is happily being the wheel rather than a rusty old spoke
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Fixed. Changed it to "2005-2006" until we do the changeover to current search just being 2006, which will be fairly soon.
Since people don't like verbage that could potentially contain wiggle-room, you might want to specify Midnight, Eastern.
That could be tricky as it's not a firm cutoff date. People could submit guesses and not know until the event that their guess doesn't qualify.
Another problem I have with that is that as it currently stands, the date of their guess takes some legwork to figure out.
I prefer a pre-defined cutoff date and safely far away from the actual event, but not too soon. That's why I favor February 17th. As it approaches, and posting volume rises as a result, it could very well be reached before the end of February.
Even if the hand of Bob doesn't end up programmatically guiding it (which it likely will, and soon so everyone knows which boards qualify and which don't), the majority of posts on iHub are to boards that qualify. So the odds favor non-controversy even if we make no effort to limit it. But we will.
I predict a clean, non-controversial outcome.
However, as a friend of mine whose opinion I really respect once said, "Controversy is good.". You might've heard of him. Brad Dryer.
It'll be very easy for me to put code in place such that, once the post count has reached 9,999,000, and until it reaches 10,000,001, the boards we'll have previously identified as nonqualifiers, and PM's, will become read-only with a short blurb explaining why when someone attempts a post.
Only two comments. I don't know why the "without going past" clause is in there, but whatever.
That's been changed. Minutes after the original post.
Secondly, you will have about 20,000 posters posting multiple times trying to post in a matter of minutes. I'm not a techie, but I can imagine it crashing the site.
I doubt it, as the equipment has often faced similar workloads and dealt with them flawlessly. As I mentioned in a post earlier this morning, anytime the ISP's connection would drop for a minute or so (remember when that was a frequent occurrence and lasted even longer?), when the connection would come up, the webserver would get a flood of request that'd been queueing up, and would subsequently flood the db similarly, but never reach 100% utilization dealing with it.
I think I've got the queue set to 1k requests, which is a workload this equipment can power through in a second or two. We get quite a bit of volume during market hours, especially the last half hour, and the queue is always empty. The webserver and db server each have a pair of Xeon's in them, which makes for 4 virtual processors, meaning, in theory, that they can handle 4 requests at exactly the same millisecond (which would be a rare occurrence) and the vast majority of transactions at the db level (at least 95%) take less than 1ms turnaround time.
Ever tried lactose-free milk? Yuk!
I love real milk so much, it's worth the steep price.
Matt, Dave, and I will work on tightening up that definition. Obviously, boards like this one, the Q&A board, the Parking Lot, Jail, etc are right out. As are the political boards on SI for its similar deal.
It'd be easier to not have a board restriction at all, but we're definitely sticking with one. The last thing I want is to be putting out a PR citing a 10 millionth post that's a Jail post questioning the marital status of Matt's parents when he was spawned.
There's gotta be some kind of irony in the fact that I really do enjoy milk and milk products, yet am very lactose intolerant, and really enjoy your posts most of the time, but sometimes they have a similar effect on me as the aforementioned intolerance.
In answer to your question, who's signature do you think will be on the checks? And though I'm not tight-fisted with my own money, we don't have the typical "First dollar profit" on our wall from the local chamber of commerce because I squeezed it to the point it turned to ash in my hands.
Does the board have a specified cut-off date for when WAG's can be submitted? I'm pretty sure Matt, Dave, and I had discussed and agreed on 2/17 midnight as the cutoff, but don't remember if Matt was present when we discussed it or if we'd made a decision on it.
I was thinking I saw somewhere here that the deadline was the end of this month. I'm a little iffy about that because at this rate, 10MM might happen before then, and the closer we get, the more easily a mathematically astute person (likely a programmer who'd run a script to measure and take into account the normal ebb and flow of posting volume) can nail down the exact time.
I was asked privately "What if the 10 millionth post is a PM?" Obviously, not a winner, but just as obviously, that'd be one PO'd person.
Solution: In the hour or so before the mark looks like it'll be hit, I'll shut off PM ability.
I'll talk with Matt and Dave and see if we can more clearly define what's a qualifying board and what isn't, if Matt hasn't already covered that. He's the final judge on that. And I can just as easily programmatically shut off posting access to non-qualifying boards in advance, so long as we make it clear well in advance which boards that'd be.
The boards that would qualify far outnumber those that wouldn't. Same thing on SI.
I'm already feeling a bit of the nervousness Brad said he was feeling when SI approached 10 million. And I know I'll be doing exactly the same thing he was doing. Watching the equipment closely and hoping it can handle the load.
My own WAG is that it'll handle it flawlessly. Shouldn't be any worse than when the connection at the ISP dies momentarily and thousands of requests get backed up then suddenly hit us when the connection comes back up. We see utilization spikes when that happen, but they don't get to anywhere near 100%.
We're in agreement that "closest", not "closest without going over" is correct. And I hope that the 10-minute gap rule is going to be workable if a lot of people start putting in their guesses.
Anyway, Matt has the most intimate contact with the db and might have something he can use to edit my post.
I'll let him deal with the issue of "What's market-related?". I know it's almost like trying to define "pornography", but to me it's pretty cut and dry. If the board and post are about the market or a stock, it's good. I wouldn't consider this board a qualifying one.
But that's Matt's call.
10 Millionth Post Grub and WAG Prizes
To celebrate our reaching the 10-million post mark, we're going to give away some prizes as a way to thank the community who has made this possible.
The prizes are as follows:
* $1,000 to the person who posts the 10 millionth post.
* $50 each and a Free Annual Subscription to the people who post number 9,999,999 and 10,000,001.
* $250 to the person who comes closest to guessing the exact date and time of the 10 millionth post.
Rules:
* Eligible winning posts must be Public posts on market-related boards (the post needs to be about stocks, not random chatter).
* Eligible winning posts must comply with our Terms of Use.
* If the 10 millionth post doesn't meet the above rules, the award goes to the next post after it that does. Same for post 10,000,001.
* If the 9,999,999th post doesn't meet the above rules, the award goes to the previous post that does.
* Entries by Employees of Investors Hub and Silicon Investor are ineligible.
When we've reached this milestone, we'll issue a Press Release and each of the 4 winners may be quoted in it at their and our discretion.
Good luck everyone, and thanks again for making this huge milestone possible!
Matt, Bob, and Dave
Yahoo Finance finally showing last quarter as a historical figure in the analyst estimates page.
As I thought. Upside surprise of 123.8%!
Off with it's head!
Geez.
What's scary is that I didn't even notice, so wasn't trying. Was everyone trying to avoid it?
Haven't been trading much lately. I did get out of GOOG nicely. Have been slowly ditching a little ELN here and there to put the money elsewhere, but still have half my core position and will soon have all of it.
I'm in a kind of "swinging for the fences" mode right now because my portfolio eroded so much from ignoring it. And capping off my ELN beating by buying AMZN and some Mar50 calls on it right before they announced. I'm still waiting for Yahoo's "Analyst Estimates" page to get updated to show that what really happened was a major upside surprise. But that got buried under the bad news of them missing by a little bit on the top line and them being down year-over-year, like was expected, but nowhere near as badly as expected.
I've got a bunch of AMZN March calls with strikes ranging from $37.50 to $50 and nearly every stop in between. The $50's are toast. But I'm up on the rest. I think the only ones I don't have are 47.5's.
Also have SANM Apr5 calls, CIEN Mar5 and Apr5, and a bunch of ELN Feb17.5's that aren't looking very promising right now. Fortunately (or maybe this time next week I'll be thinking "unfortunately" as I have in previous months?), I've whittled that position down from 250 contracts to 100.
Was telling Matt and Dave last week that I was gonna load up on MSFT puts if it got into the 28's. Turned my back on the market too long and didn't notice it'd happened. Would've been some mighty fine money on the 27.5's, I'm sure.
I'm sure they'll be getting back on-track with the new ownership. Just hope they preserve a bit of the "Wild West" atmosphere. If they're smart they will. It may not be the most desirable niche, but it's theirs on a silver platter.
Post # 10,000,000 WAG
All times are Eastern Standard Time(EST)
PowerPole............February 19, 2006 at 7:00 PM
Fred8....................February 21, 2006 at 3:24 PM
ImakeMONEY.......February 22, 2006 at high NOON exactly
______________________________________________
Bill The Thrill.........March 1, 2006 at 9:27 AM
Old Drummerman.....March 1, 2006 at 7:10 PM
______________________________________________
cmgibubba..........March 2, 2006 at 9:15 AM
Digitech..............March 2, 2006 at 10:12 AM
bigpike...............March 2, 2006 at 11:01 AM
kipp440..............March 2, 2006 at 12:10 PM
THREES............March 2, 2006 at 3:45 PM
mandjb................March 2, 2006 at 7:00 PM
gusmn_1...............March 2, 2006 at 11:59 PM
______________________________________________
echos.................March 3, 2006 at 7:00 AM
rrufff....................March 3, 2006 at 7:20 AM
erehwontim.........March 3, 2006 at 8:05 AM
hogfan2222.........March 3, 2006 at 11:00 AM
FernBlade...........March 3, 2006 at NOON
abh3vt................March 3, 2006 at 12:25 PM
FinancialAdviser....March 3, 2006 at 3:33 PM
Vexari...................March 3, 2006 at 6:33:33 PM
Jim_WI................March 3, 2006 at 9:20 PM
99Dan.................March 3, 2006 at 9:39 PM
500andLong.........March 3 2006 at 9:49pm
Bob Z..............March 3, 2006 at 10:38PM
Phil......................March 3, 2006 at 11:59 PM
______________________________________________
WillP.................March 4, 2006 at 4:33 AM
Ruellit...............March 4, 2006 at 9:39 AM
pnnymn................March 4, 2006 at 11:00 AM
occams_razor..........March 4, 2006 at 1:27 PM
bbotcs................March 4, 2006 at 7:10 PM
NovoMira..............March 4, 2006 at 9:24 PM
______________________________________________
kodiak149.............March 5, 2006 at 6:50 PM
skeballlarry..........March 5, 2006 at 7:48 PM
lobogotti.............March 5, 2006 at 9:03 PM
purlieu...............March 5, 2006 at 9:33 PM
______________________________________________
PB_Dangerfield........March 6, 2006 at 11:11:11 AM
Beacon27..............March 6th, 12:34pm
beigledog.............March 6, 2006 at 2:11 PM
Billy9565.............March 6, 2006 at 6:22 PM
______________________________________________
austin6310............March 7, 2006 at 10:00 AM
MATT..................March 7, 2006 at 8:45 PM
arnie70...............March 7, 2006 at 4:30 PM
______________________________________________
xanadu...............March 8,2006 at 7:06 AM
The Original dpb5!....March 8, 2006 at 8:08:59 AM
wickw50...............March 8 2006 at 10:00 AM
shmolton.............March 8, 2006 at 8:54 pm
_______________________________________________
mike_t................March 9, 2006 at 10:32 AM
_____________________________________________
Danceswwaves.........March 10, 2006 at 9:45 am
frebet................March 10, 2006 at 10:00 AM
Churak................March 10, 2006 at 10:10:10 AM
____________________________________________
tavycal...............March 12, 2006 at 7:00 AM
stocks4john...........March 13, 2006 at 7:45 AM
k9narc................March 13, 2006 at 3:45 PM
_____________________________________________
PVC..................MARCH 14, 4:22 PM
____________________________________________
papaocean............March 17, 2006 at 1:00 PM
Dspetry...............March 17, 2006 at 5:00 PM
_____________________________________________
Dr Worm...............April 1, 2006 at 09:08:50 AM
Actually, I reimplemented the suspect agency yesterday morning, but yanked them yesterday evening when we got a complaint from an SI user.
Yep. They definitely rescued me.
I just shouldn't have been so stupid and ignoring my mantra so thoroughly yesterday that I needed a 5-plus-bagger today to recoup maybe 60% of what my stupidity cost me yesterday.
I actually did take a 10-cent (10%) ride on the Jan12.5 calls today. Another trade where the profit I made was a small fraction of the profit I could've made, but I'm in recovery mode, which means going for the kill quickly rather than patiently waiting around.
Hey, Ms. B.
Your son's a mean boss. He's making me fly out to Vegas next weekend instead of us having our company meeting-of-the-minds out here in boring ol' Boogerville.
Well, okay. I insisted. I am, after all, Der Boss. Matt's just "the boss". Subtle but important difference. The main one being that when I remember to send him his exhorbitant (compared to value received) paychecks, my signature's on them.
What's wrong with Google? I bought at $401.81. Also bought back half of my core ELN position this afternoon at $13.73 and some SANM at $4.58. Okay, all current positions are under water, but if I wander into K-mart and there's blue lights flashing all over in the automotive section, I'm spending some money.
Got out of my ELN puts at a pretty good price. 20 cents below the best price, but it was VERY helpful. A big batch bought at $0.30 and sold at $1.60 the next day was just the kind of medicine the ol' portfolio needed.
Of course, my ELN calls expired worthless. But even with my current positions being underwater, I was able to undo a little more than half of yesterday's damage, thanks to the puts.
Portfolio value: Up 26.4%, Margin usage: 26.1%
Do you ever do RA with the Northwoods Shelby Club?
I'm planning to this year and will probably haul my Mustang and a friend's, to get some help with the drive.
They're pretty sure they're doing it the first weekend of August this year.
I don't know why it never occurred to me to time you in the Pumpkin then have you drive my Mustang and see how your times compared. If you're running 2.73's, I'd think you could go a bit faster in my Mustang as long as you keep in mind it's basically only got front brakes and they're small. It can take only a few 100% (my 100% laps) before they fade. I suspect you'd only be able to really cook about every other lap.
Anyway, think you can make it in August? And want to do some car-swapping?
I seriously doubt the 07 GT500 Shelby Cobra (or the name du juor) will be in my grubby mitts by then, but one can always hope. <g>
Edit: Two weeks prior to the RA event, the MCCI will be having an event at MAM. This is a must-attend for me because though I invariably end up instructing, I don't typically have more than one student and even then I don't get them for very long. Their's is the only local event running that's open-track rather than a driving school, though it's still got run groups.
And always funny to hear them on the PA calling the "Fast group" to the grid, and I'm not only part of it, I'm the only one with a stock engine, seats, restraints, and no cage. Fun to pass full-on race cars driven by people who don't get to that track much, but once they check out my car and realize with my setup I must really know how to *drive* that track, guess who gets to be the mouse in the cat-and-mouse games until they figure out what I'm doing and absolutely run away from me? <g>
You would immensely enjoy that track, Tom. It's extremely technical and the safest track I've ever seen. You can go absolutely nuts and know that hurting yourself or your car is nearly impossible.
If you want to do that track but don't want to haul the Pumpkin, feel free to fly in (I can pick you up at the airport in Omaha) and use my cars. The Mustang's faster than the Scoob on that track, but the Scoob's a lot more fun.
And that goes for anyone else reading this thread. If you want to go play on the racetrack just south of Council Bluffs, let me know and as long as you cover your own registration costs, etc, you can use my Subaru.
FedEx didn't arrive with the lube you sent me today.
Yeah, I think that's the trade. Yep. Double-checked. Bought at $14.64 and sold at $14.80.
Interesting that it appears to have traded upwards a tad in AH. I'm seeing it priced at $14.75x$14.85. Pretty much figures. The best way to inflict more damage on my portfolio would be for it to stubbornly hover real close to $15.00 all day tomorrow. The closer it is to $15.00, the worse off I am, and the further it gets away from it (if it can get at least 50 cents away from it), the more of today's damage I can recover.
Well, there's always next month at $17.50. And still enough cash to build the portfolio up the way I'd been doing for months. A few hundred dollars at a time. Just gonna take an awful lot of those trades to get back to where I was.
Just realized I'm only about 18% over where I was on 12/21 when I started keeping daily tabs on closing balances.
The most pathetic part is that the market was doing well overall, and my screen had green on it EVERYWHERE except ELN and the calls.
I don't even want to think about the kind of money that really could've been made on the puts. They were available for a nickel for a long time this morning and reached a high of, I think, $1.10.
Scottrade limits me to 500 total contracts on any one stock. So 500 of those puts bought at a nickel would've cost $2500 and could've been sold at a high of $55,000, or about $25,000 at the close. No telling what they could be worth tomorrow.
Darnit. I just thought about it, didn't I.
I sold a sizable batch of the calls yesterday at the highest they ever printed. Then got stupid and didn't take losses quickly enough and watched a lot of money vaporize.
Was that that last ELN trade that I ended up hanging in for and making a chunk?
Brutal day for yours truly. Probably the most trades I've ever done in a single day. Most of them were profitable. But those profitable trades barely made a dent in the carnage caused by holding my core ELN position too long, in addition to buying more of it and Jan15 calls. I started out paying a pretty high price for the calls, expecting a recovery that didn't happen, much of it thanks to it showing as closing down yesterday when in fact it'd closed green. A saw a blurb on Scottrade about the incorrect closing prices on a bunch of Amex and NYSE stocks.
Eventually was able to buy the calls a LOT cheaper and sold a tiny amount of them for a profit. I lowered my price later to get rid of a bunch of them flat, but no joy.
I also bought a lot of Jan15 puts at a price I like. Average basis 30 cents, last print 50.
Unfortunately, I've got about twice as many of the calls as I do puts. I intended to end the day with equals numbers of each.
If ELN goes to $15 pretty quickly tomorrow and stays there all day, that scorched smell will be my portfolio. Right now I'm strictly in options (including Feb17.5's which got brutalized today but are still green for me) and cash. If it moves very strongly one direction or the other, I'll be alright and if the move is large enough, can recoup a lot of today's losses. My positions right now are analogous to betting that a flipped coin isn't going to land on its edge.
Portfolio value: Down 31.9%!!!, Cash 56.6%
PS. It's always interesting the few times I'm holding options on expiration day, but seldom fun.
PPS. Went ahead and whipped out the calculator and ELN hitting $15.50 or anything below $14.00 tomorrow would put me close to where I was before today. I'm not expecting either to happen, though the latter scenario is far more likely than the former. In November and December, expiration day was very weak.
I rode SANM a short distance for some much-needed profit.
Right now my biggest positions are a bunch of ELN $15 calls at a price I'm not thrilled with and about half as many $15 puts at a price I like. I had more of the puts, but sold them at 50 cents (basis 30 cents).
Trying to lighten up on my calls right now, but it'd have to hit $15 again ($14.80 now) before the close for that to happen. Trying to sell about 60% of them at 45 cents, but they're currently priced at .25x.30.
At this point, HUGE dent in my portfolio value.
The Jan15 puts are now a 21-bagger since the open. Serious freefall.
Edit: I don't think anything chartwise is gonna have much impact today and tomorrow. It's already nearly triple normal daily volume only 2 hours into the day. This is panic selling, pure and simple. The "Get out at any price" mentality.
I bought more calls at 35 cents, but am far from optimistic about them. Last trade on them was 15 cents. And the calls way out of the money with expiration happening tomorrow.
Morningstar believes Tysabri is the only trick this pony has. They missed the mark by a mile and were summarily dismissed.
That said, definitely a bummer that I lost several thousand dollars on my very short ride to the office.
Bought more of the calls at 80 cents. Can't believe I, of all people, averaged down. I've put in a limit order to sell them all at $1.10 while I drive to work.
The volatility is pretty strong today. Now if I could get a handle on predicting it, I'd do a lot better in the options than the stock itself.
Edit: Exactly one of my SANM calls sold. If that's all that gets sold (and likely with the direction it's moving now), that'll barely pay the commission on the trade.
Sold some of my ELN at a 35-cent loss to buy a bunch of Jan15 calls at 95 cents.
Amen to that! Or if I keep doing good trades on it (this morning's trade being a shining exception), buy your interest in this one. <g>
Trying to sell my SANM Apr5 calls right now for 40 cents (avg basis 27.5 cents), but no takers, though I'm showing them priced at .35x.45. But ScottradeElite only shows the quotes for one exchange, selectable by the suffix you use.
After this morning's really poorly-timed buy, it's cold comfort that I sold a big batch of calls yesterday at what's shaping up to be the highest they'll ever have printed, and double what they're priced at now.
Look a little deeper. Cash and equivalents. And nearly certain return of Tysabri, possibly as early as March, will mean a lot more than $470MM in revenues.
You can't get Quaaludes anymore. They quit making them years ago.
Or so I'm told.... <g>
Very uncharacteristic of me today. I usually nail the bottoms but miss the tops by a mile. Really missed the bottom. Could've gotten it 50 cents cheaper. The $15.60 low is a bad print. It "only" got down to $15.70.
Should be interesting to see how things shake out if it tries to get above $16 again.
If you're thinking about getting in, I hope you're watching the huge block that shows up on the Ask no matter what price it is. Too late for me, but you don't want to be a buyer until that block is gone. Apparently an almost limitless amount of shares trying to be sold.
Looks like I really missed a big opportunity on SANM. Owned quite a bit of it yesterday. Sold it for a miniscule profit. Can't remember how much it closed up yesterday, but it's up nearly 3% today.
Analyst opinion on the stock has been dismissed for a long time. The highest price target on it is $10, and we're 60% past that.
Threw every last penny of my buying power at it at the open for $16.25. Could've gotten it cheaper a few minutes later, but I really like this buy. It closed at $16.78 yesterday on really strong volume, then a bunch of small prints nearly an hour and a half after the close were mismarked as being regular session, and it artificially yanked 52 cents out of the closing price. I think it's own momentum will try to get that 52 cents back and then some. Although the analyst downgrade might take a little steam out of it.
I'll probably end today with no ELN at all; not even my core position, because the exercise of the huge amount of ITM options is going to put a lot of pressure on it tomorrow. I might even end today short a bit of it. Although I'd probably sleep better if I didn't go short until tomorrow morning. Undecided on that one right now.
Sold the last of my ELN calls at $1.80. Made a little on a SANM trade, lost a little on an ENMD trade, took way too little profit selling some ELN trading shares in the morning, then made up for some of it trading it a couple times. Ended the day with none of my trading shares.
Portfolio value: Down 1.0%, cash +30.5%
I think ELN will be a very interesting trader tomorrow and based on what it did in November and December, it wouldn't surprise me to see it do a lot of prints over $17, but that same pattern would have it down quite a bit on Friday. As a ton of ITM calls get exercised and the stock sold.
That's why I don't talk about them as competition. They're bigger than either of our sites, but their focus is Canadian. Canadian stocks/traffic is an iHub sideline. But probably a big enough sideline (dictated by the whim of our community; not us) that I can see how a case can be made for them being considered competitors or ours.
That's a hobby I really wish I had the time for. My doctor and I both want to golf, fit the demo (I can dress as gaudily as anyone), but just don't have the time. And the exercise wouldn't hurt me.
Might as well do my portfolio report here. Zero trades today because I wanted to see what happens to my free cash and available buying power overnight with only ELN gains affecting it.
I took a lot of cash out of the account Friday, which got reflected in it today. Pretending I didn't take the cash out, I'd be down about 1.5% today. However, factoring it in,
Portfolio value: Up 11.4%, Cash -58.8%
I'd be buying SANM in afterhours except for not wanting to have that impact on my buying power. Hopefully I'll still be able to catch it right tomorrow. Also closely watching CIEN's pullback. And ENMD's. Unfortunately, ENMD just doesn't average enough volume to be a worthwhile trading vehicle right now.
Hard to get my head around the fact that the same ELN call options you could buy all day for a really long time at only a dime are starting to crowd $2. Glad I've still got some of them. :)