I only trade 10-15 at any given time. More than that and i can't do enough research to make me feel comfortable. I feel like its a small enough number that you can see large gains from individual stocks, but if any particular stock gets demolished, you're only out at most 10% ( assuming it goes to zero... not likely)

I think if i took on any more, i'd spend no time working at my day job.

6/12/2009 12:45:57 AM

got back into EDC @ 81.4

it'll probably o lowe tomorrow, and i know i'm playing with fire...

6/15/2009 5:32:31 PM

i'm liking INCY. picked up some @ 3.23

6/16/2009 12:55:15 PM

You still stuck in EDC?

6/16/2009 3:59:01 PM

been in and out of EDC since 37.89

been posting about it all the way up

6/16/2009 5:43:58 PM

Quote :

"got back into EDC @ 81.4"

6/16/2009 5:55:22 PM

yeah, that batch is still in

6/16/2009 6:05:23 PM

[Edited on June 17, 2009 at 10:19 AM. Reason : ]

6/17/2009 10:12:35 AM

A must read imo

http://english.caijing.com.cn/2009-06-09/110180019.html

6/17/2009 10:56:54 AM

http://www.cnbc.com/id/31428082

6/19/2009 1:15:00 AM

^ I had a great ride with EWZ. It got called away from me at 47, but I've got some open puts on it in the low 50s. In the future I won't do covered calls on the whole batch.

I've also picked up 2 lots of EPI, an India ETF. I had big chunk of VWO but ended up replacing half of it with EEM in december for tax reasons.

6/19/2009 1:56:49 AM

For those invested in China, some things to ponder

http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/06/guest-post-china-economic-catastrophe.html

6/22/2009 7:54:18 AM

Quote :

"if you can manage to do it without insulting anybody, would you explain why you think housing has yet to hit bottom?"

Excuse my brashness, but I hope the veracity and intensity of my comments kept you from losing 10 (with SPG) to 20% (URE, so far) on any sort of housing play.

I also said put your money in gold though it's experienced quite a pullback as well. Nothing is safe in a deflationary spiral, including commodities.

6/22/2009 10:00:45 PM

I'm gonna ask this question again,

anyone use any stock tips website, to get leads on good stocks?

i currently look at
http://www.hotstockstobuy.com/ among others,
they have been right everytime, but they dont post regularly enough

im looking to get a subscription to a good daytrading site,
any recommendations?

[Edited on June 23, 2009 at 6:45 PM. Reason : .]

6/23/2009 6:44:43 PM

I bet there are tons of them out there but I somehow managed to land on a couple that I watched for around 2 months before I decided to act.

One of them is a really small time pure tech analysis guy that has around 60 guys that seem to follow him and he charges $50 a month. He reads charts after the market closes, picks out the ones he thinks are about to make a move, then watches them along with the broader market movements and then takes the trades. He offered a free 15 day trial of it, so I checked it out. This was about a month ago and I managed to try his service after like 5 or 7 weeks of positive performance and it was when the market was just starting to top out and he (and thus me) got whipsawed like hell and ended up losing about 2% on the week. I wasn't really looking to be a step behind someone playing the charts as many of his trades were 1% trades and when he could get in them .25% lower than me and out .25% higher them me because of the little delay, it started to be a bit of a pain.

So, then I took the plunge for a month of premium on philstockworld.com after having a basic level service for free (a $50 per month value) and have been pretty happy with it even though I haven't been able to trade too much because I am switching brokers. He is really strong on the fundamental side of things but always keeps an eye on the technicals and levels. He definitely day trades and plays options almost purely, so his service isn't for the weak at heart. However, he also has a couple of other features on his site if you aren't in to options and moving in and out of them a lot during the day. He has a swing trade contributor that makes quite a few trades during the day but they don't do any naked selling of calls or puts (I think) and most of the trades are lower risk than what phil does. If swing trading isn't for you either , they are also doing a low maintenance 100k retirement portfolio that is up 7.5% in 9 weeks
http://www.philstockworld.com/2009/06/17/107484-portfolio-update-week-9/

His premium service is $250 a month and I paid for a trial month so far and will probably pay for at least another month. If you're interested in phils at all, let me know and I'll give you a referral which will give you (I think) 90 days of the basic level of his service. You won't need a credit card for this. The basic level really isn't enough to do any real trading with, but you'll get a taste for phils style. He sends out a snippet of his daily thread in the morning before the market opens. The basic level doesn't get to read the whole thing, but from time to time he puts in trade ideas you could take, and the 3 times he gave ideas in the month or so I was watching I made money off of it. Oh, and if you let me refer you, I get .5% off the cost of my subscription service.

6/23/2009 9:41:43 PM

some of you could benefit from this warning on ETFs:

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB124571919892739583-lMyQjAxMDI5NDI1MzcyMTM5Wj.html

6/24/2009 8:24:27 AM

^^^^ yep even though housing inventory went down from april to may, there's a long way to go before the housing market really starts to recover

http://seekingalpha.com/article/144908-existing-home-sales-rise
http://blogs.moneycentral.msn.com/topstocks/archive/2009/06/10/a-meaningless-drop-in-housing-inventory.aspx

[Edited on June 24, 2009 at 9:06 AM. Reason : .]

6/24/2009 9:04:21 AM

...interesting...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601213&sid=anZM7ELx.MYw

Quote :

"Insiders Exit Shares at the Fastest Pace in Two Years June 22 (Bloomberg) -- Executives at U.S. companies are taking advantage of the biggest stock-market rally in 71 years to sell their shares at the fastest pace since credit markets started to seize up two years ago. Insiders of Standard & Poor’s 500 Index companies were net sellers for 14 straight weeks as the gauge rose 36 percent, data compiled by InsiderScore.com show. Amgen Inc. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Kevin Sharer and five other officials sold $8.2 million of stock. Christopher Donahue, the CEO of Federated Investors Inc., and his brother, Chief Financial Officer Thomas Donahue, offered the most in three years. Sales by CEOs, directors and senior officers have accelerated to the highest level since June 2007, two months before credit markets froze, as the S&P 500 rebounded from its 12-year low in March. The increase is making investors more skittish because executives presumably have the best information about their companies’ prospects. “If insiders are selling into the rally, that shows they don’t expect their business to be able to support current stock- price levels,” said Joseph Keating, the chief investment officer of Raleigh, North Carolina-based RBC Bank, the unit of Royal Bank of Canada that oversees $33 billion in client assets. “They’re taking advantage of this bounce and selling into it.” Banks Downgraded The S&P 500 slid 2.6 percent to 921.23 last week, the first weekly decline since May 15, as investors speculated the three- month jump in share prices already reflected a recovery in the economy and profits. Stocks dropped as the Federal Reserve reported that industrial production fell in May and S&P cut credit ratings on 18 U.S. banks, saying lenders will face “less favorable” conditions. The S&P 500 slid the most in two months today, losing 3.1 percent to 893.04 at 4:05 p.m. in New York, after the Washington-based World Bank said the global recession this year will be deeper than it predicted in March. Insiders increased their disposals as S&P 500 companies traded at 15.5 times profit on June 2, the highest multiple to earnings in eight months, Bloomberg data show. Equities climbed as the U.S. government and the Fed pledged $12.8 trillion to rescue financial markets during the first global recession since World War II. Executives at 252 companies in the S&P 500 unloaded shares since March 10, with total net sales reaching $1.2 billion, according to data compiled by Princeton, New Jersey-based InsiderScore, which tracks stocks. Companies with net sellers outnumbered those with buyers by almost 9-to-1 last week, versus a ratio of about 1-to-1 in the first week of the rally. Bear Stearns “They’re looking to take some money off the table because they think the rally will come to an end,” said Ben Silverman, the Seattle-based research director at InsiderScore. “It’s the most bearish we’ve seen insiders, on a whole, in two years.” The last time there were more U.S. corporations with executives reducing their holdings than adding to them was during the week ended June 19, 2007, the data show. The next month, two Bear Stearns Cos. hedge funds filed for bankruptcy protection as securities linked to subprime mortgages fell apart, helping trigger almost $1.5 trillion in losses and writedowns at the world’s biggest financial companies and the 57 percent drop in the S&P 500 from Oct. 9, 2007, to March 9, 2009. Insider selling during the height of the dot-com bubble in the first quarter of 2000 climbed to a record $41.7 billion on a net basis, according to data compiled by Bethesda, Maryland- based Washington Service. The sales coincided with the end of the S&P 500’s bull market and preceded a 2 1/2 year slump that erased half the value of U.S. equities. ‘Clouding the Picture’ Bill Latimer, the director of research at O’Shaughnessy Asset Management, says insider transactions aren’t an accurate barometer of stock performance because executives often reduce their stakes for reasons that have little to do with a company’s prospects. “When you’re dealing with an individual’s buying or selling, you’re clouding the picture with what their specific financial situation may be,” said Latimer, whose Stamford, Connecticut-based firm oversees about $4.5 billion. During January 2008, executives at New York Stock Exchange- listed companies bought more shares than they sold for the first time since 1995, Washington Service data show. The S&P 500 slumped 40 percent in the next 12 months. Citigroup Inc. CEO Vikram Pandit purchased 750,000 on Nov. 13, paying an average of about $9.25 apiece, the New York-based bank said in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Citigroup closed last week at $3.17. Unrestricted Stake U.S. laws require executives and directors to disclose stock purchases or disposals within two business days to the SEC. Sharer, the chairman at Thousand Oaks, California-based Amgen since January 2001, disposed of $1.76 million worth in the world’s largest biotechnology company on May 12, an SEC filing showed. The sale of 36,411 shares trimmed his unrestricted stake by 13 percent and came three weeks after the company reported first-quarter earnings that trailed analysts’ estimates. Between May 22 and June 9, five Amgen officers, including George Morrow, the executive vice president for global commercial operations, and Roger Perlmutter, the executive vice president for research and development, sold a combined $6.4 million. “From time to time, and within appropriate trading windows, Amgen executives exercise their right to sell shares for tax planning, to prevent stock option expiries and other purposes,” spokesman David Polk wrote in an e-mailed response to questions. Eight-Month High Federated’s Christopher and Thomas Donahue together sold about 65,000 for $1.68 million on June 4 and June 5 through a family trust, according to SEC filings. The transactions were the biggest outright sales for each since December 2005 and followed a 52 percent rally this year that recouped more than a third of 2008’s stock losses. The executives began selling two days after the third- biggest U.S. manager of money-market funds, which was founded by their father, John Donahue, in 1955, reached an almost eight- month high compared with reported profits. Federated said in a statement on June 8 that the officers sold as part of a “longer-term” diversification strategy. Ed Costello, a spokesman, said the Pittsburgh-based company had no comment beyond the news release. “If these folks don’t have confidence in the company and don’t feel that it’s an attractive value, then why as a shareholder would I think it’s a good value?” said Jason Cooper, who helps manage $3 billion at 1st Source Investment Advisors in South Bend, Indiana. Amgen shares dropped 2.6 percent to $50.99 today, while Federated slumped for a seventh day, tumbling 5.4 percent to $23.15, for the longest streak of losses since 2003."

(continued in next post)

6/25/2009 12:17:27 PM

Quote :

"Stock Options Seven directors at CME Group Inc., the world’s largest futures exchange, disposed of almost $3 million since May. John Pietrzak sold for the first time since becoming a director of the Chicago-based company in July 2007, according to data compiled by InsiderScore. Board member Joseph Niciforo cut his stake by 28 percent. CME shares sank 7.4 percent, the most since May 7, to $303.48 today. “It’s our policy to never comment on any executive sale of shares,” said Allan Schoenberg, a CME spokesman. Nine insiders at TiVo Inc., the maker of digital video recorders, sold $10.6 million between June 3 and June 11, after the Alviso, California-based company jumped to a five-year high. That was the most by value over a one-month period in more than five years, InsiderScore data show. A 53 percent jump in TiVo’s stock on June 3 initiated trading plans of some insiders such as CFO Anna Brunelle, who cut her holdings by 17 percent, according to regulatory filings to the SEC compiled by InsiderScore. TiVo Director The so-called 10b5-1 programs allow executives to cash out a portion of their holdings when stocks reach predetermined prices. Brunelle also sold through her plan from exercising options with average expiration dates about seven years away, InsiderScore data show. Geoffrey Yang, a TiVo director since 1997, cut his stake by 8.4 percent, raising $1.5 million. The sale was the first by Yang in almost two years. Chief Technical Officer James Barton reaped an 89 percent profit from selling $2.8 million that he received from exercising stock options that were due to expire in four years, according to InsiderScore. TiVo shares dropped 5 percent to $10.50 today. Whit Clay, a spokesman for TiVo, declined to comment. Electronic Arts Inc. Chairman Lawrence Probst and two other executives sold a combined $1.2 million worth since May 28, after the world’s second-largest video-game publisher jumped 49 percent from an almost nine-year low. ‘Out of Steam’ Probst, who joined the Redwood City, California-based company in 1984 and was CEO between 1991 and 2007, trimmed his holdings by 25,000 shares on May 28, SEC filings show. Frank Gibeau, president of the EA games division, slashed his stake by 66 percent after unloading about $538,300 worth the same day, the filings show. The sales came three weeks after Electronic Arts, which makes “Madden NFL,” the world’s most- popular sports video game, reported a narrower fiscal fourth- quarter loss than analysts estimated. Shares of the company retreated 3.6 percent, the most since May 7, to $19.97 today. Jeff Brown, a spokesman for Electronic Arts, didn’t immediately return a telephone call seeking comment. “It does make you wonder if the market rebound is running out of steam,” said Scott Leiberton, the managing director for the equities division of Principal Global Investors, which oversees $189 billion in Des Moines, Iowa. “If you see broad- based selling among the management team or large holders, that’s generally not a good sign because presumably who knows that business better than they do?” "

6/25/2009 12:19:46 PM

6/28/2009 4:12:28 PM

Quote :

"some of you could benefit from this warning on ETFs:"

You mean leveraged ETFs, not regular sector ETF's.

^^, ^^^
I wouldn't read that as the rally losing steam. I'd read it more as Exec's getting a huge runup and scaling out of huge postions. I mean selling anything under 30% of your position doesn't elicit fright to me at all, just being responsible and scaling out in case of a pull back, and locking in a gain. If you thought the market was going to test the lows, you'd get rid of as much of your position as your permitted to do so as an exec (which I guess would be different for each company and probably some SEC rules and reg's as well), just my $.02

6/28/2009 7:36:45 PM

Quote :

" I wouldn't read that as the rally losing steam. I'd read it more as Exec's getting a huge runup and scaling out of huge postions. I mean selling anything under 30% of your position doesn't elicit fright to me at all, just being responsible and scaling out in case of a pull back"

This doesn't make sense. If the execs expected the rally to keep going, you know the opposite of rally losing steam, they wouldn't be selling in record numbers. It isn't just execs locking some profit, its execs dumping the hell out of their shares. It's absolutely a sign they don't believe the rally. No one really believes the rally.

6/29/2009 9:02:34 AM

im out of the market for long time
having too much bad luck

6/30/2009 11:59:34 AM

That's what my buddy said a few months ago. He was looking smart for a while but now my portfolio is back in the positive while his is still in the red.

6/30/2009 12:14:29 PM

I gave up short term trading for the most part. I still have my windows up daily but I just don't have the fortitude to watch a single play for a couple hours to try and make a quick intraday snipe.

I picked up some HTE, PGH, and TNK and immediately wrote calls/puts for Jan or Feb on all of them. I have profit all the way down to 30-40% off of where I got them...before considering dividends, which makes my breakeven on most of them at 50% below where I got them (assuming they keep paying out). If they all stay more or less in this range where I got them, I'll make 25% on them in 6-7 months. And I don't have to look at them at all. I'm fine with that kind of return.

Btw, I've mentioned philstockworld.com quite a few times and no one has contacted me about it. He suggested buying June 30 DIA 86 puts yesterday. I've been burned enough that I didn't feel like speculating on them at .93 even for a tiny position. They are going for 1.90 right now. He really knows his stuff, #3 ranked seekingalpha contributor. The above mentioned buy write strategy comes direct from his site. Let me know if you'd like a referral, no CC info needed to get a taste of what they have to offer (and again, I get a small .5% discount on my subscriptions).

[Edited on June 30, 2009 at 12:22 PM. Reason : .]

6/30/2009 12:19:32 PM

I haven't done any trading since the last 1.5 weeks. After about 10 consecutive positive trades I had my first negative trade (well I haven't sold them yet, but the current status is negative on this particular trade). The current trend slightly seems to be out of my league for short term trading since I don't have much time. I will only buy something if I see medium term gains.

6/30/2009 5:38:04 PM

fuck AIG and their 20-1 split

7/1/2009 11:10:48 PM

I'm still trying to sell PhilsStockWorld. He made two calls yesterday on put plays. One was buying OIH July 95 puts for 1.60. I got them at 1.67, set a stupid tight stop and got ejected out of them around 1.78. They went up to about 2.30 intraday and came back to 1.80 and I thought about reloading. I told myself when I entered the trade the first time I should just hold them for a day because oil would have a hard time gapping up in the morning. Now I'm kicking myself seeing them trade at 4.20.

He made another call on BG puts at 1.30. I did pick those up and just sold out of them this morning for 1.85, 42% gain in less than a day. They traded up to $2 but I'm so far down this year that I'm content to just claw back any reasonable profit I can get and not worry too much about letting the winners fly (though giving up $2 on the OIH really sucked thats $600 on those 3 contracts I had).

These were the calls from yesterday in case you guys were wondering

Quote :

"Hard to short USO the way it’s been going but OIH $95 puts are a good deal at $1.58."

Quote :

"I like the TOT $55 puts at $1.20."

Those are trading for 2.50 right now. I stared at the chart for those and thought otherwise.

Quote :

"POT coming down nicely. BG is holding up best in the sector and is not usually an outperformer. $60 puts for $1.30 with a stop if they break $62.50 is a good way to play. "

This guy really knows his stuff, but he is options heavy so you need to have that capability to play.

[Edited on July 2, 2009 at 9:56 AM. Reason : .]

7/2/2009 9:40:48 AM

haha y'all see AIG accidentally got delisted on NYSE?

7/2/2009 2:13:25 PM

Where did everyone go?

7/2/2009 4:27:16 PM

been busy as shit at work.... i actually put in back to back 20 hour days

mostly on the sidelines since i don't have time to watch. i still have that batch of EDC that i bought ~ 80, and got stopped out of FUQI @ 17 and change.

7/6/2009 1:32:02 PM

I was watching a rerun of 30 Rock last week and they did a shot of a tv in Jack's office on CNBC.

Apparently they taped it last fall when the DJI was over 11k. It made me feel old.

7/6/2009 3:53:36 PM

I made maybe $500 on a couple of small trades of SSO and DDM over the last couple of months. I've also been too busy lately to pay enough attention to do anything other than LTBH.

7/6/2009 3:54:01 PM

I'm sure the daytraders will be upset but I like the changes direxion made to make the leveraged etfs more suitable for investors. Now you can hold the shares a couple of weeks since they stopped rebalancing them daily in favor of monthly

7/7/2009 9:45:08 AM

^ Link? I couldn't find anything.

7/7/2009 3:38:17 PM

^ I don't have a link maybe it hasn't been officially announced yet...

Direxion is going to start rebalancing their leveraged ETF's on a once a month basis instead of daily. It should allow people to hold the funds longer and not get eaten up by all the decay if they want to hold it a few days or weeks.

From my understanding they are also going to rename the 3x levered ETF's and make them 200% leverage instead since they haven't really been able to perform at 300%.

I think FINRA has given them a few warnings that they are too unsuitable for most investors hence the changes...

7/7/2009 10:58:52 PM

I saw that they're doing a 5-1 reverse split on FAS and FAZ, but haven't seen anything else.

7/8/2009 11:40:14 AM

Quote :

"^ I don't have a link maybe it hasn't been officially announced yet..."

You don't have a link and it hasn't officially been announced. Where did you hear this...rumor?

Edit

Found something

http://www.indexuniverse.com/sections/newsinfocus/5614-direxion-files-for-41-new-etfs-tied-to-monthly-returns.html

So it doesn't look like the existing funds will be touched or changed, and they'll roll out new funds tied to the same underlying but with different rebalance rules.

[Edited on July 8, 2009 at 12:35 PM. Reason : .]

7/8/2009 12:30:11 PM

Honestly I don't remember whether direxion notified us directly or I saw it through third party. I feel like it may have come through ignites I just skimmed for details I avoid those things like the plague

7/8/2009 4:56:58 PM

i think the market finally drove this bald dude off a cliff:

http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-macke-goes-nuts-on-dennis-kneale-clip-2009-5

7/8/2009 5:47:17 PM

Asia noticeably higher

7/14/2009 1:28:37 AM

I sold some July 26 calls as a hedge against some October 25s I bought. They were up 75% in profit and I didn't take it. Now I'm just hoping I don't get assigned and have to deal with holding the shit.

Those are about the only trades I made lately. I missed an alert to pick up some DIA calls for .4 that finished at $1 yesterday.

7/14/2009 8:48:19 AM

I picked up some USU and sold in the money Aug 5 calls for more than a 10% return. I may pick up more in the coming week, we'll see how my score does.

7/14/2009 9:46:11 AM

got some FCS @ 7.85 ahead of Intel earnings

7/14/2009 12:52:00 PM

So how long before this this baby pops back down again? History would suggest Sept but I'm not sure we make it out of August with the S&P over 800.

Any bets?

7/15/2009 3:49:26 PM

I knew a month or so ago that this would be a FMW (free money week) as I'd be on vacation. I missed out on ERX twice and managed to turn what would have been a $1000 gain into a $60 loss thanks to trying to trade with a borrowed internet connection topping out at 20Kb/s.

7/15/2009 3:57:58 PM

Will have to see how the rest of this week goes, breaking out from a head/shoulders on the major indexes today would indicate a new bullish pattern to me but I wanna make sure this isnt just a one day thing. The resistance on the charts seemed to be around 8500/920 and we broke through that pretty solidly today.

7/15/2009 3:59:30 PM

Quote :

"So how long before this this baby pops back down again? History would suggest Sept but I'm not sure we make it out of August with the S&P over 800. Any bets?"

I think you'll have more clarity when BAC announces earnings on Friday. Seems like the street is offering up softballs to these companies (Intel, Goldman) to intentionally knock out of the park. I find Intel's street estimates shaky when Intel crushes estimates like they did. RIMM announced decent earnings last month and got hammered because of lofty street estimates, and a previous runup, seems the opposite for Intel, eh, the next 4 trading days of earnings should be fun. And why was the VIX up today?

[Edited on July 15, 2009 at 4:06 PM. Reason : .]

7/15/2009 4:02:10 PM

Quote :

"And why was the VIX up today?"

The market has been on a tear the past few days (larger 1 day moves than we've seen in a month or more) with the jobs number and quite a few more earnings left to come. Entirely likely folks were locking in these gains by buying put protection and this will cause the VIX to move up. Most of the time when this happens the market gives us a self fulfilling prophecy by selling off the next day.

7/15/2009 4:50:32 PM

Quote :

"And why was the VIX up today?"

I had to go to work and make that $$$

7/15/2009 5:46:00 PM