Quote :

"How many posts we gonna burn talking about this? "

if you just could have withheld your seemingly required dosage of dickishness then we never would have gone down this road in the first place. you just can't not call people retarded all day can you? i understand you don't have control over it, but i'll ask you to try all the same.

Quote :

"I would have just posted URE SPG or TOL and let him go lose money like every other misinformed fool out there."

a) who makes investment decisions based on single posts on a college message board...especially those coming from a guy who calls people retarded all day?
b) if you're so sure theyre gonna go down then why not short em and get paid? I'll go ahead and lower my flame shield as i'm sure this post will supplant my last post as the most retarded idea you've ever heard

6/3/2009 1:59:27 PM

Finally a break from 31 pages of people talking about FAZ and FAS.

6/3/2009 2:08:50 PM

I've moved on from FAS and FAZ, the new volatility is in energy. FAS and FAZ are still moving a TON of shares every day but they are trading much more predictably and the volumes are decreasing. The average 22 day average volume for FAZ is 300 million shares. It will be lucky to do 200 million today. Meanwhile, the average for USO is 12 million and it is currently trading 17 million.

I'm face punching myself for not doubling down on an option play yesterday at .40 when I had the chance. It would have put my average at .8 with the options trading at 1 right now. I knew one of these weeks the rate of change in jobs lost would stop improving and the market would sell off on that, just didn't know which it would be.

6/3/2009 2:21:48 PM

Quote :

"if you're so sure theyre gonna go down then why not short em and get paid? "

Because the Fed and GS have a bigger bankroll than I do? You didn't read everything I wrote. The Wall Street wizards are trying to engineer a slow mo muddle through which means they are going to try as hard as possible to keep asset prices in a supported range until the economy finally turns. If you want to know where I get this, have a trip here

http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/

But in summary, here is what happened. Big banks were bondholders in some of the biggest REITs. Obviously, they didn't want to lose their investment. So what did they do? They propped these assets up, backed with upgrades all over the REIT sector...by other banks who were bondholders in REITs themselves...and when they couldn't squeeze any more out of it they forced the REITs to do new stock offerings underwritten by the same banks with the bonds (nice commissions there)...for what reason? TO PAY BACK THE BONDS TO THE BANKS.

That's just one example of how manipulated this market is and I'm staying away from anything (either long or short) that isn't flashing extreme conditions and I just don't see enough noise on the trader blogs that gives me a good reason to be short these guys right now.

I ignored all the other bullshit you posted, would be good if you could stay on topic in same.

[Edited on June 3, 2009 at 2:33 PM. Reason : .]

6/3/2009 2:33:06 PM

Anyone hold on to any particular ETFs long term?

Also, is anyone invested in FSLR for the long term?

[Edited on June 3, 2009 at 3:06 PM. Reason : ]

6/3/2009 2:39:18 PM

You can't look at this and say there isn't manipulation happening

http://www.freestockcharts.com?emailChartID=4f88e946-129a-4fc8-a5e7-fcac24426549

The market is flat and trending down all day and then with no reason at all the gamers come in and fire massive volume into it to push it back up to close the day near a technical point. This is why even when the fundamentals are saying one thing it is nearly impossible to get in on the right side of the trade. The crooks and thieves on Wall Street have been given carte blanche, probably in the name of national security (wait, aren't we under a new administration?), to do this.

Under normal means, this market should have ended up more or less where it was headed after the initial open and digestion of the news.


As if the comments from Toll's CEO weren't enough, we can see here

http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/06/housing-rebound-as-traded-by-insider.html

that he was ejecting his stock into the rally off the March lows. If he was so confident in the future of housing, why not just hold on to the stock?

[Edited on June 3, 2009 at 4:56 PM. Reason : .]

6/3/2009 4:50:04 PM

I suspect we saw the mass buying at EOD because after a triple digit down day one would expect tomorrow has a fair chance of being green and since most of the big moves happen premarket if you wanna cash in on a snap back tomorrow it would make sense to buy in at the EOD today where prices were their lowest for the most part. Thats just how I take it though.

6/3/2009 5:01:35 PM

Posted yesterday

Quote :

"t's basically a certainty now that this is exactly what they have done with our TARP money. They plowed it into commodities"

See this from today

http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/1087-Oh-Really-Mr.-Hoenig-and-JPM.html

6/3/2009 5:10:58 PM

Well took a 5% hit yesterday and am above a 5% gain for today so looks like I will continue to hit new highs for my account for the near future, was a bit worried I would be stuck waiting a few weeks for a rebound.

6/4/2009 3:44:38 PM

Quote :

"anyone think BBI is going to jump up with their rental games? Its being hyped so its up a bit already today.."

Been riding a 20% gain on this one. The game rental doesn't start until the 30th, so it will ineveitably dip before then, probably around resistance at ~1.20

6/4/2009 3:48:11 PM

I might pick up some EPI.

6/4/2009 4:54:03 PM

Jobs numbers appear to have destroyed estimates even better than the "impossible 400k" they were talking about on CNBC this morning... up up we go

6/5/2009 8:50:41 AM

It's clear by now that the government is actively manipulating these numbers. How can this one be so divergent from the ADP number?

Furthermore, we were expecting 525000 lost and a 9.2% unemployment number, but we get 345 and the unemployment is 9.4%?

DOES
NOT
COMPUTE

Spell it with me again

m.a.n.i.p.u.la.t.i.o.n.

Oh, shocker, it's our old friend birth death again

Quote :

"A caveat in the beat was the B/D model which added 220k, 44k more than May ‘08 which is a statistical fluke as the economy is worse today than it was in May ‘08, thus today’s # is overstated."

[Edited on June 5, 2009 at 9:11 AM. Reason : .]

6/5/2009 9:00:00 AM

If it makes me money then I dont really care

I plan on exiting most of my large positions today sometime hopefully assuming we do have a nice green day Id rather not hold for the weekend. Ill be in SC for work at a facility where I cant have my cell phone due to security reasons for most of next week so Id rather put most of my money on the sidelines then. May see how monday goes and try to work a nice day trade if I find something good but other than that I suspect next week will end up red anyways.

[Edited on June 5, 2009 at 9:13 AM. Reason : .]

6/5/2009 9:11:01 AM

Yeah, before I just read your post I was going to say, for those of you who have been able to suspend reality and just ride the trend, congrats. I'm down so much in just this weak alone from stupid options plays that the jobs number and the resulting pop in the DOW actually made me a little sick to my stomach.

The shitty thing is, I started to take a hedge first thing yesterday that would be up just as much as I am down, and yet again I didn't.

I'm pretty bad at this for sure, but it is mind numbing how I somehow manage to take what looks like reasonable trades and get blasted and the trades that I don't take end up running away as winners. And this isn't something like I'm looking at 15 different picks and saying "oh, If I would have taken those I would be up" these are single ideas for hedges or just wins that I don't take and end up landing good. And my luck is so shitty, that in the next day or so, I'll finally decide to not fight the trend and thats when it will turn. I'll let you guys know when I do it.

6/5/2009 9:17:56 AM

I expected the news to keep the market green guess I should have taken off in premarket on the news, this could be a sign we have hit the top of this rally if thats all the pop we could muster from such news. Im down on the day now and have to sit here and debate if I should take positions off at even now just to make sure I dont get fucked if this is signaling a large downturn going into next week.

6/5/2009 10:11:02 AM

GMGMQ L L

6/5/2009 10:42:39 AM

avii, in at 1.70

rocket is taking off, in the wrong direction

6/5/2009 11:20:44 AM

^^ Yeah, whats up with that?

6/5/2009 11:25:43 AM

^ I'm guessing short covering? Or just day trading nonsense.

Greatest long term investment EVAR!

6/5/2009 12:02:06 PM

Today marks exactly 1 year of me trading

6/5/2009 1:51:00 PM

did you make or lose in this one year?

6/5/2009 2:08:22 PM

For anyone who does options, here's a decent rundown of some ETFs with good looking premiums:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/141589-60-buy-write-etf-option-strategies?source=article_lb_articles

I went ahead and pulled the trigger on some XME with June 40s for 2.05.
Also picked up some EPI (I chose it over PIN and IPN) and will probably sell some calls on the next big up day.

6/5/2009 3:46:07 PM

STUDY: Leveraged ETF Decay is Real

Everyone that trades should at least be remotely aware of this concept, but this is the first I've seen of a real study of the phenomenon. This is a MUST READ if you plan on holding a long position on a leveraged ETF - paricularly an INVERSE (BEAR) ETF.

http://www.tradingmarkets.com/images/etf020509/tvr3_1.pdf

One major highlight is that a leveraged BEAR ETF will lose value quicker than its BULL counterpart, even in a flat market. Another point is that high volatility (high daily % changes in the tracking index) will significantly eat into the return of a leveraged ETF, regardless of overall market direction.
So bottom line, for the leveraged ETF to be profitable for the "long investor" (long=weeks), you must guess the TREND of the market correctly, and the TREND must dominate market movement with respect to VOLATILITY. This is paricularly true with the inverse leveraged ETF.

A shorter version of this concept can be found here: http://blog.quantumfading.com/2009/06/01/leveraged-decay

6/5/2009 8:54:39 PM

I thought that was pretty well established in this thread already.

6/5/2009 11:22:59 PM

man, i keep waiting for a good place to make another big buy-in for the relatively short term, but it just keeps going up. i mean, that makes every day a good time to buy-in, but i never would've thought that it would've been sustained for this long.

6/5/2009 11:35:27 PM

been out west all week. back now...

holding EDC is keeping me up at night. am getting out of most of it. will keep a tiny, well monetised/house-money position on and let it ride..

6/8/2009 2:54:08 AM

I'm holding 100 contracts of June DIA 81 Puts that closed at .24 with b/a of .19/.25. I'm averaged at .36. So, needless to say, I really need a healthy pull back to get out of these guys. Based on Friday's delta, $1 (100 points on the dow) would get me to .38, so I'm hoping that the GS boys don't come to their trading desks in the next hour and start firing in buy buy buy orders on the /ES to pump it back up into the open.

I'm also holding 20 contracts of June USO 35 Puts at .45. At USOs current premarket level (down .50) they would be trading at .55 and would be up to .65-.70 if it goes back to its early morning lows. I real healthy pull back here (~8%) would have me staring at a 100% gain on this play.


However, given the way the market has been going with all the low volume buying GS and JPM have been doing, I don't think the market will stay down more than a day if that.

6/8/2009 7:49:50 AM

As expected, a .5% move in 30-45 minutes on the futures into the open. When joe schmoes like me can call the market action, you know its manipulated.

6/8/2009 9:17:50 AM

yeah, this is silly. we should be way in the red today (at least, thats what I planned for.... )

6/8/2009 3:35:40 PM

It's getting to be pretty much routine, if the market is flat to down on low volume all day, there will absolutely be a late day surge. Today we were at about 1/4 normal volume right before the pump. Fortunately, I got out of those bearish positions with reasonable losses this morning. I am kinda pissed that I took a hedge on some calls and set a stop on them way too tight that would have knocked out about 75% of my losses on the puts with this late day run.

As usual, I would like to grab some speculative inverses (thinking SRS) here to sell at the open tomorrow, but I'm not going to do it thus guaranteeing that trade will work out.

6/8/2009 3:49:01 PM

http://etfgrind.com/2009/06/08/10-best-etfs-for-a-rising-china/

6/9/2009 1:34:33 PM

sold some FUQI and FEED to buy some SPN

6/9/2009 3:52:05 PM

Are you finding these on your own, because you knocked it out of the park with FUQI and FEED.

I've been fucking around with indexes and they just aren't doing shit.

6/9/2009 4:27:16 PM

I found FEED, YGE and ENG using motleys CAPS screener. Searched for low PE (<20) who had a 4-5 star rating but were trading at less than 20% of their 52 week high. I stayed in for about 40% returns on each, just dumped the last of my YGE yesterday and I think im regretting it.

6/9/2009 5:01:17 PM

I need to learn to let my winners run. Bought some June 88 puts on the DIA for 1.29. Sold out of them for 1.35 and they now sit at 1.60.

I stared at them for awhile at 1.40 but was waiting for a more clear entry.

6/10/2009 10:52:21 AM

Fuck me

Those options I sold out of at 1.35 are now at 2.22

6/10/2009 1:49:22 PM

^ yeah, that happens all the time. For every stock we get out of that goes up, there is a stock that we got out of that went down.

I've learned to remove a stock from my watch list once I sell it, if i don't plan to repurchase it anytime soon, or my money is tied up in something else. You have to remove your emotions when trading, if you sell a stock and it goes up, then re-evaluate the stock and see if it's worth picking up again. There is no point in looking at money 'could haves' or, for that matter, dumping more into a stock just because you've already invested in it.

6/10/2009 1:58:31 PM

FEED i can't remember where i found, but it sounds like a sure thing, because all $1 billion people in China have to eat.

FUQI i found showing up on the 'unusual volume' link from nasdaq.com several days in a row. its a speculative one -- its a Chinese jewelry company for Ganesh-sakes!

SPN is a recommendation from one of the guys on Fast Money. clip can be found somewhere on one of the 'rising stars' links on fastmoney.cnbc.com

6/10/2009 2:56:58 PM

Shocker, another late day stick save.

6/10/2009 4:12:07 PM

is it just me, or are all the major indices' charts making a penant formation?

6/11/2009 12:29:15 PM

rofl, what timeframe?

6/11/2009 12:31:26 PM

If you were looking at just today and acted on it, then you made money. I'm in the middle of switching brokers so I'm out of the market.

6/11/2009 1:37:23 PM

just today, but i think we may see the low end of a larger pennant form later this summer.


...another thing -- i forget where exactly, but i recently read someone write, "markets always do what they're supposed to do, but never when they're suppose to do it." -- truth

6/11/2009 2:39:53 PM

looking for a bit of a pullback on ERX so i can get in... wish it would slow down

6/11/2009 2:52:40 PM

I figured this would be the best thread to ask this: So I'm closing on a home in a week and I'm trying to get the best interest rate possible. Right now I'm getting Good Faith Estimates of about 6% and I can buy down to 5.75 if I want, but the loan officer seems to think that I might get an even better rate if I hold out on locking it in until the last minute (Monday). He's not 100% sure though. What do you guys think?

(Extra info: The interest rates were lower back before Memorial Day but the North Korea missile test (among other things) hiked them up. This is what he told me at least)

[Edited on June 11, 2009 at 3:24 PM. Reason : extra]

6/11/2009 3:21:56 PM

Can you not get a float down option?

6/11/2009 3:34:24 PM

I'm looking to get into the "game" here soon and I just had some questions for you "financial gurus."

From reading the thread, it seems that the majority of you are in direct control of your stocks and money. I know it's important to diversify; how many different different stocks do you actually have? Do you tell yourself that you'll manage between 25-50 stocks because any more would be too much to manage? Do you delve into hundreds of different stocks and just put some sort of buy or sell option on it and don't pay it much mind?

I'm starting out small and slow, so I figured I'd buy a little of this, a little of that, until I have amassed a good solid number...one where I'm not too overwhelmed by all the numbers that are coming at me or forces me to spend more time doing research and work than I want to, but also one where I'm not diversified enough and could wipe me out in a bad stretch of weeks/months.

So yeah, what's the magic number to go with?

6/11/2009 10:41:07 PM

You don't even need 25 stocks. Hell, if you go with some of the not so low cost brokers and you're only starting out with 5k you'll eat 5% right off the top just initiating those positions.

You could probably get by with at most 10 different positions thanks to ETFs. You could take a financial, gold, tech, commodities, healthcare, international, and one or two others and have a reasonably diverse portfolio. With ETFs, your downside risk is limited in that a bad news event or earnings miss on an otherwise good company (think GOOG, or INTC) won't whack you. However, you also don't get to partake in dividends that most companies pay out (someone correct me if I am wrong) if you are in ETFs.

These are generally strange times in the market where junk stocks have smoked the indexes off their March lows while traditional defensive stocks have lagged and there seems to be a real struggle between those thinking the market will go higher and those that are expecting a healthy correction. I also keep reading more and more in the blogosphere how people thinking the oil market is being gamed up (again) and some of the crappier banks (C and BAC) are just as insolvent as before the stress test and TARP money.

You missed a big run off the March lows with barely any correction. I'd be much more inclined to missing another 10-15% to the upside that will continue for another 15% after that while the market gives better confirmation (less intraday wonkiness, more solid volume, better economic numbers) than to wade in now just in time to get smacked with a 10-15% correction. Thats just me though.

6/11/2009 11:35:38 PM

I'd say around 20 is the way to go. It's unwise to put more than 5% of your assets in one particular stock. On the other hand, having too many can turn your portfolio into more of an index fund and defeats the purpose of building it in the first place.

6/11/2009 11:39:45 PM