Trader's Corner

[KTP]

Hey guys,

I am looking into JASO, but I would want to buy it at $6.25 or so and it has already spiked a bit.

I would love to short CMG but the put premium is very hefty.

Still holding those AVNR calls I bought at below cost, and they are still in the money, although AVNR was down today a bit.

I am eyeing a vertical spread on Apple if it drops to near $310 this week. I would probably buy something like $270 calls and sell $300 calls for Jan 2012, which would net me about a 70% return if Apple stays above $300 by Jan 2012.

I have been mostly all cash since Jan but getting itchy to make some money this year. At least i haven't lost any yet.

Oh, I did do one amazing trade back in Jan. i bought April $44 puts on Las Vegas Sands for $2 and sold them earlier this week for $6 (although they are almost $7 now). that made up for my microsoft mess (am holding $27 microsoft calls that expire in july 11 and are utterly worthless)

[gambler2075]

Nice. I stayed out of the mess today. So you were putting about $320k at risk today and selling on 1% moves on your money?

Yeah, TNA is my weapon of choice... as it is the triply leveraged small cap bull ETF, it moves like it is on crack. Take a look at the chart yesterday. At one point, after it had hit 71 for the second time, it bounce up to 72 in a matter of 2-3 minutes... I had a limit order in at 71.05 for the buy, assuming that there would be a double bottom off 71, and sold the first bounce. Actually I put my order in as a market order when it was at 71.95, and it didn't get to the market and filled until like 71.76, still, it was nearly 3000$ in 3 minutes, which was kinda ridiculous . I then watched it come back down, and thought it would take out 71 again, so I put the order in to buy at 71.11. That filled, and I sold again around 71.6 ish, for another 2.5K. Then I put in another order at 71.26, which missed, since it only came back down to 71.34. Missed out on a couple of K because of that. Then I put in another order after it had come back down from 72, and put it in at 71.16, which was exactly the low on that retrace... unfortunately, it filled all the other 71.16 orders, but did not fill mine. Then the stock bounced back to 72.5 and I missed out on 5K. Then in the afternoon I tried to put in an order at 71.29, which filled, and the stock moved up to 71.7 when I was about to sell... then my computer crashed for 20 minutes and I was out of the market... That SUCKED!!! I reloaded my etrade page and saw 70.6... I was down about 3K$ on that position, and watched it go all the way down to 69.5, where I was down almost 7K$ on that trade... I battled back to selling at 70.09 (-6K$), then went long at 70.13 and sold at about 70.8, for +2.5K$. Total on the day was +5200$. Crazy day. Hoping for a huge gap down (don't think it is going to happen) to go long 4K TNA on the open. If the market doesn't gap down huge then I might wait for a pullback to see when I think I see support, and go long.

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[Slug]

Damn you AFFY.

[disneysteve]

Damn you AFFY.

Glad I got out at $7.20 last week. Now the question is should you buy back in at the $5.90 price with the new shares being issued?

[gambler2075]

Damn you AFFY.

Sometimes you win some, sometimes you lose some.

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[gambler2075]

So I think I am going to take a break from trading for a bit... I'll may check in sometime, and hope you guys find some great trades...

good luck.
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[Mr Nice Guy]

So I think I am going to take a break from trading for a bit... I'll may check in sometime, and hope you guys find some great trades...

good luck.
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Dont be a stranger

[JBinKC]

Will you buy commodities since Jpn earthquake? Would someone comment on SBUX

Yes on the commodities particularly smaller capped equities that benefit from crude oil, grains and silver. The bank of Japan printed equivalent to 325 billion USD in 3 days and after a 2 month hiatus (which is one reason for the jittery commodity markets the past few months) the fed printed an additional 100 billion in the past 3 weeks. Money supply increases leads to higher commodity prices.




SBUX is a tough call even though it has engineered an operating turnaround I feel we are at a point in the economy that consumer discretionary items will begin to experience demand pressures again given the higher oil prices.

[Slug]

I got my EWJ calls. Those should play out well given the time horizon. The JSC order is still open. I'm trying to recover from buying 2 GOOG calls for Mar. 19 right before the tsunami. That baby went *poof*

Sold the EWJ calls for a 25% gain over 6 days.

[gambler2075]

I went big into XNPT, because I did 30 hours of research and was pretty sure it would be approved. Sure enough to hold 69,700 shares through the FDA decision. I bought a couple of weeks ago when it gapped down for the bad Arbaclofen data. Held through some ups and downs, and the mini bear raid yesterday, which was painful, seeing 70,000$ evaporate in about 15 minutes (from 7 down to 5.85). I was tortured all day yesterday, deciding to sell or not, for a small gain, but I held through. Sold it all this AM for an average of about 10.75, from 6.17. The top is the Bofa account statement, bottom is Etrade. The individual fills are cut off, but it was 40.7K shares. Profit, 314,000$ for the 2 week hold.




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[Slug]

Whew, what a couple of weeks. That's a great gamble. Glad it paid off for you! I must've missed your post on that one :-)

In my last month my HVAC system broke (-$2k), dishwasher leaked (-$200), wife spent a week in the hospital (-$$$$$$k), got $4k kicked out of my 401k that's now taxable, and got killed on a GOOG call option (-$1400).

[gambler2075]

Just think about how mad you would have been if they got rejected by the FDA, as everyone was thinking they would be... it was a huge gamble, and I didn't post about it because it was one that only should be taken by someone who didn't need the money, and who could handle the ups and downs as the stock ran all over the place over the past 2 weeks, and yesterday. Sure, you could say that you'd only invest a small amount in it, money that you could afford to lose, but I'm sure that there would be some SA people who would be tempted to go way too heavy into XNPT, with their retirement money... and if it was rejected, that would be a life-changing event. The stock would have gotten cut in half and I would feel really terrible about that. Even my professional trader friends were having a hard time with this one, even though I sent them about 10 pages of research about my thoughts on what the FDA would do. Remember that I am not infallible... last year I lost 300K$ (half of the position) buying a colon cancer company that overpromised and underdelivered. When I went into that trade, it was also at the same that that a bunch of people kept pestering me to manage their money. I would have felt terrible if I cut someones retirement account in half.

Anyway, now I get to pay like another 100K$ to my Uncle next April 15 to pay for the welfare checks of all the failed traders I know.
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[Slug]

Anyway, now I get to pay like another 100K$ to my Uncle next April 15 to pay for the welfare checks of all the failed traders I know.
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If you don't lose your shirt in the next trade, right?

You are correct though, I would have taken only a small probably option position in play account, but who knows what the other readers are doing.

[gambler2075]

Excellent article which supports my two theories that 1) The vast, vast, vast majority of people should not try to pick individual stocks and 2) The statement "Nobody can beat the markets" is untrue.

The Active Quest for Alpha: A Loser's Game - Seeking Alpha

Here's some rules from the book. Good advice.
Quest for Alpha: 10 Rules for Being a Successful Investor - CBS MoneyWatch.com

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[gambler2075]

Excellent thread on the dangers of daytrading...

Forums - I Have Done It Again

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