Earning Reports this week

Big earning reports this week. Is it time for a meltdown? Almost too many to name

Tuesday Pre-Market: CAT, WB,
Tuesday After-Hours: ETFC, VMW, WM, YHOO

Weds Pre-Market: T,COP
Weds After Hours: BIDU, CMG

Thurs: NCC

GOOG play

Well my financials are pretty dead. But I did make a gutsy GOOG Jul 510 put @ 10.50, 15 minutes before close. My rationale was that EBAY (down 13%) and VCLK (down 20%) did bad. Looks like it will pay off tomorrow! Too bad GOOG puts were expensive.

VIX stupid play

So gk19 and I made stupid VIX plays without knowing that VIX options expire Wednesday! Big blunder! Guess we learned out lesson the hard way :(. I think today was pretty much a short squeeze day. I got Aug 22.50 put on WFC @ 0.70. Hope the market tumbles again! MER and JPM earnings are tomorrow if they report bad numbers the market could tip. I'm also going to keep watch for GOOG earnings after hours.

Looking for an explanation of the financial bomb?

This comic is pretty fun although its a bit long.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/money/2008/03/26/bcncrisis126.xml

I loaded up on a lot of aug puts today: WM @ 0.90, WB @ 2 and LEH @ 2.25. Looking for more down turn. I say VIX has to hit 35 before I call it a bottom.

VIX

Well, the fear index finally topped over 30 today before pulling back to the ridiculous run in the middle of the day. I ended up getting massive Jul 30 calls (66 @ 0.15, 100 more @, 0.10) today on the pullback. Actionjax is luckier getting 200 @ 0.10

Looking historically, Vix SHOULD bounce higher than that and doesn't just top over and then pull back and everything is ok. In recent history, VIX's been topping 35, with it topping 30 in 2 or 3 consecutive days. I'm betting this continues and when the VIX hits 35, I'm getting some 32.5 puts equally cheap for 5-15 cents max.

Let's see if we can turn 2k into a quarter mil.

I totally agree

http://www.cnbc.com/id/25685755.

This guy's article is pretty good, and pretty much sums up my EXACT sentiment towards the market right now. It is not a bottom , yet. One good play I made yesterday was FSLR (Jul 270 put, 6 @ 3.4). Coulda waited and gotten in around 2.75, but you can't be perfect. reason I got it was it hit resistance. Right now its down about 13-14 bux, so I'm made about 16-1700 overnight. I was kinda skeptical after getting fslr because it's strong in such a bear market. But, I guess people have to take gains wherever they get em.

I also just got some LEH (AUG 10 put, 9 @ 2.3) and WM (Aug, 3 put, 22 @0.8). Yes, I know ridiculous premiums... and i'm down about 5-7% right now on those two plays, but I cannot forsee how they can actually be up today. Has to be short covering ya? I can't foresee buyers entering the market like that.

Dead Tuesday

VIX is up to 31. I got some WM puts @ 0.90. No way it can just rocket up after being killed over 30% yesterday. I still think it has room to go down. Once VIX is 35 then its probably questionable.

For safety, I think ATVID might be a really good growth stock this year. They make awesome games Starcraft 2, WOW, Call of Duty, Guitar Hero. According to news they are going to split the stock sometime soon and they just raised their forecast. Good long term call play or stock play.

Crazy Reverse Monday

Looks like the market is going to go up based on the news the gov't is going to buy or almost half of the $12 trillion of U.S. mortgages. But why? It just seems like a good entry point to short financials again. I mean on Friday IndyMac pretty much went bankrupt and the FDIC took over. I don't think anything good is going to happen next. I'm going to look for entry points to get puts on the rest of the banks loaning in California like WB and WM.

Update: Guess it dropped soon after open. I wasn't able to get any puts because I set my limit too cheap.

I still have my HBC put @ cost 2.90. If I could go back, I would have gotten an US bank instead :-). They drop faster.

The end is not near

FNM, FRE and LEH continue to get pounded today, even with some of the other financials doing relatively well. They are all pretty low right now, so I'm taking my puts to NLY (JUL 12.5 put, 40 @ 0.50), which are stuck in the same troubles as FNM and FRE, but it's just not as exposed. Looking at the wild number of options being traded, and heavy number of puts, I know one thing, and it isn't the stock is going down. It's that the options will be expensive, so even with just a week left until options expiration in July, I don't foresee me selling NLY at a loss. Probably will be gone tomorrow even if NLY doesn't move cuz i'm up 60% already, and thats damn good money in 3 hours of sitting there and watching the market. I probably shoulda just sold today to lock up profits and to take advantage of the implied volatility of the stock, but one more day couldn't hurt right?

Note that all of these stocks were down today, which actually was a decent up day for the market. What's gonna happen when the market takes a dump? I guess my puts will find out...

Regret

It's easy to feel regretful in the options market. Think about when you were so sure you should buy a stock and didn't. The next day it goes up 15%. Now multiply that regret by, oh, anywhere from 10x to 30x. It's easy to feel down about not buying or selling, but that is part of the game. Take emotion out and put educated guessing in (ya, that's right, it's just like poker... you can only guess how good your play is because you don't know the future). And, remember never to miss opportunities because of regret, because you just end up regretting more.

But, alas, I lie, because I can't help but feeling regret. Regret that people are not buying C, LEH, WB like crazy and shooting them up 10-15% so I can get some cheap puts. Seriously, people are losing their houses, and others are willing to buy into financials that are responsible for this? The worst is yet to come, but before then, why not buy more, cuz you'll get it back eventually. Right?

My positions are all gone right now, as I'm waiting for a pullback and a better entry point.

BTW, as I'm writing this, financials are moving up... niiice...

Death to financials part deuce

Well I'm glad I stuck to my financial puts and didn't get out during the short cover rally. The only concern is how long to hold these puts? The news headlines are definitely in my favor for FNM as one former federal reserve president said it is insolvent. It is funny when you type in FNM in google and it pulls up a band called "Faith No More" which I think exactly what the market feels about Fannie Mae right now.

Even more ridiculous is WB that was upgraded yesterday by MER. I should just get a put on MER for that comment. It was down the day they announce their upgrade yesterday and is down today premarket 9%.

I currently have financial puts in: HBC. I sold my WB, FNM put around market open. I still have my GOOG puts I'm hoping AAPL will put them down with them after announcement of 3G.

Figures...

Same thing happened. Last time the market ran up so hard a couple of weeks back (early June), the next day it dropped 400 points. Same thing happened this time. My financial puts got absolutely slaughtered late yesterday due to the run up. Shorts covering, people thinking the market's too low and stocks are cheap? Not until I see the VIX at 30, but more likely it'll run up to 35. If I had some more guts, I would have bought some more puts late yesterday or early today, cuz I had a sense that the market was gonna take back it's gains.

I seriously have no idea why people are even bothering with financials. Don't they see that every time they jump up, all the smart people use it as a chance to get the hell out? A couple of days to a week later, those stock are even lower. Just look at the chart people! Wise stock traders know to buy high and sell higher. Can't it work the same way with stocks going down? Buy puts on a falling stock and sell when the stock is even lower? Sure you might get killed, but, wtf, stock market is just educated gambling no?

One a side note, the only stock I wanna see run up hard is GOOG, right before earnings, to say...oh...600 or so, so I can get the 560 put for a buck and watch it fall to the 520s. Seriously, start buying some GOOG, cuz the market is cheap!

Short cover rally?

Financial are up like crazy today. Could it be a short cover rally? I hope so. Won't be long before sellers get back IMO. My portfolio dropped a lot due to my financial puts. Been reading some forums and learned these investment terms from investopedia

Short squeeze - situation in which a lack of supply and an excess demand for a traded stock forces the price upward.

If a stock starts to rise rapidly, the trend may continue to escalate because the short sellers will likely want out. For example, say a stock rises 15% in one day, those with short positions may be forced to liquidate and cover their position by purchasing the stock. If enough short sellers buy back the stock, the price is pushed even higher.

Read a bit on ISEE which some said is the cause of the rally http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/options/how_to/articles/-77152.cfm

http://www.iseoptions.com/WebForm/md_ise_sentiment_index_stats_hp.aspx

NVDA dead, financials also dead but all other tech up

So today's market action kind of sucked for me overall. Especially NVDA. I learned my lesson, don't get in early if the market isn't ready for it. There's still a lots of sellers out there. The stock traded more than 2x average volume. Oh why couldn't NVDA move up like the rest of the tech sector? I cut my losses by selling my Jul 15 put @ 0.10 (50% loss). I still got my Aug 15 put although it lost almost half its value by the end of the day. Hope INTC wants to buy NVDA, Intel graphic cards blow.... take a hint from AMD why they bought ATI. MSFT looks like it wants YHOO so add NVDA for a two-for-one deal! You'll need them to make chips for your XBOX 720, then you can force Sony use crappy ATI chips. Or uhh Sony you can buy them too and long as someone buys NVDA for a high price!

So because all other tech is doing great, my GOOG puts blew today but not as bad as it could have been. Too much strength due to AAPL jesus phone coming out soon. Another lesson for me: Don't buy AAPL and expect them to move opposite of GOOG. I made the mistake of buying AAPL calls and GOOG puts at one point... they worked against each other so my profit = zero. Did you know Google GEO Eric Schimdt is part of the board of directors for AAPL? So uhh, mad cooperation there. Well I'm looking for a exit for GOOG as well because built some nice support where my put is located... 530. I won't post up fake negative GOOG comments on this site since its own by them. Love your blogger GOOG!

So not all was bad. At least financials went my way. I jumped into HBC Aug 75 put @ 2.90. Did great during mid-day but started going up towards the close. I'm not worried though, I hope AA earnings are like we're dead to set the tone of the market for the rest of the week! So let the market die! I got more puts than calls.

wild swings

So 3 hours later the dow is down 125. For some reason I wasn't feeling RIMM and I let that sucker go for a loss (12 @ 0.83). I think I got a lil panicky and wanted to limit my losses, but I am right so far as RIMM continues downwards.

Good thing is financials continue to drop (maybe from the shitty news from WB?) Either way I just went through a 3k swing (being down 800ish earlier to being up 2k right now). Thats pretty damn huge considering my costs basis for the options im playing now is only around 7k. Just glad I'm up.

Right now, I'm just going to hold it a little bit longer, perhaps even selling later in the day if my puts go up another few hundred bux.

A fight takes place

The market is up about 75 points as I'm writing this, yet financials continue to be, well, pretty shitty. I'm sure the up market today is not causing the financials to drop. They were in fact up quite a bit in the morning. I'm getting upset at the fact that I'm actually losing a slight amount in my financial puts even though they are all down right now, because they had been up in the morning and my options were getting killed. Financials look "cheap"

RIMM is up 3 bux, so I'm almost back even. It just needs to a huge run a la AAPL, but I guess there is only one G3 iphone coming out July 11th.

As for the start of the earnings season, AA looked really low this morning, but now it's already up quite a bit. Still I expect it go up another buck or so after earnings

Upcoming Earnings

July 8: AA (est 0.68), Pending Home Sales (est -3.0%)
July 10: MAR (est 0.82)
July 11: GE (est 0.54), COL (est 1.02)

Dan Nainan

A friend of mine hired an Indian comedian for his wedding, Dan Nainan, pretty funny guy. If you know Russell Peters, he makes the same kind of jokes. Check out this video!

Dan Nainan, Russell Peters Opening Act, Performs for 4500

Woot Tips!

Woot Tips are helpful tooltips detailing various stocks. To access them, simply double-click or highlight any stock's symbol.

NVDA WOOT! Updated

Nvida (NVDA) dropped from $18 to $12 after profit warnings. I got in with NVDA JUL 15 @ 0.20 and AUG 15 @ 0.50 calls the day before July 4th but now I'm like uhhh can it drop more? I mean its been dropping since it reached 25 back in early Jun. How low can it go? All I need is some news post to say nvida is cheap and boom I'm rich right?

Its RSI is 15%. Can someone say oversold? If NVDA can be at RSI 15% why can't AMD and INTC whose RSIs are in the 30% range fall too?

I love my blackberry...

RIMM is ridiculously successful with their blackberry phones, and they've been getting killed since their earnings. Looks like there is support around the 112 mark. I guess I got in a little too early (JUL $125 Call, 12 @ 1.75) - RIMM's stock was around $116 - the previous support, and I'm down about 30% in the play. RIMM did go up after hour, so hopefully I'll get it back on Monday.

Death to financials

I ended up playing some puts on a variety of financials. I've got puts on C (JUL $15, 60 @ 0.35), HBC (JUL $75, 14 @ 1.40) and LEH (JUL 22.50, 7 @ 1.50). C has steadily been steadily dropping in the last few months, but has been floating around the $17 mark the last few days. HBC has been rather strong even with all of the other financials getting absolutely killed. There was a flurry of AUG and SEPT put buying a few days ago, so let's hope something bad happens or investors get scared and I get paid. The reason I got in on LEH is that they have been going up 3 days straight. I got in on the put late Thursday, July 3, because it looked like LEH had hit some resistance. I'm up 25% on LEH in just a matter of minutes, but let's see what Monday brings.