The investment..speculation, out right gambling thread

Parent Cafe
5401

<p>Well I will always lag the market if it goes up this fast by selling way out of the money puts. With that strategy, I use it instead of cd’s or savings accts. </p>

<p>I’ve gotten killed a few times with aapl call spreads and did today. Yesterday I bought the 4/20 430 - 460 call spread first thing in the morning because it was up in the premarket. After I bought it, it immediately dropped. I keep telling myself not to do anything before 10 am but I rushed the trade. I sold it this morning again early at another loss and wouldn’t you know it went up by the end of the day. I’m pretty sure I’m not holding this stuff long enough and trading too much. I’m fine with what I’m doing with the put selling. Its the calls, I’m having trouble with right now.</p>

5402

<p>Ok… I agree on selling the puts …</p>

<p>I know you know this but if you buy call spreads your probability of success can be far less than 50 percent, do u run probabilities where a stock will be in the future like expiration?</p>

<p>Over trading is common and a loser.</p>

5403

<p>What percentage of the time is aapl down on expiration? Over the last 3 months? 6 months? A year?</p>

<p>More than 50 percent, right?</p>

5404

<p>When I buy call spreads, I usually buy them so that the breakeven price is very near the current price of the stock. Very rarely do I buy call spreads atm or otm and if I do, its not with much money. I don’t run probability calculators on calls or puts that I’m buying - I base what I do on the market trends. </p>

<p>Looking at the distribution of my trades, I have some large negative outliers. The mean and median are > 0. I have a large number of small winners (obviously from my otm put selling).</p>

<p>I have big losses in aapl, goog and amzn (these are the large outliers) which is amazing considering that amzn is up 9% this year and goog is up 17.7% so far, but my losses occurred earlier this year. I’m trading too much except in selling the puts which I have only one small loss this year. Hopefully we have a big sell off and I can go more long.</p>

5405

<p>I expect the job report Friday to be good given the ADP report and new unemployment claims today. I may buy the emini s&p in the a.m. depending on the trend if I can detect it.</p>

5406

<p>Ok… If u have the info check aapl at expiration. I am having a problem with Put selling also.</p>

<p>For example, I loved selling puts in aig at 32,33,34. Now the stock is 39. Selling the 37 puts does not excite me.</p>

<p>Many stocks I sell puts in eventually rise to high and I have to find new stocks</p>

5407

<p>Call spreads… If aapl is 431 and the 430 460 call spread is 3 bucks with a day to go… U need the stock to rise…I don’t like that…</p>

5408

<p>Call spreads… Is your break even on the call spreads higher than where the stock is trading? How much time r u to giving the spreads to work</p>

5409

<p>“Call spreads… If aapl is 431 and the 430 460 call spread is 3 bucks with a day to go… U need the stock to rise…I don’t like that…”</p>

<p>I’m not certain what you’re saying. I bought this yesterday and it expires April 20th. I saw the stock dropping and panicked.</p>

5410

<p>My breakeven was 436 and the price of aapl when I bought the spread was ~ 433-434 with a month and a half to go.</p>

5411

<p>Ok… I guess you did panic.
That is part of the game. If a stock isn’t acting the way you expect… That can be a sell signal.</p>

<p>I don’t panic. I calmly get the hell out. Lol</p>

5412

<p>I should point out that almost immediately after I bought it, after aapl went up for a few minutes, it got another downgrade dropping the stock. Perhaps Kass is right when he said that aapl will keep getting downgrades and dropping until it either comes out with a blockbuster product or returns something to the shareholder.</p>

5413

<p>We are gambling here.</p>

<p>Doug Kass was super bearish. Dennis Gartman was super bearish.
Market made new highs. </p>

<p>Ecri thinks we are in a recession forever. </p>

<p>The guy with the fake hair who has done work for Steve Cphen said on cnbc that aapl bottomed 50 or 60 points higher,</p>

<p>If these guys really knew, they would never have to go on tv.</p>

5414

<p>I checked my trading stats for this year and I think that I’ve made about 20 trades. More than I thought. A few were adding to positions and a few were trying out stocks that didn’t work out or did work out for small gains (short-term trading). My main holdings have been fantastic this year.</p>

5415

<p>Main holdings are doing fantastic. Nice.</p>

5416

<p>236000…</p>

5417

<p>Looks good. 7.7%. Anyone have the exact Fed target? I just recall that it’s somewhere in the 6s.</p>

5418

<p>Thought it was 6.5</p>

5419

<p>Blow out numbers on payroll but the S&P is up only a small amount. What is going on here?</p>

5420

<p>What is going on here is we are near very strong resistance in the s&p - getting near where it has failed twice in the last 13 years followed by big bear markets.</p>