VZ and T both went way up. Buying back the call would actually cost more than it did to open it.

I'm probably just going to sell ITM september puts for both and come close to breaking even on my bottom line. Fortunately the Sept expiration date is close enough where it won't be taxed as a new position.

8/19/2010 5:23:58 PM

Quote :

"Buying back the call would actually cost more than it did to open it."

Of course, but provided the IV wasn't drastically higher for this expiration cycle there should be enough time premium left for Sept to cover the cost, right?

For instance, I sold covered at .61. At the close, the bid/ask was 1.40/1.44 (always widens into the close, it's typically .01 difference as this security is highly liquid) with the stock closing 1.37 into the money. That time premium goes to zero tomorrow. I could buy it back and then sell September for 2.91 at the same strike. This is a roll. Obviously, if I keep doing this blindly month after month while the stock stays on the up trend then I'll have slippage from the commission. Its just that you are always letting your stock be called away without any additional analysis on the potential stock direction.

8/19/2010 7:15:33 PM

Yeah, I just hate losing money on the roll, even if it is short term.

8/19/2010 7:19:35 PM

Talk about luck...the position was in GLD. I checked on the market at about 9:10 and saw GLD was soft, so I put on a trailing buy limit order starting at .95 with a .10 trigger. I originally sold for .61. It continued soft and I think the options got down to like .75 (so a trigger of .85) and I canceled and changed the trail to .04. I went about work and checked back later to find I covered at .62 and they finished at .97.

8/20/2010 5:55:00 PM

8/23/2010 1:58:16 PM

this recent volatility has kicked my ass

8/25/2010 3:33:22 PM

I sidelined my entire portfolio over 2 months ago, and still very happy with the decision. Has saved me probably $1000 in management fees, and the market has essentially moved sideways.

8/25/2010 4:07:58 PM

Wtf, you spend 6k a year in management fees? Are you trading 7 figures or something?

8/25/2010 8:55:28 PM

It's been 1 quarter. I think they charge 1 percent yearly in the bracket I am in.

I actually just realized I was off by double. The statements are difficult to read, and it looks like my quarterly bills were coming in around $500. My bad!

[Edited on August 26, 2010 at 9:41 AM. Reason : .]

8/26/2010 9:36:46 AM

What are your takes on SIRI, HPQ, and eventually GM?

[Edited on August 28, 2010 at 5:41 PM. Reason : .]

8/28/2010 5:40:57 PM

I wouldn't touch SIRI with a ten foot pole. It's competing against smartphones for consumers ears/eyes.

GM, if they made even greater moves into China by moving their production their, I'd be all over them. As it is now, the unions (and still lingering debts to some extent) will be the albatross around the neck of what is a really good growth story about their sales in China.

I have no opinion of HPQ. At this point, any deflationary impulse in the market will weigh on all assets with some holding up better than others. The opposite of that is pernicious inflation which will have money once again fleeing into hard assets like oil, commodities, and gold. The market, and fundamentals won't return to normal until debts are by and large cleared and the government gets the fuck out of the way.

I'm in GLD, and 5 dividend paying companies in my IRA. I've turned 4% this year with only deploying on average about 1/5-1/4 of my capital (mainly because I just haven't devoted the time to pick stocks) trading just GLD and dividend payers.

8/28/2010 7:17:45 PM

In regards to SIRI/HPQ -

I don't think smartphones will take that much MORE marketshare from SIRI. The stream quality is really low and limited and ad-ed out, phone companies are capping the data dl usage, SIRI/XM plans start at just $7/month, a lot of the free trials on all the new cars sold recently are starting to end, the FMV of the stock is about $3.25. You could probably play it short term based on whether Howard Stern is going to return (announcement to come with 3rdQ earnings release).

As far as HPQ, I think the company will go on as normal, and its a chance to pick it up $10 lower than the pre CEO departure. Plus I think the CEO situation was much worse and paid him off to keep quiet and avoid a PR nightmare. The board unanimously voted to oust him. Regardless, the situation was quiet enough that consumers could care less, but the stock suffered a $10B marketcap loss

8/29/2010 9:50:22 AM

Quote :

"The stream quality is really low and limited and ad-ed out"

WTF? I don't think you've ever listened to Pandora off a smartphone. The quality is good with a solid 3g connection. For awhile, I was listening to it easily 6 hours a day at work and I don't think they played an audio ad once. And, limited? The big players have been and are still moving to "cloudize" your own collection giving you access to it anywhere or giving you unlimited license to huge libraries that you can again access anywhere.

Quote :

"phone companies are capping the data dl usage"

For a month I was using Pandora HEAVILY while at work in addition to data features on my Droid...I used a whopping 1.2 gigs of my 5 gig cap. There is enough competition in the smartphone market that I doubt the cap goes lower than this for an "unlimited" plan.

Quote :

"the FMV of the stock is about $3.25"

Where does this number come from? I'm not a balance/income sheet expert and I don't get the whole reporting of EBITDA versus just reporting the damn profit, but they made a whopping .01 for the past 3 quarters, giving them a current P/E of 25.

Where is the growth story? I hardly ever hear of people talk about sat radio anymore. I do hear them being fascinated by smart phones.

8/29/2010 10:21:05 AM

just picked up some EDC

9/2/2010 11:28:35 AM

nice few days leading up to the long weekend

9/3/2010 3:34:11 PM

Yes sir, patience and good fundamentals paid again....

9/3/2010 6:02:04 PM

http://www.cnbc.com/id/38978259

9/8/2010 12:54:43 PM

shorting (via puts) $adbe on the AM pop.

9/9/2010 11:25:21 AM

How did that work out for ya?

9/9/2010 5:24:39 PM

I'm still holding them - up around 20%. Also added $spy puts today.

[Edited on September 10, 2010 at 2:06 PM. Reason : **will probably hold in hopes that it fills the gap from yesterday**]

9/10/2010 2:01:48 PM

ok, I've never really played the "day trading" game, but I have 300-500 bucks that I want to use to start doing some small stuff.

who do ya'll recommend? sharebuilder, scottrade, etrade, others?

9/10/2010 5:39:53 PM

That little amount of money would get eaten up quickly by fees if you trade often.

9/10/2010 5:42:57 PM

duly noted and accepted. Its about gaining the experience so that I"m comfortable playing with larger amounts of money.

9/10/2010 6:50:02 PM

^^ Better yet, with that amount of money, what stocks would you suggest a person to buy that will potentially yield decent gains over a year or two?

9/10/2010 7:47:16 PM

One of the tennents of trading is proper position sizing. Most people would say that even 10% of your capital allocated to one trade is too much. So you can't begin to exercise this part of the philosophy with $500.

There are many brokers that offer pretty good paper trading platforms. I know there is one site called Wall Street Survivor that you can play with play money for a chance to win decent prizes (though I've found a lot of the winners are hitting biotech companies

9/10/2010 8:08:06 PM

looking to get into DAG on pullbacks

9/13/2010 11:45:28 AM

Gold just had to be a bitch again during OpEx week. Had GLD 123Cs sold at 1.10 that went down to .26 yesterday. Thought at the worst it might rise but stay below the 124.1 breakeven point. But no, shit just had to go and get retardo today. I was also looking to buy a call spread for October yesterday as well that is up 30% today. Here's to hoping to see a correction of these short term overbought levels to get my shares back.

I'm starting to feel like we're going to get one strong rally for several weeks to test the April highs before the wheels finally fall off. The Fed played it's hand perfectly by manufacturing a deflation scare so they could push QE lite and sneak funds into the markets via the primary dealers just in time for the election.

This smells too much like '08. The complacency will be thick as this rally is running, just as Euro banks are having to raise capital even though their stress test said they were fine (sound familiar?).

9/14/2010 11:51:19 AM

any thoughts on SIRI?

9/14/2010 3:28:58 PM

Better yet, with 300 to 500 buck, what stocks would you suggest a person to buy that will potentially yield decent gains over a year or two?

And the platform to use? Sharebuilder, etc

9/14/2010 9:32:43 PM

USAA offers mutual/index funds with no transaction fee (if you use their funds...although they often have, like, $10k minimum buy-ins, unless you agree to set up a monthly allotment). I know not everyone has USAA, but maybe other financial organizations might do something similar. I would say that $500 is about the minimum amount of a stock you should ever buy...and I'd go with something like Scottrade, with really low transaction fees.

9/14/2010 9:46:43 PM

Ok cool. Thanks Duke

9/15/2010 6:37:33 AM

No prob. You prob have USAA, too...for amounts that small, that's what I'd do...it's the only way you'll ever achieve any reasonable diversification without getting eaten alive by trading fees.

I pretty commonly buy stocks in $1000 increments (in my retirement account, at least...in my hookers & blow account, I have more money, and typically buy larger blocks of income-oriented investments), and I feel like I'm absolutely playing T-ball at that amount. I'd see if USAA has a date-targeted retirement fund, and if it has reasonable fees (like, say, 1% or less), I'd probably put my $500 in it and set up a monthly allotment for whatever I could afford. If you don't have a Roth-type IRA, I'd set one up and put that fund in it.

[Edited on September 15, 2010 at 9:01 AM. Reason : ]

9/15/2010 9:00:18 AM

I too buy stocks in $1000 increments. I'd take Duke's advice and just park it in a target date fund or a spider in a roth ira.

9/15/2010 9:06:27 AM

yeah, whatever USAA's equivalent of SPY is would be fine, too (USAIX rings a bell offhand, but just ask them for their S&P500 index fund if you decide to go that route).

9/15/2010 9:19:14 AM

What's the advantage of their index fund over SPY?

9/15/2010 9:30:15 AM

Quote :

"any thoughts on SIRI?"

Forgive me for being a complete novice at all of this but SIRI is currently sitting at $1.07 and according to Yahoo the 1 yr estimate is predicted to be $8.33. What is with the high prediction? It hasn't gone higher than $1.25 in the past year.

9/15/2010 11:36:48 AM

Quote :

"No prob. You prob have USAA, too...for amounts that small, that's what I'd do...it's the only way you'll ever achieve any reasonable diversification without getting eaten alive by trading fees. I pretty commonly buy stocks in $1000 increments (in my retirement account, at least...in my hookers & blow account, I have more money, and typically buy larger blocks of income-oriented investments), and I feel like I'm absolutely playing T-ball at that amount. I'd see if USAA has a date-targeted retirement fund, and if it has reasonable fees (like, say, 1% or less), I'd probably put my $500 in it and set up a monthly allotment for whatever I could afford. If you don't have a Roth-type IRA, I'd set one up and put that fund in it."

Yep, I've got USAA. They're awesome. I've been maxing my Roth since 04, and have been maxing my 401k at work since I started there in 2009. I just figured I'd use about 500 dollar bucks, and buy some stocks or something. Even if they're in the 20s, 30s, 40s or 50s I know I won't be able to get much, but if they grow some, then at least that's a little bit more extra $ than I had before. Take a percentage of those profits, pocket that, and get something else/more stock.

9/15/2010 12:29:00 PM

^^ Damn, I never really put much stock in estimates or spend any time looking at them, but that's a real head scratcher:

Quote :

"Mean Target: 8.33 Median Target: 1.38 High Target: 57.50 Low Target: 1.00 No. of Brokers: 8"

The median is only 1.38, so maybe some loon completely fucked the mean by putting in an estimate of 57.50.

9/15/2010 2:01:53 PM

38% would still be a nice return

9/15/2010 2:20:35 PM

Yeah, I just picked up a bit more.

9/15/2010 2:35:28 PM

Quote :

"What's the advantage of their index fund over SPY?"

If you set up a monthly allotment with USAA on their fund, I don't think that there are either transaction fees or minimum buy-ins (or if there are, they're so low as to be negligible.)

9/15/2010 10:16:44 PM

...so, I have very small positions (like, $500-600) in Red Hat (RHT) and Netflix (NFLX). I've made good money (percentage-wise) on both; I'm worried that either could come tumbling back down pretty easily.

I'm thinking that it might be not a bad idea to sell them and just keep little stuff like that out of my portfolio. Instead of simply selling them outright, I'm thinking about selling call options on them (probably on the optimistic side, just trolling for a high sale price until I eventually get it called away, but making money on the options in the meantime).


Also, what do you guys think about Goldman Sachs (GS)? I got in at $144 and change, if I remember correctly.

9/15/2010 10:41:30 PM

You have to trade options in blocks of 100 shares, 1 contract equal 100 shares. So if you only have 500-600 in RHT and NFLX, you aren't able to trade options against those positions unfortunately.

9/16/2010 6:30:34 AM

ah, good to know

9/16/2010 6:33:04 AM

Actually, I wanna say there are high priced securities that the options may trade in lots of 10, but I could be mistaken.

It's kind of a shame too, because the premium on RHT is decent ($1.90 at the October 38 strike as of yesterday). I did his with Medtronic three weeks ago after the market beat it down on their earnings. I bought 100 shares at 31.80, immediately sold puts at the 31 strike for .80 and calls at the 32 strike for .70. That's 5% on this position in 3 weeks. The stock is up 7% over this same time frame but my 5% was guaranteed had the stock languished and I'd be breaking even in the event I moved in to early.

In the past couple months I've made decent returns (3-5% in 3-4 weeks) taking fairly low risk entries with options on large cap stalwarts that either just barely miss earnings or guide lower and the market overreacts driving up option premium. These are companies that actually produce a product, have been around awhile, and in some cases (like Medtronic and Arch Coal) pay a dividend (in the event I get in way too early or mis-read a move and get stuck underwater a little).

9/16/2010 8:58:18 AM

Do any of the web trading platforms allow API access? I have scottrade currently and I don't think they do. I'd like to be able to set up alerts that text to my phone and a portfolio tracker so I don't have to refresh when I want to see changes. does anyone do anything like this?

9/16/2010 12:41:03 PM

Quote :

"You have to trade options in blocks of 100 shares, 1 contract equal 100 shares"

i thought you could do "odd lots" that are not multiples of 100.

9/16/2010 1:07:36 PM

put in an order for 100 shares of Apollo Investment (AINV) at a $10.00 limit

[Edited on September 16, 2010 at 1:23 PM. Reason : 11% dividend!]

9/16/2010 1:10:32 PM

picked up some more $adbe oct 32 puts this morning. averaging down my lot. i still think we're oversold, and i am looking for $adbe to at least begin to fill the gap from last week.

9/16/2010 1:47:19 PM

Quote :

"So if you only have 500-600 in RHT and NFLX, you aren't able to trade options against those positions unfortunately."

If you're confidant that they'll go up you could sell puts on them. Oct $130s on NFLX are going for $3.65 right now, which is $365 per contract. The only big risk is if they take a hit, in which case you'll have to buy $13,000 of the stock or buy back the puts at a loss.

I've been making money on NFLX puts ever since mine was called away.

9/16/2010 2:08:24 PM