The Buy List – 20 Great Trade Ideas for the Rest of 2014 (Members Only)
by phil - June 7th, 2014 8:24 am
What a rally!
While stocks certainly aren't "cheap" by any measure, we've been able to identify 20 that are still good values. We've been compiling this list and going over trade ideas for playing them in our Tuesday Webinars since May 13th and, of course, we've been posting them in our Live Member Chat rooms, so this is just a review to consolidate our trade ideas.
We cashed in our Long-Term Portfolio last week at what we thought was a top but so far – so wrong on that call! Since it's up 19% in just 6 months, we're not going to cry about missing the last 400-point move on the Dow (2.5%) – we'll just have to look ahead to deploying our cash again, following the same strategy that was so successful in the first half of the year, which was, essetially, our "7 Steps to Consistently Making 20-40% Annual Returns" system:
As we did in building our Long-Term Portfolio, we're not going to rush in and buy everything. We will do exactly what we did in January where, following our Fall Buy List, we simply added stocks from our list whenever they became cheap. While our Members are able to pick up our trade ideas as they are released, we don't always add them to our virtual portfolios right away. As with the first half's Long-Term Portfolio, we will track every entry and exit in both our Live Weekly Webcasts, as well as in our Live Member Chat Room and alerts will be sent to our subscribers (you can join here, Basic and Premium Members get full access).
Our picks were originally grouped by industry sectors but, for reference purposes, I'm going to list them alphabetically below – these are the original trade ideas (the Webinar dates where we discussed our picks are next to the symbol), most are still playable but some have already taken off :
ABX (5/28) we featured in our June 3rd post - obviously one I like. If you don't want to buy the stock for $15.90 (and we NEVER pay retail at PSW!), then you can sell the 2016 $15 puts for $2.05,…
The End of May – Heading into June with CASH!!!
by phil - May 30th, 2014 8:21 am
I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that's real – Nine Inch Nails
Were we wrong to cash out?
It's hard to feel bad about taking a 19% profit off the table after just 6 months (in our $500,000 Long-Term Portfolio) but we had another low-volume pump-job yesterday that sent some of the positions we closed up sharply and left us regretting our timing – just a little.
Still, the time to sell your positions is when other people are buying, not while everyone is panicking. We got great exit prices and, on the whole, it was fairly stress-free. S&P 1,920 was our predicted top and we pulled the trigger to take the money and run at 1,910 because, as experience has taught us – it doesn't pay to be greedy!
Last week and this week, I laid out my case for why the economy is not as good as it seems and certainly not good enough to be paying all-time highs for stocks. As you can see from the chart on the left – I'm certainly not the only one who thinks so as the "smart money" has flown out of the market this year, taking advantage of each record high to sell, Sell, SELL!!!
We were a little more patient, we moved our Conservative Income Portfolio ($500,000) to cash at the end of March and avoided the April sell-off and have since been buying bargain stocks in that portfolio. We had left our more aggressive Long-Term Portfolio ($500,000) on the table but this last leg of the rally left it up a ridiculous 19% for the year – and that's halfway to our best-case goal so it's a good time to take a break, step back, and see how the market handles early June.
It's not like we can't find anything to do with our cash. In additions to our usual Futures trading, we still have our Short-Term ($100,000), Butterfly ($100,000) and $25,000 Portfolios to play with and, since Wednesday…
Estee Lauder Calls Active Ahead Of Earnings
by Option Review - August 9th, 2013 1:07 pm
Today’s tickers: EL, HAR & UBNT
EL - Estee Lauder Companies Inc. – Shares in Estee Lauder are bucking the trend today, up 0.85% at $66.57 as of 12:15 p.m. ET, amid a down day for U.S. stocks. Options on the manufacturer of skin care, makeup, fragrance and hair care products are more active than usual ahead of the company’s fourth-quarter earnings report next Thursday after the closing bell, with overall volume approaching 3,000 contracts as compared to average daily volume of around 650 contracts. EL shares have surrendered roughly 8.0% of their value since touching a 52-week high of $72.70 back on May 28th, but options changing hands on the stock today suggest some traders are positioning for the price of the underlying to recover in the near term. The Sep $70 strike calls are the most actively traded contracts thus far in the session, with around 2,200 lots in play against open interest of 389 contracts. It looks like much of the volume was purchased for an average premium of $0.80 apiece, thus positioning buyers of the contracts to profit at September expiration in the event shares gains more than 6.0% to surpass the average breakeven point at $70.80.
HAR - Harman International Industries, Inc. – Trading traffic in Harman International Industries options today suggests some traders are gearing up for shares in the name to push higher in the near term. The stock increased as much as 6.6% today to touch a new 52-week high of $69.16 after the maker of stereo and audio equipment reported fourth-quarter earnings and revenue growth above analyst estimates. Traders positioning for shares in Harman to extend gains appear to be snapping up August expiry calls. The most actively traded front month calls as measured by volume are the Aug $70 strike contracts, with…