<p>@DocT – I thought you said that you had the option trades in a non-taxable retirement account?</p>
<p>I have mulitple accounts. Most of my funds are in taxable accounts. You’re correct that this particularly case is in an ira, but I have 1/17/15 for many options in those taxable accounts except for spy. It was easier for me and somewhat careless to just set the date in that way without considering the ex div. </p>
<p>I must admit this has been very useful. Because of this and the fact I hardly ever look at this account, I looked today and discovered that I’m not maxing out. For some reason my catchup contributions were not input correctly. Now I’ll have to put them in and increase the amount out for the rest of the year.</p>
<p>So who bought BABA? cnbc guys said BABA marked the top and the stock is down.
Since I’m a contrarian, some of my stocks went up, not all.
2 of my trades are going my way, but I think the market is slightly confused, not sure what to do, up or down.</p>
<p>I’m not a BABA fan. I think it will drift lower. I don’t know how many lock ups there are but that should affect the price. </p>
<p>GPRO is way over valued but I won’t short it until there is some break in momentum. </p>
<p>I wonder when can we short BABA, how easy is it to borrow the stock. I would stay away from GPRO, its value is high but not an easy stock to short.</p>
<p>I watched BABA, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to buy into new issue to soon, I’d rather put it on my watch list and then wait until there’s a clear pattern established. If there’s a lot of buzz at the time of issue, then it will always fall from the IPO short-term. I want to hold off until there’s a clear baseline established. </p>
<p>I purchase 2000 shares of BABA at $87. May sell it at open tomorrow to pocket the profit and wait side line again. </p>
<p>My colleagues just got back from China and he saw how much business the BABA is doing there. He got in with a market price order at open and still confident that he will be o.k. in a year or two. </p>
<p>My MO shares are at another 52 week high. I am loving it. Apparently they won a case and don’t have to pay $10.1 billion. Also, if the beer buy goes through, they will get $16 per share from that $125 billion deal. However, I would prefer they take the stocks rather than cash for the long term return. </p>
<p>Life is good at this moment. </p>
<p>I have mo mainly as a dividend play and I haven’t been watching it to see why its been going up. Is this case the only reason?</p>
<p>DocT, I don’t really know the reason. All I know is that MO is going up and reaching new 52 week highs every week lately.</p>
<p>Well, while you guys are making money in mo, my aapl butterfly is toast. A bendable phone. 
An operating system released with bugs . Short term problems but the trade is short term. :)</p>
<p>Well, while you guys are making money in mo, my aapl butterfly is toast. A bendable phone. An operating system released with bugs . Short term problems but the trade is short term. :)</p>
<p>I still have those apple 98 10/3 puts</p>
<p>It may be time to buy more of those put spreads that I’ve been doing. I think it is still too early to go more long.</p>
<p>We are due for something bad to happen. But then I see nike up 5. Looks like stocks are slightly up in the after market. </p>
<p>Right now, I have no short puts after tomorrow and I dont have many tomorrow. The ones I do have should go out worthless. </p>
<p>Do I want to protect myself? </p>
<p>I see really weird stuff. At least I think I do. Too much money chasing too few ideas. Maybe if I lived in the midwest, I would see something different. I don’t get the funding of all these companies that make zip. </p>
<p>I was talking to a friend of mine who is 66. He told me he used a little margin in his investment account. One, I was shocked. 66 year olds using margin? Even if the margin is small? Two…it has been working out. :)</p>
<p>I see people living in homes worth over $1 million that have a lot of financial problems. A lot of financial problems. I just visited a place near me today that was for sale. The area is great, but the place is not much to talk about. It is just ok. A little less than $1 million. I guess $1 million doesn’t go far.</p>
<p>My gut is fine. My brain is a little worried. </p>
<p>I was thinking today about buying put spreads…but I didn’t. Should have bought put spreads instead of that aapl bs butterfly. :)</p>
<p>I was talking to a friend of mine that likes to raise money for young companies. Not a lot of money. He likes to participate. A friend of his does the same. My friend said both he and his friend are getting few calls and the ones they get are always technonlogy companies. It is as if the rest of tye economy does not exist.</p>
<p>Now we have companies that are using just in time inventory techniques on employees. Now companies tell employees, I need you 2-5 on Monday and Friday. And if the employee is lucky, he might get some notice. </p>
<p>How is this good for the employee?</p>
<p>Stock buybacks are up to 80 percent of free cash flow? Somebody can correct me if my numbers are wrong. How is this good for the economy? There are so few investment opportunites that stock buybacks dominate?</p>
<p>I am feeling a little negative today and it isn’t because the stock market dropped. Today’s drop is a dot on a long term chart.</p>
<p>Those aapl 98 puts are again becoming a pain in the a–. I usually only sell puts in iwm or sometimes spy. They’re much better behaved. Unfortunately, because of their price, my percentage profit drops. I thought about buying some put spreads yesterday but in Schwab in particular, it is a real pain to do this on a phone.</p>
<p>So I shorted a stock a few days ago and still don’t make money. I need to also stamp in forhead to hold back wait for the right time of the day in the stock to get in. I often get scared that the stock will go up/down too fast out of my reach.</p>
<p>Spreads on the phone? Doesn’t Schwab charge a fortune for spreads done on the phone?</p>
<p>Doct, have you ever been long a stock that dropped to zero? I have had a few. </p>
<p>Have you ever been short puts in something and the stock has a big drop down?</p>
<p>Let’s say you are short the 8 puts in something and the stock is trading 8.5?</p>
<p>Next day the stock is 8 and there are 2 weeks to go?</p>
<p>What do you do ?</p>
<p>Do you only sell puts on blue chips?</p>
<p>Oh! You werent talking to anybody at Schwab when you tried to enter your orders .</p>
<p>And I see you don’t usually sell puts in stocks. </p>
<p>I mean’t on a smartphone. However when I found I was assigned on some qqq last week with Schwab, I called and put on the trade. It cost me the same as on a laptop. I usually sell puts in iwm and spy. In general, I don’t like to do individual stocks because things like what is happening with aapl occur more with individual stocks. I have sold puts in vlo, aapl, goog, ddd, asml, and gm. Sometimes, I’ve had to roll them out as much as 4 times. I’ve only lost once after rolling them out. It was with gm this year. As it turned out, if I had rolled it out twice more, I would have been ok. Instead I got crushed.</p>
<p>I have never had a stock go to 0 but back in the tech bubble I got hammered in Cisco, msft,jdsu and more recently 2008 with c and bac (because of countrywide). I rode Cisco from 98 all the way down. I bought jdsu as it was dropping multiple times - talk about catching a falling knife!</p>