<p>Using Schwab’s implied volatilites, looks like the at the money weekly iv are around 30. With aapl trading above 97, this looks like a day of sitting for me. :)</p>
<p>Doct, yeah… People freaked out about interest rates yesterday. My interest rate sensitive stocks took a hit and they havent recovered today. Most, if not all, are down again.</p>
<p>I hope your court case is interesting…</p>
<p>Crude oil is falling, I wonder how to trade to benefit it?</p>
<p>I downloaded street smart edge from Schwab and it looks great. You can trade condors (It is hard to trade 4 legs at once with decent prices.) and butterflies and other strategies. There is a probablity calculator. You can change variables.</p>
<p>I am going to play around more over time but so far, I am pretty impressed with this platform. I think multiple screens will work better than one. Lots of info.</p>
<p>We may not need this much info but it is nice to have.</p>
<p>Volatility crush in the weeklys in aapl continues. Mid 20’s now.</p>
<p>AAPL is doing alright today. I closed my trade on DIS, one of my favorite stocks but I was getting nervous about this whole thing and I don’t want to loose what I’ve gained so far. I think I made 45% gain on the trade.</p>
<p>@DrGoogle -
</p>
<p>HLF is a bad example in terms of the market as a whole – I’ve posted before I made a lot of money last year selling covered calls on HLF because of its high volatility. The bad press would simply another cycle of down, then up-- and the options were always very high priced (so could for selling). I pulled out when the stock broke under whatever support level I had set for myself – but my point is that HLF peaked a long time ago. It’s great for options trading and short selling, but not much of a market indicator.</p>
<p>I personally am not short selling because I’m doing my options stuff in my tax-sheltered accounts, and they do not allow shortselling. But I could continued to roll deep-in-the-money covered calls in those accounts, which is what I was doing with HLF. That doesn’t work in the taxable accounts because those can impact the tax treatment of the main stock – selling a deep in-the-money covered call will toll the holding period for capital gains, and I think it might also impact whether dividends are qualified or not. But within the retirement account, if the options are priced well, then I can simply keep reducing my cost basis in a stock over time, which works as long as the stock doesn’t take a huge dived. (Which HLF might very well do, so I’m not going to be buying or selling, though I can see why it works as a short candidate.) </p>
<p>Calmom, you are right. HLF is not an indication but I noticed some stocks are getting tired lately. I’m a contrarian indicator trader. I went long on stocks that were down last year and waiting for a nice pop due to Xmas.</p>
<p>It was a wild ride on VNET today. One adviser came out and said the company was a fraud based on extensive research. The stock dropped to 14 but then gained back to 23 or so and then closed a few dollars lower. I am reading the report and, if true, the stock is just another chinese fraud company. </p>
<p>I decided that I’m too much of a newbie to be a contrarian. Over time I keep accumulating more and more evidence that in a contest between my “analysis” and/or “gut” feeling and the consensus of analysts as to what is a “strong buy”… the analysts win. Sure, every once in a while I get lucky… but the professionals do better than me at stock-picking, most of the time. </p>
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<p>Mine are all back up today. Those shares I have in MNK are up to $90 in after-hours trading. I’m not sure why. </p>
<p>“Crude oil is falling, I wonder how to trade to benefit it” Gartman says to short it which means go long!</p>
<p>I have street smart edge on my laptop - I didn’t like it but it probably is an older version. I also have etrade pro which I liked better. Platform choices are a matter of personal preferences.</p>
<p>I haven’t really looked much at the market except between 1 - 2 pm.</p>
<p>I’m almost back to even on those 16 aapl 10/3 contracts. Do I buy them back or continue with the trade and get the last1.29?? I’m greedy and going for it.</p>
<p>Doct,
:)…</p>
<p>Mnk has been one heck of a stock…</p>
<p>That’s one of the problem with a lot of Chinese stocks. That is maybe why Alibaba registered in USA.</p>
<p>@Dstark
</p>
<p>I think that’s what I’ve been doing with AAPL. ;)</p>
<p>Calmom, I would love to take credit for the quote or posting or paraphrasing the quote, but it was doct.</p>
<p>I do agree with the quote. :)</p>
<p>Well I thought I had some ideas what to short tomorrow but after reading a few articles on SeekingAlpha, I’m back to being confused.</p>
<p>I’m ashamed to admit that I made some small money shorting EBAY. I wanted it to drop more but I gave up this morning. At least it was positive.</p>
<p>I got out of the condor…I made a few hundred bucks…</p>
<p>I am going to spend it tonight. :)</p>
<p>What can I say? </p>
<p>The odds shifted. The stock went through my stop. :)</p>
<p>I’m ashamed of my trade on VNET today, I had to go out so put a sold value and it went through. I picked up some crumbs. Both EBAY and VNET would have resulted in a lot more money if I had done nothing. I need to practice on doing nothing.</p>
<p>DrGoogle, are you Asian?</p>
<p>My dad was born and raised in China. One of my best friends is Chinese. Great trader too. When I went to his 40th birthday party, everybody stood up and said something about him. (Not one of my favorite customs in a birthday party 
). </p>
<p>And almost all his relatives said, “He never shamed me”, or
" He never shamed the family".</p>
<p>When I stood up, I said, “Well there was this time he went to a brothel and…”. :)</p>
<p>Ok.I did not say that. :)</p>
<p>What is this ashamed stuff? They are just trades. </p>