|
In the Drop of a Hat October 31, 2007
Things can change quickly. Today was a perfect example of that. I don’t wear a hat, but I couldn’t come up with a better metaphor today. I’m numbed by the turn arounds today, as well as the novocaine.
I forget which came first.
With early indications showing an opening gain, the market did just that. Although the market was up, the volume wasn’t all that impressive, since everyone was waiting on word from the Federal Reserve. Let’s just say that trading itself, was reserved.
Remember. Puns are the lowest form of humor and will rarely be used here, unless absolutely necessary. It’s a lot like what your mother used to say about people who cursed and their native intelligence. Smart people didn’t need to curse because they could find the appropriate words to express themselves. And as a corollary, Edgar Allen Poe would have been much more imaginative if he had stayed away from the intoxicants of the times.
It made you feel so stupid, until you became smart enough to realize the obvious.
Sometimes, the appropriate word, coincidentally enough, turns out to be a curse. That’s convenient for us newly minted smart people. And think where the Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles would be if no one expanded their imaginations with intoxicants.
In the mid-morning, the Dow was up about 50 points. It was a respectable showing with little movement in either direction. Forget that oil gained back $4 after having lost $3 yesterday. The market was shrugging off all of that energy related news. It’s a lot like not caring if there’s white powder on the money. To the bank it’s still money.
In this case, all of the economists are saying that the skyrocketing costs of crude oil are related to geopolitical issues and not to supply and demand. So that makes it alright. Since it’s due to geopolitical issues those extra dollars that you spend at the pump and will be spending this heating season aren’t really a problem.
So your fears are unwarranted. And besides, oil is denominated in dollars anyway and the dollar is being decimated, which by the way, is supposed to be what the Federal Reserve is supposed to be preventing.
Got all of that?
While you’re thinking about that mainstream line of logic along came the first pop of the day. Long before the Fed’s announcement and far away enough from the ADP Jobs Report.
That number, by the way, was a larger than expected increase in payroll figures. The last couple of months the ADP numbers had set the stage for poorer than expected numbers, which ultimately led to big down days. Those down days, however, were then superceded by revised payroll numbers that showed that the original numbers were much better than first reported.
Are you getting all of this? Are you getting any of this?
But today’s ADP number was pretty much ignored. It seems as if a lot of angst could have been saved by consistently ignoring all of the numbers until the revisions are in.
But then suddenly, MasterCard announces its earnings. There’s nothing like a 63% increase to get your stock price to launch into the stratosphere.
What economic slowdown? Everyone seems to be spending what they don’t have by using their MasterCard. The leading economists say that defaults on credit cards should happen before defaults on mortgages, so I’m guessing that these MasterCard numbers may have some real legs.
So I would guess that the great MasterCard earnings would turn out to be a good thing, right?
Not this time, since I sold options contracts at $165. That seemed like a safe bet after it was down to $153. I had made money each of the past 3 months by selling MasterCard options, with a cost basis at about $136. Yesterday, it looked like I would be home free for another round of options sales for December.
But that was before the hat dropped.
As the day went on, and there’s still an hour left to trading, that gain had gone from $21 to $34, with MasterCard now at about $192, well above my strike price.
That’s why you should never wear hats.
And you guessed it, Goldman Sachs was not going to be left in the dust, nor was Google.
Oy.
People who say “Oy” a lot usually do wear a variant of a hat. It’s called a yarmulke. I thought that my Viet Nam readers might want to know that.
Before the litany of “Oys” hit in I noticed what I had been expecting. Some last minute buying action in Electronic Arts by people trying to capitalize on what is expected to be a great earnings report tomorrow. So I did do what I anticipated and bought $60 put options. Those were slightly out of the money at the time, but were more costly than I would have lked, since there are still 12 trading days left until options expiration.
In a short while I began to feel like a genius as some profit taking hit Electronic Arts. I was expecting the big drop to come in the early trading tomorrow after earnings are announced and then expect to get rid of those bad babies.
We’ll see how that works out. I’m sure you’ll be among the first to know about it.
During the late morning, ahead of when expected, I did get my filling done. The dentist was superb, although he seemed to be uncertain as to how to use the new materials he had chosen. But it must have been done well, because he used lots of different layers and materials. He told me that the numbness should go away in a couple of weeks.
I left work, as expected, at 2:00 P.M. My rental car was equipped with Sirius Satellite, so I was tuned into my usual station for easy listening.
It’s nice to close early in deference to Halloween. If Szelhamos was around, he would use the occasion to wish his favorite grand-daughter, Rosie, a happy 16th birthday. I think that she would have been his favorite even if she was not the only grand-daughter.
And that’s when they broke into regular CNBC programming to announce the Fed’s decision. And it was right on schedule, right at 2:17.
The word was a 25 basis point cut in the discount rate and another 25 basis point cut in the fed funds rate.
But the market seemed to focus more on the accompanying text that really did put a little bit of inflation scare out for broadcast. As I listened to the text being read, my first thoughts were that it was bad news and would be received as such, meaning that the markets would go down. Not only because the drops weren’t larger than widely anticipated, but mostly because of the tone to the accompanying statement.
Happily, the market reversed its 100 point gain and was down about 15 points. As I was driving along I was hoping that MasterCard, Google and Goldman would join the Dow and take a ride down.
That was, however, the point at which I rolled the rental car into the garage for its return. Feeling bolstered by the news, I got my bag and made it through security, even though I was still drooling a bit. But I think that the cotton roll is supposed to stay in there for a while longer.
By the time I got to sit in the terminal and booted the laptop, the market had reversed course again and was up by 150 points.
And MasterCard? That’s right, it went up as well.
How about Electronic Arts? You guessed it. It reversed course, as well and now my put options were losing money, although the key day is tomorrow.
In the last 3 minutes, however, as I rechecked the numbers, we’ve just given up about 50 points out of the 150.
So hang on tight, because with a minute left to go, we’re back up near the highs of the session. At this point I’m thinking of taking up prayer, but I don’t have one of those yarmulkes handy.
The last time I looked, it had dropped. If I had the energy, all I would have to do is stoop down and pick it up off from the floor.
But it’s only likely to drop again, so why bother?
Enough Already October 30, 2007
You know me too well. At least the regular readers do. Or they think they do.
You probably think that I’m going to rant about the unchecked and meteoric rises of Google and Goldman Sachs, as they approach or exceed my options strike prices. It’s just like October options all over again.
But you might just be wrong.
To mark the first anniversary of the Szelhamos Rules blog, I plan to rent out a ballroom in a prestigious hotel. I’m not certain of the location yet, as I still need to work out the logistics of accommodating my only regular readers. You know the ones. The ones from Ho Chi Minh City and the ones from Woburn, Massachusetts.
The introductions would go something like this. Ho meet Wo. Wo meet Ho.
I’m not certain which of those places should be among the least likely to be reading this blog, but we’ll put that issue on the annual meeting agenda. Please send your agenda recommendations to . Please remember to include any information about dietary restrictions or dietary requirements. Regardless of the site that is ultimately chosen, all conventioneers will have to supply their own sanitation.
But back to the topic at hand.
Enough already.
This time, I’m not talking about how Goldman Sachs and Google seem to be conspiring to torpedo my covered call option strategy. I’m not even talking about how ridiculously high oil and gold still are, despite today’s $3 drop in crude. And the value of the dollar? Don’t even think about that, since it’s supposed to be the singular job of our federal reserve.
What I am talking about is the Boston Red Sox.
They waited 86 years to win a World Series. Maybe it was 84 years, but whatever it was, it was a long time in coming.
Those 2 years can’t make much of a difference, but the past 3 years have.
They had a glorious parade 3 years ago to honor the team that broke the Curse of the Babe and everyone around the country was genuinely happy for The Red Sox.
On that day, the entire city and all of the surrounding suburbs came to a standstill. Schools chartered buses into the city, with education being thrown to the wayside. Businesses were bereft of employees, as everyone called in sick.
As opposed to the running joke from a dozen years ago in the aftermath of the Million Man March, more happened than just 3 people not showing up for work. I remember that in my workplace, which is only as good as the number of people that step through our portals on any given day, we were twiddling our thumbs. We were swamped with cancelled appointments.
On that single day everything ceased to matter. Everything other than The Red Sox, that is.
But enough, already?
A little change in intonation and there you have it. Today was the parade for the 2007 World Series Champion Boston Red Sox.
On television it looked pretty busy at the parade, but the real story was in our office. Today was no different from any other day. This time around, the victorious Red Sox didn’t wreak havoc on our days’ receipts.
As Pete Townshend would say, “Just another tricky day for you”.
Thank goodness for tricky days. They pay the mounting blog bills.
I am grateful to the boredom that has set in now that there’s an expectation that the Red Sox will win the Series, year in and year out. Oh, and then there’s also the matter of the New England Patriots.
Ah, but then there’s still the little matter of Google and Goldman. Not a prestigious law firm, just a couple of high flyers.
Let’s dispense with Goldman, first, although I think that we haven’t heard the last from the darling of Wall Street. It’s the darling among a gaggle of sub-prime losers, with a gaggle being one ten thousandth of a google. One ten thousandth of a google is now worth about 7 cents, a new all time high.
Goldman gave back about $3.50 today to bring it just a few pennies above the strike price. What’s so enticing is that a December in the money options contract now has a $16 premium. That almost makes me want to trade out my November options at a loss and roll them over. But there’s still plenty of time to go until the next expiration. Thirteen trading days, to be exact. That’s a lifetime.
Google, on the other hand, just went wild today, approaching $700.
The rise from $400 to $500 in Google took more than a year, but the rise from $500 to $700 has happened in the blink of an eye. My contract is for $700, but I do so want to continue riding Google, as I feel really confident that it will keep going up.
Today’s Google news only helped to fuel the fire, as after the close it announced that, together with Verizon, they were exploring a Google Phone venture.
The specter of a Google Phone did nothing to spook Apple. It too just keeps going up. Today, though, it only went up $2, still keeping it about 3% below my strike price.
The Apple – AT&T alliance, although also a software and hardware alliance, is still very different from Google and Verizon.
In Apple’s case, it provided the hardware and software to the party. It just needed spectrum, which as rumor has it, it is on the prowl for.
On the other hand, Google brings software to the plate, but has to bow to Verizon for the hardware and spectrum. To me, there seems to be very little upside potential for Google. Maybe that’s why Apple didn’t blink, but I do hope that Apple slows down their ascent over the next 13 trading days.
What I spent a bit of time perusing this afternoon was the action in Electronic Arts and Exxon – Mobil. Yesterday I wrote about the put purchase strategy for these 2 companies, as they both prepare to release earnings on Thursday.
True to the script, EA went up about 5% today, setting themselves up for a big fall on Thursday, unless they really, really knock the cover off the ball.
On the other hand, Exxon – Mobil dropped nearly $3 today, in all likelihood, due to the same kind of loss in crude. So you have to wonder that if on Thursday crude happens to spike up, will Exxon Mobil spike with it, despite negative sentiment associated with its upcoming earnings report?
Don’t know. But I do like to ask questions.
But to further complicate things, at about 2:17 P.M. tomorrow the Fed releases its decision on interest rates. Everyone is looking for a 25 point basis drop. If there’s no drop announced, you can bet that the market will show its disappointment. If the drop is 50 basis points, the initial reaction will be upward, but once the reality of the situation that necessitated a 50 basis point drop sets in, the market will plummet.
As always, it’s on the fence that we have no idea of which way we will tip. The Fed announcement has the potential to move the market, and consequently the direction of ERTS and XOM in a direction that would ordinarily not have gone.
At the moment of the release I should be having a filling done and then must rush to the airport to catch my flight home. If everything works put smoothly, I’ll have a few moments at the airport to log in and check prices and maybe execute those put trades. By Thursday morning it will be too late. The play, if any, has to come on Wednesday afternoon.
My inclination is to wait for the release and to focus on ERTS for the quick trade.
“You’re going down, babe” is my sentiment.
I do plan to put my money where my mouth is, but my mouth will likely be numb until after the close of trading on Wednesday, thereby potentially clouding my actions.
Not to mention my thoughts.
In the meantime, there’s always December options and then the 2008 World Series.
Enough already.
Never Even Missed a Beat October 29, 2007
This can’t possibly be referring to this past Friday’s dance lesson.
Not only did I miss a beat or two, but I also threw in an extra couple of Cha Chas every cycle. I’ve spent hours on the internet trying to find out the difference between a full basic and a half basic, but the bottom line is that you can’t just thrown in extra Cha Chas arbitrarily. To do so, invites lower limb injury, laughter, eyebrow raising and embarrassment. I think that my amply endowed dance partner has some upper body bruises, as well, but the Walgreens won’t return my photos.
I tried leaving the classroom with my head draped in a hood, much like the drug runner on his way to arraignment, but no one was willing to accompany me and push me, head first, into the backseat of the car.
Earlier in the day, when I still had a positive attitude. I was attempting to practice the basic steps and wondered what my neighbors thought, as they peered in through our family room window and saw me dancing with a laptop cradled in my hands. Had they known that I was merely trying to follow an online video demonstration of the basic Cha Cha steps, there would have been less derision, and at least one less neighborhood petition.
There was probably no need to wonder what they would have said. It would have been along the lines of this: “Nothing unusual there. Carry on.”.
And that’s true. I often dance with the laptop in my hands, watching that ticker move along, when it looks as if the market is going to close up big. It’s a dance of joy.
I did that on Friday, as well. But mostly it was Cha Cha.
I’d like to blame the poor non-market related dance performance a couple of days ago on the fact that we missed the first lesson in the Cha Cha cycle. But on a positive note, so far we’ve attended 3 out of the six classes, having attended 50% of the Rumba classes and are on the path to do the same for Cha Cha. Those are Hall of Fame kind of numbers. From my perspective, we could miss the last 2 classes and still end up with a 0.375 average. What am I, Rod Carew?
But the reality is that I may know how to spell “rhythm”, but that’s about as far as it goes. But that’s no small feat, since “rhythm” doesn’t really follow any known spelling patterns. So it only makes sense that my form of dancing doesn’t follow any known patterns of movement. If I’m known for anything, it’s for abiding by the rules of society. In this case, there may not be any. Who decided that “y” was a vowel of convenience, anyway?
So I suppose we’ve missed a beat or two in the attendance regard, as well. But at least we appear to have a better attendance record than “Bernie, don’t call me Bernard”. He hasn’t been sighted since the first lesson. Whether he was there for lessons 2, 4 and 5, we’ll never know.
As I sit this morning before the opening bell, I’m thinking about how disruptive it is for the markets to be closed on the weekends. Whatever momentum you have by Friday gets dissipated, and once Monday rolls along, you really do feel like you’ve missed a beat, or two.
Sometimes, it seems that the music starts without you, especially if big news breaks over the weekend. And based on my lack of familiarity with counting the beat, I often have a difficult time recognizing when trading has re-started.
All of this seems to happen on a weekly basis.
What doesn’t happen very often, however, did happen this weekend.
We got together with some old friends that we hadn’t seen in 4 or 5 years. We weren’t even really certain how long it had been, but it was a long time. We were trying to pinpoint our last meeting in relation to something of an historical nature, but the best we could come up with was the day after the time Humana reported sharply lower than expected earnings. That was sometime in 2003.
It’s hard to keep track. Luckily, there are those easily remembered historical footnotes.
But we didn’t even miss a beat. We sat down to dinner and it seemed as if it was just yesterday that we had done the same thing. Although, if memory serves me correctly, last time a glass of water was flung onto my face after I slapped our friend, challenging him to a duel. I’m sure that within the context everything was probably normal and well deserved, at the time.
Further combing the recesses of my memory, I wondered if there was a long held silent grudge for having seated them next to my mother-in-law at our son’s Bar Mitzvah. I think they realized that it wasn’t quite the “honor” that we made it out to be.
I’m sure that will be among the things that I’ll be judged upon when the time comes. Hopefully, my mother-in-law is not reading this, because she would be waiting for me. Yet another reason to pray for health and longevity, and the friends to enjoy them with.
And Saturday evening was one of those times.
What really seemed amazing, though, was that during that time there had been some really challenging medical issues, that are still ongoing. But you wouldn’t know it. The mood, the humor, and the attitude. None of those skipped a beat, either. There may even have been a few extra Cha Chas thrown in during the evening, but in this case, they fit in perfectly.
If I played my cards right, I should be able to parlay those extra Cha Chas into some cherry cobbler.
This morning, while munching on some Girl Scout cookies, which are no substitute for homemade cherry cobbler, I realized that despite my fears of missing the beat, the market just picked up where it left off. It maintained a 50 point lead despite numerous attempts to knock it down. Gold and oil did their best, as well, each hitting new highs.
Other than Goldman, which just went up way too much, since it is now above my strike price, everything else just went up in a nice moderate fashion, still staying below their strike prices. But as often is the case, as goes Goldman, so goes the rest of the market.
I woke up this morning intent on selling options on the few remaining unoptioned stocks that I had. But as I kept staring at the screen, no good prices materialized. I was especially anxious to sell some options on the Coach stock that I picked up on Friday. By mid-afternoon, Coach was up $1.30, but there was very little action in the near term $40 option. I did put in an order for $0.50, but it went unexecuted, as Coach’s price drop to about a $1 gain for the day, despite the overall market’s continued upward climb.
I am considering a couple of speculative trades near the end of the close on Wednesday. Both Electronic Arts and Exxon Mobil are reporting earnings on Thursday.
Electronic Arts recently announced that it was going to have a good quarter and its stock moved up accordingly. Of course, I got rid of my Electronic Arts stock before they came public with their cheery news. I took a loss on EA.
Exxon Mobil, on the other hand, like all of the oils, is seeing record crude prices, but we’re seeing a lag in retail gas prices. Exxon was up big today. If it keeps going up tomorrow and Wednesday, then I definitely get into gear.
My potential speculative trades on Wednesday are to buy in the money or near the money puts for both Electronic Arts and Exxon, since I expect selling on the earnings news.
But those are for the future. As for today, I just couldn’t get into the beat of the market.
Somedays you just have to be satisfied with making money on paper and not actually bringing it to reality.
Cha Cha. Cherry Cobbler
Cha Cha.
Cha.
Never Accuse me of Fashion Sense October 26, 2007
Anyone who knows me will confirm that I have no fashion sense. In fact, I still use the word “dungarees” on a regular basis.
We all get excited each year when Mirriam-Webster announces which new words they are officially adding to the dictionary. Receiving much less fanfare are those words that they decide to delete from the approved list of words. Think “dungarees”, think me.
But just as I see no inherent conflict in owning shares of Altria, I saw no inherent conflict in purchasing shares of Coach, this morning. I don’t approve of or condone smoking and I’m fairly ambivalent about the role of fashion in society. It’s not evil and it helps to support the anorexia telethons. So on the whole, it’s neutral.
Just as I occasionally will take a puff in order to remind myself how bad the habit is, I occasionally find myself adorned in black, just to get a feel for what it must be like to be in vogue. Someday, if the spirits are all aligned, I may find myself puffing away while dressed in black.
Those are the sort of events that may signal Armageddon. Let’s hope it never happens.
But 2 things intrigued me in the past 24 hours. Intrigued me enough to make the purchase, particularly since I haven’t bought many new stocks in the past couple of months. I’ve almost exclusively traded in covered call options, while riding out market volatility. I certainly won’t be turning my back on that strategy even with a few misfires, since, all in all, it has worked really well.
But yesterday Coach announced poorer than expected earnings and they took a really big hit, falling about 13% on the news. Not like AIG, which took it on the chin because of a rumor. Coach’s plunge was on real news. The social class that drapes themselves in Coach products would never be involved in rumor mongering.
Lately, the lesson to be learned about stocks that have taken big hits is that you shouldn’t go bottom fishing immediately. On that note, yesterday I wrote about the financials and bottom fishing. Today, Countrywide jumped more than 20% after it announced better than expected earnings and the other major banks and money centers are moving up, as well.
But some other news came out this morning that made me think that now was the time to pick up shares of Coach.
As happens every month, The University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Report was released. The number was worse than expected, confirming what everyone has been predicting. Those predictions have been regarding the upcoming holiday sales season. Pretty much everyone expects this season to be a bad one for the retailers. After the numbers came out, the Dow went from its early 100 point gain to about only 35 points at noontime.
But I’ve noticed the past couple of months that whatever the reaction to these numbers is, it tends to be very short lived, with a half-life measured in less than an hour.
Put it all together, though, and to me it sounds that whatever those holiday season numbers are going to be, they will end up being better than is predicted. I think that all of the bad news expected for the next 2 months is already built into the price of shares.
So go contrarian. And I did.
When I buy a new stock I try to look for one that is a solid company with growth potential, has a good options premium and a decent dividend.
It’s hard to get all 3 of those in any company. Altria comes close, but because it hasn’t been very volatile, it doesn’t offer a great options premium, but it does have a great dividend.
In general, I look for an options premium that follows certain guidelines. For a 1 month holding period I want a 2% return on the current stock price for a strike price that is 5% above the current price. If I think that there is some good upside potential, I’ll go for a 1% options premium for a strike price that is 10% above the current price.
At this point, almost every stock I own has a call option written on it. That typically only happens when the underlying stocks are at good levels. “Good” means profitable. “Profitable” means at least 10%.
Interestingly, for me at least, one of the few stocks that I don’t currently have a covered call option on is Altria. Right now it’s doing something unusual. Altria usually does better on down days and tends to lag on market up days. Today, though, it is a market leader on an up day. Looking at its chart it is up against and beyond its upper 2 S.D. Bollinger Band.
Huh?
The last time Altria did that it retreated from its highs, but I think that this time is different. Ordinarily at this point I would have a $75 call option written, but I think Altria may be ready for a breakout prior to making its announcement about Philip Morris International.
But later in the day as Altria continued its climb, suddenly the premiums warranted action and so I sold call options on about half of my Altria shares. The best analogy that I can draw to not selling options on all of the shares is that I only exhaled.
But back to Coach.
My choices today were actually between Amazon and Coach. Amazon also got hit hard yesterday, but it came after reporting great numbers. I think that Amazon’s holiday numbers may be more susceptible to the kind of bad news that everyone is expecting. But beyond that, it doesn’t currently offer a very good options premium. Oh, and as far as a dividend goes, forget about it. The internet stocks don’t know the meaning of the word “dividend”. Alphabetically, when it was still listed in Mirriam-Webster, it came right before “dungarees”
Coach fit two out of three of my criteria, and as we all know, “2 out of 3 ain’t bad”. Coach just falls short on the dividend part of the equation. It has none, whereas the typical retailer has a 2.1% dividend.
I can live with that, as I expect to unload Coach in about 3 months, probably right after its next earnings report, which will be better than expected.
As we now pull into the final hour, we’re up by 120 points. For the Szelhamos Portfolios, however, it is one of the best days that it has ever had. Hard not to, given the upside moves in Google, Goldman Sachs, MasterCard, Ameritrade and Altria. Apple, which was only up $2 was my laggard for the day, representing only a 1% price increase, which, however was still higher than the Dow’s increase.
So quite a day.
With all of the new paper wealth that I’ve created today, I may just go out and purchase a new fashionably black wardrobe for myself, just in time for today’s Cha Cha lesson. European cut, I think, in order to accentuate my Cuban style hip gyrations.
I’m even thinking of getting a diamond encrusted cigarette holder.
Armageddon? Is that you?
Maybe Rumors are Sinful October 25, 2007
Coincidentally enough, I think that by my count, I’ve committed four of the deadly sins so far today. Although I’m still not certain that “sloth” should be considered so deadly. There have to be things that are worse than “sloth”. Murder for example, doesn’t even make the list, although it does enter into that list of ten. Strange what they whittled out just to get to seven.
It makes you wonder what exactly was sacrificed when they came up with the “7 Minutes Abs Workout”. Wouldn’t a 10 minute workout be so much more meaningful? And to think that there are even people researching possibilities for a 6 Minute Abs Workout. I believe that great abs begin from the moment of workout, but that’s very controversial.
But have no fear. It’s only about 5 P.M. and I still have miles to go before I sleep, so there’s a good chance that I’ll hit all seven before the day’s over.
As I sit aboard yet another air flight, I wonder if cheating on Sudoku is in the top seven. If so, I’m sitting next to someone slated to go straight into the fiery pits.
But it’s all about the rumor mongering again.
Yesterday, I wasn’t so certain that rumors were sinful, but today, there is clear evidence that rumors are wicked. Just look at what happened to AIG.
I own a small stake in AIG. It’s shares were hit pretty hard a couple of years ago when Elliot Spitzer, no Governor of the great state of New York went on his take no prisoners assault on Wall Street.
Among the casualties was the founder and Chairman of AIG, Hank Greenberg.
In the meantime, Greenberg was forced out, criminal charges were dropped and Spitzer left the attorney general’s office to go on to the governor’s mansion in Albany.
Have you ever been to Albany? I’m flying overhead it right now. That’s close enough.
Anyway, the rumor hit today that AIG was going to announce some big write downs. Maybe not Merrill Lynch big, but big. Just more of the fallout from bad loans and bad investment in sub-primes.
There was even some discussion today that Merrill’s losses may end up being even worse than $8 billion. And that’s because there’s really no good market around for the paper they’re still carrying, so it’s anyone’s guess what that stuff is really worth. And if you want to see some brutality, just look at the continued slide at Countrywide. Just when it looked as if it had stabilized a couple of weeks ago at $19, it’s now down to about $12.
I almost went in as a bottom fisher for some shares of Countrywide, but had second thoughts. Too bad those second thoughts didn’t extend to Citicorp, whose November $45 options I bought about a week ago. They have lost more than half of their value in that time.
With all of the major money centers being hit so hard, you would think that at some level it would be time to climb aboard. At least Goldman seems to be relatively unscathed, but it did spend some time down near $160 after being caught in the sub-prime vortex. $160 doesn’t sound so bad until you realize that it had been in a much better neighborhood before we knew about sub-prime.
During that period of ignorance, Goldman was at $240.
These days, it’s doing pretty well in the $220’s, but with a bullet. It’s going higher.
My continued faith in NYSE is beginning to pay off, as well, having crossed over the $90 mark. Although $90 is good for NYSE, it’s not so good for oil companies. Despite what you would think, they’re having a tough time of it, because they’ve been voluntarily forced to keep gas prices relatively low, while the price of crude just keeps rising. I guess those Senate hearings may have had some value, after all, but it’s only a matter of time until they get pressured to increase stock prices to match the increases in the overall market.
It’s still hard to understand how the economy still keeps moving along with oil above $90.
I’ve never owned much in the way of oil. Just some ConocoPhillips and Royal Dutch, right now, and they’ve not been stellar.
What has been stellar, though, is the behavior of some stock options.
Today was just another lackluster day with some localized areas of volatility. One particular stock, and one that I own, MasterCard, was among the volatile. I had just bought back some options the other day at a small profit and was looking for another opportunity to sell some more.
Earlier this morning, MasterCard was down by about $2. Within a couple of eye blinks, it was back in profit territory. As I was eyeing options premiums, and getting ready to put my order in, I noticed that the price of the stock just kept ticking up by a couple of cents. I decided to wait to see where it would go.
I got called away and didn’t get back to my computer screen for about an hour. At that point, MasterCard was up by over $3, even though the rest of the market was in the doldrums. AT that point I reset my options price target and got a much better price than I even had a few days earlier.
Right now, with barely 3 weeks to go until expiration date, the premium on the November MasterCard $165 option was more than 2.5%. That’s astonishingly high. Over the past 2 months that I’ve owned MasterCard it has been really volatile. I bought it at $136, but since then my cost basis has gone down by over $10, as I’ve continued to sell and but back options. In the meantime, it also pays a small dividend.
AS I look at the Szelhamos portfolios, there really aren’t any stocks that I truly want to sell. I’m beginning to think that the way to go is to buy shares in good, solid companies when they are coming off their highs and just sell options on those companies. Again, again and again.
It’s a lot of work, but those premiums and dividends do add up and there is some excitement involved, as well.
With good solid companies, there’s really not that much risk, although nothing is for certain. Look at Goldman. It slid by about 30% for a brief time. Luckily, I never followed Bernard Baruch’s teachings. His rule of thumb was to cut losses at 10%, but I don’t think he lived in an era of such great volatility.
Even on the day that Kennedy was assassinated and the few days after, the percentage decline in the markets was trivial when compared to our routine fluctuations.
These days, 10% can come in an instant. Just look at AIG.
Maybe Bernard Baruch started that rumor.
My guess is that he’s probably acquired enough deadly sins and doesn’t really need anymore, but he just couldn’t resist.
There is said to be a special corner of hell, reserved just for short sellers, who often are accused of starting and spreading rumors about stocks whose shares they want to see fall.
The short seller is to the typical investor what the child molester is to the typical felon. Just a lower class of people.
Although covered call writing is in essence a form of short selling, I don’t consider myself fully in bed with the devil, but if that was a sin, I might now have today’s tally up to 5.
And there’s still time.
Aren’t Rumors Great? October 24, 2007
I don’t really remember what the seven deadly sins are. I think that rumor mongering is among them, but I’m really not sure. That ugly looking person over there, the one that I saw sneaking out of the crack house told me that it was one of the seven deadlies. But would you really trust someone who strangles kittens? Maybe you might elect them president. You know who I’m talking about, but you wouldn’t want to trust them.
Maybe rumor mongering doesn’t rank up there with gluttony, lust, avarice, Sleepy, Dopey and Doc, but it should.
Today, though, it was a rumor that turned everything around.
Maybe, in hindsight, rumor mongering should be counted among the seven holy virtues. Because, really, is humility that great of a virtue? Couldn’t we just lose humility? There should be some kind of a rotation of both virtues and sins. There just has to be a way to make room for a good rumor.
But I do like rumor mongering. It can easily go both ways. You have to love that kind of versatility. The last time we had that kind of versatility, football players were still wearing leather helmets.
But today, it was obvious that rumor mongering must be a virtue. How else would you categorize something that turns the market around from a 200 point loss? It has to be a virtue. There’s certainly nothing virtuous about a 200 point loss.
The day really started off badly. Merrill Lynch, which just 2 weeks ago announced that it would take $5 billion in sub-prime and bad loan losses came out with their earnings this morning. Funny thing, that in the past 2 weeks they were able to find another $3 billion in losses.
They just didn’t see it coming, I guess.
I’m beginning to think that companies on the scale of Merrill Lynch and others would be well served to consider hiring an accountant. With a loss of $8 billion, they may be a little strapped for cash, but I’m sure that they could work something out with H&R Block. Maybe they could barter. You would think that they would have somebody that could keep an eye on the numbers.
But as it turns out, that bigger than expected loss was pretty much expected, so the damage to Merrill really wasn’t too bad, although the rest of the market suffered as that was new found fear that there were more rounds of bad news around the corner. Part of the reason that no one was surprised is that it appears to be standard behavior to dump all kinds of bad news together when you’re going to have to take a big write-off, anyway. Just get all of the bad stuff off the books and set yourself up for great comparables for next year.
The strange thing is that despite the fact that this is common practice, everyone seems to be caught by surprise in a year when the comparable earnings are released. Invariably, the stock prices surges.
After the Merrill Lynch news was digested there came more confirmation of bad things on the housing front. Another big decrease in new home starts and in existing home sales.
But again, not totally unexpected. So what then spooked the market and turned it from a couple of dozen points loss to a 200 point loss by late morning?
No one had any real clue, unless it was just a delayed response to the earlier bad news. But that’s unlikely, since most big moves come on emotional waves, rather than on well thought out choruses.
So as the Dow was down about 200 I watched Apple and MasterCard shed $5, Google and Goldman each lost about $10.
I took the opportunity to buy back my MasterCard options, again, at a small profit. But those small profits have really been adding up this week. I tried making some other options related trades but really couldn’t get the right prices. I tried buying back Halliburton and Blackstone options, trying to capitalize on their drop in premiums.
Earlier in the day, before the market decided to fall those 200 points, I put in an order to sell Goldman Sachs November $240 options. But it was just at about that time that Goldman decided to start falling. Eventually, Goldman was down nearly $10, so I gave up on the idea of selling the options.
Fast forward an hour or so and the effects of rumor mongering got my contracts sold.
When I got back to the computer, that 200 point loss was gone. All of the losses were erased and I was now the proud owner of a nice premium from the sale of Goldman Sachs options.
What happened? Nothing more than a rumor being spread that the federal reserve was going to drop interest rates again.
What exactly was the surprise in that? Everyone’s been expecting that after next week’s fed meeting there would be an announcement of a 25 basis point cut.
As they like to say in the federal reserve board room meetings, “Uh, duh”.
The big duh, though, is that the rumor had it that the fed would announce a rate cut before their actual meeting.
That’s a little bit unprecedented, except during dire situations.
Is there something that we need to be worried about? Is there something even more dire than what Merrill Lynch has let on? Obviously Ben Bernanke is in a position to know something that we don’t know, but borrowing from the Fred Sandford book for near quotes, “Is this the big one?”.
So the rumor rescued us by 200 points but what happens if the rumor becomes reality? Does the perverse thinking behind the market psychology cause panic and relentless selling. After all, for the fed to pre-empt its meeting with an interest rate cut announcement, things must be pretty dire.
However, my recent pessimism was not well founded and cost me more than I care to think. So now it’s time to rethink strategies.
Based on today’s activity, I think the best course of action is a virtuous one.
It’s time to spread rumors.
At first I thought someone had already beaten me to it, as I heard that Microsoft had taken a 1.6% stake in Facebook for just $240 million.
If you were inclined to believe that ridiculous story, Facebook would be valued at about $15 billion. What’s even more ridiculous is why Microsoft would want just a 1.6% stake.
Turns out that rumor was ridiculous, but true.
It’s all about beating Google to the punch. Microsoft got what purportedly Google wanted. The bigger question is why Facebook would want to be part of Microsoft, even though it’s only a fingernail’s worth, not its whole soul and being.
Rumor has it that Bill Gates uses a Facebook pseudonym to troll for underage internet entrepreneurs.
Just a rumor, but I’m buying it. There’s no virtue in ignoring the obvious.
Beating a Dead Horse October 23, 2007
I really can’t help it.
I know that I write about Apple and Google incessantly, but they’ve been really hard to ignore. Besides, when someone treats you nicely don’t you just want to pile on the praise?
And they have treated me nicely. But what have I done in return?
I don’t mean to personify Apple and Google, but the world would be a lot better of a place if everyone acted like those two. I know that’s probably not going to happen, but if we can’t dream the impossible we will never move forward.
I prefer to dream, but in my ideal world, I would conserve my energy and stay stationary. Moving forward is far too draining. Especially with my pockets being so heavily loaded by the good actions of Apple and Google.
In hindsight, I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve betrayed the largesse of the dynamic duo by going and selling call options on them at every single opportunity that came along. Their good deeds have often gone unappreciated, even as I watched the numbers grow, thanks to their incredible ability to rise above the crowd. I consistently demonstrated a lack of faith. I may have sugarcoated it by calling it hedging, but let’s call it what it really is.
Most of the time I’ve gotten away with those indiscretions, but sometimes it comes back to bite you in a big way.
And so it was last month. Just as I thought that neither Apple nor Google stock prices could get any higher and they could do nothing more to excite me, there they went. They just kept going higher and higher.
And it served me right for doubting their continued ability to climb.
I begged my way to get back into their good graces, buying back those call options at big losses, just so I could have one more chance. I swore that I would never betray that trust again.
And so, that chance started anew, as I tried to make amends for those past indiscretions. But once you’ve tasted the thrill of the call option it’s hard to resist.
And the inevitable happened. Let’s face it. I’m a serial hedger. So much for promises.
Although I sold more call options on Apple and Google, I swear that I learned my lesson. Have you heard that one before? The difference is that this time I mean it.
Even a moron would know better than to think that the collective phenomenon of Apple and Google will soon wane. That’s not likely to happen anytime in the near future.
And it’s not as if they’re stomping their feet and demanding attention. But they are everywhere you look and effect everything that you do.
Alright, maybe that’s an exaggeration.
There was a time when a bad earnings report from Texas Instruments would just ruin the market for a couple of weeks. But not today. Despite another quarter of bad earnings from Texas Instruments, it meant nothing. Any other day it would have been an incredible downer. But today was all Apple. And for some reason, Google went along for the ride today. Just another $25 point gain. That’s all.
Most of the time when a company reports blockbuster earnings and the price skyrockets, you tend to see a slow settling and retracement of the price as trading progresses. Traders tend to take profits as they take advantage of the emotional phase of buying by johnny-come-latelies, who don’t want to be left out of a good thing.
But that wasn’t the case with Apple. It closed up every bit as strong as it opened. And unlike other stocks whose prices go up in anticipation of good earnings and then drop on the actual news, Apple is having it both ways.
The adage of “buy on the rumor and sell on the news”, just hasn’t fit the recent Apple picture. In fact, after the earnings report in July Apple shot up by $9 on a really bad market day. The day prior to Apple’s report, AT&T reported disappointing iPhone numbers and Apple fell by about $7.
Fools.
At the time, I thought that the October earnings report would end up being disappointing, because hopes for the iPhone would be so high that only disappointment could come of it.
But that was 3 months ago.
Yesterday’s numbers were even better than the most optimistic of predictions and it certainly showed today as a lackluster day turned into a 100 point gain.
So where do we go from here?
For me, Apple’s next reported earnings comes out a few days after I reach my long term capital gains holding period, and a few days after the January options expiration date. So I plan to shed the rest of my Apple before the earnings report.
But as I’ve learned over and over again, plans change. Sometimes twice daily.
That explains why I sold some November $42.50 Halliburton options and some November $165 MasterCard options. I sold the MasterCard options as the stock was up by a bit over $5. It finally settled at about a $1 gain, so those call options are already in profit mode. Who knows, with the up and down behavior of MasterCard, it may be time to get rid of those options by tomorrow.
It may not be a very good sign of commitment, but profit is profit, even if it’s just a little at a time.
There’s obviously a lot more excitement when you hit a homerun. Not that I would know. Apple and Google are homeruns.
But there’s also something satisfying when you throw a couple of hits, a walk and error together. It’s the same run, but maybe not quite as exciting. For example, even though I’m running more than 50% profits on Apple and Google, I’m actually running the same kind of profit on Halliburton and Ameritrade. Not quite the 100+% as on Apple, but still, not too shabby.
No headlines, though.
How can that be? Especially when Halliburton and Ameritrade’s prices haven’t moved very much. It’s all about the options. The evil hedging that goes on when you try to have it both ways. And you thought Halliburton was evil. It’s the hedging that’s evil.
All the way to the bank.
Those singles and walks keep adding up. Not quite as exciting, but it’s all the same. My banker doesn’t even care if there’s white powder on the deposits, I don’t think he’s going to care if there was a little bit of hedging going on.
Apparently there is a world beyond Apple and Google, but who really cares? As Amazon just reported earnings after today’s close that featured a quadrupling of profits, the analysts weren’t impressed. They’re worried about decreasing profit margins in the year ahead.
But I don’t have to worry about Amazon.
There’s still some life left in my dead horses.
Don’t You Just Love Days Like Today? October 22, 2007
From the perspective of a Red Sox fan, that question is really easy to answer.
Red Sox versus Rockies, or as I like to think about it, which venue will get snowed out first? Most years, that honor would go to Denver and I think that this is a good occasion to stick with the conventional wisdom.
The way I see it, the upcoming the World Series is a referendum on faith and piety. Will the major leagues first denominational team beat the Boston’s perennial bad boys?
Either way, there’ll be an early November parade, with a chance of flurries.
But today is truly a beautiful late October day, even if you’re a native New Yorker, wondering what could have been. My guess, based on filtering through numerous conspiracy theories, is that George Steinbrenner planted Willie Randolph in Queens.
There’s always next year.
As for now, it’s about 75 degrees as I sit and countdown the final 2 hours of trading. Dandelions are sprouting, confused flies and some of our flowering vines are living up to their names.
But let me be completely honest. It could be hailing golfballs and the roof could be on fire, it’s the turnaround the market made this morning makes it into just another beautiful day.
With the futures pointing down by over 100 points it had the makings of a follow through to Friday’s horrible day. That especially seemed as if it would be the case given the Asian and European market sell-offs.
Oh, they of little faith. Not a Colorado Rockie among them.
Although Merck came out with good earnings, all eyes have been on Apple. It’s going to announce earnings at the close and everyone is talking about “whisper numbers”. Those are supposed to be numbers better than anything expected. Given that a new $205 price target has been set on Apple, that may be a hard one to satisfy. It would take great numbers, much better than expectations to rise another 20% from these levels.
The talk is that they are actually selling lots of computers. Maybe they needed to change their name from Apple Computer to Apple, Inc. for that to happen. In a bizarre explanation, it seems that the trickle down is from iPods and iPhones to Macs. That’s like me buying a dog because I really liked the studded collar that I bought to liven things up a bit. I don’t know if there is a direct correlation to puppy sales and the discovery of an S&M lifestyle, but the Apple tie is clear.
As the market opened lower, I took the opportunity to buy back the Halliburton options that I had sold on Friday. Those were sold after buying back the October options at what turned out to be a small loss.
As it happened, I made back almost that entire loss today and am now looking for another opportunity to sell Halliburton November options, as Halliburton has now turned positive. Except that this time, I have my eyes set on a $42.50 strike price, rather than $40.
Isn’t it a beautiful day?
And just like I would have wanted all of those stocks that were hit hard on Friday, but whose options I bought back, are now heading back up. That is, with the exception of MasterCard, which usually follows the banking stocks, but is going its own way today. That way is down, by the way.
I’ve already sold November options on some of those other stocks, albeit at higher levels than before, but still have some where I’m looking for the right price point.
In the meantime, while Google was going up $6, its November $680 options was going down in price, for some unexplainable reason. But I wasn’t about to ask why that was happening. Sometimes you just take advantage of inconsistent pricing. So I took another small profit from the trade that I made on Friday and rolled over to a November $700 option.
No sooner had I made that trade that I noticed the same kind of inverted movement in Apple’s November $190 option, so I sold those, as well, at another small profit. And guess what? That’s right, I rolled it into a November $195 option.
If I had more days like today, this could become a full time job. This volatility is great, as long as you’re at the right place and at the right time. Otherwise, there’s a lot of luck involved.
For today, at least, it was as rewarding as a day at work. Of course, today still doesn’t begin to make up for Friday. Maybe 5 more todays might. But ten, you’re beginning to get into the realm of 9 day work week, and that’s a bit much.
The bottom line is that it really helps having a laptop built into the shower enclosure.
But it’s not all about stocks.
On Saturday I did the unthinkable.
I went to the Mall to buy some tires. I had not set foot into a Sears in about 20 years. About a half year ago, I was on the fence whether to buy some Sears Holding or Goldman Sachs. At the time, they were both at about $180.
But I was actually surprised at high nice the store was and how wide a range of merchandise they had. Especially since all of the analysts are always talking about how dismal the experience shopping at Sears is.
Not only did I buy something but the sales associate asked me if I had a Sears credit card. Within minutes I did, and I got a $15 discount on my purchase.
So I left Sears wondering whether I should pick up some shares. Too late, it was up about $5 today, but still a far car from $180. In fact, it’s $45 below, while Goldman is about $45 above.
I spent 2 hours trolling the mall and saw the empty stores, such as Hot Topic, Limited Too and Fire and Ice.
The Apple Store was jammed. It didn’t take a Genius to know that something was up.
Maybe the walk around the mall was all about stocks, afterall.
Meanwhile, the Apple numbers just came out and everyone’s comment was, “Wow!”. In the afterhours, immediately after the announcement, the stock is up another $13, after already having gone up by $4 during the session. Not only did Apple exceed The Street’s expectation, but it also increased guidance. Given that its past history is typically to underpromise, things must be looking pretty rosy offer in Cupertino.
I know that you’re not supposed to let tax implications dictate your trading, but I really hope Apple can hold on another 3 months. That would be like an extra 20% profit.
And Microsoft? Just like Atlas, all they must be doing is shrugging right about now. Specially in light of the fact that Microsoft finally threw in the towel in the European Anti-Trust case against them.
Sometimes it’s better to be a lover than a fighter.
Despite that horrible day on Friday, there is always opportunity.
Thanks to my hedging positions, I didn’t lose anywhere near as much as I should have, although it was still not a very nice day.
So far, and it’s only been a single trading day, the decision to buy back the options, even at such rarified prices as Apple and Google are seeing right now, was a good decision.
I’ve been trading options on Apple from about $80 and Google from about $450. Not all have been winners, but so far, the confidence in the stocks has paid off.
In Apple’s case, I have sold shares along the way, so that we’re playing with the house’s money at this point.
Do I need a better reason than that to love a day like today?
Taking One for the Team October 19, 2007
What do Craig Biggio, Jason Kendall, Carlos Delgado, Jason Giambi and Derek Jeter, Garry Sheffield and Alex Rodriguez have in common?
Red Sox fans would quickly answer that none of the above even have the slightest chance of going to this years’ World Series, unless they get their StubHub accounts into high gear. Although if it ends up being a Colorado versus Cleveland series they may just end up putting World Series tickets in specially marked boxes of Cocoa Pebbles.
At this point, as Rupert Murdoch looks at how much he spent to have Fox televise the series, he’s probably thinking that it would have been a better investment to have hired David Beckham.
To me, these current players evoke memories of Minnie Minoso, Run Hunt and Don Baylor. At least those three are not as obscure as the all time leader in this category. Because it is Hughie Jennings that has an advantage over Craig Biggio, having been hit by pitches twice more.
Hughie Jennings. Remember that for your next trivia fest.
These guys, some of them great players, others not so much, all were willing to take one for the team.
Today was the kind of day that someone had to step up and take one for the team.
As bad as today was, for me, it wasn’t that bad.
On this the 20th anniversary of “Black Monday”, how appropriate is it that we should lose 300 points on the Dow? But what’s 2.7% versus 23%? The colonic spasms are not quite as bad when it’s only a 2.7% loss.
It didn’t help that the supposed dean of the hedge fund world, by all appearances, an old geezer, called for a “doozy of a recession”.
I called my friend this morning and he confirmed for me that taking some losses on the options was the thing to do. He is the modern day Al Lopez. Minnie Minoso probably never spoke or understood English when Lopez was sending him out there to get plunked by Sam McDowell. I’m sure Lopez made believe that he didn’t speak Spanish.
But I understood.
He was telling me that sometimes you just have to take one between the eyes. And not like the way Dick Dietz tried to break up Don Drysdale’s consecutive scoreless inning streak. You need to take it right between the eyes. Had I not done that, I would have been faced with replacing a large part of my portfolio, which is never a great thing to do, but especially not at these levels. You hate to go all in. It tends to be much safer to go in little by little.
As it turned out, I just wasn’t ready to give up on some of my favorites.
The question was, when to buy them back. When to take the hit.
Fortunately, my timing turned out to be very good today. I bought back options on Google, Apple and Halliburton, but did so when they were at or near their lows for the day. You don’t want to get hit on the elbow or the wrist. Just turn into it, if you can.
I did.
At first, it was tricky, because in the early going Google was up by nearly $20 as trading started, thanks to their blowout numbers reported yesterday after trading.
At that price, I actually didn’t have the available funds to buy back my options, since they were now about $60 in the money. So I waited and finally saw Google give up some of those gains. As it seemed to plateau at about a $9 gain I pounced on the opportunity to buy back the options.
I then had an opportunity just a few minutes later to sell some Nov $680 options at a point that Google was up $12. Although I took a loss on the October options, Google has now had its price target raised to $800. At $680, together with the additional premium things will work out well.
Sometimes you’ve just got to get that runner on, no matter what it takes. It was a fairly big trading loss on the options contract, but I have confidence that it will be worth it.
I ended up doing the same with Apple. The big risk here is that Apple reports earnings on Monday. If it disappoints, or if the market continues in its sour mood then it will plunge. In the meantime, I ended up writing new Apple November call options for $190, with Apple about to close at $173 for the day. I was able to get a $5 premium.
Once again, if it works out, great. If not, it will be October, Part 2.
The real surprise of the day was Halliburton. I’ve loved that stock, having sold options on it repeatedly, as the price always seemed to stay just below the strike price. This past series, however, as oil and natural gas have had their recent spikes, so too, has Halliburton.
I was not prepared for the opportunity that came along today. With Halliburton down about $2.75 at one point, I bought back my $37.50 options at a small loss, but later sold some November $40 options at a $1.20 premium
The others, Goldman-Sachs, Honeywell, Kraft and MasterCard are all now comfortably below their October strike prices, so I’ll just let those options expire and will end up pocketing the premiums.
Hopefully, there’ll be a little bit of a rebound soon and I’ll look to put those options back into play.
As the market was heading down in the final hour, I also decided to take losses in my ProShares UltraShort Dow shares, which were up nearly 5% today. And they moved exactly as they were designed to move. Exactly in the opposite direction of the Dow and in twice the amount. Perfect for today, and actually perfect for the past 5 days, as every trading day this week was a downer.
In the last 5 minutes of trading, Altria, which I was prepared to lose, finally turned negative. It, like Google, had been up all day and was too far above the strike price to make it worthwhile to buy back.
But with the sudden turn, it was still above the strike price, but at that happy level where I could buy it back and still make a profit. It’s having your cake and eating it, too. It wasn’t much cake, but it was satisfying.
As it turned out, much of the losses my portfolio had today, weren’t losses at all, since they were on those stocks that were well above their strike prices. Had those stocks not fallen, I never would have seen the margin above the strike prices, anyway. So a we ended the day down 2.7%, overall, my portfolios were only down a little more than 1%, due to the much smaller than average losses in the Szelhamos Portfolios.
So that’s what hedging is all about.
As the day ended, we were down 370 points, with a deluge of sell orders in the last 15 minutes as the options were expiring.
I dusted myself off, took at look at some of the bruises and then looked at today’s bottom line.
I came to the obvious conclusion. It was definitely worth taking one for the team.
Thanks, Coach.
It’s a Love – Hate Kind of Thing October 18, 2007
These days I hate both Google and Apple.
The reality is that by tomorrow I may be in love with Google again, as long as it falls $30 after this afternoon’s ear | 
