Thrill Ride Thursday - CRE Crash?
by Phil - November 19th, 2009 8:12 am
What a nice day we had yesterday!
I led off my morning post saying it was time to short the Dow, Copper, Oil and the Euro and anyone playing those futures bets off my 8:27 post made out like a bandit. I even posted a nice little DIA play FOR FREE (for those of you who can’t be bothered to subscribe yet), picking the DIA $104 puts at .55. It only took 45 minutes for those puts to shoot up to .85 and I warned our Members to take it off the table on the way up and, since it was my free trade of the week, I also posted it over at Stock Talk on Seeking Alpha. This is a great way to follow-up on some of our trades and is also the back-up for our member chat whenever we have server issues so do make sure you are signed up to follow me there (just click on my picture).
Yes, I know that so many newsletter writers give you free trade ideas that make 54% in 45 minutes that it’s hard to keep track so only do it if you REALLY want to. The futures, of course, make TONS more than that as they are heavily leveraged, As I said in yesterday’s post, we have been trying to get more bullish but sometimes we just have to put our bearish foot down. In Member Chat we also took bullish pokes at EDZ, SRS, DIA $103 puts and ERY early in the morning and then we were able to just sit back and watch the dip. I was a penny early calling a bottom on copper at $3.12 but .05 on the futures contracts is a huge win and we are very nervous bears, especially on low volume days, and we take our profits quickly.
At 1:40, I said to members: "DIA - Well mission accomplished on the $103 puts and now we see what Mr. Stick can accomplish for the day. Without the RUT over 600 I have no desire to cover the March puts" and we even decided to go with the DIA $104 CALLS at 3:20 to protect us against the anticipated stick save. Those went from .65 to to .80 into the close, another very quick 20%. We don’t do this all the time, these plays are fun to make during expiration week as the premiums are low and there are huge short-term rewards for good market timing. Our longer-term short play for…
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Wild Weekly Wrap-Up, Topping or Popping?
by Phil - November 14th, 2009 12:02 pm
This was an annoying week for bulls and bears alike.
We had a very exciting day on Monday, topping out at 10,248 but I didn’t like the way we got there (low-volume, commodity rally, as noted in David Fry’s chart) and, when pressed for a prediction on TV that evening, I had to say that I felt that we were more likely to be down by Thanksgiving than up with a possible Santa Claus bounce into Christmas. What we did get for the remainder of the week was very choppy action on even lower volume.
I had mentioned in last week’s "Wrong-Way Weekly Wrap-Up" that we were partying like it’s 1999 as we broke through Dow 10,000 and S&P 1,080, despite rapidly deteriorating fundamentals. Stocks are being bought because they are going up in price (much like commodities), not because there is any actual demand for them and that is very clear from the rapidly declining index volume as we run back into resistance at S&P 1,100.
Since early September our upside targets for the indexes have been: Dow 10,087, S&P 1,096, Nasdaq 2,173, NYSE 7,204 and Russell 623 and nothing has happened to change our fundamental outlook for the better so the closer we get to those levels, the LESS comfortable we are taking bullish positions. In fact, yesterday as we got our mid-day spike to 10,300, I told members that it was sorely tempting to just cash out all bullish positions and take 20% of the portfolio 100% bearish with a 10% stop. Rather than mess around with a mix of positions, going fully bearish can allow for some spectacular gains if we crash and stopping out with a 50% loss would suck - but a breakout like that, well above Dow 11,000 and S&P 1,200 would certainly give us reason to be more bullish.
As I concluded last week: "We’re generally not happy until we see Russell 600 and the Dow Transports over 4,000 (now 3,852) and we took a 55% bearish stance into the weekend because we’ll feel a lot less silly being burned by a move up than we would if we weren’t bearish enough for a move down. It would be nice to be able to make more of a commitment but the bulls clearly have the bears cowering in fear so we’ll just patiently wait and see how far they can play things out." Not much has changed since then and we are still waiting to confirm…
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Friday - Will We Finish the Week Over Our Target Levels?
by Phil - November 13th, 2009 8:23 am
Here is a great metaphor for the emptiness of the global recovery:
An entire city in China, tens of billions of dollars in construction, sits empty. They also built the World’s biggest shopping mall, also empty. As they say in the video, people can’t move in because there is no economy. Yet the building of the city of Ordos and the Utopia mall have allowed China to hit their 8% GDP growth target because it doesn’t matter whether you build something worthwhile - as long as you build SOMETHING, it’s going to count as part of your GDP. It’s ironic that this country still hasn’t bothered rebuilding New Orleans, which was once a healthy, vibrant city and we are letting Detroit die a little more every day when it’s ideally situated to attract (comparatively) wealthy Canadian tourists but China is willing to build entire cities from scratch.
Ironically, Louisiana is one of 8 US states that export more than $2Bn worth of goods to China, who is, by far, our fastest growing trading partner. We get trade data later today and hopefully, at least one benefit of the week dollar will be to help boost our balance of trade but we’re a very, very long way away from balance and, as I pointed out last month, almost all of our gains are coming from lowered US consumption, not a real increase in exports.
Speaking of lowered US consumption, just as we predicted, crude oil fell to the lowest in a month yesterday as the inventory report showed inventories in the
“The
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Thrill-Ride Thursday: Jobs, What Jobs?
by Phil - October 15th, 2009 8:12 am
Yesterday was very hard for us.
Our theoretically conservative $100,000 Portfolio dropped 6% in one day as we had a farily bearish position into options expiration that I stubbornly refused to adjust this week. Surely, I thought, after running up 250 Dow points from Thursday, 10,000 would act as some kind of resistance? We’re also up a neat 500 points for the month of October so that’s our 5% rule and to not get a 1% pullback, even in the most bullish of markets, is very rare indeed.
So we stayed bearish yesterday and got crushed by the AMZN $90 calls we sold as well as UYG calls we sold and our PSQ calls we bought for protection got slaughtered as the Nasdaq flew up not 5% but 5.5% for the month and up 6.2% from it’s October 2nd low. While we are disappointed, we’re not terribly concerned as we’re only going to roll the calls to November anyway and I did promise the members that, if we hold our breakout levels for 2 closes, then I’ll be shifting more bullish. I’ve been trying to identify more bullish positions this week but our mix has still tended bearish as I’m just having so much trouble buying into this rally.
In yesterday’s Member Chat, my comments on the current situation was:
I do wish we were more bullish, this is a very smart group of people and we’re pretty bearish but so is the general investing public or there’d be volume to this rally. I have a hard time ignoring the fact that 600,000 more people lost their jobs this week and, even if it’s "only" 500,000, I still think that’s not really a sign of a healty economy. I think the REITs are off in fantasy land and I think so is the government, who cannot keep borrowing money at these low rates. The dollar has dropped 25% of it’s value since March so the market is only 25% ahead of the currency fall which means a flight back to the dollar, which could happen very suddenly if an EU nation like Spain collapses, could send our market down as fast a 9/11.
That being said, we have no choice but to follow the technicals and now that we can look at nice, easy support levels like Dow 10,000, S&P 1,100, NYSE 7.200, Nas, 2,200 and RUT 620 and simply call that the mark at which we’re 60% bullish. I’ve…
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Wednesday Rally - INTC and JPM’s Piles of Chips
by Phil - October 14th, 2009 8:26 am
That is a crushing beat of the 51 cents expected by analysts, who have been playing expectations catch-up for over a month, trying to get a handle on this quarter’s earnings. JPM’s earnings are more exciting than GS’s earnings as JPM were supposed to be "dragged down" by Chase Banking. With $2Tn under management, the company put up $3.6Bn in quarterly profit, almost 10 times what they made last quarter (.09). "These results included the negative impact of the tightening of the firm’s credit spread, offset by the positive impact of counterparty spread tightening and gains on legacy leveraged lending and mortgage-related positions," the firm said.
Of course we could nitpick and point out that last year they had competition from LEH and BSC and last year they didn’t have $25Bn in bailout money to play with and they didn’t have a Fed Discount window feeding them countless other Billions every month at 0.25% interest but we won’t, because we are trying to get more bullish! Not wanting the Government to get the idea that they don’t need any more free money, CEO Dimon said: "While we are seeing some initial signs of consumer credit stability, we are not yet certain that this trend will continue." Frankly, I think the company sandbagged the earnings as they put $4.967Bn aside as a provision for credit card losses against $5.159Bn in total sales so either their clients are MAJOR dead-beats, or there will be some more profits recognized down the road (assuming all this recovery stuff is real).
INTC also beat earnings expectations last night but they are underperforming last year by a wide margin so not in any way as exciting as JPM’s results. Our strategy for INTC yesterday was to short sell the Nov $20 puts and calls for a total of $1.95 so our upside break/even on INTC is $21.95 but even last night, on the announcement, I still said to members I thought they were a short at $22 but we’re not going to fight the market, not now that we’re over our breakout levels.
The levels we’ve been watching (Dow 9,829, S&P 1,071, Nas 2,146, NYSE 7,047 and Russell 620), should be crushed this morning and, hopefully, will hold up through the end of day. If this is a real rally then we should have no trouble and the last thing the bulls want to see is volume selling at this…
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Testy Tuesday - Topping or Popping?
by Phil - October 13th, 2009 8:15 am
I told you yesterday would be fun!
Will today be funner? Is funner a word? As you know, I have been determined to get more bullish and our Watch List is growing every day as I add more and more undervalued companies that still have room to fly if we are truly going to run the S&P back over 1,100 this year. We remain skeptical but you can be skeptical and still make money, as you can see from Corey’s (Afraid to Trade) very nice S&P Chart, you can do very well in this market buying the dips OR selling the tops - we kind of like to do both…
Despite the low volumes, buyers are clearly in control of this market and, in Member Chat yesterday, I compared the situation to having a bet on the Raiders, who lost 44 to 7 on Sunday. You can start out with a bet on the Raiders (in this case, the Bears) but there’s a certain point, perhaps when the 3rd consecutive possession by the Giants (Bulls) ends in a TD, that you have tgo admit you aren’t going to win.
You have a few choices at that point: You can be a perma-Raider and keep betting more and more on your team (not smart); You can swallow your losses and leave the stadium; You can swallow your losses and stay on the sidelines and watch the game; Or you can switch sides and start betting on the Giants, maybe even recovering some of what you lost. You can keep some of your useless-looking Raiders bets, just in case a miracle occurs but what’s the sense of not betting on a clear winner when it’s right in front of you? Even if you are skeptical, that can be useful as it keeps you out of trouble as you should be wise enough to take your profits off the table.
I never understand the "fan" behavior of market players. If you see the market going up and up and up and up - perhaps it’s time to make a few up bets. Bears don’t earn loyalty rewards or get frequent-complainer points from the market so, if your "team" is getting trampled, it’s OK to switch sides - at least for a while - no one will think any less of you. In the case of our bull-market bets, we have a great opportunity to switch sides at a very significant line this week, the 2009 highs of Dow…
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Weekly Wrap-Up, How to Make Money in a Down Market
by Phil - October 3rd, 2009 8:27 am
Wow. what a fantastic week!
Well, not for the markets but for us as we totally nailed it. It’s hard to believe that it was just two weeks ago, on Monday, the 21st, after I posted the "Wrong Way Weekly Wrap-Up" as the Dow rose from 9,600 to 9,800, that I had to apologize to members, saying: "I’m sorry because I don’t like being bearish - I’m an optimistic guy usually but I can’t just sit here and tell people what they want to hear. It’s just too irresponsible not to be cautious here. We make plenty of bullish picks but I maintain a very wary outlook until we get some real fundamental improvements."
That’s the funny thing about fundamentals, they don’t matter until they do - and then they matter a lot. It’s funny how I get labeled a perma bear when I’m shorting the market at the top and a perma bull when I’m buying the maket at the bottom. Gee, I always thought that’s what you’re supposed to do but it turns out that few people have the patience to work a market trading range and I don’t blame them, I blame the mainstream media, who encourage this destructive herd mentality to investing that culminates in Jim Cramer and his sound-board, where all the complexities of the market are supposed to boil down to either BUYBUYBUY or SELLSELLSELL.
It makes me seem downright wishy-washy when I said to members on the 21st: "I don’t have all the answers, but I do have a lot of questions - too many to get comfortable buying at these levels." On the whole, as I explained in detail way back in late July, I am neither bullish nor bearish, I am Rangeish. Yes, it’s a made-up word and I have to make it up because no other analysts these days seem to believe the market can go up AND down, everyone seems compelled to stick to one or the other AND THEY DO IT TO THE DETRIMENT OF THEIR READERS - I WILL NOT DO IT!
There are strong stocks and there are weak stocks and I can’t believe I even have to write this out but the best strategy is to short weak stocks and ETFs that have gone too high and buy strong stocks and ETFs that have gone too low. As I explained in my LiveStock appearance back on March 6th (when I was called a "perma-bull" for calling a bottom), the market is like a huge tanker being pulled by individual stocks that are like tugboats. If all the…
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$101,674 Portfolio Update - Week 3
by Phil - September 13th, 2009 8:26 am
Slow and steady wins the race!
We had a big run and capped our gains a little early for the week by doubling up on our PSQ (short Nasdaq) calls on Thursday’s mad run. This did the job of locking in our profits but that hedge is now making up $450 of losses, which is 1/3 of all our losses for the month. Still we managed to gain $396 for the week with still just $28,537 in positions so that’s another 1% for the week, a pretty good clip…
I am happy to say that our $100K Portfolio is now live and available on WallStreetSurvivor.com at:
We’re actually well ahead of our cash goal as we also have $86,101 in cash along with our $28,537 in positions with $13,768 in margin devoted to some of the longer hedges we’ve sold. That leaves us with $147,935 in margin buying power and we’re going to use it to do a few "stupid option tricks" into expirations that should pick us up a little extra cash over the next 5 days and Wednesday or Friday we must expect to make our rolling moves for the current month and I’ll be sending out Alerts to Members later in the week. For now, we are very happy with all of our current positions as we have 16 winners and just 7 losers - that’s very good for a well-hedged portfolio…- AMZN has a great premium and selling 5 $85 calls for $1.25 and 5 $85 puts for $1.75 (any net $3 combo) will either put $1,500 in our pockets or become a trade we will roll out to October.
- BAC is one we already have in the portfolio and we can double up on…
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Wild Weekly Wrap-Up - August in Retrospect
by Phil - August 29th, 2009 8:28 am
It has been a crazy few weeks!
I went back over our Long Shots list from August 9th, thinking all our picks must be doing great but really only C, with a 67% gain, is really outperforming. Long spreads on UYG and BHI are on target for nice gains but haven’t moved much. Looking at our original picks in Pharmboys Phavorites from the same week, GSK is on track and up nicely already, our AZN cover is up 45% and MRK flew up 19% already. On the riskier Biotech side, ARIA’s stock is up 16% and our spreads are all performing well, ONTY has been flat, OGXI is up 33% and the Jan $17.50s are up a rockin’ 63% with that "cautious" spread up a surprising 75% already.
SPPI had a wild ride (as we predicted with TSCM’s failed assassination attempt) and the buy/write is already up 24%, the Feb vertical is up 50% and the naked Jan put sale is up 27% and our Feb hedge play is right on track so all good there and a fine example of how following Cramer and his lackeys and and doing the opposite of what they say can be very profitable! Congrats to Pharmboy for a very fine set of picks, proving once again that there is room for research and fundamentals - not a single loser in the bunch in a choppy market! It was very timely as I had mentioned just that week in my interview with AOL Finance that XLV was my favorite sector and our IHI pick of 8/10 is up 28% on the naked Feb $45 put sale while the Feb $45 calls have already jumped 16%. It was a great call as IHI outperformed XLV and all our major indexes.
So our energy service pick (BHI) and overall financial pick (UYG) have not done much in 3 weeks and those were our leading sectors into my call to cash out our exposed long calls on Aug 13th, ahead of expirations. The Dow was at 9,400 on that day and now, a bit more than 2 weeks later, we’ve gained another 144 points but to listen to the MSM, you would think you are missing the rally of the century the past couple of weeks. This is one of the reasons I’ve gotten a bit more cynical about the rally - there is so much hype and so little actual progress, something must be wrong.
Back on Thursday, Aug 6th,…
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Will They Hold It Wednesday?
by Phil - August 26th, 2009 8:25 am
This is getting very interesting!
As we expected in yesterday’s morning post, the morning pump was a great selling opportunity and we had a very good time riding the gentle dip we got in intra-day trading. The Dow hit it’s high for the day at 10:03 and by 10:09 I had an alert out to members to ignore the consumer confidence number and go more bearish on the Dow, buying back the Sept $95 puts we sold Monday for a quick 20% profit. We also grabbed the OIH $105 puts for $2.30 that made a nice buck during the day (43%) and we entered a couple of spreads on ERY at 10:57, well ahead of oil falling off a cliff in the afternoon.
Great call by David at the Oxen Group on making DUG his long of the day yesterday with a perfect buy in at $15.10 and hitting the 4% goal for that day trade. It was David’s call that inspired us to pick up the very profitable (and much riskier) ERY trades, which were also an idea of his from an earlier trade so mega Kudos to the Oxen Group!
We got a second rally on low volume around noon and my 12:09 comment to Members was: "Still a very good time to look at some of those long put plays we discussed in yesterday’s morning post" so I guess you can say we were still pretty bearish at that 9,600 line on the Dow. Keep in mind that the top of our prior trading range was 9,100 on the Dow so the 5% rule off that mark takes us to 9,555, which was where I predicted we’d close. We had a good chance to press our long DIA covers higher but we feared the overnight stick and we went with a 1/2 cover on our long puts, selling the DIA $95 puts for $1.75 just in case we have another crazy pre-market pump.
As you can see from David Fry’s S&P charts, we are "outside the box," very much as we were in June but note that we held that level (S&P 950) for quite a while before getting a 10% correction into early July. I’m not getting the feeling that we have enough energy to sustain us up here that long but, the way things have been going, we kept all of Monday’s bear covers in longer time-frames because as Chantale very aptly put it: "It s hard to predict when somebody on coke will…
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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 Favorites backup site
(