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Have been a member for about 6 months or there abouts. Signed up for a quarter at first and then for a year. To me, and it's only my opinion, it's an investment and I have made the membership fees back many times over on the strategy advice. Since joining and implementing the strategy of buy/writes and hedges I have cut my portfolio losses for the year and have a really good chance of going positive this year. If I would have continued down the road I was on, I would still have been fumbling around without a strategy and completely inept in what I was doing. I feel now the strategy is working and I am far more comfortable with the risks I am taking. I still have a lot to learn but I feel the fees have been one of the best investments I have made. The returns have been fantastic. Still have problems with the politics but hey nobody is perfect

- DKGuy

By the way thank you Phil for the DNDN idea. 3x till this morning and will 4x my small investment by next OE THANKS !!!!

- Microflux

Oxen (directly) and Wilkinson (indirectly) are making me a great day trader! Props to Andrew for another little nugget last night: HIG. $20 Dec calls paid 6% quickly this morning. And helloooo STJ - a few days, but nice pick nonetheless - esp with early cover premium.

- Dstillwe

Phil/Eric/Cwan/Matt/Cap/etc.. - I've learned so much from all of you and want to thank you. I'm up 23% this month thanks to all of your advice - Thanks, guys!

- Josiah

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

Peter D, Just a note of thanks. Eight weeks ago, I entered my first RUT strangles, when the RUT was at 625. Tomorrow, I will let them expire, with the RUT at 625 (give or take). I didn't care when the RUT went to 650, nor when it dropped to 590. Easiest, no touch money I've made in a long time.

- Judahbenhur

Market manipulation…. One of the things I've gained from this site is the concept of market manipulation. I never thought it was so prevalent, but now I know it is. I actually consider its effect when I make trades. Several days ago, when AAPL was moving toward 220 I sold 210 calls. My reasoning was that they will probably pin this month at 210. They came in big time as the stock moved ever closer to 210. I agree with Phil's comment that one of the things we need to do is find out what they are manipulating, and how, and hitch a ride. They are doing this with several equities. I've actually seen one article describing several equities that were being manipulated to pin at expiration each month, and describing how it was done, and of course Phil has described it well. In some ways it's easier to figure this out than it is a ‘normal' market behavior, and thus easier to make money in certain equities.

- Iflantheman

thanks for the DNDN recommendation last week phil. that was moneeeee….

- Kwan

I doubled down on our USO June $35 puts on Tuesday afternoon and listened to your posting yesterday and sold 1/2 midday and the rest I sold (luckily) at the top of the market yesterday with the last 1/4 of my contracts at 100% return in less than one day!

- Samlawyer

Phil, I don't know if I told you lately but you da man! I'm doing so much better following your guidelines. It's like you actually know what you are talking about. 8-) I've tried a lot of services and none of them are as comprehensive or honest AND successful. I appreciate all youz other guys/gals input as well…learning tons as a relative newbie to this game.

- Aclend

Thanks for the oil tip Phil: Bot & sold the USO May 29 calls for net $125. Not bad for few minutes work.

- JWick1981

Phil - I know I am small change compared to most others members, but I just wanted to let you know that during the last two weeks with the shorts you and others suggested I have 6 winners and 5 losers. My losers were small because I tried to follow your guidelines as best I could. On the other hand my winners on average were around 50%. Consequently, I am up $2000 in 14 days. Thank you for your patience and help. I think I am making progress getting rid of some of my poor trading habits of the past!

- DCalrk41

Hi Phil, Thanks for the free disaster hedge ideas. I implemented variations of two of them on SDS bull call spreads and EEM bear put spreads (haven't done the TZA yet) and they really hedged my short term longs nicely today. Makes it seem a lot less like gambling. You are the man (of the people)!

- Howard Roake

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

Phil Thank you very much, I appreciate your help and wisdom.

- CdsdpDean

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

Sold out my AAPL mar95 calls. Up over 100% today on them!

- Singapore Steve

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

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

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

WOW, glad I went bearish… Phil, thanks for the help on the QID calls yesterday, I turned it into a partial cover rolling down to the Feb 52s selling the 55s 1/2 covered. Sold 1/2 and now lowered my cost basis to $4.38 on the $52s (fully covered).

- Texasmotion

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

New member/1st time posting: Thanks Phil and Pharm for the rec on TOS. I've emailed Scott to get myself setup so I hope to hear back soon. As a newbie on PSW for a month now, I've been readin' and readin' and readin'. Gonna start paper-trading for a while. See how I do before putting a single dime into it. New at options but seems like this is the best training and educational platform out there. I'm a long-time mortgage broker who got too involved with real estate investing. LOVED your article, Phil, on mortgage interest scams. Right on!! Let me know if and how I can contribute back to the community here. Cheers! - Mark

- Mark

Phil - FAS - I dont know whether to be happier I averaged down and sold calls or that I got myself out of FAZ the other day…thanks for that help

- BCFla

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 - I'm with you just little bit longer than a month and you can not imagine how happy I am now, and not just because my P/L improved ( and I'm sure that it will be even better), but I found that the worst thing in trader's carrier is a LONELINESS. Here I found so many bright good guys, I looked for this service for years. THANK YOU AND TAKE GOOD CARE OF YOURSELF BECAUSE I PLAN TO STAY HERE AND RIDE THIS CREASY MARKET WITH YOU FOR ANOTHER 20-30 YEARS

- Tchayipov

I have been trading for quite a few years and in good years made about 25%. After joining PSW, I followed closely the PSW strategy and my trading profit for this year is close to 70% to date. For fun, I like to mix in a few "Hail Mary" plays that really worked out well, but overall the simpler Buy/Write strategy, as presented by Phil so often, created the majority of the profit.

- Gel1

I did the same thing via your logic (sold puts that is). I glanced one time and they were already up 15% which is considered a good return for an overnight hold in most circles. This is PSW though and to us it's just another day…

- Kwan

Don't expect to get rich quick here, but you can get easy 30 - 50 % per year, just by buying good stocks at discount (as we often discuss), selling monthly premiums of calls and puts.

- Tchayipov

Being a bear is easy (and I am not convinced we are doing all that well on the whole as an economy), but one cannot fight the trend (didn't Phil say that a while ago)? Just cover, make 5-10-15-20% and move on. It really does add up by chipping away. All I can say is I am back to 2007 levels in my account b'f the crash with this run up and some very nice help on this board….so kudos to us (and me!!)…

- Pharmboy

Archive for the ‘Weekend Review’ Category

Weekend Wrap-Up

by Phil - December 13th, 2008 8:26 am

Another great week for our levels!

In last weekend’s wrap-up we were very pleased that the Dow stayed right in the lower end of our range, from 8,200 to 8,650. This week we tested the upper end of the range from 8,650 to 9,100 and the two weeks, taken together make a great case for 8,650 being our mid-point and looking at the chart illustrates why the VIX is falling so fast – while it still may FEEL volatile during the day, we’re actually moving into a tighter range…

Looking at a longer-range chart, we need to break over 9,100 early this week and get up to 9,500 to flatten the declining 50 dma so that’s what we’ll be looking for this expiration week. It’s going to take some more stimulus to get there, we have a possible package for the auto industry and a Fed cut on Tuesday as well as possible action by global central banks. There is an international fall-out to the Madoff scandal as EU banks have disclosed Billions in exposure to this ponzi scheme. There are many articles on the scandal under "Phil’s Favorites" so I won’t go over it here but the repercussions are what we will be concerned about next week.

Monday started off with a bang as Obama discussed the New, New Deal – a $500Bn or so infrastructure project to keep Americans busy next year. That was all the market needed to take off on Monday but we were more than a little skeptical as we’ve seen manic Monday’s before and they seldom follow through. With all the stimulus flying around we discussed the need to learn the word "Quadrillion" as we’ll be using it soon enough the way the World governments are tossing money around. We were totally incredulous that gold could still be under $750 so we kept on buying and that worked out very well this week! As I said on Monday morning: "Trillion here, a Trillion there and before you know it we’re up to a thousand Trillion and you have to know what to call it" and THAT is why we like gold.

Nonetheless, I pointed out that the MSCI index was now trading at $1.17 per dollar in net assets, the lowest level since 1995 with 39% of the stocks trading below shareholder equity. The economy may be really, really bad but we are…

Tags: New Site, Weekend Update

Posted in Immediately available to public, Weekend Review | Join Member's Chat - 41 Comments Here »

PSW Contest – Closing Out the Very Merry Month of May

by Phil - June 2nd, 2007 4:30 pm

We had a fantastic May and made a lot of good picks and had tremendous returns on our members site.

We closed 263 positions during the month with a 186% average gain and a gain on capital of 299% – that’s what we call a great month!

Our members already know what a great job we do and support the site. Now I would like to ask those of you who read us for free to do me a favor: This site is supported by advertising and advertising is supported by people like you coming to www.philstockworld.com and reading our site or signing up for the FREE EMail Subscription through FeedBurner, at the top right-hand corner of the free site. Those of you who do subscribe already know that we never give out your names or Emails to anyone and we don’t even ask you to join – I’m not asking you to join now – what I am asking for is for you to help us move this site up to the next level.

We will be closing to new subscribers shortly for the summer as we revamp the site, add some features and launch our first paid newsletter service. Those of you who are FeedBurner subscribers will get a mailing when we reopen the site, as memberships will be limited, and will get an opportunity to receive the newsletter at a discount. Right now though, I’m asking for your help in bringing some more people over to the free site so, if you enjoy reading my daily commentary and find the information useful, please do me the small favor of sending this invitation to subscribe along to 5 friends or family members (hopefully not mutually exclusive!) who you think would find this useful as well.

Free Email Subscription!

That’s it, that’s all I’m asking you to do in exchange for all this free content! Please though, 5 people. We want to get to a level of audience where we can negotiate our own ad rates and that’s what it will take.

For those of you who are…

Posted in Portfolio Review, Weekend Review | Join Member's Chat - 23 Comments Here »

Portfolio Update

by Greg - January 7th, 2007 7:47 am

Hi everyone, the online spreadsheets have just been updated. A downloadable version has also been posted for January.

Cheers,
Jared

Posted in Weekend Review | 6 Comments »

Wild Wednesday Wrap-Up

by Phil - January 3rd, 2007 8:18 pm

Wheee! That was fun…. Can we do it again?

Unfortunately yes. The market is either consolidating for a breakout or getting toppy, I’ll let you know which as soon as we figure it out but, as I said this morning – I don’t know and, apparently neither do investors who rushed in and out of stocks today like the audience in a Bugs Bunny joke.

Much like Bugs Bunny pulling the lever that said "Intermission" and causing everyone to run out and crush Elmer Fudd, we played today’s action pretty perfectly as we took our vacation on Friday long in the market and short on oil and today (until 1pm anyway) those were both right on.

The markets were indeed off to a fine start this morning and punched through record highs but pulled away from a fairly bearish Fed report that indicated the Governors aren’t as wild about the economy as investors are but I think people are taking the minutes way out of context and the sell-off was unwarranted, even though I expected it to happen.

We were very comfortable with our choices today as the market failed us at pretty much all of our targets so we got in and out of positions with pretty good timing:

Dow 12,550 fell at 1:20, giving us a great exit signal.
- Transports gapped up today and stayed well above the 50 dma – our best sign of the day!
S&P did not hold 1,425, confirming the Dow drop at 1:20
NYSE did indeed lead us, falling below our 9,200 target at 11. How did they know the Fed minutes would be scary?
The Nasdaq was braver but also led the others down, turning under our 2,450 mark at 12:50 but giving us some small hope by closing slightly green.
- The SOX gave a great start but finished soundly negative.
The Russell barely held the 820 mark after being soundly rejected from 830.

Don’t blame oil for this one, they did their best by dropping and dropping and then dropping some more finishing the day way down at $58.32 below my $58.71 wish-list target! Next stop may be $57.50 as the roaches scramble to leave the trap.

This is…

Posted in Weekend Review, What We Read | Join Member's Chat - 5 Comments Here »

Inside Scoop on the Apple IPhone and Other Patents!

by Phil - December 16th, 2006 5:29 am

The IPhone is coming, the IPhone is coming, the IPhone is coming! …On Monday???

ipod phone

Well, according to Gizmodo who, I am certain, are just looking for publicity. This is starting to remind me of when Dean Kamen told us that "IT" would revolutionize transportation, reshape cities, resolve the energy crisis etc. and everyone speculated on everything "IT" could possibly be, from properly recounting the Florida ballots to cold fusion but, in the end, it turned out to be a scooter that very rich people can play polo on!

While I don’t think the IPhone will turn out to be a Segway-sized disappointment, I’m very concerned that I won’t be able to play polo on it and, with expectations running as high as they are it had better at least cure cancer!

One cool thing that is in the works from Apple is a patent they filed earlier in the year to embed "microscopic image sensors" in an LCD screen, effecively turning your monitor or, more importantly, your phone’s screen, into a camera – allowing for true face-to-face communications!

And have you ever wondered why Apple insists on keeping that huge amount of space at the bottom half of their laptops? Well here’s the embedded docking station they filed a patent on!

Now if that were a cell-capable IPod you could get web access anywhere in the world…. Interesting!

According to Kevin Rose, of Digg, the IPhone will have the following features:

January launch on "all" providers, both CDMA and GSM
Extremely small form factor
Two battery design (with single charger) — one for playing music, the other for phone functions
Flash memory: 4GB for $249, 8GB for $449
"Slide-out keyboard"
Possibly touchscreen

Apparently the Apple guys are not up on the KISS rule of product design but we’ll see how this all meshes together. Surely the fear of Apple has been holding down Motorola, who have already shifted their marketing focus to the lower end, ceding the high ground to a product that doesn’t exist yet from their former (or maybe still)…

Posted in Weekend Review | Join Member's Chat - 42 Comments Here »

Wild Weekly Wrap-Up

by - December 9th, 2006 9:50 am

I said in the morning that “markets will react (or overreact) to whatever jobs number we get” and they certainly did both!

The Dow flew up to 12,300 in the first 15 minutes, dove to 12,250 in the next, flew all the way up to 12,331 just an hour later and finished fairly well at 12,307 but they got me today with that early move!

It took a while for the market to come around to my Goldilocks view of the jobs report but the other indices all made similar moves eventually except the SOX and the Transports, who missed our marks. This does leave me neutral towards the markets going into Monday.

Oil fell again and we had a great time with puts for the third day in a row, our Valero Group mainly gave us a nice spike at the open and drifted down all day, despite a desperate and very fake pump job on oil earlier in the day. At one point oil was up over $1 and we took that time to grab more puts!

The stake in the heart for oil came as the dollar bounced off our 82.50 targetand was propelled 1% higher by comments made by Hank Paulson on CNBC at mid-day. After that, the drop was just a matter of time!

Crude did hold $62.03, so we are not out of the woods yet but it was another interesting day at the NYMEX as losses mounted across the board. The February contract (active a week from today) had huge volume but still dropped to $63.09, just $1.06 over the current month contract! This is not good for traders who are in the red and were hoping to roll into the next month – unless of course there are people who are willing to let them store their oil very cheaply as they pray for a very late (or very, very early) hurricane…

Now the November contracts, at $67.95, have fallen below the October contracts ($68.08) and both are higher than the Decembers, which dropped to $67.73. The September contracts, at $67.35 are still below the August contract price ($67.39). Oh the horror!

Since everyone on the planet was short the dollar this week (except us, of course) there could be a bit of a short squeeze next week, depending on how the China trip goes of course. Gold moved in tandem with the dollar, losing 1%…

Posted in Weekend Review | 20 Comments »

Forgotten Trades

by - November 18th, 2006 8:04 pm

Arnie made a comment the other day that we all have very short trading time-frames and it really hurt my feelings (as you all know, I’m the shy, sensitive type).

I am not a day trader! I am not adverse to taking profits during the day – but that does not make me a day trader…

I take a lot of long positions but, as I have mentioned often before, I generally tend to stop worrying about them once they make over 20% as I just set my stop (-20% of the profits) and forget about them. Tracking a bunch of Jan ’09 leaps every week would make for a very dull column!

This column is generally about short-term options, not stocks or leaps, which are very, very dull but I am very, very good at picking those – probably better than I am at close options. As I always say, the close options are for play money while we watch our real plays take shape!

The last time I touched base with these picks was August 3rd so I think we can indulge ourselves once a quarter to see how I’m doing. I am listing them all, the good, the bad and the ugly because I don’t want you to think I’m cherry picking (as embarrassing as some of these picks are!).

I’m sorry that the original picks are all buried at the old blogspot account (and I’m in no mood to dig them out of that mess) but we’ll fix it all on the new site (I hope!). I apologize for not having all the exact start dates but if I didn’t find them in August, I’ll never find them now!

From 8/3 picks on you’ll notice a different format as I’m trying to bring this fully up to date.

==================================

Sometimes it’s nice to just buy something and walk away for a while… AAPL Jan $55s seemed expensive at $9.40 on 6/20 but we held through the dip by selling the July $60s and collecting $2.50, lowering our base to $6.90. They currently trade at $31.50 (up 357%).

I got tired of waiting for ADM Jan $35 puts (9/18 – $1.35) as they were the protective side of a spread but I should have let them play out, now $2 (up 48%).

I always play the Boeing Buddies (TM) but I hate to sound like a…

Posted in Weekend Review | 14 Comments »

Weekly Wrap-Up

by - November 18th, 2006 9:58 am

What a way to end the week!

Dow and S&P records going into the weekend – now that’s investor confidence! Minor pullbacks from the other indices but all well within our comfort levels, including the transports who came within 5 points of my target of 2,675 (despite the decline in oil) but closed at a comfortable 2,691.

You’ve got to love it when every single index we track hits our predictions on the nose!

It’s been a good week for predictions in general – in comments at 9:23 I recommended a day trade on the Dow: “I’m going to be checking out the DIA $122 and $123 calls if the market takes a nice dip. I’m looking for a bounce at $122.70.”

Here’s the chart, bottoming at $122.67 at 9:39! Needless to say that trade went very well with the DIA $122s coming in at .75 and finishing at $1.20 (up 60%) and the $123s coming in at .10 and giving us a quarter at the close (up 150%).

But that was not our best trade of the day! That hardly rates a mention compared to the ICE trades!

We had a great session Thursday deciding how to take advantage of the NMX IPO and we decided that the ICEwould be a beneficiary and we picked up the Dec $85s for $12.30. They finished the day at $17 (up 38%) but I lost a dollar if it going out and in on an early dip so I took half off the table at $20 (up 63%).

At 10:01 I decided to make a $1.50 offer on the $95s and by 10:04 it got away from me but filled at $1.20 just 10 minutes later. We exited that one at 11:30 for $9 - 650% in one hour! That’s a pretty good annual rate of return folks! It also turned out to be the EXACT top of the day so I’m very, very proud of myself (pat, pat).

Congrats to everyone who played along at home – now that the earnings nonsense is over, we can concentrate on situational trades like this on the pro site.

==================================

stocks and shares cartoons, stocks and shares cartoon, stocks and shares picture, stocks and shares pictures, stocks and shares image, stocks and shares images, stocks and shares illustration, stocks and shares illustrations

On the whole it was in incredible week, we even started making some money on oil puts again!

Relentless doubling down strained my position limit and left me unable to add positions to take advantage of Thursday’s drop but I was happy…

Posted in Weekend Review | 45 Comments »

Weekly Wrap-Up

by - November 10th, 2006 9:15 pm

Well, that was a lot of work to gain 200 points wasn’t it?

That’s right, we started this week on Monday morning at 11,985 so all that whining and moaning about the markets was for nothing! The markets are fine, we had a pullback which may already be over.

The Democrats failed to bring about the predicted economic apocalypse as once again this great democracy can have a revolution every decade or so and treat it like an ordinary changing of the guard.

Sure the Dems will send money flying out of some sectors (Pharma, Oil, Defense) but it will boost others(Biotech, Travel, Retail) so it’s just a bit of a forced sector rotation more than a problem in the markets.

The Dow pulled it out at the last minute with a sudden surge over the critical 12,100 mark to finish right about at Monday’s high.

The Dow was pulled down today by AA (down 1.7%), DIS (down 3.5%), T (don 1%) and VZ (down 1.4%). The standout performance came from AIG (2.4%) with BA (as usual), CAT, HON, HPQ, INTC and JPM providing backup.

I have come to the conclusion that we shouldn’t be shorting any gaming stocks as Nevada’s Harry Reid will be the new Senate majority leader – I missed that one but it would have been a smart play this week!

The S&P was slightly better behaved for the week, never really giving back Monday’s gains and finishing at 1,381.

The NYSE also had a very good week with 2 short bounces off the 8.800 level but never any real danger.

The Nasdaq was the standout of the week with a 2% gain and a 2,390 finish, the highest weekly close since Feb 2001!

We were watching the Russell which ran up to 769 and the SOX which managed a 1% gain for the day as well as the transports, which shot up 2% today on a sharp rebound off the 200 dma we’ve been watching all week.

Oil dove back down $1.57 to finish the week at $59.59 but you wouldn’t know it from XOM, who skated along at their all-time high. My current thinking on this is that the E&P companies are suffering first as the analysts have decided the Dems will cut the tax breaks, which will increase the value of reserves.

This is all very logical sounding until…

Posted in Weekend Review | 10 Comments »

October Wrap-Up

by - November 6th, 2006 8:30 pm

Test

Well we pulled that month out at the end!

It was a bumpy ride into options expiration with a 24% loss for the week (damn oil puts!) eating into the 53% we had made in the first half of the month but the last 10 days were decidedly kinder to us and we close out October in pretty good shape.

While still a far cry from September’s 92% average, I must again point out that I did say at the time we should just quit there because it would be very hard to top!

October’s final tally was 141 closed positions held an average of 9 days for a 41% average gain – more in line with a usual month.

Our remaining 36 positions have been open an average of 15 days with a 7% gain. Of course, like some of our closed positions, they include the wrong ends of spreads and several hopeless oil positions that drag down an otherwise decent group.

The closed positions still include the total losses of 4 MS and GS positions that tormented me since September as well as 10 oil positions that were rolled into December but are recorded here as a loss.

There were 24 doubles including, surprisingly, 5 XOM puts and 3 Valero puts – all from earlier in the month when things still made sense in the oil patch.

All but 8 of our doubles were puts, so I suppose my early month pessimism wasn’t entirely unfounded…

Our best non-oil plays were a PD put, TAP put, GM put, TM call, GCI call, LPL call and the last of our Google calls.

Our worst plays were oil – we should have quit while we were so far ahead! Not following the Valero Rule led to virtually every one of these losses and I will try really hard not to try to outsmart it in the future.

I have very few regrets, unlike September – where we would have done well to hold on to many of our plays – October was a choppier month that took profits away as fast as it gave them.

Our 32 regular stock positions returned 12% on an average hold of 26 days with just 13 positions remaining open – not bad for “an options guy…”

The full spreadsheet will be posted tomorrow at:

http://www.clinamengroup.com/philstocks/

Posted in Weekend Review | 9 Comments »

Phil's Favorites

Jobless Claims Improve, Leading Indicators Decline: Economic Report Card

September 22nd, 2011 5:36 pm

Courtesy of John Nyaradi.

Jobless claims improve while leading indicators decline in today’s economic report card

by Wall Street Sector Selector Staff

Weekly jobless claims declined to 424,000 from last week’s 432, 000 but stubbornly stayed above the all important 400,000 level for another week.

August Leading Indicators came in at +0.3% compared to 0.5% for July, as the economy continues registering weakness.

Good news came from July Home Prices which rose to +0.8% from the previously reported +0.7%.

But the biggest economic news of the week came yesterday when the Federal Reserve said it saw “significant downside risks to the economic outlook, including strains in global financial markets.”

Global stock markets responded negatively yesterday an...

Insider Scoop

Priceline.com Trades Higher on Q1 Earnings Results (PCLN)

May 5th, 2011 5:10 pm

Courtesy of Benzinga

Shares of Priceline.com Incorporated (NASDAQ: PCLN) are trading higher in the after-hours following the release of its Q1 earnings results. Currently, shares are up 2.74%, trading at $548.60; they closed the regular session down 0.67 %, at $533.97.

The company said that its Q1 EPS came in at $2.66 on revenues of $809.3 million; this compares to the Street's estimate of $2.46 per share on revenues of $779.5 million. Revenues rose 38.6% year over year.

"In the 1st quarter, the Group benefited from strong growth in our global hotel business, particularly at Booking.com and Agoda," said Jeffery H. Boyd, Priceline President and Chief Executive Officer.

He added, "Room nights booked grew by 55.8% and our international gross bookings grew by 79% compared to prior year...

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Zero Hedge

Fukushima Explosion Update: Core Presumed Intact As Sea Water Used To Bring Temperature Down, Radiation Level At 1015 Microsieverts/Hour

March 12th, 2011 9:41 am

Courtesy of Tyler Durden

The damage control to the Fukushima explosion reported earlier is coming fast and furious. According to CNN, "the explosion at an earthquake-damaged nuclear plant was not caused by damage to the nuclear reactor but by a pumping system that failed as crews tried to bring the reactor's temperature down, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Saturday. The next step for workers at the Fukushima Daiichi plant will be to flood the reactor containment structure with sea water to bring the reactor's temperature down to safe levels, he said. The effort is expected to take two days." While the government is trying to play down the threat from the explosion, it has nonetheless double the evacuation zone radius from 10 to 20 kilometers: "Radiation levels have fallen since the explosion and there is no immediate danger, Edano said. But authorities were nevertheless expanding the evacuation ...

Chart School

The Mega-Bear Quartet and L-Shaped "Recoveries"

March 12th, 2011 9:35 am

Courtesy of Doug Short

Note from dshort: I retired this chart series last summer in deference to my prefered inflation-adjusted series that aligns the S&P 500 2000 high with the Nikkei peak in 1989. However, I continue to receive requests for this version, despite the "V" shape of the the recovery since the March 2009 low. This chart series overlays the current S&P 500 with the L-shaped "recoveries" after the Dow Crash of 1929, the Nikkei 225 after Japan's 1989 bubble, and the post Tech Bubble NASDAQ. Click the chart below for a larger version and use the links to see various comparisons.

Click for a larger image

I've ...

Sabrient

Sabrient Risers - 3/12/2011

March 12th, 2011 12:00 am

Top 5 RisersStockRatingAnalysisVLOSTRONGBUYAn increasingly positive growth rate of past earnings, along with improving expectations for long term growth, make Valero a good prospect for high returns.KROSTRONGBUYKronos Worldwide has been gaining recognition from analysts as a good canditate for achieving higher than expected earnings along with higher overall projected valuation.SFIBUYiStar is one of the top candidates projected to achieve both higher than previously projected earnings in the short run and a higher earnings growth rate in the long run.AMATSTRONGBUYApplied Materials has been...

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Option Review

Bulls Scoop Up Sprint Nextel Corp. Calls

March 10th, 2011 4:33 pm

Today’s tickers: S, FTR, JTX & SBUX

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OpTrader

Swing trading portfolio - week of March 7th, 2011

March 6th, 2011 11:25 pm

This post is for live trades and daily comments. Please click on "comments" below to follow our live discussion. All of our current virtual trades are listed in the spreadsheet below, with entry price (1/2 in and All in), and exit prices (1/3 out, 2/3 out, and All out).

We also indicate our stop, which is most of the time the "5 day moving average". All trades, unless indicated, are front-month ATM options.

Please feel free to participate in the discussion and ask any questions you might have about this portfolio, by clicking on the "comments" link right below.

To learn more about the swing trading portfolio (strategy, performance, FAQ, etc.), please click here

Optrader

Swing trading portfolio

One trade portfolio

...

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Stock World Weekly

March 6th, 2011 8:22 am

Here's the newest Stock World Weekly: Illusion Based on a Fantasy

Comments welcome... share your thoughts.

Download Newsletter 3/6/11

Stock World Weekly archives here >

...

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Pharmboy

Biotech Junkies Update and Momenta Pharma Moving Forward

March 1st, 2011 9:42 am

February is now past, and the Biotech Porfolio is loaded with winners and a miss (PLX). MRK is down a bit, but I expect that trade to recover, and one could be more agressive and double down on it, or play another round at the Jan13 $30 options for roughly the same price. Below is the summary, and note the grey boxes are ones that did not fill. I am still a fan of BMRN, and like DEPO as well. Now let's look at a few others.

Table 1. PSW Biotech Plays Since January 2011

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Our newest play is Momenta Pharmaceuticals (MNTA), who is pursuing a three-part business model which includes complex generic equivalents in partnership with the Sandoz division of Novartis, proprietary compounds, and follow-on- biologics (FOB). It seems that this company is tied up in competition/litigation wit...

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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...

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