Chilling and cruising
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but sold most of mine at 1.25
right after I sold AAPL 380 W C jump back to $2.20s lmao
Sold all of my AAPL 380 W C at 1.86
bought more AAPL 380 W C at 1.78
holy chit AAPL 380 W C 2.20 now! this is what happen when I sell
sold 3/4 AAPL 380 W P at 1.25 holding 1/4
Bought AAPL 380 W P at .84
waiting and watching
Good morning Guys! Futures +119 nice!
Futures +67
Seven reasons Italy may fall further
BOSTON (MarketWatch) — They say the time to buy is when there’s blood in the streets. In the case of Italy, are we there yet?
If you want to go against the herd and buy into Italian equities, good luck. My contrarian instincts want to do the same. Italian stocks have dropped a long way. Everybody hates them. No portfolio manager anywhere can afford to buy them with other people’s money, because if he’s wrong he’ll lose his job.
So maybe this really is the time to buy. And maybe I’m just overthinking it. But here are sevens reasons for brave contrarians to take a deep breath before plunging in.
FTSEMIB 15,218.34, +146.57, +0.97%
The Italian market is down about 70%
50,00040,00030,00020,00010,000
0708091011
FTSEMIB
1. The market is cheap, but it’s not really, really cheap. The Italian stock market XX:FTSEMIB +0.97% now trades at about eight times forecast earnings, says FactSet. Yes, that’s a good deal. (A crude rule of thumb has traditionally put “fair value” for equities at around 12-13 times.) But it’s not a one-way bet. In a crisis I want things really cheap. In the 1998 Asian Tigers meltdown, stocks in Thailand hit four times forecast earnings. In 1998, South Korean equities bottomed out when enterprise values — the value of stocks plus all their net debts — hit 0.7 times company sales. In Italy, today, they’re still 1.1 times. The Italian market today sports a dividend yield of 5%, assuming those dividends are paid. Again, that’s good, but in the financial crisis a couple of years ago it went into double figures. I’m greedy. To go all-in I want things really, really cheap.
2. Watch out for those financials! While the market may look cheap, a substantial chunk of it consists of banks, insurance companies and other financials. As we’ve learned anew in recent years, bottom-fishing financial stocks is about as safe as extreme spelunking — after downing a few beers. (Ask anyone who bottom-fished AIG, Lehman Brothers, WaMu, Bank of America, Citigroup, and so on). Financials make up more than a quarter of the Italian stock market by valuation. As of Oct. 31, they made up 27% of the iShares MSCI Italy Index Fund EWI +3.42% . A retailer or energy company whose stock has dropped 70% may be cheap. A bank stock that’s done the same may be on its way to 100%. Caveat emptor.
Click to Play
Who is Mario Monti and does iIt matter?
Former European Commissioner Mario Monti is in the frame for the top post in an Italian unity government. But does it matter? Senior columnist Alessandro Pasetti suggests that Italy will produce a surplus in the coming years, and unlike Greece, can service its debt.
3. We’re not even in the 75% club yet. A wise old investor I know likes to argue that you should typically invest in a collapsing stock market after it’s fallen about 75% from its peak. The Italian Mibtel index peaked at 49,355 11 years ago (and got nearly as high again in 2007). It’s now just 15,071. That’s down 70%. We’re close. But not quite there yet. And the 75% rule, if anything, gets you into a lot of financial crises too early. On FactSet I had a look at where stock markets bottomed out during other crises in the past 20 years. Like Mexico in 1994, Thailand and South Korea in 1998, and Argentina in 2002. What did I find? Most fell 85% or more. The differences may not sound huge. But they are deceptive. If you buy a market after it has dropped from 100 to 30, by the time it bottoms out at 15 you have lost half your money.
4. The best quality stocks are holding up. Sure, the market overall has tumbled about 25% so far this year. But look at Luxottica LUX -0.05% , the luxury sunglasses (and LensCrafters) company. Its American Depositary Receipts started the year at $30. Today they’re … $28. Telecom Italia TI +4.26% has merely fallen from $13 to $11.50. Or consider Eni E -0.29% , the Italian oil and gas giant. The ADRs started the year at $43. Now they’re $42 and change. It’s not much of a discount. Some of these stocks may be good investments here. Eni is just seven times forecast earnings, yielding 4.5%. Telecom Italia, also about seven times earnings, yields 5.5%. But they scarcely look distressed.
5. How can the economic crisis end here? Italy’s gross government debt is about 120% of gross domestic product, says the IMF. Maybe a third of it is owned by institutions outside the country. And Italy, of course, cannot print its way out of the problem — as America can — because it does not control its own currency. Furthermore, as we all know, Italy is not alone. Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland are all in distress and some of the other countries are feeling the squeeze. Meanwhile the people supposed to be running Europe are playing like the Bad News Bears. There is no reason to think this crisis is ending here. And if it gets worse stock prices will suffer.
6. We’ve had panic, but not yet capitulation. See the points above. Capitulation is a mood rather than a data point. It’s hard to define perfectly or to observe. Nonetheless in the current situation the only individual in Italy who seems to have thrown in the towel is Silvio Berlusconi. We haven’t had a spectacular bankruptcy yet. And international creditors are still willing to lend money to the Italian government for ten years at just 7% interest. Some crisis. Italian equities have fallen a long way. And maybe long-term investors will do OK buying here. But the really easy money comes when investing feels harder than this.
7. Watch out for the currency. One way that Italy — and Europe — is likely to earn its way out of this crisis is by devaluing its currency. That might mean Italy dropping out of the euro and restoring the lira. Or it might mean the European Central Bank printing trillions more euros to reflate the economy. Either way, the currency in which Italian stocks are quoted is likely to drop in relation to dollars. And that means U.S. investors may end up giving back on the currency some or even all of what they gain in the nominal value of the stocks. Ultimately you may still be a net gainer, but it will eat into returns.
As I said, some Italian stocks may be a good long-term buy from here. But don’t think they can’t get cheaper.
Brett Arends is a senior columnist for MarketWatch and a personal-finance columnist for the Wall Street Journal.
Italy Front-Runner Seen as Political Outsider
ROME—Many of the Italian lawmakers rallying behind Mario Monti to run a possible emergency government are hoping a political outsider can do what they haven't been able to for much of the past decade: make unpopular decisions to modernize Italy's economy.
Among those are measures to break up barriers that make Italian businesses uncompetitive—from red tape that discourages companies from growing, to the professional guilds that cater to special-interest groups and squeeze out newcomers.
EPA
Mario Monti
A former top European antitrust cop who stared down General Electric Co. and Microsoft Corp., the 68-year-old Mr. Monti has experience challenging entrenched powers. Taking on Italy's fractious political and social establishment is another matter, however, and some see his lack of domestic political experience as a hurdle.
Italy's volatile political landscape could still derail Mr. Monti's rise to the premiership. Though Italy's center-left and center-right parties have reached a consensus to pull the plug on Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, they agree on little else. Unions and left-wing parties have called for a hefty wealth tax to cut Italy's €1.9 trillion ($2.6 trillion) debt, for instance—a proposal that center-right parties, including Mr. Berlusconi's, oppose.
More crucially, left-wing parties and Italy's biggest union, CGIL, are adamantly opposed to a fundamental change economists say Italy needs: a revamp of guaranteed lifetime job contracts that have kept young people out of the labor market. Tackling Italy's labor code has been a top priority of the nation's governments for years—including two previous administrations run by the once-popular Mr. Berlusconi—yet it remains an unresolved issue.
In a recent editorial in Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Mr. Monti wrote that Italy's prime challenge was to "remove the numerous structural obstacles to growth that exist in many sectors because of corporatism and insufficient competition."
"He's a big believer in social-market economy," says Enrico Letta, deputy head of the opposition Democratic Party, which is backing Mr. Monti's ascension. "We're ready to work with him."
Mr. Monti has a track record of striking quickly and decisively. As the European Union's competition commissioner from 1999 to 2004, he stunned the corporate world by scuttling a merger between U.S. industrial giants GE and Honeywell. Mr. Monti's office ruled in 2001 that combining the companies would make them too dominant in Europe, where they employed tens of thousands of employees.
The end of the deal was a difficult setback for GE's then-chairman, Jack Welch, who in his autobiography wrote a chapter about the failed merger titled "Go Home Mr. Welch." However, though Mr. Monti and his team scuttled the deal meant to be Mr. Welch's crowning achievement, Mr. Welch said the battle was never personal. "He and I always had cordial dealings," Mr. Welch wrote. "I found him gracious, smart, but somewhat formal."
Under Mr. Monti's leadership, the competition office became more proactive in shaping the Continent's single market. Before, the office tended to rely heavily on legal precedents before bringing cases against companies, according to one of Mr. Monti's former staffers.
Mr. Monti brought his academic background to bear, analyzing whether new monopolies were emerging in sectors such as digital media and industry. "As an economist, he promoted a more thorough use of economics as an investigation tool," the staffer said.
As competition commissioner, Mr. Monti rattled lawyers and lobbyists by expanding the meaning of monopolistic behavior, recalled Philip Torbol, a Brussels-based lawyer who advised the EU Parliament during Mr. Monti's tenure. "He took some unpopular decisions that gave him some grief from several sides," Mr. Torbol said.
Mr. Monti launched antitrust proceedings against Microsoft, ruling in 2004 the firm made it too hard for software by rivals to operate on Microsoft's dominant Windows system. The EU ordered the U.S. company in 2004 to pay a fine of €497 million.
The headline-grabbing cases—earning him the nickname Super-Mario—got him in hot water with officials around the globe. In Europe, he clashed with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, finance minister at the time, over a bailout of the country's industrial giant Alstom SA. The maker of France's signature bullet trains was near collapse, and Mr. Sarkozy wanted to nationalize the company. Mr. Monti insisted Alstom sell some businesses in exchange for state aid.
Mr. Sarkozy said in mid-2004 that he felt "some people in Brussels wished Alstom died." In a July 2007 piece published in French daily Le Figaro, Mr. Monti said the European Commission allows for national governments to bail out distressed companies and wished Mr. Sarkozy would stop "giving the impression that, without him, the Commission would have celebrated a death ceremony over Alstom's corpse."
The two eventually bridged their differences; in 2007, Mr. Sarkozy invited Mr. Monti to serve on a special committee on French economic growth.
Former U.S. Justice department officials describe Mr. Monti as academically minded and easy to work with. "His insight and good judgment are superb," said James Rill, an antitrust attorney and former assistant attorney general. "He had a good sense for international relations."
Mr. Monti is president of Bocconi University, where he earned his degree in economics.
"He always impressed me as a courageous and thorough man," said John Bruton, a former prime minister of Ireland.
"He doesn't owe anything to any political party. He's not there to be a politician. He's there to do what's necessary," said Gaia Gualtieri, 32, who helps her father run a small textile manufacturer in Prato. Ms. Gualtieri hopes Mr. Monti will free businesses from labor codes that make it hard to hire and fire.
In 1994, the then-government of Mr. Berlusconi—in his first of three times in power—named Mr. Monti as a European Commissioner for the Internal Market, specifying that the Italian was an independent, and not affiliated to any political party. In 1999, he was reconfirmed to the Commission by a center-left government that had taken power in Italy and given the Anti-trust brief. Ten years after first sending him to Brussels, Mr. Berlusconi withdrew his support for Mr. Monti, giving someone else Italy's seat on the Commission.
The distance created then between Messrs. Berlusconi and Monti has grown over the past few years, especially as the financial crisis has intensified. In a highly critical editorial in Il Corriere, Mr. Monti chastised the premier for saying that the euro wasn't a convincing currency. "Every time [borrowing] rates rise because of scant faith in Italy, you impose even more sacrifices upon Italians."
—David Gauthier-Villars contributed to this article.
Inside the Hunt for MF Global Cash
Regulators hunting for about $600 million in customer money that went missing shortly before MF Global Holdings Ltd. collapsed said they are being stymied by the poor condition of the securities firm's records.
"Their books are a disaster," Scott O'Malia, a commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, one of the regulators leading a hunt that has stretched 10 days so far, said in an interview. "We're trying to figure out what numbers are the real numbers."
Several people who reviewed MF Global's trading records and balance sheet before or after the New York company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Oct. 31 said they saw incomplete transactions, numbers that didn't seem to add up and other inconsistencies.
"I always knew the records were in shambles, but I didn't know to what extent," said Thomas Peterffy, chief executive of Interactive Brokers Group Inc., which had for years considered doing a deal with MF Global. The company walked away from a handshake agreement to rescue MF Global after discrepancies in its books emerged, according to people involved in the discussions.
Bills Outstanding
Investigators are hunting for lost millions.
Characteristics: Regulators say nearly $600 million is missing from customer accounts.
Last seen: Late October
How it disappeared: Officials are combing records in an effort to find out what happened.
Where the money is now: Unknown
An executive at another company that considered making a bid for parts of MF Global as it was going downhill said officials at his firm "couldn't get a good sense of what was on the balance sheet."
Routine information about assets and positions on MF Global's books took hours to produce, the executive said. Such information should be accessible instantly, he added.
A spokesman for MF Global said the firm is cooperating with regulators and the bankruptcy trustee trying to find the missing money. After the bankruptcy filing, the trustee essentially took charge of the firm's U.S. brokerage and its employees, a person familiar with the matter says.
But the slog is even more difficult because the bankruptcy filing limited the company's ability to access its bank accounts, according to people familiar with the firm's position.
MF Global officials have said any problems with its trading records and balance sheet, including snarls that led to the $600 million discrepancy, largely resulted from the chaos rocking the firm as it shrank its assets by roughly half in a desperate attempt to survive a run on the company.
MF Global's books and records were regularly reviewed by CME Group, the exchange operator that regulates futures firms like MF Global, including a full audit that concluded in August, according to a CME representative.
CFTC Commissioner Bart Chilton disputed how much help regulators are getting from MF Global. Efforts to get information from the firm since the bankruptcy filing have been "difficult and disappointing," he said.
"I think they haven't been cooperative," Mr. Chilton added in an interview. He compared efforts to locate the missing money to "a magical mystery tour."
MF Global's spokesman says the firm's employees are cooperating as much as they can given the information they have access to.
Speculation about where the missing money went ranges from banks and clearinghouses that made margin calls on MF Global trading positions to the securities firm's U.K. subsidiary to losses suffered as the firm raced to escape from positions.
Read More
Customers Gain Support From ICE
"The longer it goes without anyone finding the money, the odds go up that the money is out the door," said Craig Pirrong, a finance professor at the University of Houston.
In a statement Thursday, James W. Giddens, the bankruptcy trustee for MF Global's U.S. brokerage unit, vowed to conduct a "deliberate, thorough and independent" investigation "around the clock." Mr. Giddens said the trustee has received "thousands of inquiries" from investors, adding that officials "understand [their] dismay."
A person familiar with the situation said the bankruptcy trustee's office has begun going through all of MF Global's assets, one at a time, to make sure they were legitimate and properly booked.
Federal Bureau of Investigation officials also are continuing their probe.
FBI agents have some powerful tools that the CFTC and other regulators don't, including search warrants.
People who have reviewed MF Global's trading records and balance sheet said it is possible the disarray was attributable to the fact MF Global had built itself through acquisitions that weren't fully integrated.
Write to Scott Patterson at scott.patterson@wsj.com and Aaron Lucchetti at aaron.lucchetti@wsj.com
Just tell china to buy italy lol
Dow Ends in the Black
By STEVEN RUSSOLILLO
Associated Press
Stocks rose as hopes of an improving labor market and clarification about France's credit rating buoyed investor sentiment.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 112.92 points, or 1%, to 11893.86, after rising 180 points. All but two of the Dow's 30 components rose; Bank of America and American Express were the lone decliners.
The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index gained 10.60 points, or 0.9%, to 1239.70, led higher by energy and health-care stocks. All 10 S&P 500 sectors rose. The technology-oriented Nasdaq Composite tacked on 3.50 points, or 0.1%, to 2625.13.
INSIGHT FROM CFO JOURNAL
The Morning Ledger: Contagion Jitters
Read CFO Journal. »
Stocks got an early boost after a reading on unemployment claims offered hints of progress. The number of people filing applications for jobless claims dropped last week to the lowest level in seven months.
"The jobless claims number is just another confirmation that the fear of a double dip--that was so prevalent at the end of September—is almost a distant memory now," said Hank Smith, chief investment officer of equities at Haverford Investments. "While the U.S. economy isn't booming by any measure, it's also not teetering on going into a recession."
Stocks nearly turned negative in morning trading before bouncing back after Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said reports of a French downgrade were due to a technical glitch on its part.
The confusion prompted the ratings firm to issue a clarification, in the form of a statement, saying that the nation's triple-A rating remains unchanged.
Cisco Systems shares ran up 5.7% after the networking company reported fiscal first-quarter earnings and revenue that exceeded expectations. An upbeat outlook also offered early evidence that the company's turnaround effort may be working.
European stocks ended lower, with the Stoxx Europe 600 falling 0.4%. But yields on 10-year Italian government bonds have come off highs amid speculation that the European Central Bank was buying the nation's bonds.
Asian bourses slumped, reacting to Wednesday's falls in the U.S. and Europe, with Japan's Nikkei Stock Average shedding 2.9% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng plunging 5.2%.
In corporate news, Dow component Merck increased its quarterly dividend for the first time in seven years, which the drug maker said demonstrates its confidence in the business. The stock rose 3.5%.
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters slumped 39% after the coffee producer's fiscal fourth-quarter revenue missed its own forecasts and Wall Street's targets.
Kohl's rose 2%. The department-store's fiscal third-quarter profit rose 20% on continued sales growth and as its focus on private and exclusive brands helped boost margins.
Advance Auto Parts gained 4.7% after the auto parts retailer's fiscal third-quarter profit rose 20%. The company also boosted its full-year earnings outlook.
Viacom's fiscal fourth-quarter results beat forecasts, and the entertainment company said it was expanding its stock repurchase program to $10 billion from $4 billion. The stock rose 5.2%.
Write to Steven Russolillo at steven.russolillo@dowjones.com
whats ur thought of my rules? any input?
*** DayTrader's Rules *** : !
-Experienced traders control risk, inexperienced traders chase gains.
-If you dont know what you are doing, doing nothing is better than doing you know what
-Trade what you see, Not what you think
-Never be afraid to take profits, U Won't go broke taking profits!
-Always sell the POP
-Don't Catch a Falling Knife
-Successful day traders know exactly what their risk tolerance levels are.
-Understand what is causing a stock to move.
-Always trade to win.
-Dump your losers.
-play/trade the set up
not happy today, tomorrow should be better. Good night guys!
sold out all of mine at .48 dont want to hold overnight
look at ACTN, from .20 to $2 in 4 days. this happen because we arent there lol
SPY 125 W C got my other half back at .46 put order in at .57 again
there u go!! SPY 125 W C sold half at .57, holding another 25
$SPY getting ready for another breakout
added 15 more contracts at .45
added $SPY 125 W C at .45 holding 35 now
that too, but I thought if we hold and the PPS bounce back the contracts value will bounce back too but noooo I was wrong
GMCR 45 W P up 4200% WTF
learned very Important lesson today. Dont hold ur position for too long because the value keep decreasing. these are contracts not shares, U cant swing trade this thing IMHO
there u go $SPY
Bought SPY 125 W C at .51
Bought SPY 125 W C at .51
should have bought NFLX PUTS today
I think another bounce is coming really soon.
60 mins chart just do it already I dont care breakout or breakdown. Link back
yes but I havent put my money in there, SPY down to 123s now. dont tell me market close red, I already sold all of my puts with loss
Obama spoke to Italy's president Napolitano Thurs.
By Greg Robb
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - President Barack Obama discussed the political turmoil in Italy with Italian president Giorgio Napolitano on Thursday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said. Obama "expressed confidence in President Napolitano's leadership to put an interim government in place in Italy that will implement an aggressive reform program and restore market confidence," Carney said. Mario Monti, an economist and former European Union commission, has emerged as the front runner to succeed Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi as Italy scrambles to save itself from financial collapse. Napolitano on Wednesday appointed Monti as a "senator for life."
remember it expire next week. i made a lot of mistake this week, tomorrow I need to relax and wait for the right moment.
nice call!
$SPY back to 123s?