Investment / Trading Ideas (Page 4)

Matt I think you're right on 1 thing here- The sequester is the least of this markets problems....

Opposite from what?

What a ride in BBY today!  I always say " the pre-market is where the amateurs go to get screwed!"  I have to re-consider though on this.  I can get out of my puts even right now.  My bet was on the deal not going through and that happened.  But what I didn't bank on happening is any kind of turn around.  Reading through the reports it looks like BBY lowered px's to match online retailers and still managed to keep margins up.  Not sure how they did this or how that is sustainable.  But if I can't find an answer I have to cover, because this is not part of my original play on the name.

Month end is a different animal.  Things don't usually make sense till a few days after month end.  You always get some biases.  This month was a a relatively flat month so I didn't expect much of a move on month end.  Managers like to hold on to positive performances from prior months and don't like to make big moves.  If it was a negative month I'd expect further selling as managers don't like to show crappy performers on their books and vice versa for positive months where we'd get "window dressing" 

I suspect the Sequester will come more into play in the next few days.  While it's only $85, the political plays and positioning may fall in-line to hurt the economy the most to make the other party look bad.  What's baffling me is the actual uptick in US econ data.  Jobless claims, ISM, and sentiment have ticked toward the better and reversed trend.  I don't know if that continues with more problems surfacing in Europe and the continued reluctance to deal with entitlement.  This is just like 2008 with housing!!!  The seniors stealing money from younger generations is just as unsustainable as the easy mortgages.  It will blow up!  But, IMO the housing market should have blown up during the Clinton Era.  However, they kicked the can down the road by meeting with mortgage originators and pushing their "Every American should own a home" agenda.  When we talk about politics, as a trader, you can never be certain when this stuff hits.  All you can be sure of is it will hit!  But you need to make moves in the meantime and be nimble.

That would never happen here.  Our commander in chief will make darn sure of that!

The Cyprus event in and of itself is very small. Symbolically however its huge. 1- It shows how disfunctional the EU is. Without banking union its nothing more than a collection of states as opposed to a union of states. 2- Contagion risk is real and large. Spain still has a number of insolvent banks. Stray dogs. Hungry people. Hmmm... 3- There will be knock on effects to confidence. 4- Capital flight. React first. Think later. 5- Wealth tax gets thrown out -> banks fail. 6- Wealth tax sticks -> governments change or democracy fails...

This whole market has gone way higher than I ever thought it would but still think we are due for some nasty downside. China (FXI) is -9.5% ytd. Emerging mkt ETF -5% ytd. SPX +11% from its 200 day moving average. Deviations greater than 8% historically invoke corrections. We live in a mean reverting world. 

Originally posted by JoshR Have you guys heard about the newest and best strategy http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-21/19-out-19

SHHH, lol I've been back testing this very thing.

With the continued weekly streaks I shifted over to buying ITM weekly calls on QQQ and doing very well.  I've been trying to limit my risk by making my trades shorter and shorter by trying to narrow the weekly peaks to a day.  I didn't spend a lot of time, but Tuesdays were coming out as a clear FOP option. 

If you do want to trade this make sure you time your entry.  Often times the daily jump is in pre-market trading before the open.  So even on some of those "spike" Tuesday's you could potentially lose money if you buy in after the open.  You may need to buy in Monday before the close to get the benefit.

I'm sure glad I didn't follow any advice/opinions from this thread through the first 5 months of the year.....you guys have missed a nice run.  I'm close to a 15% gain in my portfolio since the 1st of the year in mutual funds that are 100% stocks. 

Yep, I did lose some money with my "short" strategy I posted on page 1.  However, it was after I made a lot of money.    Once the market started trending more I pulled the plug on my diagonal strategy and shifted to a straight trend based strategy buying ITM calls and absolutely killed it the last 6 weeks.

I have learned over the years to always be flexible and take emotion out of investing as much as possible.  I have to intentionally use strategies that force me to take emotion out.  I almost exclusively use weekly options strategies that expire the following Friday to keep me from holding onto losers.  I make my play based on whatever signals I see and let it ride till the following Friday.  If it works it works, if it doesn't it doesn't and I'm out no matter what.  Then I reassess the strategy the following Friday.

Retail euphoria never fails to hit tops and bottoms.