Credit Card ’s Talk

Options are most commonly used by investors for either leverage and / or insurance (hedging). As leverage, options allow the investor to control an equity position without paying 100% of the share price. For example, rather than going on the open market and purchasing 100 shares of IBM for $8,257 ($82.57 per share), an investor could control the same amount of shares at a given strike price for a fraction of the cost such as the Jan 07 $80 strike with a total cost of $1,050. As insurance / hedge, options can assist in protecting against price fluctuations. For example, the same IBM investor can sell a call against his shares which will reduce the basis in the equity position by the premium received. In other words, he has hedged his position against any short term fluctuations his equity position may experience.

Selling options provides many benefits with the major reason being collecting premium from the sale of such an option. The premium collected goes into your account and can then be used to invest in other positions. The writer keeps the premium regardless of whether or not the option is exercised. Another important aspect with selling options is that of time value which now works for you rather than against you.

Selling options is not new and it isn’t as complicated as many make it out to be. It is a viable means of generating consistent income from your portfolio. If you are not selling options against your positions you are losing out on money you could be putting in your pocket each and every month. Keep in mind writing covered calls are not get rich quick strategies. They are a means of generating income for the individual investor regardless of their trading expertise.

Stock Market Cash Machine helps traders learn the advantages of writing covered calls. Covered Calls are often misunderstood but when used correctly can assist investors in generating monthly income as well as providing downside protection.

Covered Calls

We place consider buys on stocks for several reasons. If the chip sector is moving higher and we see a chip maker approaching a near term resistance, that gets our blood moving! Why? Because if it gets through that resistance, it can squeeze a bit and really break out. But when the market is nervous, and whippy, too many times a stock crosses above the resistance, they get cold feet and down it comes. At that point you have to make a decision. do you hold it under where you paid or do you bail out? It’s not an easy choice.

Many are the times you will bail out and the darned thing will reverse back up and blast higher. Then again there are the times it will simply keep falling. Is there any way to truly know the difference? No, unfortunately, we don’t care what you have read about systems, volumes, technical indicators, voodoo, or aliens, the fact is no one knows the future. So, naturally the best plan is to sell out when a breakout comes back to where you bought it. Jump out with little or no loss and live to fight again.

Over the past few weeks we have entered and then had to bail out of so many stocks we have lost count. But this is the important part and you have to remember it: We are up big on the win/lose column. Yes it takes work, yes it’s a royal pain in the butt, but the fact is that active management saves the day. Look at DISH back in late October of 2001. Pull up the chart. See that messy line right around the $28 level? Well if you draw a line across 28 from the high of the day on October 28th (at 27.99) you see 28 is like a fairly staunch resistance. So, we had a consider buy on it if it got back over 28, give or take a few cents.

Sure enough it opened at 28.01, stumbled a bit and pushed up to 28.53. Great right? It sure was, we were in it at 28.10. but then sure enough it reversed and down it came. When it got to 28.12, we had to make a decision. Do we hold it under where we pain or do we sell it flat? We held for about 10 cents and dumped it. Swell right? A 10 cent loss, after being up 40 cents. But, here is the really important part folks, it closed the day at 27.53. Now, if it came back up, then we looked stupid. If it fell more we were heroes.

Well let me tell you something. We will generally take the flat or a 10 cent loss rather than holding under where we bought it hoping’ it comes back. Sure we could have sold it at 28.50, or 28.40 or 28.30, but we didn’t. Maybe we should have, the thing is quite often we have to settle for the dimes, but it’s not what we are after.

Unless the day is totally in the toilet, we try and buy into the stocks we put on the consider buy list. More times than not they work out for us, but not without a bit of work. Yes we have often had to do the DISH thing, watching a small gain disappear and then bail out flat. But then we catch the right one. That’s what we are after! Unfortunately, when the market is whippy, unless you can seriously daytrade, you have to be prepared to be nimble enough to bail out when the stock you bought is falling back to where you bought it.

There are times when we do hang onto the stock even though it has violated our entry price intra day. Why do we do it? Well maybe we still had really high hopes and thought it would rebound. Maybe we felt the only reason it pulled back was because the overall market got scared over a news item or such. Well, we went back through hundreds of trades over the years and did the math. On the ones we held onto even though they failed our original entry price, 61% went on to become winning plays. That isn’t bad at all. Would we encourage it? Not at all, we encourage you to bail. But that said, we only put out plays we feel have a real shot at moving higher, and the numbers back that up. Even though they failed the initial buy in price, 61% still became winners down the road.

Why didn’t we hold onto DISH? The day was poor at best, there were big earnings after hours that could have put the market in a bad mood if they were poor and we saw them picking away at GE, IBM etc. When the leaders are getting plucked, there is always the chance of a big sell off. We bailed flat and moved on. When you are looking at a stock that has pulled back to where you entered it, please take all things into consideration.

How is the overall market acting? Is there a bad headline floating around? Is the mid East erupting? Has gold or oil shot higher? Did someone just warn? When you have the answers to these questions, then you can make a better judgment about whether you want to hold onto a falling stock, or bail out. More times than not its still best to bail, but occasionally you may decide the stock is falling and its not the stocks fault.

Suppose you see a high volume breakout and everything looks great. The resistance line was 50 and you get in at 50.15 and soon its at 50.60. Then it starts fading. You notice the DOW was up 80 and now its up 40, 30 20. Something happened. Maybe a program trade, maybe a profits warning, maybe a fight in the mid East. In a situation like that, especially if the breakout came with volume, we’d tend to hang onto it even if it failed 50.15, but we wouldn’t let it fail 50, the original breakout line. Why? Because the stock didn’t do anything wrong, some outside influence drove the market lower and took our stock with it. We would hold it under our buy in price, but not the breakout price. If the short sellers see it couldn’t hold the breakout, they might step up their shorting and drive it lower.

No, we’d probably bail at 49.95 or so if we could. So, as you see, there is no cut and dry answer, and the situation will determine your best course of events. We hope that helps you make good decisions in the future!

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Stock options are an excellent way to reduce risk in trading or to leverage your capital. While advanced stock option strategies are for experienced investors only, the basic option strategies can also be used by novice traders.

Basically an stock option is nothing complicated. There are just a few things to consider. There are two basic option types which are the call option and the put option.

The call (put) option gives you the right to buy (sell) a stock at a fixed price before a certain date, the expiration date. The option expires at this date and does no longer trade. Until this date your strategy should have worked out, otherwise your stock option expires worthless.

Buying the stock option is nothing else then buying the stock itself. Just that you need much less money to buy the option instead of the shares and that the option expires one day. But the rest is almost the same. When the stock moves, the option moves as well.

The difference and the big advantage of options is the leverage involved. To buy the option you need about 10% of the capital which would have been needed to buy the shares directly but with the same profit potential. There lies the risk as well.

One option contract equals 100 shares. If you want to own 1000 shares of Microsoft then you either can buy the 1000 shares at the stock exchange or you buy 10 Microsoft option contracts at the options exchange. You will figure out that there are many options for one stock. The reason is that options have different expiration dates and strike prices. The strike price is the price where you could buy the stock if you want.

In the praxis you don’t want to buy the shares through the options so this remains a theory. Most options are not exercised but sold before expiration with a profit or expire worthless otherwise. So the option is just a bet with limited investment. You can never loose more than your option purchase price with the basic option strategies.

There are various combinations of covered and uncovered call and put options. Different strike prices and expiration dates have different option prices, leverage and risks. To learn the basic option trading strategies you must first explore the possibilities of simple call and put options.

Instead of a short sale you could buy a put option. Instead of going long in shares you buy a number of call contracts. Following the option prices for several days will show you that the option price decreases slowly although the stock price hasn’t changed at all. This is the price you pay for the leverage.

David A. Sorenger is a stock market expert and provides detailed information on stock options trading at his web site http://www.StockTradingABC.com

Fading the gap. Earnings runs. Moving average cross over’s. Support and resistance. I could go on an on about all the ?tools? a good ?trader? uses to make a trade. In one form or another we have employed each and every one of them, and for the most part, if done right, they work. But, there is one issue that will always make you shake your head in wonder. What?s that? ?Why didn?t I hold??

One time we watched EBAY get to 104 dollars a share. Well, we went long EBAY on 8/11/04 at 76.30. We held it for a pretty long time, and sold a portion on 9/2/04, at 89.53. We had picked up $13 a share, and yes indeed we were proud of ourselves. Yet, it went over 104. Suddenly selling it at 89.53, looked pretty silly didn?t it? Indeed.

One could easily ask ?why on earth did you sell it?? One could easily answer, ?did you ?know? it was going to go to 100?? Do you see the point? There are indeed investments that you are going to make from time to time, when you will take your profit, feel like a king, and then feel like a fool because the stock keeps going higher. But, we have a short memory in this country. This is the same type of thinking that saw tens of thousands of investors get crushed in 200 ? 2003. They all ?knew? their stocks were going higher. They held onto them. They are still licking their wounds.

There is NO answer to this problem folks. Cocky talking head fund managers wrote all sorts of catchy books about ?let your runners run, and cut your losers?. Peter Lynch had the good fortune of buying stocks during the biggest bull market in the history of the US, so he gets to act pompous and wave his hand in the air and say ?I just buy good companies and let them ride?. Well, lots of ?good companies? he bought in 99/2000 spent the next three years underwater.

How do you know when a runner is running? How often do you buy something, it gains 3, 4, 5, even 10 dollars a share, only to roll over and give it all back? Should one hold onto it as it loses another 7% from your entry as the ?gurus? tell you that the proper play is to cut losses at 7%, and let winners win?

My theory is that you really need two if not three separate piles of investment money. First off if you are lucky enough to have a company sponsored 401K, well then, good for you! But if you don?t you should have an IRA set up. Then, for your personal investing you really need to approach this with two mindsets. One is the day to day, week to week trades we make, but secondly, what about some ?buy and hold? type stuff?

I?m not a buy and hold sort of guy naturally, but the fact is we do put out story stocks that go on to make tremendous gains. Quite often we?ve suggested ?Buying a few shares and putting them away for a year to see what happens?. Many of those very suggestions, have gone on to be three or four ?baggers?. (tripled or quadrupled in price)

For short term swing trades, the thing that keeps us in the game is taking profits, setting some form of stops and moving in and out when the reasons line up. But that said, taking a longer view approach with a small pile of cash, on specific story stocks, can really reward you. No one knows the future, and hindsight is always 20/20. It?s easy to ask ?why didn?t I hold that?? But you really didn?t ?know? it was going to continue going higher. For that type of trade, find a story that?s compelling and take a SMALL position and put it away. If we?ve done our homework, we should see good results.

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The stock market is either a physical or virtual location where buyers and sellers can meet and exchange or trade company shares. If you buy a stock then you become a partial owner of the company. If the company is doing well and makes money, then you make money as well. The stock price will increase. If the company isn’t successful then the stock price will go down and you loose money.

Investing in stocks is a very convenient way to become an entrepreneur. In exchange to your purchase price you get a portion of a company and its profits and dividends. You have a voting right which you can use in the stockholder’s meeting. The advantage for the company is receiving the money from the stock sales. This is one of the best ways for a company to raise money for its business.

In the United States there are several different stock exchanges. The best known one is the so called ?Wall Street? or New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The NYSE is a physical marketplace. That means that all orders to buy or sell stocks are directed to a person who then matches these orders for an execution. These persons are called specialists and each specialist is responsible for a specific stock or company.

The second best known stock exchange is the NASDAQ. The NASDAQ is a virtual market place, that means there are no specialists but only market makers and electronic communication networks. All orders are matched 100% electronically. The NASDAQ is the playing field of the so called day traders who sometimes make hundreds of buys and sells during the day. Because all executions are electronic and therefore extremely quick, it’s possible to buy and sell stocks within seconds.

It’s this technology which has allowed the stock market to grow tremendously the last years. Today everyone with a simple computer and an Internet connection can trade stocks or other instruments like futures or options online with low transaction costs. In earlier days trading stocks was the privilege of a few people only because it was very expensive. The stock market was in the hands of banks, investment funds, insurance companies and wealthy private investors only.

Today you still can’t purchase or sell stocks directly at the exchange yourself but you won’t want to do it anyway. You always have to go through a registered broker who takes your orders and transmits them to the exchange for execution. The broker takes all the hassles away so that you can trade stocks without having to think how your order gets executed properly. Full service brokers offer a wide range of services. You can get investment advice, research data, news and quotes and personal assistance. This includes a higher transaction cost. Experience traders who don’t want or need these services and do their own research can use discount brokers who just execute your orders for a lower fee.

You can make much money with stocks when you have chosen to invest into the right company at the right moment. The timing is very important and can make the difference between profit and loss. Be aware that the stock prices are always in fluctuation because supply and demand determines the current stock quote.

David A. Sorenger is a stock market expert and provides detailed information on the stock exchange at his web site http://www.StockTradingABC.com.

I often play a little game with myself when I have to go shopping; to the post office or on other errands.

Sometimes I will just go about my business and make little comment or eye contact with the person serving me. Other times I will smile and talk to the person. Ask them how they are. Even make a joke!

The difference is incredible. And it is amazing what affect it has on both them and me.

If I take the effort to engage the person in a conversation and make eye contact - almost without exception their face lights up, they smile and are friendly back to me. And best of all, I feel much better.

Instead of it being just a chore, it can make the whole experience more enjoyable. And the only difference is my attitude.

Now what does this have to do with you trading the stock market?

Well, I believe that in trading your success is almost completely determined by your attitude.

If you don’t believe me, play the game I just described.

And then ask yourself, If I can affect my experience so dramatically through a minor change of my attitude in one small area of my life, surely changing my attitude in my trading will have a similar effect.

Just try it.

Look at the stock market with a negative attitude [such as the market is out to get me!. And then review the same information with the view that the market is a wonderful source of financial freedom.

Do you notice a difference?

Do you think the second view is more helpful? Do you think it might give you greater confidence and motivation? And less fear?

Now don’t get me wrong.

I am not saying that positive thinking is all you need for success. Clearly you need the necessary skills and experience to achieve anything in any area of your life.

But having the right attitude and beliefs is absolutely crucial. Because it is this that determines which actions you will take. And when.

You see the reality is that, without a positive attitude, you cannot be come a successful trader. Period. No question.

So give it a go.

Have a look at your attitudes to the stock market and trading and see if they need review.

What have you got to lose? Maybe just some limiting beliefs and attitudes that are restricting your success.

And by the way - try my little game some time!

Be nice to a cashier or a waiter or a bus driver and see what happens. Maybe even try it on someone close to you!

You will be amazed. And so will they!

David Chandler

Ordinary People Making Extraordinary Profits!

For free mini-course on stock and options trading click the following link: http://www.StockMarketGenie.com

Or visit our blog at: http://stockmarketgenie.blogspot.com/

The above comments are offered for educational purposes only. We are not providing you with financial advice. We are simply sharing with you what has and hasn’t worked for us personally. If you wish to trade or invest in the stock market you should obtain advice from a registered licensed advisor.

Under Armour, Inc. (UAI) debuted on November 18, 2005 at $31. The maker of branded performance clothing is growing its brand recognition via the use of hip brand promotion that is trying to wrestle away interest from the traditional buyers of Nike (NKE).

Under Armour has targeted the youth and athletic market where it competing with the established and strong Nike brand. Under Armour has a projected five-year annual earnings growth of 22.50% versus 14% for Nike. But on the valuation side, Under Armour is discounting in significant premium growth over that of Nike. Under Armour is trading at 46.19x its FY07 and a PEG of 2.75 versus 14.27x and a PEG of 1.06 for Nike. Clearly, Under Armour will need to perform to its lofty expectations going forward; otherwise, the stock will sell off. Nike is a superior value play.

Vonage Holdings Corp. (NYSE/VG) debuted on Wednesday at $17, the mid-point of its estimated IPO pricing range of $16-$18. The provider of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is an early entrant into the rapidly growing area of VoIP and presently has about 1.6 million subscribers but the company has yet to turn a profit. VoIP uses a broadband connection to make phone calls.

High advertising costs to acquire customers have hindered margins. Vonage is the current leader due to its early entry into the VoIP business but I see the company facing a difficult uphill climb as intense competition surfaces from major cable companies and the Skype service from eBay (EBAY).

The reality is Vonage has to spend extraordinary money on acquiring customers whereas for cable companies and eBay, there is already a significant customer base to market to. Vonage will soon realize this.

Hedge fund manager and the host of the hugely popular ?Mad Money? show on CNBC said Vonage is a ?piece of junk,? which I have to concur with. And with Vonage currently trading down at $13, the market may also view Vonage as over hype and not enough substance.

George Leong is the founder of Investornomics.com (http://www.investornomics.com) - a provider of independent stock and option trading commentary. He has a degree in finance/economics and offers over 15 years of research experience in investing and trading.

The Break-even-or-better strategy is designed to either (1) show a profit for the year or, (2) at least, show no loss.

How:
A portfolio invested in 1 year Treasury bills, purchased at a discount and maturing at face value provides the cash, through the interest earned, to purchase (hopefully) attractively priced options.

Results:
Best case: If an investor is good at picking the right options on the right stocks that rise or fall a good distance during the life of the options, the profits can be significant. And the investor gets to reinvest the interest.

Worst case: The interest earned on the maturing Treasury bills offset the option losses (break-even).

Advantages:
Leverage and truncated risk (no margin calls; no short squeezes). No fuss, no muss.

Heads you win, tails you break even.

Sort of like visiting a casino that pays off if you win or returns your bets if you lose. Not bad.

Caveat:
In an inflationary era, simply holding the same number of dollars over any period of time constitutes a real loss of capital. Capital value hinges on purchasing power and, as purchasing power erodes, so does capital.

That being said, I’m sure, at the end of some years, there are more than a few investors that wouldn’t mind being in a break-even or better position. Know what I mean?

As an alternative, growth stocks, rather than options on those stocks, financed from the interest earned from the Treasury bills in your portfolio, replaces wasting assets with permanent assets.

Results: Win, lose or draw, the stocks are yours for better or for worse, for as long as you both shall live.

Seriously though, if you’re a good enough stock-picker, you should enjoy capital appreciation through growth, increased income from dividends, and your rolling-over maturing T-bills will be throwing off a constant source of fresh cash with which to buy more stocks.

On the other hand, should your stocks go bust, your Treasury bill interest will provide the cash for you to try again. Again, not bad.

Because No One Cares More About Your Money Than You

http://dynamic-stock-market-strategies.com

Good trading,
Don Heggen

What is a credit spread?

Investopedia.com says? An options strategy where a high premium option is sold and a low premium option is bought on the same underlying security.

OK I know that is very vague, so lets see if I can do better.

It is a trading strategy in which you buy an out of the money option at a certain strike price and then you sell an out of the money option at a different strike price of the same month. As time goes on the options will decay in value and as long as the price of the stock does not go past the sold strike price at the end of expiration you will receive a full credit winning trade.

For example,it is January and XYZ stock is currently at $54 and it looks as if it is bullish or will increase in price over the next month and you firmly believe that the stock will not go below $50. You would trade a Bull Put Credit Spread on a Feb expiration. You would buy the Feb 45 put for $.25 and you would sell the Feb 50 put for $1.00. This leaves you with a credit of $.75 in your account or actually $75 per contract you trade. The risk of the trade or the amount of money per contract you need in your account is $425 per contract. This gives you a return on investment of 17.5% in how ever many days till Feb expiration.

Lets take it out like a real trade - It is January 13 and Febuary expiration is in 35 days. You place the trade for 5 contracts. So you now buy 5 FEB XYZ 45 PUTs for $.25 or $125 total and you sell 5 FEB XYZ 50 PUTs for $1.00 or $500 giving you a credit of $375 in your account. Now to back the trade up with collateral in case the trade goes wrong you need to have $2125 in your account for just this trade. If XYZ closes above $50 in 35 days you will have received $375 which is a 17.6% gain. There is a break even price of $49.25 that if the stock closes at this number you will neither gain or lose money. If the stock closes between $49.25 and $45 you will lose some money and if it closes below $45 you will lose $2125.

If you like the idea of knowing exactly what your profit will be, exactly when the trade is closed, and exactly how much money you will risk then credit option spread trading is for you. Your profit margins will be between 10 and 20% on each trade - on some of the aggressive credit spreads you can make over 50% - and there are techniques for changing your trade if it becomes a losing trade to help you recover some of the loss and in some cases even make it a winning trade again even though you were wrong on the direction of the movement of the stock.

Daniel Beatty has been trading options for several years and now teaches others how to trade specific strategies for free through his website http://creditoptionspreads.com or Option Spreads.

Some time ago I commented on the ETF’s, stating that in the future they would carry a lot more weight than most would have thought. I think that’s come true enough. Back in 00 and 01, not a lot of people were playing with the ETF’s, but since then, several major institutions have begun using them for their hedging practices. Volumes, once anemic across the board, has recently exploded.

The reason is really pretty simple. althought he ETF doesn’t mirror the underlying basket perfectly because of carry costs, interest rates, etc, it’s darned close enough, so if you have a macro view of something, the ETF’s are often much easier to gauge than say a basket of four or five individual stocks. This is what leads me to this topic, the macro view. How many times have you been right about the direction of the market, yet the stocks you are holding fell in the day? Often I’d bet, it happens to all of us. But, with the ETF’s, if your macro view is correct, 99% of the time the ETF will trade in the similar direction.

Let’s suppose you feel that the chip sector is overdue for a pull back. A quick scan shows there are almost 50 stocks that could be considered chips. Are you to believe that you will be so adept that you will pick the ones that go down? Probably not. But, if you shorted the SMH, and the chip sector was weak overall, you’d be rewarded.

For short term moves, there isn’t a ton of profits to be gained from most ETF’s. An exception for example would be the BBH basket of biotechs. that thing often gains or loses 3 dollars in a day, making it a really fun trader. But that’s the exception really, as the DIA, or QQQ’s which track the DOW and NASDAQ respectively will often move just 50 cents to a buck, even on a big market day. For some, that’s more than adequate returns and I agree they shouldn’t be scoffed at. But I find the ETF’s to be much more useful as swing trading vehicles or even semi long term holds.

Please use the ETF’s for your macro views folks. It’s easier to spot the trend than it is to spot the individual winners every time. I plan on using the ETF’s for a lot of the shorting we will do when the wheels come off the market. The charges aren’t much different than individual stock selection, and it’s easier to trade them. That’s not to mention the fact that options are available on them, AND you can buy or sell intra day, something you cannot do in any form of typical fund.

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