Philip Davis

http://www.philstockworld.com

343 Comments

    • Options Trader: Tuesday Outlook [view article]
      Cool Junkyard! Thanks, that really makes my day. Sep 02 11:44 AM
    • Options Trader: Thursday Outlook [view article]
      Hidilip - I assume you know this better than me. I was summarizing the linked WSJ article which perhaps is blaming the Left because the paper is controlled by Murdoch now and loves bashing communists, if you have links from that perspective, I'd be very interested to read it as it fascinates me to see the WSJ spinning a story that way. You'll notice that I did not directly connect the Leftists with the strike as I wasn't sure, but it was the same sentence separated by an "and". In the WSJ, the original text read:

      "Wednesday's strike by workers in government-owned banks, post offices, airports and railways was backed by the Leftist parties that withdrew support from the ruling United Progressive Alliance government."


      FRE/Vermont: Check out the post entitled "Wednesday Rebound" on philstockwold.com - it should be available for free tomorrow morning and let me know what you think of the trade..
      Aug 21 03:00 PM
    • What's Driving Fannie and Freddie [view article]
      I love it Jack, lots of good actionable ideas. Aug 20 05:42 PM
    • Options Trader: Tuesday Outlook [view article]
      Oh sorry Mmarrkk, as to storage, I mean for this time of year (see chart) not compared to the 3Tn+ level we usually get to by the year's end. What I said was right next to the picture I was talking about, the green dot of 2008 storage is above the midpoint of the 5-year average. 350 out of 2,903 lower than last year's extremely high August storage level.

      Aug 19 07:53 PM
    • Options Trader: Tuesday Outlook [view article]
      Mmarrkk, you are right, I linked to him through the wonder of GOOG and he had links to lots of crap about LNG that I gave a quick look at so I should have vetted his arguements more thoroughly. I will note to SA if they can remove link.

      That doesn't change the fact that I think LNG is a scam. If as you say, there is no point shipping gas here when we pay less, then why build the terminals? I really believe that the whole thing is to find a way to shove nat gas into the ground, kind of like the SPR. Let's say we build terminals that can hold 10% of the nations' annual demand. Filling it would cause other inventories to dip and prices to go up. Once they are filled, then our best case scenario is the same case we have now - gas is sent to market as it's produced.

      Of course, having LNG terminals does allow our Nat gas producers to SEND gas to other countries,taking it out of the American market and driving up the prices at home. If I were to tell you I was making a warehouse and intended to fill it with 10% of the world's annual gold production - in what scenario do you think that would cause prices to come down?


      Al - as you asked, the XLF longs dropped back to $4.85 so we're up just 2.7% now, not including the callers we took out for huge profits of course. FRE was well covered and we took out the callers and actually added down at $4 so we'll see how that goes.

      Nat gas did have a good day, making back 3.5% of the 25% drop. I was pleased that it didn't break back over last week's high yet and oil had trouble at $115 so inventories will be critical tomorrow.       Aug 19 07:43 PM
    • Options Trader: Friday Outlook [view article]
      One very important rule we teach is that, once you are ahead 50% on a caller, you set a very tight stop on him. With more than 2 weeks to expiration, we generally buy back any caller that is down 50% or more (assuming nothing bad happened to the stock's outlook) and then we wait for a recovery and, failing that, look to sell the next lower strike and use that money to roll down our long position.

      Aug 16 12:45 PM
    • Options Trader: Friday Outlook [view article]
      Cover - you do realize that this article is Friday the 8th, not the current day's article right?

      WMT - at 9:41 yesterday, my comment to members was: "WMT so going the wrong way. What a relief as I thought my $57.50 callers were going to blow me out. This is so great! Let’s pick up 5 Sept $55s at $3 in the $10KX and the $25KP XXX"

      So the adjustment to this play was that we had the coverage through earnings and, on the dip, we took out the caller at just .40 and then flipped bullish becuase it was silly for them to go down (see this Thursday's post for my general take on the morning sell-off).

      Meanwhile, the March $57.50s were bought for $4.75 and we sold calls for $1 and bought them back for .40 so the net basis on the leaps is $47.15 and they are now worth $6.25, not a bad gain for a week!

      Had you not bought back the caller, your basis would be $3.75 on the March $57.50s and you would owe your August caller $1.87, for a net profit of .63, still 17% in one week and not so awful but you can spend just .40 to roll your caller to the Sept $60 calls, now $1.50, which would leave you in the March $57.50s at $6.25 and about 25% covered with the Sept $60s. You can do that month after month so, even without the good timing (and luck) we had, it's a nice little income producer.





      Aug 15 07:30 PM
    • Options Trader: Thursday Outlook [view article]
      JPM/WM: www.marketwatch.com/ne... Aug 15 07:17 PM
    • Options Trader: Friday Outlook [view article]
      I do apologize to Bush fans as I had no intention of ranting against the President and just got very pissed off at what he said a 8am. Apparently the Russians are pissed too: www.thepeoplesvoice.or...

      Anyway, I do write my blog for for my "family" of members and it doesn't always translate well for me to have a temper tantrum in a morning post which gets syndicated on Seeking Alpha. I will try to keep politics out of the mornings but they do affect the markets - why do you think the markets were flat on a day when oil fell to $111?

      So I pledge to do my best to ease off on Bush, it should be easy as he decided that this would be a good time to take a 2-week vacation in Crawford while the World sorts things out on its own. Also, I pledge to stop talking about politcs altogether when you guys get Kudlow to do the same...

      That link was very interesting Blackbody, check out this one: foxattacks.com/virus/?...

      As to Russia nuking Poland - that would be way bad. What do you conservative guys think would have happened if Georgia had been admitted to NATO and we were obligated to defend them. Would we? Should we? I'm interested to hear thoughts on that.

      There was one pick today - RYAAY did go well as expected.

      Have a good weekend all!
      Aug 15 06:55 PM
    • Options Trader: Thursday Outlook [view article]
      Not at $4! That's our magic number. JPM was going to buy them at $8 before the BSC thing hit the fan and diverted them so I like the risk/reward of WM at $4, which has been our buy point 2 other times with outs at $5ish. Buying the stock for $4 and selling the Sept $4 call for .71 is also very attractive and you can add a sale of the Sept $4 put at .60 which gives you a $2.69 basis if you get called away at $4 on Sept 19th or forces you to buy another round at $4 for an average purchase price of $3.35 - that's my kind of play!

      Aug 13 10:40 PM
    • Options Trader: Monday Outlook [view article]
      Ruby - All fake or just that article? I've heard about it all over the place... Aug 12 04:30 PM
    • Options Trader: Thursday Outlook [view article]
      SF94... - We agree GOOG is pinned for the month. We took a buttefly to that effect today, expecting them to hold $465 but have trouble getting over $485 by expiration. Today's finish was very depressing though.

      JJason - Excellent site, thank goodness people are able to let Congress know how we feel about things!

      Aug 04 05:19 PM
    • Options Trader: Friday Outlook [view article]
      Al, Hedge fund is launching in the fall, will be fully audited so no problem there.

      Aug 01 12:48 PM
    • Options Trader: Thursday Outlook [view article]
      GOOG - they were calls but just a quick day trade we're out of already (and now back in at the close!). WM - that got complicated, we bought back our callers on a dip and now stopped out of the calls and just have the puts we sold, that we are not too worried about. This market is crazy!

      Jul 31 10:11 PM
    • Options Trader: Wednesday Outlook [view article]
      David - I'm surprised and pleased that we had this rally even after oil jumped up. My bullish premise hinges on oil prices coming down. Housing is old news and I think priced in as are the bank woes (Federal aid and all). I'm not saying we're in great shape, just that we're not in Dow 11,000 shape.

      Will you begrudge me 13,000 - while we may have some misfunctioning segments, earnings on the whole are chugging along. I think we did have our "fear drenched" sell off as the Dow just dropped from 13,200 to 10,800. Just because it didn't happen in one day, doesn't mean it didn't happen.

      I just wrote up something last week, I think on one of my evening posts that are free over at my site, comparing the current decline to the .com burst and this is actually worse. We just fell from 14,200 to 11,000 (22%) in 9 months while the Dow fell from 11,700 to 9,800 (16%) from Jan - Feb 2000 (about the same as our recent 2,000 point dip) and didn't really make a new leg down until March 2001, which quickly reversed and then 9/11, which is hard to use as a benchmark, cost us about 2,200 points but that was all the way into Oct 2001 - 21 months to lose 4,000 points and we dropped 3,200 in half that time. I consider that panic.

      I've been saying since my 12/31 predictions for the year that Q2 earnings would begin the recovery so not so short a timeframe as you may think. I don't try to be a market cheerleader - I was Mr. Doom and Gloom last year when I thought 14,000 was ridiculous but if I get a sense that the members are too bearish, then I do tend to accentuate the positive and vs. vs.

      You're right Al, same old, same old but it's fun to play when you catch the right waves...



      Jul 30 04:31 PM
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