The best play I made this year was PSW. Will renew my membership tonight. Looking for the same trading profit percentages next year, but will have an advantage from the compounding, and much better skills acquired from you and the many skilled PSW co-pilots. Thanks!
Gel1
Newer member here, but just wanted to say thank you too. I've learned so much and I hope you'll be around for a long time helping us learn along the way.
Where
Phil/CL-that play made a quick $500 per contract! Took all of 10 minutes! I want to thank you for helping me not just learn a bit about trading, but giving me some confidence and most of all a rewarding "hobby" to look forward to each day. I have had a few mistakes and losses along the way, but I have had some great wins too and I am now consistently making money trading futures and have even learned to go to sleep while holding a losing position knowing that tomorrow is always another opportunity to win again. So thanks again for your help and patience along the way.
Craigsa620
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 - I got your earlier trade a month or so ago on MSFT 2015 32/37 BCS, selling 2015 30 puts. Nice up 75% now!
Jomptien
Hey Phil, Your HOV suggestion about 3 months ago basically paid for my Philstockworld subscription for years to come. My average cost is about $1.
Ether
I must add yet another paen to Phil's "cash and short" call, as my TZA shorts are past paying for Similac and Pampers and have now covered all doctors and Mt. Sinai hospital bills for young Charlotte, as TZA took the portfolio up 10%.
Zeroxzero
Phil: Once again thanks for those inciteful comments, and the old links to Sage's portfolio management (I hadn't read before). I'm an experienced stock trader, but over the last 3 or 4 months have come to appreciate options trading here at PSW, and the consistency of your many premium-selling strategies. It is liberating to have to worry less about getting direction right and being able to generate 5% MONTHLY returns with close to delta-neutral positioning. Much appreciated!
Neverworkagain
Phil, I don't know how I can thank you enough for your guidance this past week. I'm up significantly in my portfolio and I've never been so relaxed watching the market panic. Thanks once again for being here for us.
thechaser
Thank God for Phil.
A few months ago (April) I didn´t even know what hedging was, and someone recommended I should check out some of Phil´s plays, especially on the retirement portfolio. When I first started to read it, none of it made a blind bit of sense to me, but I stuck with it and gradually began to work through some of the trades to see how it worked. Now I am putting on 5:1 SPY backspreads combined with bear put spreads, entering and leaving positions after consulting the VIX, and engaging in other esoteric maneuvers that are keeping my portfolio above water.
jmm1951
Phil - I LOVE these futures trades at random hours! I wasnt able to get in on the 612 part but if I had it wouldve been 130$ (2.6%) on a 5k contract in less than 30 minutes. I know you have to sleep, spend time with fam, ect but Im just letting you know that your posts after hours/late at night has made people who followed them a decent chunk of change. Thank you, we appreciate it!
Jromeha
I like the retirement picks too. The futures trading is certainly more sexy, but the boring retirement picks are the ones that consistently make me money.
jjennings
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
Well that was a fun day. Cashed out my GS 140 calls for about 35% profit and my AAPL calls for 38% gain. Not bad for 40 minutes of work. Back to 85% cash.
Singapore Steve
I am not a user of phil's site now, but was for a couple years. His advice and information is excellent. Perhaps even better, you get access to real-time trades of additional traders on his site (OptTrader, etc) and the other members who post what they are buying and selling. Overall, its a very valuable information tool. Expensive, but paid for itself many times over. I did not renew my membership because I switched jobs and did not have time to trade nearly as much.
XRTrader
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
That was a quick double on the DIA calls. trailing stop in place.
Kwan
Thanks, after years of blood and blunders, I have reached a significant milestone – I don't lose money. Net net, I rarely have a losing week, market up, market down. And that I owe to you. Balanced positions. More premium sold than bought. Fundamental criteria applied to good companies, not momentum/ news headlines/ stock du jour/ triangle squeezies. But rather earnings, P/E, dividends, competitive position — the boring stuff that takes study, thought,….and patience. You have been a great teacher, and I have embarassed myself repeatedly day with how slowly I learn.
And it's a funny thing – if you don't lose, the gains start to pile up. The arithmetic is cruel to the downside, and becomes a gift in the other direction. And I'm in this for the long run, having made myself unemployable through a need for diversification. Moreover, what I've learned here has also elided into other areas, including real estate and ex-U.S. investment. Pretty cool. Have a great weekend.
Zeroxzero
Phil: That NFLX call was awesome. The speed at which NFLX options decayed was precipitous. The blow out spike that allowed me to double and roll my callers to 190(!) and the ridiculous 170 weeklies @3.50 a day away from Op-Ex. The gains I realized in that trade floored me when I took a long at my portfolio value on Friday. What a great way to start the 3rd Quarter.
Kinkistyle
Phil - I followed your great pick re F and sold short the 1011 2.50 puts (200 contracts) and paid for the next 10 years of membership fees…. Thanks!
Gel1
SPY/Phil, I took a big swing on January 26th following your advice to another member and bought 1615 contracts of Mar 185/190 BCS on SPY that will expire ITM today paying $290,700 on the $500k bet. I thought it might be fun to see what a winning trade looks like. Great call on your part and looking back it seems pretty obvious.
Sibe14 (premium)
I really would like to meet all of the posters here who seem like an intriguing bunch of intelligent, opinionated (without being obnoxious or condescending most of the time), and well spoken people. Not so easy to find in this age of instant gratification and me first attitudes. Usually this results in groups where misinformation is used to gain an advantage, or whatever it takes to beat the other guys. I love the one for all, all for one vibe here, sharing your best ideas and helping each other work together for a common goal, to be successful investors!
craigsa620
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
Hello Phil,
Thanks for the heads up on the comming sell off on friday, and the bs job yesterday. your our guiding light!
Microflux
Phil, you are the man. My positions in ABX and CLF are up massively this year, and doing very nicely with USO and UNG. TSR is another winner. Just waiting for the TSLA short now!
Rookie IRA Investor
I read with great interest your statement the other day that the DX is unlikely to break 76 or there will be great hell to pay, torrential amounts of tears shed, and gnashing of dentures all over the world. Well. I have had several short DX contracts in the $78ish range during the last month and upon your two statements 1) don't be greedy, and 2) 76 could be a bottom, I yesterday put a buy GTC order to close my positions at 76 and for some inexplicable reason the DX spiked down after the close and now I can safely say that once again you have confirmed for me that you have been one of the best investment services I have yet to come across. Almost to the point that I'm beginning to think that maybe I'm completely wrong about my political stance as well. Almost. In any event, I wanted you to know that this has been my third execution based on your comments and recommendations that I have followed and this one has also worked to my advantage. My subscription fee has been more than justified for the next year and there's some left over to pay for my stay in Toronto this week, dinner at Joso's in the Yorkville section of town. If I smoked I'd have a Montecristo to salute you. Be well, stay well.
Flipspiceland
Phil - Wow…wow. The vision and inate grasp of the options world you posess is rather staggering. It's this type of experience that I really hope to develop. I'm afraid I still can't see the moves, but I WILL learn. I cannot thank you enough for the patience, knowledge and effort you put into this place. Please keep it going!
Where
Thanks for the oil tip Phil: Bot & sold the USO May 29 calls for net $125. Not bad for few minutes work.
JWick1981
Phil/CLK4 – Perfect! Saw the answer 1 min after my post…out with $740 on two contracts. Thanks again for the education.
Jeffdoc2004
I started with $250,000 in cash as of Oct 1 and have realized gains of $81,000 thru close of business. And that's in an IRA with no margin or naked trades. Whenever you are in Argentina or Chile I owe you a drink. I'm looking forward to it.
Things are looking grim indeed for the US economy. Unemployment is out of control—especially if you consider the U-6 (16.7%, up 0.2% in the last month) and Shadowstats (22%, up 0.3%) measures, which are far more realistic than the effectively public relations U-3 number that passes for the “official” unemployment rate (9.6%, up 0.1%).
The US is in a Depression, and the sooner it acknowledges that—rather than continuing to pretend otherwise—the better. Government action has attenuated the rate of decline, but not reversed it: a huge fiscal and monetary stimulus has put the economy in limbo rather than restarting growth, and the Fed’s conventional monetary policy arsenal is all but depleted.
This prompted MIT professor of economics Ricardo Cabellero to suggest a more radical approach to monetary easing, in a piece re-published last Wednesday in Business Spectator (reproduced from Vox). Conventional “Quantitative Easing” involves the Treasury selling bonds to the Fed, and then using the money to fund expenditure—so public debt increases, and it has to be serviced. We thus swap a private debt problem for a public one, and the boost to spending is reversed when the bonds are subsequently retired. Instead, Caballero proposes
a fiscal expansion (e.g. a temporary and large cut of sales taxes) that does not raise public debt in equal amount. This can be done with a “helicopter drop” targeted at the Treasury. That is, a monetary gift from the Fed to the Treasury. (Ricardo Caballero)
The government would thus spend without adding to debt, with the objective of causing inflation by having “more dollars chasing goods and services”. This is preferable to the deflationary trap that has afflicted Japan for two decades, and now is increasingly likely in the US. So on the face of it, Cabellero’s plan appears sound: inflation will reduce the real value of financial assets, shift wealth from older to younger generations, and stimulate both supply and demand by making it more attractive to spend and invest than to leave…
I met with Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism on the weekend, at a superb Japanese restaurant that only New York locals could find (and I’ll keep its location quiet for their benefit–too much publicity could spoil a spectacular thing). Yves was kind enough to post details of my latest academic paper at her site in a post she entitled “Steve Keen’s scary Minsky model“.
Yves found the model scary, not because it revealed anything about the economy that she didn’t already know, but because it so easily reproduced the Ponzi features of the economy she knows so well.
I have yet to attempt to fit the model to data–and given its nonlinearity, that won’t be easy–but its qualitative behavior is very close to what we’ve experienced. As in the real world, a series of booms and busts give the superficial appearance of an economy entering a “Great Moderation”–just before it collapses.
The motive force driving the crash is the ratio of debt to GDP–a key feature of the real world that the mainstream economists who dominate the world’s academic university departments, Central Banks and Treasuries ignore. In the model, as in the real world, this ratio rises in a boom as businesses take on debt to finance investment and speculation, and then falls in a slump when things don’t work out in line with the euphoric expectations that developed during the boom. Cash flows during the slump don’t allow borrowers to reduce the debt to GDP ratio to the pre-boom level, but the period of relative stability after the crisis leads to expectations–and debt–taking off once more.
Ultimately, such an extreme level of debt is accumulated that debt servicing exceeds available cash flows, and a permanent slump ensues–a Depression.
There are 4 behavioural functions in the model that mimic the behaviour of the major private actors in the economy–workers, capitalists and bankers. Workers wage rises are related to the level of employment and the rate of inflation; capitalists investment and debt repayment plans are related to the rate of profit; and the willingness of banks to lend is also a function of the rate of profit.…
Max Keiser and and Stacy Herbert talk about a number of topics including Charlie Munger’s must-read commentary from earlier in the week "Basically, It’s Over" and then Steve Keen is interviewed starting at about the 12 minute mark.
The discussion about the impact of the China slowdown on the Australian economy is well worth a close listen since you don’t hear too much about it these days. It seems the economy down under is still viewed as some sort of a miracle system that escaped recession back in 2008-2009 and has only blue skies ahead.
Tired of the same old US-based bears such as Nouriel Roubini, Peter Schiff and Doug Kass? Sick of hearing the US is in deep trouble argument from Marc Faber and ex-pat Jim Rogers? Then, for those of you who are not familiar with the most outspoken Australian Nostradamus, let me introduce you to economist Steve Keen. Keen is one person who can legitimately contend that he saw the crisis coming and even warned about the potential impacts extensively on his website. Keen’s writings serve as another example of how nonsensical the claim is that “no one could have seen this coming;” a refrain that you hear from politicians around the world who want to remain blameless for the current economic calamity. Keen is a straight shooter who pulls no punches in his criticisms of other economists, political leaders, and central bankers all over the globe. The reason it is important to listen to him now is that he is still pounding the table about the debt overhang that is plaguing the Anglo-Saxon world. Unlike the bubble-perpetuating pundits you see on CNBC, Keen does not believe economies can recover from the implosion of a debt bubble by printing money or through just the passage of time. As such, he happens to believe that both the US and Australia are on an unsustainable path that may lead to an even larger crash.
I have embedded a video below of a must watch presentation from Keen. Here is a preview of some of the topics covered and associated commentary:
·Amusing and condescending explanation of the fact that Milton Friedman was not a Keynesian economist (as some professor named Joshua Gans had stated the day before)
oIn fact, according to Keen calling Friedman a Keynesian is like calling the devil one of God’s angels
§Calling Friedman a Keynesian is an insult to real Keynesians such as Minsky
·Discussion of the delusional theories espoused by Friedman and the other neo-classical economists who completely missed the crisis and whose ideas do not share anything in common with reality
oNeo-classical models cannot endogenously produce a…
Is inflation or deflation the bigger threat? There are lots of people — lots of smart people — on both sides of the debate and they present lots of good arguments. One thing that I have not seen — and maybe I just missed it — was an analysis using Irving Fisher’s debt-deflation framework. So I decided to put one together myself and to inject my understanding of what Bernanke is try to do to stop deflation from taking hold.
The question I keep coming back to, especially as I read more about the situation Japan faced (I’m reading everything I can by Richard Koo, including his book "The Holy Grail of Macroeconomics."
And just to make sure I am not being one-sided, I am countering my fears of deflation with "Monetary Regimes and Inflation" by Peter Bernholz, which should arrive next week.
Without further ado, below is my research on debt-deflation.
You should be afraid of policies attempting to fight it.
Deflation (rather price deflation) is actually the natural state of affairs. As productivity increases, more goods and services are produced relative to the population and prices would therefore be expected to drop.
It is the Fed, along with misguided Keynesian and Monetarist economists who think falling prices are a bad thing. Who amongst us does like falling prices (except of course on things we own like houses, but even then who is not sick of higher property taxes that result)?
The reality is inflation benefits those with first access to money. Guess who that is? The answer is easy: banks, government, and the already wealthy. Inflation is actually a tax on the middle class and the poor who get access to money last. During the housing bubble, by the time the poor could get access to to money easily, it was far too late to buy.
Inquiring minds are wondering about the possibility of "pent-up" inflation from the massive expansion money supply by the Fed. Our search for the truth starts with the question "Which Comes First: The Printing or The Lending?"
This is a critical question given the massive expansion of base money by the Fed as shown in the following chart.
Base Money Supply
Since the beginning of the recession, the Fed has expanded base money supply from $800 billion to $1.7 trillion. Conventional wisdom suggests this money is going to come soaring into the economy at any second causing hyperinflation on the notion banks will lend out 10 times the amount of reserves.
So is this pent-up inflation just waiting to break out?
Hardly.
A funny thing happened to the inflation theory: Banks aren’t lending and proof can be found in excess reserves at member banks.
Excess Reserves
Banks are Insolvent, Consumers Tapped Out
Because of rising credit card defaults, commercial real estate defaults, foreclosures, walk-aways, and other bad debts, banks need those reserves to cover future losses.
In practice, banks are insolvent, unable or unwilling to lend. Moreover, tapped out consumers are unable or unwilling to borrow. As a result, Spending Collapses In All Generation Groups.
Bernanke can flood the world with "reserves" and indeed he has. However, he cannot force banks to lend or consumers to borrow.
Yet every day someone comes up with another convoluted theory about how inflationary this all is. It is certainly "distortionary" in that it creates problems down the road and prolongs a real recovery by keeping zombie banks alive (as happened in Japan). However, it is not (in aggregate) going to cause massive inflation because it is not spurring the creation of new debt.
Consumers and banks both are suffering from a massive hangover. Their willingness and ability to drink is gone. No matter how many pints of whiskey Bernanke sets in front of someone passed out on the floor, liquor sales will not rise.
In a debt-based economy, it is extremely difficult to produce inflation if consumers will not participate. And as noted above, demographics and attitudes strongly suggest consumers have had enough of debt and spending sprees.
Those pointing to flawed measures of money supply as proof of inflation just don’t get it,
Australian economist Steve Keen is one of the very few who have called this economic crisis correctly. What distinguishes Keen is that his economic forecasts are based on levels of debt and changes in levels of debt as opposed to money supply, output capacity and other things that led most economists astray.
The following video is about 19 minutes long but very much worth listening to in entirety, improving as it goes along. The video may take a while to load but it’s well worth it. Everything below in quotes, until the next bold title is a partial transcript from the video.
Steve Keen:
"If you have a sane economy, and by sane economy I mean one which is not addicted to debt, not a Ponzi economy, then the change in debt each year should contribute a minor amount to demand. Therefore, if you tried to correlate debt to the level of unemployment you would not find much of a correlation. Unfortunately that is not the economy we live in."
"The red line shows the percent contribution that debt contributes to demand and the blue line which is inverted is the unemployment rate."
"There should be no correlation if the economy is operating sensibly. Correlation is now at the level of 83%. Because we have a debt driven economy, the change in debt levels each year is the major determinant in the change in economic performance."
"Neoclassical economic theory is dangerous. Neoclassical economists completely missed this crisis. My favorite statement comes from the OECD in its June 2007 report"
" A recent survey trying to find economists who predicted this found 12. And there are 10,000-15,000 economists in the US alone which is why I don’t particularly accept their assurances that everything is OK from now on."
"Now why are economists so ignorant? Two major reasons. First of all the type of modeling they do is static where you ignore time, or if you have dynamics you assume they are converging to some nice stable situation in the future. And they ignore almost completely the role of credit and debt."
"I probably win the Dr. Doom award around the planet these days now that Nouriel Roubini is expecting the recession will end in about 6 months time. I…
The U.S. and China have reportedly reached a so-called phase one deal in their ongoing trade war.
While few details have been disclosed, the agreement principally seems to involve the U.S. calling off a new round of tariffs that were slated to take effect on Dec. 15 and removing others already in place in exchange for more Chinese purchases of U.S. farm products.
The Euro has spent much of the past 2 years trading in a down-trend.
Though precious metals like Gold have fared well, this has been a bit of a headwind because it means that the US Dollar has remained firm.
Big Test In Play for the Euro
The Euro is testing a confluence of important support just as the downtrend is narrowing and ready for a “break”. That support includes lower falling wedge support and the Euro’s long term up-trend support line (see points 1 and 2).
If the Euro can succeed in breaking out at (3), it would be bullis...
Markets are closed in Beijing, the workday is over, and there no official reports in local media of an actual trade deal, that is because, as we explained on Thursday night, the language of the deal will never be made public and there would be no signing event between President Trump and President Xi. One may ask if there is even a "deal"?
Sarepta Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: SRPT) stock surged 36.4% to $137.00 during Friday's pre-market session. The market value of their outstanding shares is at $6.1 billion. The most recent rating by Janney Capital, on December 13, is at Buy, with a price target of $175.00.
GlaxoSmithKline, Inc. (NYSE: GSK) shares surged 1.1% to $46.44. The market value of their outstanding shares is at $112.9 billion. According to the most recent rating by UBS, on November 21, the current rating is at Buy.
United States authorities in New Jersey have announced the arrest of three men who are accused of defrauding investors of over $722 million as part of alleged crypto ponzie scheme BitClub Network, per a Dec. 10 announcement from the Dep...
The Fed bought $2.2 billion in notes today in its POMO, “not QE,” operations. Actually $2.15 billion because they sold back a whole $50 million. Must have been a little glitch in the force.
This brings the Fed’s total outright purchases of Treasuries to $170 billion since it started Not QE, on September 17.
It also did $107 billion in gross new repo loans to Primary Dealers to buy Tre...
As the US economy begins to show late cycle characteristics like: GDP slowing, higher inflation, higher wage costs, CEO confidence slump.
Previous Post: Gold Stocks Review
The big players in the market are looking for the next swing off good value lows. This means more money is finding it way into the gold and silver sector, and it is said gold and silver stocks actually lead the metal prices. The cycle below shows prices are ready to move in the months ahead (older chart re posted).
Sacha Baron Cohen accepted the International Leadership Award at the Anti-Defamation League’s Never is Now summit on anti-Semitism and hate Thursday. And the comedian and actor used his keynote speech to single out the one Jewish-American who he believes is doing the most to facilitate “hate and violence” in America: Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
He began with a joke at the Trump administration’s expense. “Thank you, ADL, for this recognition and your work in fighting racism, hate and bigotry,” Baron Cohen said, according to his prepared...
The VIX is warning that a market peak may be setting up in the global markets and that investors should be cautious of the extremely low price in the VIX. These extremely low prices in the VIX are typically followed by some type of increased volatility in the markets.
The US Federal Reserve continues to push an easy money policy and has recently begun acquiring more dept allowing a deeper move towards a Quantitative Easing stance. This move, along with investor confidence in the US markets, has prompted early warning signs that the market has reached near extreme levels/peaks.
Vix Value Drops Before Monthly Expiration
When the VIX falls to levels below 12~13, this typically v...
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