Wow what a day. NFLX demonstrated very loud and clear that YES WE CAN fall for a hard core fourth day in a row. Some traders in the chat room made some and lost some but I ended up breaking about even with NFLX but then I bet Rocco another trader in the room and friend a million dollars that NFLX would trade at $140 before it trades at $120. I also traded MCP which I really don't care for highly but the option IV was so sky high that I just held my nose while I sold the $42.50 put expiring this Friday for $1.50 each. This was while it was around $43.something, and it was already down huge with several combo indicators flashing at me. As it turns out, even $1.50 was too cheap as it quickly moved higher, but I was already looking at NFLX so I did not get big with it.
IB made good with the error with GA. The account that had the issue was made whole and all is happy in the northwoods. I can't say much for their customer service, but I put the service ticket in and it was taken care of. I am not sure what the customer service reps are there for beyond making me wonder why I do business with the company every time I contact them but at least the person handling the tickets has a clue.
Ok, don't tell anyone but the actual bet with Rocco is not for a million dollars, but rather a bottle of beer. Of course pride and bragging rights go along with the beer, and how does one put a price on pride that is less than a million dollars??? Sorry Rocco, you’re going to lose this one and I am going to enjoy an ice cold diet Bud on you!!
I still have a bet with friend and fellow Seeking Alpha author Rocco Pendola.
Three days ago while Netflix was at $130 I bet Rocco that NFLX would reach $140 before it would trade at $120. As soon as we placed the bet NFLX which previously gyrated with huge moves has stayed in about a $11 range with $130 as the center.
There is a bottle of beer riding on this, so yeah, its serious.
Today was a good day trading options. After hearing SVL called out in the chat I took a look and it was giving several buy signals including William and Laurel signals. Knowing that SVL has weekly options I pulled up the options and sure enough with just a few hours to go in the trading day the $30 (SVL) put options still had a huge premium and I calculated the loss of value to be about 12 cents per hour. I scaled into the position as SLV went down to about $29 with an average of around 0.875 per contract. Silver bounced as expected and the prmium decayed quickly as expected also.
I also traded the 30 year tres to the short side but bailed on it from a combination of trying to focus on dividend capturing and (PCS) which appears to be once again a good put option trade. Earnings is about to come out though so if I do write some puts I will cover before earnings.
(COCO) came back from the dead today nicely. I am short puts and while they are green, I liked the green on the other side of $2.00 fence. My (HPQ) dropped to new multi year low. No big surprise when the board named Meg Witman as new CEO. There is an old saying on Wall St."don't confuse brains with a bull market", it looks like the HPQ board just did. The former CEO was at the right place at the right time and while she did guide the company from the basement to the largest auction site, she also demonstrated her skills at running a large company by running it right back into the ground. All I think I want for this holiday is a new CEO for HPQ. Of course there is always the possibility that she has learned from the past and may use the experiences to be successful. Time will tell and hopefully one way or another soon.
Today was quite the turn-around for the market. I watched as (HPQ) dropped towards the recent lows. The PE ratio is now under $5, which is totally crazy. I did a write up in an article on SA that should hit the wire by the end of day tomorrow. I expect Hewlett-Packard to be basing in this area. No one would accuse me of supporting Meg Witman, but all HP needs is to find an effective leader. A company the size of HP will have no trouble finding people willing to fill out their job application.
COCO continues to trade below $2 a share and I continue to be short puts. The nice thing about going through 2008-2009 so recently is I have a very clear memory of the thoughts I was having while my GE, LVS, and others traded below my cost. I also remember how I sold out of LVS before it went over $14 a share. Needless to say, I am not real happy about selling when I did, even if it was for a gain.
I will be watching (MU) and (RMBS) closely tomorrow. The jury in the lawsuit Rambus has against Micron is likely to come back with a verdict tomorrow.
(HRBN) stock fell hard shortly after large $18 put option positions traded. Over 10,500 contracts traded in the backdrop of open interest of 12600 contracts. Also, and this is interesting, over 11300 put contracts with a strike price of $10.00 traded. Both are October expiration dates. For the $10 puts to be profitable, Harbin Electric will have to trade below $8.90 by the third Friday in October. Someone is betting HRBN drops in half by the expiration date and the most they can gain is about 8 X their investment. If wrong they lose $11000. This should be more than interesting to watch play out.
PCS continues to be on my radar. I will be watching it again tomorrow to look for an entry. The IV on the puts are not as high as I would like. People were a lot more scared the first time it feel down to this area.
The best show Netflix put on today was the stock action. Wow, did you see it? If not you missed a good one. In the chat room we talk about how stocks are on crack all the time, but today with NFLX was the real deal. At one time I believe it was down about 15%, and right about the same time I was looking at pulling the ripcord. I started to fade the move down in the 113.xx range (via call options) slowly at first, and really added the size on under $110 or what was about $1-1.15 for the call options expiring TOMORROW. Knowing the options decay at a rapid rate I ended up leaving a lot on the table. It was not a huge surprise that Netflix was able to blast its way back up over $5 in about 15 minutes, but I was only around for about half the move. Shortly after Netflix fell again, regained its footing and was able to close out a very large losing day with some hope for investors the worst may be over. The very worst thing about Netflix is watching it trade up to 137.88, and then falling below $120. I made a bet with a friend, Rocco Pendola, that NFLX would trade 140 before 120. Now I owe him a beer, and he drinks the expensive imported stuff..... LOL
Losing the beer did not come as a total shock, as I knew if it did not bounce over $140 on september 26th it was unlikely to do so. Each day meant the odds moved against me (note to self, when the computer calculates the safe money is on $134, don't get smart and say $140).
I traded NFLX, but I should have also traded SINA. It was called out but I didn't move it to a scanning chart until about five minutes after the long signal would have triggered. I then had the pleasure to watch it climb higher and higher. I did get a lot of computer work done so it was not a waste of a day. I am looking at some dividend capture stocks and hope to put some positions on that I wrote about tomorrow.
HPQ even managed to carve out a positive day today after a tough day for SPY. It was an upday from yesterdays close, but a down day from the open. This means that we had greater market selling pressure than buying pressure for the day, even though the market was up from yesterday. Overall it appears to be a bullish day, but the bears led the way and if not for a late strong rally it might have really been ugly.
COCO still struggles to find a bottom. Strange stock and perhaps time to look at adding. Any good news or buyout rumor could send it flying (just be ready to walk away if things get dicey)
Micron (MU) fell in after hours trading after the earnings numbers didn't get to where it needed to be. I took a quick look earlier and did not see an update with the Micron rambus lawsuit. It would appear the Jury is still working it out. With tomorrow Friday, I would expect a verdict so the Jury can end their service before the weekend. I guess we will find out soon enough.
Tue Sep 20, 2011 9:45 pm
IB made good with the error with GA. The account that had the issue was made whole and all is happy in the northwoods. I can't say much for their customer service, but I put the service ticket in and it was taken care of. I am not sure what the customer service reps are there for beyond making me wonder why I do business with the company every time I contact them but at least the person handling the tickets has a clue.
Ok, don't tell anyone but the actual bet with Rocco is not for a million dollars, but rather a bottle of beer. Of course pride and bragging rights go along with the beer, and how does one put a price on pride that is less than a million dollars??? Sorry Rocco, you’re going to lose this one and I am going to enjoy an ice cold diet Bud on you!!
Fri Sep 23, 2011 10:09 am
Three days ago while Netflix was at $130 I bet Rocco that NFLX would reach $140 before it would trade at $120. As soon as we placed the bet NFLX which previously gyrated with huge moves has stayed in about a $11 range with $130 as the center.
There is a bottle of beer riding on this, so yeah, its serious.
Sat Sep 24, 2011 12:38 am
I also traded the 30 year tres to the short side but bailed on it from a combination of trying to focus on dividend capturing and (PCS) which appears to be once again a good put option trade. Earnings is about to come out though so if I do write some puts I will cover before earnings.
(COCO) came back from the dead today nicely. I am short puts and while they are green, I liked the green on the other side of $2.00 fence. My (HPQ) dropped to new multi year low. No big surprise when the board named Meg Witman as new CEO. There is an old saying on Wall St."don't confuse brains with a bull market", it looks like the HPQ board just did. The former CEO was at the right place at the right time and while she did guide the company from the basement to the largest auction site, she also demonstrated her skills at running a large company by running it right back into the ground. All I think I want for this holiday is a new CEO for HPQ. Of course there is always the possibility that she has learned from the past and may use the experiences to be successful. Time will tell and hopefully one way or another soon.
Wed Sep 28, 2011 5:29 pm
COCO continues to trade below $2 a share and I continue to be short puts. The nice thing about going through 2008-2009 so recently is I have a very clear memory of the thoughts I was having while my GE, LVS, and others traded below my cost. I also remember how I sold out of LVS before it went over $14 a share. Needless to say, I am not real happy about selling when I did, even if it was for a gain.
I will be watching (MU) and (RMBS) closely tomorrow. The jury in the lawsuit Rambus has against Micron is likely to come back with a verdict tomorrow.
(HRBN) stock fell hard shortly after large $18 put option positions traded. Over 10,500 contracts traded in the backdrop of open interest of 12600 contracts. Also, and this is interesting, over 11300 put contracts with a strike price of $10.00 traded. Both are October expiration dates. For the $10 puts to be profitable, Harbin Electric will have to trade below $8.90 by the third Friday in October. Someone is betting HRBN drops in half by the expiration date and the most they can gain is about 8 X their investment. If wrong they lose $11000. This should be more than interesting to watch play out.
PCS continues to be on my radar. I will be watching it again tomorrow to look for an entry. The IV on the puts are not as high as I would like. People were a lot more scared the first time it feel down to this area.
The best show Netflix put on today was the stock action. Wow, did you see it? If not you missed a good one. In the chat room we talk about how stocks are on crack all the time, but today with NFLX was the real deal. At one time I believe it was down about 15%, and right about the same time I was looking at pulling the ripcord. I started to fade the move down in the 113.xx range (via call options) slowly at first, and really added the size on under $110 or what was about $1-1.15 for the call options expiring TOMORROW. Knowing the options decay at a rapid rate I ended up leaving a lot on the table. It was not a huge surprise that Netflix was able to blast its way back up over $5 in about 15 minutes, but I was only around for about half the move. Shortly after Netflix fell again, regained its footing and was able to close out a very large losing day with some hope for investors the worst may be over. The very worst thing about Netflix is watching it trade up to 137.88, and then falling below $120. I made a bet with a friend, Rocco Pendola, that NFLX would trade 140 before 120. Now I owe him a beer, and he drinks the expensive imported stuff..... LOL
Losing the beer did not come as a total shock, as I knew if it did not bounce over $140 on september 26th it was unlikely to do so. Each day meant the odds moved against me (note to self, when the computer calculates the safe money is on $134, don't get smart and say $140).
I traded NFLX, but I should have also traded SINA. It was called out but I didn't move it to a scanning chart until about five minutes after the long signal would have triggered. I then had the pleasure to watch it climb higher and higher. I did get a lot of computer work done so it was not a waste of a day. I am looking at some dividend capture stocks and hope to put some positions on that I wrote about tomorrow.
HPQ even managed to carve out a positive day today after a tough day for SPY. It was an upday from yesterdays close, but a down day from the open. This means that we had greater market selling pressure than buying pressure for the day, even though the market was up from yesterday. Overall it appears to be a bullish day, but the bears led the way and if not for a late strong rally it might have really been ugly.
COCO still struggles to find a bottom. Strange stock and perhaps time to look at adding. Any good news or buyout rumor could send it flying (just be ready to walk away if things get dicey)
Micron (MU) fell in after hours trading after the earnings numbers didn't get to where it needed to be. I took a quick look earlier and did not see an update with the Micron rambus lawsuit. It would appear the Jury is still working it out. With tomorrow Friday, I would expect a verdict so the Jury can end their service before the weekend. I guess we will find out soon enough.
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