Thanks super helpful re: UGN example…..other inflation/market-correction-defensive-related play you threw out that has jammed UP in less than a month is TITN 6/14 $15 puts, up 40%. Excuse my enthusiasm but haven't had those types of gains in multiple plays in years let alone days doing it on my own…….maybe I should host the PSW infomercial!!!!
stevegeb200
Phil- I want to let you know that you really helped me make some money this morning when I probably would have lost on my own. I was stuck in doctors waiting rooms most of the morning starting at 8AM. By following the game plan you laid out and using my smartphone, I went short on oil whenever we got to 61.50 and long at 61 waiting for the spikes ahead of inventory. When 10:30 rolled around I was out after selling longs at 61.60 a few minutes earlier. I went short at 61.75-61.80 and voila, rode it down to 60.60 or so. Thank you.
craigsa620
Phil, thank you for all the education here. I've gained so much knowledge being a part of PSW.
Thanks to the rest of the members as well! I appreciate all of the contributions you make.
JeffDoc
Phil, did you by chance publish the weekly webinar on Youtube yet? I have been watching these and they are awesome. Unfortunately, I can't cut out of work to attend live webinars. Again, they are just awesome content – thank you.
jcpdx
Phil,
3 for 3! Sold on initial excitement and made a double on USO, 70% on AMZN and 70% on SPY options from Friday.
Thanks and much appreciated for the suggestions.
Gingbaum
As a fellow "low-end" investor I like Phil's Buy/Write strategy on solid stocks. Before I came here I loved to try to "figure things out" with very little success "TRYING TO FIGURE THINGS OUT"! I traded too much and fell in love with stocks that "should have done" what they didn't do. Now a majority of my accounts are in Buy/Writes suggested here or cash (waiting for a better time for more Buy/Writes). I use 15-20% of my total holding to short term trade and hedge. This is manageable with my full time job as a business owner. I have found Phil's system a more discipline way to achieve the returns I want without relying on my ability (more like inability to "figure things out").
DCalrk41
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
Joined last year and and started profitably trading options thanks to everything I have learned here. THANK YOU!!
OnWisconsin
WOW!!!!!!!!!!!! How will I ever do anything else in my life that will compare to the wild ride you get trading an ultra etf in the most volatile sector in the stock market the day before option expiration?
Matt1966
Phil/CLK4 – Perfect! Saw the answer 1 min after my post…out with $740 on two contracts. Thanks again for the education.
Jeffdoc2004
Wow, Phil, we pretty much made your levels.
Your levels:
Dow 7,404, S&P 775, Nas 1,466, NYSE 4,839 and RUT 402
My sceen is showing:
Dow 7,404, S&P 777, Nas 1,462, NYSE 4,868 and RUT 404
Jordan
Dear Phil, I have followed along with your commentary and alerts and have been flabbergasted at your quick analytical skills and your journalistic skills to explain it clearly. In a little over three weeks I have cleared almost 1000.00 dollars and got an intensive education at the same time. I would like to immediately upgrade my membership. It is hard for me to follow all evening as I am in Tokyo but I can join you at the beginning of the market and read the next day.
Tokyolife
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
I have been a member of Phil's site for three years and counting, and my advice is that all investing takes time. There are o shortcuts, no secret way to riches. Same with Phil's site- you need time and patience to start benefitting fully from his advice. But it is often spot on and also very useful, especially to me as I try to keep a level head in this turbulent stock market environment.
Jordan
Fed days are fun! Just for grins I decided to see how much money I could make in two clicks. I bought DIA calls right when the surge started and then sold them the minute they hit my account. Net gain of 20% in 20 seconds. Can't do that very often…
MrMocha
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 you are great, and not only is your market info spot on but you have the courage to call it like it is and write about it in a great tone.
Flanger
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
CZR – well that was fun! Opened the play yesterday. As the arb premium was now almost all gone from the box spread today, I just decided to close it. The rundown, after all commissions: my net was $183.51 profit for an overnight trade tying up $2000 margin in an IRA account. That's a 9% overnight return (3200% annualized!) …And all that learning, too! Thanks PSW!
Scottmi
HOTT / Got great trades with it: Enter 6.75 at open, out at 7.18 (avg) at 10:13
Reentered at 7.00 and out all 7.11 few minutes ago- Was a small play but I collected enoght for next month PSW subscription.
Spider
Every time I read Mr. Davis' market analyses and reports about his super profitable trades I feel admiration mixed with envy for the overall brilliance of this man, intellectual and verbal, his extraordinary savvy in the exotic art of options and, last not least, his moral passion with which he writes, even if in passing, about the darker aspects of capitalism.
RussianBear
Hey Phil,
You called all the trends and market movements with perfection this week. I enjoyed it! Thanks for keeping us sane!
GClay
Phil is a master at keeping you laughing, as well as making you money. - It is like " laughing all the way to the bank!"
Gel1
I'm just starting my second year as a member, and I'd like to thank all of you for sharing your trading ideas and insight, and especially Phil of course for great all-around investing advice as well as trades! In addition to learning patience and profit-taking, I think one of the most important things I'm learning here is to stick to stocks and trades that suit my temperament. And wow, I had NO idea how hard it was to learn patience. I should say "practice" instead of "learn", because it seems to be a constant struggle. Phil, please keep reminding us how nice CASH is!
Jerseyside
My watch list looks like a grid where Phil's recommendations went UP and everything else went DOWN! It looked something like an ad for Philstockworld. I am half in cash, followed the recommendations (AAPL TASR YHOO) on a 20K portfolio and still up 1% for the day. Thanks!
Sn0gr00ve
Man, what a week: Bought C at 1.40, sold half at 1.59 (relatively big position), another quarter at 3.04 just now. Ran SKF down from 270 with one April put, still holding some 115's expiring in a couple days. I'm going to gamble this position like a champion Friday. Bought FAS at all sorts of levels and started cashing out. Long HOV, stock and some nickel calls for fun - Mocha up your buy-out from 5 to 8 and that's 10,900% return for the May-2.50's . Ha!
Biodieselchris
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
Phil – BTW, the new STP/LTP coupled with the income portfolio is Perfect! I do not trade all of them, very few actually since I work during market hours. However, following the trades real-time is very educational.
I did enter the ABX call if you recall, I rolled to July on that nonsense news that sent it tumbling. Out today for 110% gain (2.00 stop) not counting covering the loss from the earlier roll. Nonetheless, a good trade.
Keep it up…. Thanks
JFawcett
Thanks for your thoughts against buying BP ahead of earnings (yesterdays' member comments). It announced a loss of $3.3b and is down 3% in pre-market but still just above the bottom of the chaneel of $40-$50.
mSquare
Oil – thanks Phil,
got in late at 0.53 on the 38p today, set a sell for 0.75 and took the dog for a walk – 70% gain and more than enough $$ to buy dog food. TZA Aug 35/40 BCS – closed out for a 100% gain in under a month – thanks again for introducing me to these trades.
The BEA Advance GDP for Third Quarter 2010 came in at +2.0%. However, Table 2. Contributions to Percent Change in Real Gross Domestic Product shows that Change in private inventories contributed +1.44 while real final sales contributed a mere .6.
How sustainable is that?
The answer is not very. This is likely the last hurrah for inventory replenishment even without factoring in upcoming cutbacks at the state level.
Not a V-Shaped Recovery
In terms of real final sales, this "recovery", is the weakest on record. Dave Rosenberg has some thoughts on that in Lunch with Dave.
U.S. REAL FINAL SALES 60 BASIS POINTS SHY OF DOUBLE-DIPPING
The major problem in the third quarter report was the split between inventories and real final sales. Nonfarm business inventories soared to a $115.5 billion at an annual rate from the already strong $68.8 billion build in the second quarter — this alone contributed 70% to the headline growth rate last quarter. If we do get a slowdown in inventory investment in Q4, as we anticipate, it would really not take much to get GDP into negative terrain. We estimate that if the change in inventories slowed to about $94.0 billion in Q4 (about $22 billion below Q3 levels), GDP would contract fractionally. In other words, it won’t take much for GDP to slip into negative terrain.
The recession may have technically ended, but outside of inventories, and the best days of the re-stocking process look to be behind us, this has been a listless recovery. At 60 basis points above zero, real final sales are just a shock away from double-dipping — a shock like looming tax hikes, accelerating fiscal cutbacks at the state/local government level or the millions of “99ers” about to fall off the extended jobless benefit rolls at the end of November.
In terms of components, the good news was that consumer spending did accelerate to a 2.6% annual rate from 2.2% in the second quarter — the best performance since Q4 2006. Non-residential construction eked out a 3.8% annualized gain, the first advance since Q2 2008. But the good news pretty well stopped there.
It is also no surprise to see imports bulge when inventories did the same, but what caught our eye in the external trade portion of the GDP report was
Mish takes on James Altucher’s wacko theory that the V in V-shaped recovery is a checkmark. The problem: focusing on a large percentage improvement from a low number to another low number takes the data out of the context. As an analogy, if you’re given three days to live and manage to live nine days, you didn’t recover. – Ilene
Aaron Task: Joining me now is James Altucher who says, not only is the recovery not over, and not only is it a "V Shaped Revovery, it’s checkmark shaped recovery. James you are wildly optimistic on the US economy right now?
James Altucher: I don’t want to say "wildly" because that sounds almost insane, and everyone is going to comment on these message boards that I’m completely whacko. At the same time if you look at all the data, go to the federal reserve website and look at every single chart of economic data, nonfarm payrolls, retail sales, inventories, it’s all a "V" or a checkmark. … The Debate is over. It’s already been a "V" the question is "Does it continue?" I think it does.
Completely Whacko
Yes James, you are completely whacko. I did go to the Fed website as you suggested and here are some charts to consider.
Civilian Unemployment
In terms of civilian employment there was a fast checkmark in the 70′s 80′s and 90′s but there is no sign of a "V" now, let alone a checkmark.
Auto Sales
Auto sales are now back to where they were in early 1980. This is the most miserable auto sector recovery ever in terms of actual numbers. Moreover, the data worse than it looks if one factors in population growth.
Looking for a checkmark? If you hold up the chart and look in a mirror you might see a nice one now, but the real one from 1980 vanishes.
Total Consumer Credit
With consumer credit, there is no "V" nor checkmark, nor any recognizable improvement, rather an unprecedented plunge dating all the way back
General Motors Co. posted a 17 percent increase in May U.S. sales, the first time the automaker topped analysts’ forecasts since January, as customers snapped up Chevrolet Equinox sport utility vehicles and Malibu sedans.
Deliveries rose to 223,822 from 191,875 a year earlier, the Detroit-based automaker said today in statement. GM was expected to report a 5.9 percent increase, the average estimate of five analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Industrywide sales may match the longest streak of gains in a decade, analysts estimated.
Total sales of Chevrolet vehicles gained 31 percent from a year earlier to 167,235 vehicles, and GMC brand deliveries increased 26 percent to 30,160.
Industrywide sales may have risen to an annualized rate of 11.2 million cars and light trucks for May, the average estimate of eight analysts. That would mark the eighth straight month of year-over-year gains, according to Bloomberg data.
The report speculated that Toyota sales may have risen 7.5%, Honda 22%, Nissan 11%, and Ford 16%.
Before everyone brings out the high-fives celebrating a miraculous recovery, let’s put this rebound in perspective.
Light Vehicle Sales Autos and Trucks
Note the cash for clunkers spike at the end of the last recession bars.
The industry had impressive gains percentagewise, but sales are at early 1980′s levels. This is hardly a V-Shaped recovery.
As you can imagine, the action in equity markets of late is quite satisfying for David Rosenberg, who has been unwavering in his bearish outlook. He isn’t changing his tune now. Rosenberg says there is no v-shaped recovery on the horizon and that this market isn’t (and hasn’t been) trading on fundamentals and is entirely technically driven:
Yesterday’s sharp and broadly based decline in the equity markets was the worst session since April 20 of last year. The S&P 500 is now down 7.6% from the mid-January peak and the Asia-Pacific market is just 40 basis points shy of seeing a 10% correction after having its worst session in 10 weeks; emerging market equity funds lost $1.6 billion in net redemptions in the past week, the largest outflow in nearly six months. Financials were clobbered 4.2% and led the decline, though basic materials weren’t too far behind. Volume swelled as all the major averages fell off — not a good sign for the bulls.
I went for a 5km run at the club I recently joined (I aim to lose 30 pounds ASAP just to get back to being fat again, and the 30 pounds after that will finally take me back to my college days). Fast Money came on the tube and it was almost laughable to see them all grappling for the reasons why the selloff occurred. China here. Greece there. No, sorry. Remember Bob Farrell’s eleventh rule: “it’s the news that makes the market; not the other way around.
He continues to think the market is overpriced and ripe for a serious decline. He throws in a couple of jabs at CNBC while he’s at it:
This is a stock market that is as overpriced as it was heading into the October 1987 crash and as the case back then, it wasn’t about the fundamentals but about policy discord between the U.S., Japan and Germany. A market priced for perfection requires perfection on all fronts.
The comments on Fast Money were that the fundamentals hadn’t changed — this selloff is pure emotion. Really? We had a 70% rally from the March low in advance of any serious turn in the economic data — this was
Monday’s very strong reading in the ISM manufacturing data has many market pundits beating their chests over the v-shaped recovery in the U.S. economy. Many of these pundits (most of whom completely missed the collapse) remain delusional. By almost any metric of the real economy this is anything but a v-shaped recovery. Not only is the stock market still 28% below its all-time high (no v there), but the data from the real economy still shows that the majority of Americans confront a very tough environment. The following four charts from the St. Louis Fed succinctly tell the story:
Last Friday’s lights-out GDP report has revived hopes among bulls that we still might get the V-shaped recovery everyone was predicting last summer.
After a string of disappointing jobs and housing numbers in the fall, it seemed the chance of that had been fading.
But Goldman Sachs economist Jan Hatzius has a grim message: It’s not happening.
In a weekly note, he slams the idea that a sharp fall must be followed by a sharp recovery (the argument put forth by the likes of interest rate guru James Grant).
Hatzius’s argument: Unlike in past recessions, which were caused by Fed tightening, this time the Fed is super loose, and we’ll experience tightening while the economy recovers.
Yesterday Dallas Federal Reserve President Richard Fisher threw a little cold water on the V-shaped recovery madness everyone seems to be buying into these days.
Speaking at a conference in Tyler, Texas, Fisher said he was willing to venture that the increase would not be "as robust as originally reported."
He did say, however, that the growth rate would still be positive – though it would be closer to a rate of 2.5 percent – and that growth would also be positive for the fourth quarter.
Even though he said economic growth would be positive, Fisher cautioned that the high unemployment rates would cause recovery from last year’s financial crisis to be slow.
Managing Expectations
Got the idea the Fed is attempting to manage expectations? If so, that is precisely what the Fed is doing.
When asked about the dollar at a question and answer session following his speech, Fisher said that lower interest rates have not increased the risk of the dollar declining in value. Rather, he said, the weakening of the dollar was due to other major currencies entering the world’s economic system.
"You’d expect with more participants that there might be some kind of rebalancing," but such evolution would be orderly and gradual, he said.
Let me get this straight: The dollar is falling because "other major currencies [are] entering the world’s economic system".
Is he serious? What this proves is these guys absolutely cannot think beyond their prepared remarks.
The Effect of Stimulus
A $trillion in stimulus (not counting bank bailouts) and other stimulus measures not labeled "stimulus" because everyone is getting tired of the word, only got us 2.5%-3.0% of GDP growth.
Heightened appetite for risk does not mean that credit problems have gone away as we see the global speculative-grade corporate default rate rise 12 basis points in October, to 9.71%. And Fitch just published a report indicating that the U.S. banks can expect to see 10% of their $1.1 trillion of direct commercial real estate loans default and that the regional banks can expect to see “significant” cuts in their credit ratings.
As Edward notes, "continued high unemployment is the elephant in the room which higher asset prices can not make disappear." Logically, the asset prop-up benefits those with assets to a greater extent than those with no assets-- so do policy makers even see growing inequality as a problem? – Ilene
The US Department of Agriculture highlights how the United States in the last decade, despite increased aggregate wealth, slid back significantly in terms of food insecurity as measure of poverty. With everyone now focused on the unemployment situation, it bears noting that even before the downturn in the economy there had been a large surge in food insecurity nationwide.
The table below, also from the Guardian, shows where food insecurity is highest. While much of the distress is concentrated in the South, there are plenty of states in the Southwest and West as well. Maine has the highest food insecurity in the Northeast.
My interpretation of the data goes to income inequality. I see this as evidence that the last decade of growth in the U.S. has not been beneficial for poorer Americans. However, I would go further in saying that the downturn in the U.S. and rising unemployment, bankruptcy and foreclosure in the middle class has made plain that the middle class has also been left behind. While distress amongst poorer Americans is plain from these numbers, the diminished position in the middle class was masked by a surge in debt. This was made plain only as a result of a drop in asset prices.
At present, U.S. policy makers are trying to make this problem go away by reflating an asset bubble, but continued high unemployment is the elephant in the room which higher asset prices can not make disappear.
Forget the permabears, even Pimco’s Bill Gross is now saying a V-shaped recovery is unlikely:
The total bond market yields only 3.5%. To get more than that, high yield, distressed mortgages, and stocks beckon the investor increasingly beguiled by hopes of a V-shaped recovery and “old normal” market standards. Not likely, and the risks outweigh the rewards at this point. Investors must recognize that if assets appreciate with nominal GDP, a 4–5% return is about all they can expect even with abnormally low policy rates. Rage, rage, against this conclusion if you wish, but the six-month rally in risk assets – while still continuously supported by Fed and Treasury policymakers – is likely at its pinnacle. Out, out, brief candle.
Joe, like me, is having a hard time embracing the V-shaped recovery belief. He makes a good point about economics not being either physics or history, and if we’ve seen anything over the last few years, it’s perhaps how wildly the operative economic principles of the day have failed. – Ilene
Well, well. It’s suddenly become very hip to believe in a V-shaped recovery, and to slam the pessimists for not knowing their history. As Jim Grant argued yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, the severity of the slump predicts the severity of the recovery — it’s just like physics!
But economics isn’t physics. And don’t worry about not knowing your history, because economics isn’t history either.
Here’s why we’re not in for a v-shaped recovery.
First, the pax economica that preceded the current slump was artificial. Large swaths of the economy had stopped doing anything productive, while the rest of the economy was buoyed by rising home values that allowed for spending on a level that was disconnected from what people were actually bringing in via income. Of course, you know this part of the story, but the key is that this is meaningfully different than the situation heading into previous economic slumps.
The other reason why we’re not in for a "V" is that the economy, even without the credit-collapse, is still in the midst of violent changes in the economy. New technology and new business models are uprooting old businesses (whether it’s media, manufacturing, or commercial real estate), throwing labor and capital into disarray. Ultimately the transition will be good, but in the meantime, displaced workers will face an unusual amount of lag in finding new work, if only because the industries that were they yesterday have gone and disappeared, requiring extensive levels of retraining.
There are other aspects too, such as the size of government and demographics that look increasingly unfavorable.
Curiously, Jim Grant’s admonition to remember history only mentions past slumps in the US. We don’t see the word "Japan" mentioned once in the whole article? But unless the laws of economics are different there than they are here, then we can certainly point to examples of bad busts that weren’t followed by a quick snap back.…
U.S. stock futures traded lower in early pre-market trade. South Korea confirmed 256 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, while China reported an additional 327 new cases. Data on U.S. international trade in goods for January, wholesale inventories for January and consumer spending for January will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET. The Chicago PMI for February is scheduled for release at 9:45 a.m. ET, while the University of Michigan's consumer sentime...
In the early days, when virtually nobody paid attention to the coronavirus pandemic which China was doing everything in its power to cover up, markets were not only predictably ignoring the potential global plague - after all central banks can always print more money, or is that antibodies - but until last week, were hitting all time highs. All that changed when it became apparent that for all its data manipulation, China was simply unable to reboot its economy as hundreds of millions of workers refused to believe the government had the viral plague under control, starting...
Our research team wanted to share this chart with our friends and followers. This dramatic breakdown in price over the past 4+ days has resulted in a very clear bearish trigger which was confirmed by our Adaptive Fibonacci Price Modeling system. We believe this downside move will target the $251 level on the SPY over the next few weeks and months.
Sure correlation is not causation, but this chart should be known by you.
We all know the world economy was waiting for a pin to prick the 'everything bubble', but no one had any idea of what the pin would look like.
Hence this is why the story of the black swan is so relevant.
There is massive debt behind the record high stock markets, there so much debt the political will required to allow central banks to print trillions to cover losses will likely effect elections. The point is printing money to cover billions is unlikely to upset anyone, however printing trillions will. In 2007 it was billions, in 202X it ...
Fascinating and important to consider, since it is probably one of the reasons why the world aristocracy is pulling its all-out putsch right now… “Trillions will be inherited over the coming decades, further widening the wealth gap,” reports the Los Angeles Times. The beneficiaries aren’t all that young themselves. From 1989 to 2016, U.S. households inherited more than $8.5 trillion. Over that time, the average age of recipients rose by a decade to 51. More ...
With the coronavirus outbreak coinciding with the U.S. earnings seasons, it is only normal to expect companies to talk about this deadly virus in their earnings conference calls. In fact, many major U.S. companies not only talked about coronavirus, but also warned about its potential impact on their financial numbers.
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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Well, well. It’s suddenly become very hip to believe in a V-shaped recovery, and to slam the pessimists for not knowing their history. As Jim Grant 
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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.