, GTAT happened to be a stock that got weak and, because management promised a turn-around, we added to our losing position on the initial dip and maxed our allocation and then got burned so quickly that we had…
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Weakening Wednesday – Market Picture Begins to Look Grim
by phil - October 1st, 2014 8:25 am
This is not pretty.
As you can see on our Big Chart, we've failed the 50 dma on the S&P, Nasdaq, NYSE and Russell and the Russell failed its 200 dma long ago. We're still waiting for the Dow to cross below 16,940 and confirm the carnage but we made those bets long ago with our DXD Oct $24 calls, which are now 0.70 (up 55%) from our 0.45 entry back on 9/18.
In fact, we already took 1/2 of those calls off the table at 0.85 last week so, essentially, the remainder is a free put option on the Dow for the next three weeks – with DXD at $24.45, so we gain every penny from here on up as the Dow falls.
That's what hedges are supposed to do, of course. We discussed that in yesterday's Live Trading Webinar, where we also demonstrated a live Futures trade on the Russell (/TF Futures) that made $500 on the 2:30 bounce. That bounce was very easy to predict because THE MARKET IS MANIPULATED and all we had to do was wait for the same fake spike that we get at the end of every quarter, courtesy of the Fed and their fellow Banksters:
What's scary about yesterday's flood of money ($230Bn in two days) wasn't just the size of the pump job, but the ineffectiveness of it. The volume was still anemic and declining shares outpaced advancing shares by almost 2:1 in yesterday's "mixed" trading.
In reality, it wasn't mixed at all as big traders took advantage of every penny that moved into the market as they told their brokers to sell, SELL!!!
Still, it's not the end of the World just yet – only close to it, and we can still turn this puppy around by holding the line on the Dow as well as Russell 1,100 and Nasdaq 4,500. This market has been amazingly resiliant in 2014 so we're not going to be complacently bearish the same way we (thank goodness) did not let ourselves get complacently bullish this summer.
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$5,000 Friday – How to Profit from Market Corrections
by phil - September 26th, 2014 8:02 am
$5,000!
That's how much our FREE Futures suggestions made between the time I put them in yesterday's morning post (8am) and the close of trading at 4pm. That's not bad for 6 hour's work, is it? As I said in the morning:
So, you may wonder, why would we want to go against the wishes of two of the most powerful people and short oil ($93.40), gasoline ($2.75), the Dow (17,150) and the Nikkei (16,350)? Well, that's because, as powerful as these people may be – they are still fighting physics in trying to make the markets do things they simply shouldn't be doing.
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I'm sure ALL the newsletters you follow are able to give you equally profitable advice so, by all means, DON'T SUBSCRIBE HERE – especially ahead of the rate increase in October (sorry, inflation). 
But, can you really blame us for being pleased that we totally nailed the drop?
In fact, had you simply joined us on Wednesday and replicated our virtual Short-Term Portfolio, which was only up 53.4% at the time, you would have caught a ride from there to 60% in just two days. Last Thursday, the STP was up only 30%, so that's a 30% ($30,000) gain for the week as our bearish bets paid off and it very much offset the $15,560 decline in our bullish Long-Term Portfolio. So much so that we took some of our shorts off the table to get us more neutral into the morning (as we expect a slight bounce unless GDP sucks).
You don't have to trade the Futures to make great money on your hedges. Our DXD Oct $24 calls jumped from 0.50 on Tuesday (when I reminded you about them in the morning post) to 0.96 at yesterday's close – up 92% in 3 days! That's a good hedge, especially when you consider the Dow only fell 2.5%, so we got 36:1 leverage on that hedge – and THAT is how we balance our portfolios and protect them from sell-offs.
Even a straight purchase of TZA (also noted in Tuesday's post – why…
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Technical Tuesday – Rejected, Rejected, Rejected!
by phil - September 23rd, 2014 8:07 am
So much for 2,000 holding.
Fortunately, our Big Chart kept us cautiously bearish into the weekend and the hedges in our Short-Term Portfolio functioned perfectly, gaining $13,000 on the day and completely offsetting the drop of $8,000 in our Long-Term Portfolio.
That's without our big hedge, DXD, kicking in yet, as the Dow is still over 17,000 but, should it fail, we'll see those STP gains multiply quickly.
For those of you who are not Members, and don't have access to our various Member Portfolios (and you can by subscribing here), we have done our best to prepare you for this drop as well. Last Thursday, right in the morning post, I shared our short stance with the general public, saying
It's going to be crazy into the weekend but, in our Live Chat Room this morning, I said to our Members:
Futures pumped back up to yesterday's highs at 17,125, 2,001.50, 4,080 and 1,156.5 so I like shorting below 17,100, 2,000, 4,075 and 1,155 – short the laggard, out of any of them cross back over – very simple!
That's our plan into the weekend. As I've mentioned before, we're also using DXD ($24 at the time), TZA ($14.68) and SQQQ ($35.26) to hedge our long portfolios – just in case things unravel over the weekend. We also discussed FXI ($40.30) puts earlier in the week as a play on China melting down so PLENTY of ways to profit from the downside.
This morning, the Futures are 17,050 on /YM (up $375 per contract), 1,979 on /ES (up $1,125 per contract), 4,035 on /NQ (up $900 per contract) and 1,116.50 on /TF (up $4,000 per contract) – so that strategy went pretty well.
In last Wednesday's post, we also shorted Oil Futures at $95 and oil fell to…
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$1,500 Friday – Yesterday’s Futures Play Pays Big!
by phil - September 5th, 2014 7:51 am
That's $2,200 in two days playing with us!
Not bad for free picks, right? On Wednesday, we played the Nasdaq Futures (/NQ) short at 4,100 and those gave us a nice, $700 per contract gain in just a few hours. Yesterday, we reviewed that trade idea right in the morning post (which you can have delivered to you every morning, pre-market, by SUBSCRIBING HERE) and I added:
That's why, today, right now, we are once again shorting the Futures at 17,100 in /YM(Dow) and 2,005 on /ES (S&P) and 1,175 on /TF(Russell). Yesterday we shorted the Nasdaq(/NQ) at 4,100 – a trade idea I outlined in the morning post for our subscribers – and that trade made $700 per contract by noon. Not a bad day's work, right?
Futures trading is a useful skill as we can make adjustments to our trading almost anytime we get some new information – even when the market is closed.
We played bullish on Draghi fever early in the morning and then, in our Live Member Chat Room, at 10:35, we nailed the turn for a re-entry at 1,180 on the Russell (/TF Futures), 17,150 on the Dow (/YM) and 2,010 on the S&P (/ES) as well as $95 on oil (/CL) and we were rewarded with moves down to 1,160 (+$2,000 per contract), 17,025 (+$625 per contract), 1,990 (+$1,000 per contract) and $94.25 (+$750 per contract).
As I said yesterday, we can make trades like this because the market is RIGGED and we understand how it's rigged, which enables us to play along and profit from the manipulation. We don't like it, we don't endorse it but, since it happens every day – we may as well bet on it, right?
Of course there are other ways to make money on pullback and we teach those as well at PSW. Here's a couple of trade ideas we had for our Members…
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Thrilling Thursday – Rejection at S&P 2,000
by phil - August 28th, 2014 8:12 am
The Futures are off a bit today and that's no surprise to those of us who have been paying attention to the volume, or lack thereof, as we made our final approach at the 2,000 line on the S&P 500. Jim Cramer was literally foaming at the mouth this week as he and his CNBC co-conspirators herded the sheeple into the markets to participate in the tail end of the rally, where the suckers could hold the bags for their Corporate Masters.
Why am I angry at Cramer today? Because yesterday he committed the same crime he commtted in 2008 that cost so many people their life's savings – he told people not to sell their stocks on a pullback. "Don't take profits" is the message for the viewing public. But, I would ask, if people don't take profits – when will they ever get profits? What kind of stupid message is that? Well, it's the message that leaves you holding the bag while his hedge fund buddies head for the exits. It's not much different than telling one group of people not to leave a burning building while you make sure all your friends are getting out safely.
"This is not just my opinion. I can prove it to you empirically. See, as I was preparing to write my book "Get Rich Carefully," I went over the previous five years of trades made by my charitable trust. And as I reviewed those trades I noticed that far too often, my good judgment would be overcome by excessive skepticism."
If the "proof" Jim is talking about is his Action Alerts Plus, then I'd say you really should think long and hard about following his advice here (via Kirk Lindstrom – who does compete with Cramer):
I guess, sure, Jim legitimately should regret that he wasn't more bullish from 2008 to 2013, when the market popped 200% and his trust gained about 100% but don't you think the lesson Cramer should be taking from that experience is to CUT YOUR LOSSES, not…
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Technical Tuesday – Weak Bounce Sucks in the Suckers Once Again
by phil - August 5th, 2014 7:40 am
Actually it's a rule of thumb at PSW that dip buyers need to get burned 3 times before they wise up to a proper correction, so they still have at least another try in them before they finally walk away from this crazy market. As you can see from Oppenheimer's S&P chart, 56% of the S&P has plunged back below their 50 dma in the past 30 days.
This is EXACTLY what I've been warning you about. At the same time the indexes LOOKED like they were rallying, MOST stocks were actually being dumped while a few (AAPL, for expample) were kept aloft to maintain the ILLUSION that the market was still strong. That's how they keep the retail buyers moving in while the institutional investors head for the hills. Yesterday's action was nothing but another low-volume bounce – the kind we teach our Members to ignore:
Short-term, we're certainly oversold but we'll be very critical of a low-volume recovery until we see those 50 dmas retaken on the indexes. Those are way up at 16,877 on the Dow, 1,954 on the S&P, 4,368 on the Nasdaq, 10,912 on the NYSE and 1,160 on the Russell. Anything less than that and there's nothing to be particularly bullish about.
That doesn't stop us, of course, from picking individual short-term longs. On Wednesday, for example, I was on TV on Money Talk and we featured this play on GTAT as my "Options Play of the Month." Last night, GTAT knocked it out of the park on earnings and the stock shot up over 10% to $15+ already in pre-market trading. That will put us well on track to the full $14,000 return on this spread and a 1,650% gain on cash ($13,200 profit on the $800 we invested)! Not bad for a few day's work, right?
By the way, if you never want to miss trade ideas like GTAT again – sign up right here for Membership and you will be among the first to hear about our new trade ideas every day!
We're still running our SQQQ hedge as we didn't think yesterday's…
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TGIF – Stop the Market, We Want to Get Off!
by phil - August 1st, 2014 7:07 am
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
What fun this is! Well, it's fun for us because we were playing for this drop and not only did our bearish Short-Term Portfolio pop 10% yesterday but our bullish Long-Term Portfolio crossed over the 20% line for the first time this year. How is that possible? Because we are using our "Be the House – Not the Gambler™" strategy to SELL premium to suckers who think they know what the market is going to do!
This allows us to make money in any market direction while remaining well-hedged for the downturns. It also allows us to put up these spectacular gains while using less than 50% of our cash – keeping it on the sidelines and ready to deploy when we catch a good bargain on one of our Buy Lists to add to our virtual portfolios. We had not one but two special Live Trading Webinars yesterday for our Members, where we cashed out the XOM puts I mentioned FOR FREE last Friday for a 300% gain.
If you want to get our morning posts delivered to you each day, in progress, at 8:30 each day with access to the full posts pre-market – just sign up right here.
Last Friday I also suggested our SCO (ultra-short oil) longs and that $1,200 position in our Short-Term Portfolio closed yesterday at $3,400 – up a very nice 183% and the SQQQ trade I aslo put up in last Friday's morning post for a net $400 credit (also featured on TV on this Wednesday's Money Show) finished yesterday's session at $1,060 – up $1,400 (350%) in less than a week!
Another hedge we discussed were the TZA Aug $14 calls which were $1.67 on Wednesday (more FREE picks in the morning post), which was already up 153% from 0.66 when I first mentioned them (outside of our Live Member Chat Room) in our July 8th post. As of yesterday's close, they were $2.51 – up 50% from Wednesday and up 280% overall.
The 20 calls we picked as a hedge on July 8th for $1,320, jumped to…
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Flip Flopin’ Thursday – Argentina Makes Us All Cry
by phil - July 31st, 2014 8:05 am
I warned you about Argentina!
We discussed them way back in December as they faked their own GDP data, that it was nothing more than window-dressing to keep them from LOOKING like they were in default – even though they were clearly heading that way.
So it should come as no surprise that, as the deadline finally comes, there is no surprising rescue for the World's 26th largest economy ($477Bn vs $499Bn for Norway, $394Bn for Austria, $385Bn for Thailand and $248Bn for Greece). Since it's not a surprise, we took the opportunity this morning to go long in the Futures, as the 1% dip around 4am seemed overdone. I sent out a special Alert to all of our Members, saying:
Still, I like /TF for a bullish over the 1,130 line (testing now) and /YM at 16,700 and /ES 1,950 for bounces but VERY TIGHT STOPS if any of them fail.
Fortunately, they did not fail and already (8am) we have /TF 1,135 (up $500 per contract), /YM 16,732 (up $160 per contract) and /ES 1,955 (up $250 per contract) and our Egg McMuffins are paid for and those trades are now off the table (tight stops at least), as we expect more selling at the open!
It's nice to play the Futures to offset bearish bets, like the SQQQ (ultra-short Nasdaq) trade we discussed in yesterday's morning post and the QQQ weekly $96 puts we added for .22 in yesterday's live Member Chat ahead of the Fed – as we expected the statement would disappoint. Those should come out well this morning and going long on the Futures locks in those potential gains for us.
Now, getting back to Argentina, ARGT is UP 32% this year and that is just silly so ARGT makes a nice short at $23.20 and you can, in fact, buy the Oct $23 puts for $1.45 and, if they give back that 32%, they'll be back to $19 and you'll have $4+ for a $2.55 gain (175%) – that's a fun way to play it.
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$1,000 Friday – Yesterday’s Oil Trade Gives Everyone a Great Weekend!
by phil - July 25th, 2014 7:55 am
Congratulations!
If you read yesterday's post and took action on our trade idea to short Oil Futures (/CL) at the $103 line, then you were able to pocket $1,000 PER CONTRACT in just 3 hours. In the Morning post (delivered to our Members via Email at 8:35 am), the trade idea was:
"We're still shorting Oil (/CL) Futures at that $103 line and we hit it again this morning and, hopefully, we'll get a nice pullback around 10:30 – after the natural gas report shows a nice build."
That's about on par for our Futures trading as we demonstrated LIVE in Tuesday's Live Trading Webinar $300 of Futures profits in less than an hour (replay available here). We'll be doing more Futures Webinars for our Members aside from our usual Tuesday Live Trading Webcasts (sign up for your Membership here so you don't miss our trade ideas).
How to trade the Futures is one of the many things we learn at Philstockworld – another thing is PATIENCE! Patience has kept us from chasing this rally as we once again top out the market. On Tuesday we took a nice, speculative bullish trade (but did not officially add it to our Portfolios) - just in case we do have a breakout – but, otherwise, we've been working on our downside protection.
We are FUNDAMENTAL traders who just so happen to use Options and Futures for leverage and hedging – simply because they are convenient and profitable instruments when used correctly. What we teach is not all that complicated – but it isn't easy either. That's why not many people trade Options and Futures – it requires discipline and takes time and practice to master – not really the kind of thing our education system prepares our students for these days….
YOU, however, should not be intimidated away from making money. Our basic concepts are VERY SIMPLE and the concepts are explained in quick videos like "How To Buy a Stock for a 15-20% Discount" and "The Secret to Consistent 20-40% Annual Returns" – something we are demonstrating this year in the 5 Virtual Portfolios we track for our Members.
Back on December 7th, for…
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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.