Phil's Stock World, Stock Options Trading & Information

Daily Stock and Options Tips & Updates; Get Our Daily Newsletter Here

Phil - I caught the interview…. terrific!. Your host recommended that the viewers should " go to your site, as you will be entertained ". That is for sure if you consider entertainment is laughing while you read, learn and make unbelievable leveraged profits that you never thought were possible. That is my kind of entertainment !

- Gel1

Phil - Moved today to send kudos. You're in my top 5 to see/read daily. I do not trade... but as former econ-finance adjunct faculty near Stanford U. I give you lots of attaboys.... and provide your links to many to spread some understanding of the mess we are in. Best to you and yours,

- HJ Kobbeman

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

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

I read with great interest your statement the other day that the DX is unlikely to break 76 or there will be great hell to pay, torrential amounts of tears shed, and gnashing of dentures all over the world. Well. I have had several short DX contracts in the $78ish range during the last month and upon your two statements 1) don't be greedy, and 2) 76 could be a bottom, I yesterday put a buy GTC order to close my positions at 76 and for some inexplicable reason the DX spiked down after the close and now I can safely say that once again you have confirmed for me that you have been one of the best investment services I have yet to come across. Almost to the point that I'm beginning to think that maybe I'm completely wrong about my political stance as well. Almost. In any event, I wanted you to know that this has been my third execution based on your comments and recommendations that I have followed and this one has also worked to my advantage. My subscription fee has been more than justified for the next year and there's some left over to pay for my stay in Toronto this week, dinner at Joso's in the Yorkville section of town. If I smoked I'd have a Montecristo to salute you. Be well, stay well.

- Flipspiceland

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

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

Gel1…..I've been here 6 months, mostly watching and learning. Lots of smart people on the site and I've learned a lot from Phil and many others. //// Inflan - I have to trump your sentiments regarding the wisdom of the board. I have to thank Phil and the many contruibutors for a 80% profit for 2009. I have learned a lot and am still learning ( even occasionally about political issues - ha! )

- Iflantheman & Gel1

Against all prognostics (bears) Phil pointed in the morning the correct direction, and in middle of day he pointed the possible move to 2.5% Incredible… I'm starting to serious believe on the program trading and the human nature behind the programing those "trade-bots".

- Spider

On Optrader's section yesterday he was asked how he works with AAPL as an investment. He replied that he just ‘plays with the covers'. I've got a separate portfolio where I use primarily this technique over the past 6 months. Up 60% The principles involved are stock selection, patience, patience, using covers to protect profits, rolling covers to maximize premium return, and exiting when covers are gone and stock price is high. Sometimes it's hard to remember where you learn to do this stuff, but much of it is from integrating principles I've learned here with thing I already knew. Thanks for the help on this, Phil and others.

- Roaster

I have been here a year, and made most of my money back from the 14K fall. The people here are more than willing to help whe Phil cannot get to it. FWIW - This site is my brokerage firm, I was with Wells Fargo Portfolio and it was costing a fortune to trade, the costs here are more than offset with the data, trade ideas and profits you should make.. and I get a chuckle out of Cap and Phil's rantings on healtcare, guns, oh, yeah, and government….

- Pharmboy

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

Brilliant covering of the arcane, the profane , but never the mundane! Easy to understand the reason for your huge following, Phil, and why you have become a must read on my daily agenda. Please accept my complete appreciation.

- Seeking Truth

Phil… My portfolio, in the past few months, has acheived a high degree of stabilization. I've noticed that on up days, down days, even days, it doesn't matter, my portfolio rarely varies more than 2%. And over the long haul it just slowly increases in value. I attribute this not to investment choices, but to style. Thanks to you and others on this site I'm paying close attention to position size, delta neutrality, downside protection, and concentrating on selling premium rather than buying it. I've developed increasing patience, not having to trade daily, or even weekly. I'm concentrating on the finer points of trading, letting the profits come to me, rather than the other way around. I appreciate the help everyone here has given in getting me focused on this principle. I'm pumped!…in a calm sort of way.

- Iflantheman

hil, I hit my targets for the year in my 401K (thanks in no small part to your site), so I cashed out of all positions a couple of weeks ago. Feels good... I'm conservative with this money –looking for 2% per month, which i've been able to do… thx.

- Lunar

All I can say is — I understand that the Universe sent me to PSW for a reason. So, I'm listening!! …and studying. Your commentary is literally outstanding. …and your members are impressive as well.

- Seaquill

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

Simply the best blogger with the greatest group of members a person could surround himself with on trading day. I've been trading for quite some time now and the insights & suggestions offered by Phil and the members keep me on a continuous learning cycle.

- DDay

Phil: I am always able to figure out your trades, including the rational when put in the right context of previous comments, etc. Keep doing what you're doing. It is much appreciated, and invaluable. Your hit rate of successful trades has been very high in my 1.5 months as a member, but even more importantly is your teaching of how to repair and DD positions that haven't gone your way yet. As with most members, we all have our ‘pet' trading interests, and learning how to think about trading is much more important than a specific trade, which could see the conditions behind it change an hour later. This is the classic case, of ‘Teach us to Fish', rather than just giving us a fish once in a while. Thank you!

- Neverworkagain

Phil, 26% on the week for the 20% I day-trade, and since drinking the kool-aid last fall, the whole portfolio has doubled. Have a great weekend !!

- JRW III

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

- JWick1981

Phil: well, often you say, just for FUN, great comment, TXS, closed 2 SKF positions, one with 10 % , the other with 6 % gain,

- RMM

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

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

You guys gotta give it to phil–the voice of reason yesterday, last nite and this morning.

- Corleone

Sold the BG puts I got yesterday at $1.30 for $2 just now. Might be a little early, but I'm happy with that gain. Thanks Phil.

- Smasher

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

Kudos on the POT puts! I studied the charts last night and you couldn't have hit the inflection points more perfectly. Since there are often many head fakes in the charts, that was very well done. I know they can't all work this well, but that was an extra unexpected bonus yesterday.

- Ocelli7

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

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

Posts Tagged ‘FAS’

Monday Market Movement – Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy!!

by Phil - November 15th, 2010 7:40 am

POMO, POMO, POMO!

The Fed is in all-out attack mode this week with $35Bn scheduled for release in the next 5 days. If that doesn’t goose the markets, then I think we are screwed because people, $35Bn is A LOT of money for a week. It’s $1.82Tn a year at that pace or 12% of our entire GDP being created by the Fed to give you the illusion that all is well with the markets. So say, thank you Chairman Bernanke, for treating us like children who would rather be lied to than facing reality and making necessary choices.

Speaking of necessary choices, I HIGHLY recommend looking at Barry Ritholtz’s "Fix It Yourself" deficit kit. Barry takes the more complex (but also good) NY Times article and presents the very excellent chart that shows us exactly what budget cap needs to be filled and what the available choices are to fill it. It’s a great way to think about the budget and also it makes you realize that 5 or 6 reasonable people sitting down with this chart at a table should be able to knock this thing out in a weekend if we were living in a rational world or perhaps one where an out-of-control Central Bank cooperated with a deceitful Treasury Department to maintain a status quo that clearly is not working for the American people.

FMD2 QE2 is not about "fixing" the economy, it’s about FIXING the profits of the Primary Dealers (Gang of 12) who are estimated to reap a $50Bn benefit by simply acting as the conduits through which the Fed distributes our money as if they were the town Santa tossing candy off the back of a fire truck.

POMO spending might keep equities up and that is good for those of us who own them but what is it doing for the great unwashed and unemployed masses? Speaking of unemployed, did you know that 100,000 of Octobers 156,000 jobs created were not actual jobs but a bookkeeping entry as the government changed the "seasonal adjustment" it made to payroll numbers? Our friend, John Maudlin, explained the shenanigans over the weekend:

"According to John Williams at Shadow Government Statistics, the BLS’ fiddling with the figures via what he calls ‘seasonal-factor games’ actually created 200,000 phantom jobs last month. John cites such finagling as the

…

Tags: BA, CHINA, DIA, Dollar, FAS, GS, Oil, PCLN, QE2, QID, QQQQ, VLO, XLF

Join Member's Chat - 206 Comments Here »

Whig Party Wednesday – Reps take the House and QE Too!

by Phil - November 3rd, 2010 8:03 am

Now, like many Americans, the Democrats know what it’s like to lose their House.

Back in the mid-1800′s, the nation had another kind of Tea Party as the Whigs became a successful 3rd party, even going so far as to put two men in the White House – William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor plus Millard Fillmore, who succeeded "Old Rough and Ready" who died just after a year in office but that was a long term compared to Harrison, who caught pneumonia making a long inauguration speech in the freezing rain and died of it a month later despite attempts to cure him with opium, castor oil and leeches – treatments we are likely to see again as the Republicans vow to repeal Health Care legislation.

I don’t have to talk about what happened last night, Barry Ritholtz did a great job of it in "The Tragedy of the Obama Administration" so let’s just focus on the repercussions of the changeover and, of course, today’s upcoming Fed decision. The Board of Governors were meeting all day yesterday and will meet again this morning to discuss their policy decision and one would think they can’t be so deaf as to see that our citizens are not interested in additional deficit spending, which is exactly what QE2 is when the Fed writes checks to paper over the Treasury’s profligate spending.

Look for new and improved ways of not taxing corporations. Like GM, which will not have to pay taxes on its next $45.4Bn of earnings despite the fact that the Government paid for their losses already and allowed the company to bust union contracts and trash benefits for the millions of retired and fired workers as they shut down and sold brands – permanently shipping US manufacturing jobs overseas.

Of course, this tax break isn’t about GM. GM just sets a good precedent for similar treatment of Banksters and others who received relief under TARP and, of course, whatever they decide to call the next emergency bailout of Big Business. If the market breaks our tops, we are going to be loving the XLF which already owns most of the people who got elected last night. With FAS at $22.44, we can sell the April $19 puts for $2.75 and buy the Jan $17/21.67 bull call spread for $3.10 and that’s net .35 on the $4.67…

Tags: Banks, Economy, FAS, GM, inflation, Obama, Oil, Politics, QE2, the Federal Reserve, USO, UYG, Wall Street, XLF

Join Member's Chat - 360 Comments Here »

Thank GDP It’s Friday – Finally Some Facts

by Phil - October 29th, 2010 8:29 am

Is bad news going to be good news?

Last quarter, after several adjustments, it has been decided that our GDP grew at a 1.7% rate. The general consensus is that this quarter we should be up around 2% but the whisper number is a big miss, down to 1.3%. Slower GDP growth will be GOOD for the stock market as it gives Ben and Tim the excuse they need to crank up the printing presses for some real Zimbabwe-style inflation.

It’s easy to pay off $15Tn in fixed rate 2-year to 30-year notes when your country is cranking out $1Tn bank notes, right? Can this really be the path our nation is following? The markets are certainly betting on it but we have been betting against it with longs on UUP at $22.50 (still there) and a short play on the QID weekly $13 calls at .46 yesterday along with other bearish trade ideas we’ve entered ahead of the GDP as well as the elections and next week’s Fed meeting.

Why can’t we just give up and go with the flow? Well, first of all, you can read my last few weeks of posts or you can read our last few Newsletters so I won’t rehash the great global macros here but I will make the point that (and this may shock you) we are not alone in the World and the things we do, or try to do in our economy, affect the economies of other nations. Perhaps when the US was 40% of Global GDP, we could have gotten away with it but now we are 20% and falling fast yet we still attempt to run our foreign and economic policies as if we are large and in charge.

This is not the way the rest of the World sees us anymore. To the rest of the World we are unrealistic children with dangerous spending habits who happen to owe them A LOT of money. We borrowed $15Tn and our "plan" is to pay them back with hyperinflated dollars that are already discounted 33% from where we began cranking up the borrowing in 2002 (to pay for wars and tax cuts).

Already, other nations are refusing to lend us more money so we have begun to engage in what Bill Gross, the world’s biggest bond…

Tags: CHINA, DIS, FAS, GDP, GE, inflation, NWS, QE2, QID, quantitative easing, UUP, VIA, XLF

Join Member's Chat - 267 Comments Here »

TGIF – Stop the Week, We Want to Get Off!

by Phil - August 20th, 2010 8:29 am

This week cannot end soon enough for the bulls.

While it’s no shocker that we are finishing the week where we started and, in fact, finishing the options expiration period where we started last month (July 16th), it’s still very disappointing that we are making no progress. This weekend I asked if it was "Time for a New, New Deal?" I went to DC over the weekend and I’ll write about that this weekend but let’s just say I’m not seeing the political will to actually do something major to put Americans back to work and, as I said last Friday, when I said "Hoping the Weekend Brings Perspective":

Weekend stance – off this disappointing two-day run I’d say as neutral as possible over the weekend. I do think we need a good blow-off bottom now because we blew our chance to turn it around on volume yesterday.

Trading Range – I was counting on QE2 AND a stimulus announcement by next week. After the weekend we may have neither so it’s really going to be all about watching our levels in absence of any fundamental market forces. Monday we have the NY Fed and NAHB Housing Index. Tuesday is Housing Starts, Building Permits and a PPI that will also be BTE along with Industrial Prodcution (probable disappointment) and Cap Utilization (dragged down by refiners). Thursday is Leading Economic Indicators and the Philly Fed and that’s it for the week so, once we get past housing, the newspaper is more likely to move the markets than the data points.

We got so-so Leading Indicators yesterday and a TERRIBLE Philly Fed, leading me to send out a 10:03 Alert to Members saying:

Whoa! Philly Fed is disaster! -7.7. Leading indicators are up 0.1%, which is in-line but Philly was expected at +8 so this is TERRIBLE! We should test yesterday’s lows at least on that.

DIA $103 puts give good bang for the buck at .74 to stop the bleeding – just keep in mind thay have a ton of premium and need to be taken off quickly when momentum stops

While that play worked out very nicely, the bleeding I referred to was my 9:43 Alert to Members where I reiterated my "small gambles" on SSO, QLD, DDM and USO – but I did say at the time: "Don’t forget we get Leading Indicators and Philly Fed at 10 and…

Tags: BWA, DDM, DIA, FAS, HOV, INTC, JNK, QLD, SQQQ, SSO, USO, VLO

Join Member's Chat - 198 Comments Here »

Wonderful Weekly Wrap-Up

by Phil - June 12th, 2010 8:28 am

I love it when a plan comes together!

Last week, I felt like I was going to have to call Animal Control to help me fight off the bears. As I mentioned in last week’s Wrap-Up, all 14 misses (out of 55 trade ideas for the week) we had were bullish plays that we were grabbing on the way down. On Friday we went bullish on USO, SSO, DIA, TBT (well, we’re always bullish on TBT), AET, ABX, Copper Futures and even poor BP. Those followed up on bullish plays we had taken on Thursday on TSRA, USO, MEE, FCX, EEM, ERX and XOM. We went into the weekend still bearish but we were excited about flipping back to bullish. My closing comment in the Wrap-Up was: " I’m hoping for a blow-off spike down on Monday with heavy volume, hopefully followed by a recovery over the next few days" and, gosh darn it, wouldn’t you know that’s EXACTLY what we got.

I don’t MAKE the markets do these things, I simply tell you what is going to happen and how you can make money on it… Needless to say, we had a LOT of fun this week at PSW! Last weekend, however, was such a bearish frenzy in the MSM that it was making our Members nervous and THAT I do not tolerate so I wrote : "The Worst-Case Scenario: Getting Real With Global GDP!" to illustrate why I felt our bottoms would hold and I began a Top 20 Buy List on Sunday and boy did we get some fabulous entries this week!

Monday Market Movement – Will We Survive?

As I said on Monday Morning: "I already stuck my neck out calling a bottom so now we’re just waiting patiently." We were disappointed to have not gotten a stronger statement from the G20 over the weekend but it was just the Finance Ministers, so we weren’t expecting too much until the big boys meet at the end of the month. While we were in a buying mood, I cautioned against getting too bullish until we took back our anticipated "weak bounce" levels, which were the orange lines on Monday’s Multi-Chart:

I pointed out (on another Multi-Chart) that Europe was already gathering strength so we were pretty confident things would go our way but, as I said in the 9:50 Alert to Members, SOX 340 and TRANQ 2,000 had be taken back before we could feel confident. My outlook for the day was:…

Tags: AAPL, ABX, AET, ATPG, BP, BRK.B, BTU, C, DIA, EEM, ERF, ERX, FAS, FAZ, FCX, FDX, GLL, HMY, MEE, MTN, OIH, PGH, QCOM, QQQQ, RIG, SDS, SSO, TBT, TNA, TSRA, UNG, USO, VLO, XLF, XOM

Join Member's Chat - 45 Comments Here »

Turning $10,000 into $50,000 by January 21st! (Members Only)

by Phil - June 11th, 2010 7:12 am

Wheee - this is getting to be fun!

I spend most of my time with members preaching LOW-risk strategies so it’s fun to look at a riskier one once in a while. If the market is trending higher then we may have an opportunity to make a nice, fat return and we’ve already locked in a conservative set with a lot of cash on the side so we’re able to consider taking a little gamble now.

While we still have a nice, fat VIX at 30, let’s look UP for a change and think of some small, fun plays we can take that give us great expectations for the end of the year. As I mentioned the other day, putting just 10% of your portfolio into a risky play that makes 500% to the upside can be a real portfolio booster. The trick here is to select trades that either limit our downside or have downsides we don’t mind (like having a stock put to us that we don’t mind owning).

I thought it would be fun to set up a small, virtual portfolio with a few selections we think can provide big returns by January expirations. Keep in mind that these are, of course, high-risk positions and should not be more than 1/10th of a portfolio so if you have $10,000, just $1,000 should go into risky posiitons like this. If all goes well, you still make 50% on the whole $10,000 so DON’T BE GREEDY! We’ll track this set of picks going forward and make adjustments, if needed along the way.

Let’s start with a stock. As you know, I am NO fan of penny stocks. I pretty much avoid them like the plague but there’s a stock that costs just 21 pennies I’ve decided I like and that’s YRCW. YRCW is an unintentional penny stock and they do have many, many issues that may cause them to go BK BUT – they also have $5.2Bn in revenues against a $214M market cap and, if they don’t go bankrupt, then someone may decide to buy them, probably for more than $1.

Freight volume for truckers was up 0.9% in April after being up 0.4% in March and the Freight Index is now at 110.2, the highest level since Sept of 2008, when YRCW as stilll a $10 stock (but on the way down). YRCW says they broke even in April and should MAKE MONEY in…

Tags: BP, C, FAS, TASR, XLF, YRCW

Posted in Immediately available to public, Portfolio Review | Join Member's Chat - 9 Comments Here »

Forgotten Weekly Wrap-Up

by Phil - May 29th, 2010 9:31 am

Well, what a huge waste of time this week was!

Remind me next holiday to just take the whole surrounding two weeks off. We had similar nonsense around Good Friday and do you remember that HUGE drop we had on Dec 31st that was completely erased on Jan 4th? It was very similar to the big sell-off we had on Jan 15th that was reversed on the Tuesday after Martin Luther King day (although that was the last good day we had for 2 weeks as the Dow droppped 750 points). Now I don’t want to connect that sell-off with Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts and we didn’t go short just because the Dems lost their ability to make changes - we had gone short a week earlier as I called the markets "shell-shocked" – too battered by bad news to take appropriate action.

My new mantra is "I can’t change the system – I can only tell you what they are going to do and how to make money on it." This week that was really put to the test but no more so than yesterday, when we got all the highs and the lows and all the drama in a single 6.5-hour session. As you can see from David Fry’s Chart, we took a huge dip on the Spain downgrade at about 12:40, followed by a stick save at 2 and then a massive dump back near the lows into the close. As I had noted in the morning post, we were already short but I pointed out to Members in Chat at 12:26: "CNBC trotting out the Steve Wynn story again? That was two weeks ago… Looks like we’re heading for a panic frenzy on CNBC again!" This is why we watch CNBC, even though it’s like waterboarding ourselves every day, we need to know what they are up to!

I put up a nice TZA hedge for Members which pays 500% on a 20% drop in the Russell as we had noted copper’s inability to hold our $3.15 target – the Spanish downgrade was just icing on the cake but also totally expected by us as I had just that morning put up a chart of the cascading cycle of failures and mentioned Spain was next. As we had been waiting for this shoe to drop for weeks, when we finally got word at 12:44, I posted for Members: "FITCH…

Tags: DIA, EUO, Euro, FAS, Hedging, QID, SDS, SSO, TNA, TZA, UNG, USO, VIX, XLF

Join Member's Chat - 29 Comments Here »

Whipsaw Wednedsday – Tuesday Never Happened, Now What?

by Phil - May 26th, 2010 8:28 am

I’m going to be quick today as I got caught up doing a new Buy List for Members.

This is my new favorite picture and I used it in this morning’s Alert to lead our Members in prayer and warn them: Dear Lloyd, lead us not into temptation…

I was VERY worried yesterday that I might have to send CNBC a box of chocolates and apologize for calling them a pack of dangerous fear-mongering morons who would trade their viewers souls for ad dollars but, it turns out I was right after all, as we quickly recovered from the 2nd CNBC-inspired market meltdown in one week and held my bottom targets on both the S&P and the Russell.

That was good enough for us to bring cash off the sideline and we went 100% against Jim Cramer’s (who began the panic with his Dow 9,500 call on Monday night) advice and sold not one but 3 naked puts to the panicking crowds in my 9:47 Alert to Members yesterday morning:

USO June $30 puts sold for $1, now .70 – up 30%
SSO June $30 puts sold for $1.60, now .80 – up 50%
FAS June $17 puts sold for $1.45, now .77 – up 50%

Pretty good one-day profits, aren’t they? I explained why Cramer was totally wrong in the Weekly Wrap-Up, so no sense in going back over it here. I’m sure he’ll say something else that I can correct any minute now… By the way, I don’t have it "IN" for Cramer. He can press all the buttons he wants and bark buy and sell orders at his viewers but DON’T, Mr. Cramer, start giving out bad advice on options, especially advice that is so bad that it can really hurt people – that’s when I get pissed. Telling people that selling naked puts is dangerous is simply ignorant or misleading – you can decide which Jim is.

If I REALLY want to own USO long-term at net $29, then why shouldn’t I sell the June $30 puts for $1? USO barely touched $31 briefly yesterday yet we were able to score either a $29 net entry on the stock (if USO finishes below $30, the stock will be assigned to us for $30 a share) or, if USO remains above $30 through June expiration, we keep the $1 and that’s our profit for the month. Do that 12 times a year…

Tags: CNBC, Cramer, Disaster Protection, FAS, GS, Hedging, Option Strategies, SSO, USO

Join Member's Chat - 261 Comments Here »

Forget About It Friday – Again

by Phil - April 23rd, 2010 8:28 am

Goldman who? Fuhgeddaboudit!

Greece what? Oh we fixed that thing last week! Yeah, the Germans (who are $4.5Tn in debt), the French (who are $4.4Tn in debt), the English ($9.2Tn) and, of course, the Italians ($4Tn in debt) are gonna give the Greeks a little something to keep the lights on until Christmas. Hey the world’s supposed to end in 2012 anyway so it’s not like we gotta keep worrying about this stuff, capiche? See Merkel tells me she knows a guy who knows a guy who’s got the green to keep this whole scam going until then and, after that – who cares? It’s gonna be somebody else’s problem…

I’m not going to complain, I complained about all this stuff on our last Fuhgeddaboudit Friday, just two weeks ago – so you can read that post, where there was a chart of the XLF at $16.40 pre-Goldman and two weeks later, after our mini-crisis on Wall Street, XLF is at $16.65 – just like nothing happened.

Inflation is rising, home prices are even lower than last year, housing starts are anemic, unemployment is still a rounding error off of 10%, wages are falling, defaults on credit cards and mortgages are rising, commercial rents are going uncollected and CRE values are declining rapidly but those declines are being covered up by banks using accounting tricks to hide their losses. All forgotten about as this Friday opens almost exactly where we were last Friday.

Something DID happen happen this week. The SEC made some noise and Obama made a speech and GS fell from $185 a share to $160 a share (down 13%) and isn’t that punisment enough for putting together deals that led to the loss of $15Tn of household wealth in America? Of course Goldman wasn’t out to get us – they were simply structuring deals that would greatly reward their high net-worth clients based on the irresponsible buying patterns of our neighbors while their analysts were upgrading the housing sector to keep the suckers pouring into the other side of the bet.

Sure it’s evil and sure it led to a crisis that crippled our country and cost millions of people their jobs and homes but — oh Goldman — we can’t stay mad at you! Just give us a little stock market rally and all is forgiven but do we have to bend all the way…

Tags: AAPL, AMZN, debt, ERIC, FAS, Greece, GS, HD, MSFT, Oil, QID, TBT, TNA, UNG

Join Member's Chat - 160 Comments Here »

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...

http://www.insidercow.com/ more from Insider

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...

more from Sabrient

Option Review

Bulls Scoop Up Sprint Nextel Corp. Calls

March 10th, 2011 4:33 pm

Today’s tickers: S, FTR, JTX & SBUX

...

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

...

more from OpTrader

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 >

...

more from SWW

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

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;nbsp;

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...

As Seen On:

About Phil:

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...

Learn more About Phil >>

About Ilene:

Ilene is editor and affiliate program coordinator for PSW. She manages the Favorites backup site (blogroll, archives, more). Contact Ilene to learn about our affiliate and content sharing programs.

Favorites Site >>