I had promised that I was going to start my own thread regarding stock investments and the markets. So many things have happened since last time I was here and I really do not feel like sharing my knowledge. But a promise is a promise and there have been few people that have emailed me and supported me.

This thread will deal with investing in the stock markets. I will not discuss individual stocks but discuss ETFs like SPY, DIA, IWM and QQQQ. The one good thing about trading ETFs compared to individual stocks is the the ETFs provide instant diversification among similar companies within the same sector.

I will post more as we go along, regarding entry-price, profit-target and stop-losses. I do not think that any ETF is good or bad. It is good only if I'm making money and bad if I'm losig money.

If you have not been in the market so far, please read this as an information piece only rather than my recommendations. There is risk involved and you should know how much risk to take on any position.

Any suggestations, comments and criticisms are welcome as long as it is market related. If this thread gets out of hand and we start discussing off-topics, I'll stop posting.

Have a happy new year!!!! May 2007 bring you and your family lots of joys and riches.

i also bought some July 19,  PUT contracts on SPY with strike price of $130

I feel really confident this contract can be very profitable as long as oil keeps staying up.

latoboy, the snake oil trader is here agin...Listen foolio, you wanna talk about trading then give your analysis as to why you think its a buy or a sell and at what levels...You're just gassing off your azz here speculating instead of giving an educated guess.  Go learn some technical analysis instead of bringing out your consensus on the market that obviously has come outta the hole in your socks!! 

Look at the idiot's game plan here...Even pump and dump strategists have a better analysis than this wannabe fool:

"I also bought some July 19,  PUT contracts on SPY with strike price of $130

I feel really confident this contract can be very profitable as long as oil keeps staying up."

hahah what a jackazz!!

S&P should see some buyers around 1250 since it bounced off that number last time. It will probably be around October and S&P at 1100 before the market bottoms.

Latoboy, if I were you I will stay away from options. Most of the options buyers lose money. I have bought options at times but have lost money on 90% of those. There is more to options than just making directional bets. Just stick with stocks. In a prior post you mentioned that you had SDS and QID, those are doing good. Concentrate on making consistent money and learning the market action first and once you master that then it will be time to start making big money.

One of the best examples is ROYL. My goal was to make few points and when I got that I got out of ROYL around $5. It is currently trading at $12+. The big money is made by riding the large trend. I had suggested Darvas book and how he adds to a position when they move in his favor. If you had applied that principle with ROYL that one stock would have given you good enough return.

My guess is that in about 3-4 months, this bear market will end and there will be lots of opportunities. Save your money for that day. I will let you know when the day comes.

 

emini- thanks for the wise words. appreciate it.

got stopped out of NCOC and NOA...

BUT

SPY JULY PUTS was incredible 40% profit.... more than made up for my losses. sold it today and took profits. I wish i had the courage to add to it yesterday.

emini- yes i did read the darvas book. very good book.

Also I bought USO yesterday on pullback, looks like one of the safest place to invest money in right now.

Hope you guys are enjoying this blood bath.

Latoboy, your 130 July P should be up huge today!!!!

Latoboy, I would have kept the put till S&P hit 1250.

emini- thanks for that last post...it gave me courage to re-enter my trade. luckily... i got back in same price i sold it for...  made an extra 8%, and took profits.

options are definately getting me excited.. although i think i was just very lucky this time...

looking at the last sell off chart at 1410, i see the next day market had a very small pop... so i think i will re-enter the same option tomorow or monday.

Hey guys, I've just entered this room not the Street so I am not familiar with all the words you guys are throwing in there, but I have been interested in stocks for a while and I have not yet tasted the water so I have been reluctant to enter the street. I need help from you guys to school me on some of the initial process. I have read many books and done research on many companies but still have not collected my guts to go for it. I also have a mock portfolio but its not helping much. So guys please help this rookie out to become more professional, I will really appreciate it. I go to school and I am home all day, I come to sajha often and if you guys don;t have time I can do some research for you. Well I like Emini, Lato and everybody else who are enjoying this thread and gaining knowledge out of it, and thank you Emini for creating this masterpiece for everybody out here and I also appreciate others for continuing this thread. Hoping to hear from you guys, be safe and make more.

GFI looks good to me. If inflation is going to stay, what could be better than gold?

I am enjoying this blood bath Emini. Latoboy, u doing great ........man!!!

i considering buying some more spy puts today.. but i think i will stay on caution side.. i might buy some august puts.

we just had USO breakout, and i added more to it. i am long oil and short s&p..
i think for today, i might stay on the safer side and not put all eggs in 1 basket.

if we see a breakdown in oil prices, market will recover a bit.

singingbowl, i told ya when i got back i would have a shorting party. my timing was almost right on the money. lot of experienced traders lost money yesterday and i just feel damn lucky. putting 25% of my portfolio into spy puts. what was i thinking.. lol...

golaylee - u gotta learn on your own man. if we helped everyone learn , we will end up being full time professors. we all got busy lives here. the good news is... its easy to learn...  do some paper trades and read some trading books and follow the markets at first. that will help u understand things a little bit. and help u later.

Wow Samsara, that is awesome. You make me look like a little kid!!!!

Last 2 days have been the best days in years but nothing compared to what you have. I sure would like to learn treasuries and show you in detail how I trade the index futures.

Let me enjoy your PnL for a day and I'll delete it after that.

I am calling it a day today. Time for some wine and cigar!!!!

 

HAHAHA  Emini, just traded in huge sizes all morning as scalping opportunity on the 10Y Futures was unimaginably strong.  It was within a 3-4 tick range earlier for the longest period and I kept going in and out...Did a total of about 22,000 contracts (paid out $1,400 in commissions for these but made above $103K doing that).  Was an outright trade...Risky as hell, but the risk to reward paid off...The PnL is still rising as we speak!

BTW, watching the whole hoopla on CNBC lately where they're calling us "speculators" evil??  Looks like these damn politicians want to blame us for all the woes of the economy now.  These dumb netas need to go blame Bush and his war instead of the damn traders (speculators).  The average American idiot should realize that traders bring balance to a mispriced market...And that removes any inefficiency we see.  So what if we see $200 per barrel oil tomorrow coz its bound to go there if market forces say so.  Looks like economic reasoning and free market theory has not yet sunk into their noggins as yet.  Would hate to see another scenario ala Soros' fatwa by the Malaysian clerics for crashing the Malaysian Ringit back in 1998.  That would be disastrous...Where would the "speculators" hide then? 

Could you pls remove my earlier post as soon as latoboy posts his next post.  I've had enough of him following me around sajha, so had to do this to keep him quiet for a bit.  Hope you understand.  Will ttyl.

 

this week is turning out to be the best.... saaweeet...

S&P just broke 1273, looks like next target is lows that hasnt been seen for years now.

GUYS, We are OFFICIALLY in a BEAR Market.  Finally, the pundits have accepted it it seems.  Happy trading now...Shorts galore!!!

Samsara, great job man... awesome....

i just finished reading an article from OPEC president saying Oil will goto $170 by end of this year.

i believe on July 3rd, ECB will raise rates, Oil will rocket, market will fall down further.


Now my question is, I want to take a big gamble and buy some CALLS on USO.

should i buy calls on JAN2009 strike price = 110

OR

buy calls for JAN2010 strike price =110


from what i have read it is better to go with jan 2010, but i am worried about the Time Decay loss.  i am total newbie with options... the only reason i want to use options is because of the leverage.

Latoboy, I will buy neither of those 2 choices.

Jan 09 110 C are trading at 17 and Jan 10 110 C are trading at 21. The dollar will probably strengthen in few months and oil prices will come down significantly.

Singing bowl, I saw you recommended GFI which is okay, if I want to buy gold I'd rather buy GG or GLD. Even when gold had this nice run-up GFI was weak, so when gold reverses it will be the one to take the biggest hit. I had sent you the set-up, make sure that the stock passes that set-up. If you had used that set-up, you could have purchased GG few days ago before it made a new high.

I think we are getting closer to a short-term bottom. The area to look for is 1240- 1260 in S&P. There will be another trading-rally and another leg-down to end this downtrend.

Samsara, I deleted your post as you had requested. It was similar to asking someone to tear down the Sistine Chapel after Michelangelo had painted the scenes from Genesis and The Last Judgement. I felt sick deleting it but it was your choice and I understand why.

 

Emini, thanks pal.  Besides technicals, hope you've been reading the Bond Basis book as per our chat in the other thread...It allows for some pretty interesting arbitrage opportunity in treasuries if you read through and understand the whole chapter on Repo, Cheapest to Deliver, DV01s and the Basis calculations...I'm still learning that and have seen these cats I'm learning from making a killing off doing just that.  My other strategy is to keep track of the Repo rate, their Basis and the CTD on a daily basis and on excel graph it and get the trend and draw some analysis on Thursday afternoons.  And based on some of these opportunites am making money just by holding these treasuries overnight on Thursdays (getting 3 days of interest free...but making sure whatever I'm holding has a strong sell side bias and monitoring the positions like a hawk even though there is not that much of a chance here that the market would gap up like it does in stocks and FX).  Never attempt this on a strong upward trending chart though as it would wipe out whatever you make. 

And for the PnL, the whole last week was awesome.  Everyday was a 5 figure day but Friday just made my best day ever (and I've just been doing treasuries for the past 2 months now).  It definitely helps to coat-tail some of the big dogs/vets I have here.   BTW, 10Y treasuries was all over CNBC Friday and was glad I had my day on that...Can't wait to get back to work Monday and see if the same opportunity still persists. 

As for trading index futures, I may look into that, so would defn be picking your brain on that when I do start...Right now, I've still a lot to learn in treasuries (a total contrast from a strong trending market such as FX Spots whcih I did for the past 4 years).  Lets hope the same run from last week continues for us as the BEARs are beating Wall Street black and blue.

 

i thought today was going to be another selling day... however todays market buying is surprising me.

my puts are down -20% today.

Im tempted to buy more puts... but im waiting for oil to rise. right now its at 140.65. i want it to rise closer to its early morning levels, then i believe another big sell off can occur.