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.
SPX Market SWAG ...
Since I don't trade inverse index symbols, I treat these downturns as vacation time.
Hi Rick. I'm in the process of recovering from a very long vacation moving from point A (NW of Upper Lake), to point B (west of Healdsburg). Have learned to hate the bureaucracy, and thieving attitude, of Sonoma county officials. They want to charge me $500/yr because my house has a nonstandard septic system.
Well, the tank is standard, but the drain field plumbing is not so standard because it's located in hill country and the design must account for that, which previous county inspections have determined it does very well, therefore approving the design. They've said they will reduce the fees over time if it proves to work properly in the future. Well, it's done that already for previous owners for well over 20 years so ...? It's their mafia-like protection racket that gets me riled up. So here I am on 20-acres in Sonoma county paying a $500/yr fee (penalty) for a (non-standard) drain field (that the county already approved and signed off -- duh), and they might reduce that in the future if I'm a good ol' boy and take care of things and continue to have those inspections. Meanwhile, all the wild animals and insects (and Marco Polo, my dog) get to shit and pee (literally on every surface of this property without paying one red cent to the county).
Erin didn't get what she expected ...
because she tends to over-analyze.
She wrote:
What are the odds?
The newest $SPX high was made this last Monday,
an a-wave down was completed yesterday, Thursday's low,
and a b-wave higher completes today, Friday, at the end of the day (or does it), then a c-wave down commences early this coming Monday?
And if so, who wants to hold onto long positions over the weekend (two days during which there could easily be news which doesn't support the market)?
Best Day of the Week to Sell Stock: Friday, and I think I'm not the only one that believes that.
https://tinyurl.com/tysw6sca
So I think I should sit on my hands and money for the rest of the day and just watch.
That would be very welcome IMHO.
Otherwise I don't understand what appears to be a complete change in market sentiment (such as it is today) from what I've observed over so many years.
That said, I opened an all-in Buy/Write trade today (that style being all I do) in both acounts (IND and SEP) using a medical drug stock I've traded many times over the years and which has already sold off very significantly over the last month while the market as a whole was going higher.
I like this B/W kind of trade because if I have to get out early because the stock isn't behaving as I like, I have the cushion of having sold the Calls which will have lost some time value (which is still profit to me). Then I either sell a different strike Call, or wait to do that later.
FWIW, I prefer to not hold a stock during earnings release.
I would be one of those bears ...
But personally, I'd prefer that the market correct all the way back to where it was in March (when I got out of the market because I needed to concentrate on my move southward).
And that might get rid of a lot of the spike that shows up in this link below to a chart that I posted here earlier (AKA $SPX Euphoria PE Ratio Chart):
https://tinyurl.com/32nb8ufc
I'm still unpacking from my move.
And that's just things that go in the house. I still have to unpack things that go in the garage and I have no idea how long that will take.
My last market trade was in March, as I sold everything -- I'm still concerned about those two spikes I posted (that this post links to). That chart hasn't changed much.
The Monday futures look pretty bad. Sometimes its bad for the US but not so bad for the rest of the trading countries -- and that's usually a good thing as it tends to indicate that a fall back in not going to be serious. Tonight it's bad everywhere. I think it's about time that the whole world had a good market correction. I'd feel a lot safer getting back into the market if it did.
Till then, I'm out.
https://tinyurl.com/58rpc7rf
Back in the chair again ... finally
As an adult I used to stay on a property for 7-years or so then get the itch to move. This last time, I stayed for over 20 years -- it was a gorgeous place with a pond with bass in it, and a short hike from there is a 100-foot waterfall -- then I discovered that the pot-heads In Lake county wanted my property to start a pot farm as California was going to make it legal. But there was a catch, as there was only a few more months left to get a grow permit then there would be no permits available for at least two more years (and, who knows, maybe longer). So what did I do? I put my property up for sale at a price 30% above normal -- the buyers swarmed in like locusts, every one of them looking for a place to crow pot commercially in good ol lake county, CA.
Too bad the first buyer lied about his net worth as he wasted over a hundred days of my time before I could convince my agent (a blonde) that he really didn’t have the money. Finally got ‘er done with a new buyer with money and only a few days left to close.
So now I have a new country place a few miles to the north/west of Healdsburg, and I’ve used up about four months unpacking and shifting things around, and now I’m eager to jump (but will probably creep) back into trading the market as it looks a little pricey to me right now ... :>(
My reasoning?
Check out the charts below. Bull traps probably hurt when they snap shut. Extreme PEs don't last long and the correction can be violent.
Given the current $SPX PE ratios, I'm going to be Vewy Vewy careful jumping back into the market at this time or I could end up like Elmer Fudd.
Elmer Fudd used to say: Be Vewy Quiet, I'm Hunting Wabbits!
https://tinyurl.com/3b6pw6jf
Futures chart worth following:
https://www.investing.com/indices/us-spx-500-futures-streaming-chart
Most recent note on chart is P (which refers to candlestick pattern).
Though $SPX futures for tomorrow's open currently indicates a lower $SPX open, the most recent futures pattern indicates a bullish sub-pattern. Go figure.
I've only looked at that chart a few times lately but it looks like something worth watching for awhile.
Possible H&S Top
Market looks too risky for my taste.
I haven’t traded anything over the last two weeks. And if I did, I would always buy a stock then sell its Calls minutes or hours later -- reduces risk by immediately bringing in cash.
It's looking to me like $SPX (daily chart at the top) is two-thirds of the way toward forming an H&S top. If it's going to continue with that, then it has to trade lower into the right neck line then bounce as it completes a right shoulder. Then what ... flip a coin?
I could trade that with Buy-Writes using deep ITM CCs as there are many days yet to go, but I'm looking for an excuse to not trade anything for the next few weeks for personal reasons.
As for those long solid blue lines going off the left side, put them on your chart then check their origin. The dashed blue line is the target for an H&S correction if it happens and goes to its typical destination.
Re exploring farther north ...
Nope. When I was searching for property many moons ago I was living 5-miles north-west of Sebastopol in a custom house (of someone else's design) on one acre. Loved the house but it was meant to be temporary. The weather there was perfect all year long ... not too hot in the summer, not too cold in the winter, and the low mountains to the west blocked the evening winds and fog from the ocean. I made a rule: every time I think I have to move, I must increase the acreage; and in that way, someday I would be forced into not moving as I could no longer afford more acres.
Recently I was seriously exploring land in southern California near enough to the ocean to get its cooling effect during summer but not so near that the price would be exorbitant. Also wanted a place with lots of trees and hills. Couldn't find anything that met all my conditions without moving much closer to the east side of CA which I also didn't want to do because it's too far away from friends and family.
I have a sister who lived in a small town which is a suburb of LA (though you wouldn't know it because it's still wall-to-wall houses). The climate there is perfect year around except for the cyclical period of a month or so that the Santa Ana winds come from the eastern desert through there every summer. From there, she and her husband moved to San Diego. The weather there would also be perfect for me but the place is too expensive for someone like me who wants a lot of land (because my inner self is country through-&-through and my best friends have always been dogs and horses). Her husband died of disease years ago and now she and her son live in a small island town off the coast of Oregon. I haven't been near there (for anything other than business, and that was always fun) but I'd bet I would hate the weather there -- summer lasting only a month if you're lucky -- so I have no plans to ever visit there.
To call a significant top:
Perhaps the best way is to wait for a rate inversion. But that's not in the cards:
Last rate inversion:
Available here (but note there is currently no inversion) when you move the red line to the far right:
https://stockcharts.com/freecharts/yieldcurve.php?st=yield+curve
As for north country living, I've decided to downsize a bit from 106-acres a few miles north-west of Upper Lake (part of which needs a week's worth of mowing using a small farm tractor every year) to 24-acres in the hill country west of Hwy 101 near Healdsburg and which needs no mowing as it's mostly covered with trees and it's quite hilly. That's fine with me as I most commonly dress as a hillbilly anyway.
I probably wouldn't have done this except for one thing: Lake county decided to make it legal to grow pot and the door was about to close for two years for anyone who wanted water rights for farming purposes. That little technicality caused my property value to pop up by over 25% overnight, and potential pot growers were all over me like ducks on a June bug. Well, that price hike was hard to pass up.
$SPX Going Exponential
Two ways to look at the same chart:
The upper chart has a logarithmic vertical scale while the lower chart has a linear vertical scale, thus making it easier to identify a stock whose price is going exponential -- usually meaning it’s becoming overbought.
Having crossed over the upper red line in the lower chart, I would say $SPX is overbought especially considering the condition our economic condition is in.
AAL Sup/Res Levels
I've traded AAL extensively and put in these Sup/Res levels yesterday.
I'll put in a CC trade when I think it's done going down. I could put in a CC trade early but I would sell the Calls that are ITM (when I would normally want an OTM CC trade).
I just think it's time to play it safer than normal.
FWIW, Sup3 is very near a 50% retrace. General rule: always buy 50% retraces.
NIO per Benzinga per Wiki:
1) Article describes a "financial news" site of extremely marginal notability in typically sugarcoated promospeak. Going through the "references" provided, we find most of them to be self-published material (or simple reposts thereof) or simple passing mentions in this or that publication. The strongest thing this has going for it is probably its Forbes blog, but I'm not sure that alone is sufficient. Overall, the article is written almost entirely in an unencyclopaedic fashion and seems to fail WP:ORG.
2) This seems to be a scraper/aggregation web site of no particular notability.
Please keep the above in mind as you read reports about anything (including NIO) published by Benzinga.
What fired NIO stock:
Speculative enthusiasm. Pure gambling.
That's what drove NIO shares higher.
Smart people gamble because it's fun when they win and they can afford the cost of not winning, and they know when to quit. Not so smart people can become addicted to gambling and ultimately lose everything they have. Don't believe me? Think about all the very wealthy sports players who became multi-millionaires then lost it all.
In order to keep its price up, NIO needs to build its own manufacturing facility so that the company has a possibility of becoming profitable in the future. Right now they pay another company to build their cars. That sucks up any profit NIO would otherwise have.
NIO can fund that facility by selling more shares at their current ridiculous price. That could be done by a private sale of shares wherein the private-placement buyers promise to keep the shares out of the market for an agreed period of time (thereby not increasing the float). Personally, I think that is easily accomplished, but the stock could flounder in the meantime.
Comparing Tesla to NIO
Not a good idea for a bullish argument for NIO. The only similarities they have is that they both build electric vehicles.
The problem with NIO is that they don't build their own cars, so that is an additional debt per car that Tesla doesn't have.
Granted, NIO gets financial assistance from the Chinese government. But so does Tesla -- go figure.
Comparing electric car companies by sales?
Every car that TSLA sells is sold at a profit.
Every car that NIO sells is sold at a loss.
Be careful how you compare:
(All numbers in thousands.)
TSLA Trailing Twelve Months
All numbers in dollars.
Total Revenue = 28,176,000
Gross Profit = 5,955,000
Operating Income = +1,776,000
NIO Trailing Twelve Months
All numbers in Chinese Yuan
To compare to TSLA, modify all numbers below (1 CNY = 0.152961 USD at 02:50 UTC).
Total Revenue = 7,565,695
Gross Profit = -1,147,000
Operating Income = -10,031,771
Translation:
The more cars TSLA sells, the more money TSLA makes.
The more cars NIO sells, the more money NIO goes into debt.
Depends on how you define immune:
From a dictionary .............
Immune: https://tinyurl.com/y2d99mbm
"Resistant to a particular infection or toxin owing to the presence of specific antibodies or sensitized white blood cells."
Can you become immune to a particular disease?
Answer: absolutely.
Expected AAL high this week:
$13.50.
Already own the stock. Bought last week then sold $12.50 CCs against it that expired last Friday.
Currently waiting for stock to move closer to $13.50, then will sell this week's $13.50 Calls against it. If it doesn't appear to want to go to $13.50 this week, I'll sell $13 CCs against shares.
Wash, rinse, repeat selling CCs every week.
Problem with comparing airlines ...
Southwest (LUV) has to gain a little over 30% to get back to its personal historical normal level. I doubt it will trade any higher after that status is reached.
AAL has to gain over 100% to get back to its personal historical normal level. I doubt it will trade any higher after that status is reached.
My current personal investment style is to sell weekly Calls against all shares owned, and repeat that every week. That always creates income whether or not the shares move higher. The only risk is that a stock snaps higher than the estimated price at expiration and I may not receive all of the share price increase because of share assignment (due to the CCs).
So, with CCs in mind, AAL is the better trade because it has farther to go.
Hate to be political but,
I can't wait till the POTUS disappears from sight. And I would say the same for most of our "leaders".
The problem is that technology has changed so much since governmental policies and election processes were essentially codified in stone centuries ago such that those older methods can no longer work for anybody in a far more modern society except for money and power merchants and mongers and control freaks, the vast majority of whom inherited their wealth from ancestors.
Perhaps that could be solved by providing government funding of all elections and the requirement that all candidates must pass some form of educational and personality litmus test before being allowed to run for public office.
In fact, I think there should be some educational requirements that should be met before being allowed to vote.
Re Congestion,
I thought sort of the same thing last week. Not that it matters because most of my trades are Buy/Writes using weekly Calls.
But an interesting thing happened last Friday. All of my stock (the same symbol in both accounts, Sep and Ind) closed the week right at the strike of the Calls. Interestingly, all of my shares in one account were assigned over the weekend, but a little less than half the shares were assigned in the other account. That boggles my mind. I sold the rest of the shares early Monday. Lucky me, as I didn't reenter the trade on Monday or today. Planned on reentering today but didn't do that as the market wasn't correcting and I wanted that first. Until a few minutes ago I spent the day looking at real estate -- to sell my country property and buy another (closer to civilization but still in the country).
After doing that all morning, I looked again at the market. Wow! ... glad I stayed in cash! Had to check the news to see what caused the market to fall off the cliff.
Checking the news, the drop happened because of something that Powell said about the economy and the coronavirus.
I guess there really are lucky stars ... even during the daytime.
"... until the cows come home to roost."
ROTFLMAO!
I'm just a poor country boy trying to imagine what flying cows look like ...
I'm imagining that when they hit that roost, and it breaks, that's when they dump their pies.
Gravity ... 1
Cows ... 0
Powell ... -1
%>)
From Ace Trader's default signature:
... ANYONE'S ELSE LOST OR GAIN
ROTF LMAO!
Looks like he flunked every English language class he ever took.
up great?
It's upgrade.
I'd give odds that air travel will increase very rapidly once there is a flu shot that protects us from COVID 19.
It's human nature to want to travel all over the place.
Another fire map ...
It has a lot of features you get for free, but for a very small fee you get a lot more.
The map, as set, is showing current conditions centered where I live (about 4-mi north-west of Clear Lake) and I've added a history layer (which is color coded for various historical years). It's interesting to me that the current fire is very often stalled at older fire breaks (usually made by giant dozers carving trails along mountain ridges). I also turned on a wind overlay as that would often direct the general course of the fire.
As for wind, I say general course because the fire itself makes its own wind. I was here for the last fire in this area as the fire that year passed from west to east behind Hell's Peak, which is located just beyond my property's northern boundary. As that fire hit the bottom of the next mountain east of Hell's Peak I saw it race a thousand feet or more up to the top of that mountain in less than 10-seconds. Any fire crew or dozer up there trying to build a fire break would have been toasted. That's exactly what happened to an entire fire crew in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado a few years ago.
https://caltopo.com/map.html#ll=39.17053,-122.59224&z=9&b=mbt&a=fire%2Cmodis_mp%2Cwxd_wspd-01
Off Topoic -- Smoke map
This link below produces a map that specializes in displaying smoke density and area. You might be interested in following that where you live.
There are instructions for using the map but I don't remember where as I just started using it yesterday myself. One thing I do remember though is that there is a pulsating blue dot in the center of the map. That is the center of the map when you open it. If you want the map to open where you live, just move the dot then wait for the link to update. Use that link within your bookmark.
Smoke map:
https://fire.airnow.gov/?lat=39.0533181067413&lng=-122.24466471929685&zoom=6
A friend of mine (in Novato) has permanent lung damage from pneumonia he had several years ago so he must use an oxygen pump when sleeping. Any other time he doesn't need it. He also bought a smoke meter and likes it alot and says it's very accurate and matches data gotten from local TV broadcasts. I would be interested in that also though I don't need it, but I thought it would be nice to have and monitor smoke in my area since California has been having so many fires over a number of years, so I ordered one for myself. If you are interested, that link is below.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0756W25SS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Happy trading!
The northern fire isn't a threat.
One reason is it's two far away. There's another reason.
Click on the tab on the right side of the map in order to open up more choices. The heading will be "Map Layers". In that list, and about a third of the way down, click on "Fire History". You will see many more areas highlighted a darker color. Those are locations of fires in recent years and you can't help but notice that those previously burned areas have a high resistance to new fires. That's because all of the dead vegetative garbage that collects on forest floors over many years was all burned away during those previous fire.
That's why having regular controlled burns to eliminate the buildup of old dead stuff and useless bushes is such a good idea. But California has not been doing that very much if at all in most areas that would benefit from it.
Interesting ...
I was just looking at your message board for the first time in two weeks or more, then up pops your message to me. Spooky. I had to look out the window to my right to make sure you weren't peeping in on me.
The image below is a state-produced fire map centered around my property, which I marked with a single red dot northwest of Clear Lake. All of the other red and yellow thingies are put on the map by a California state organization referred to as Caltopo. In addition to this image, there is a link to the interactive map itself. You might want to keep that link and use it to find out what's going on around you as it pertains to fires.
Part of the right side of the image is chopped off. When it's there, you will see tabs on each side of the image. Clicking on those will open lists from which you can choose from lots of display layers and options.
https://caltopo.com/map.html#ll=39.27692,-122.85049&z=9&b=mbt&a=modis_mp
Interesting ...
TEVA goes down because of a repeat of very old news.
Y...A...W...N
Makes me wonder where these investors come from.
TEVA, a little closer look:
Already have recent shares and sold CCs multiple times, so just sitting on shares as of last Friday -- reconning day. That was a profitable week. Going to see if this one is.
It's sort of like fishing for crappies -- I've got a baited hook on bobber and waiting for a little surface activity off the bottom line then I'll huck all-in: hook, line, and sinker by selling CCs against my shares in two accounts and see what I catch by the end of the week.
Usually I get something for the pan and I can keep on fishing week after week. Adds up pretty quick. Get to use that to buy more shares next time. I've heard that's called compounding.
Well, I wouldn't call it a channel.
Channels have parallel lines. These two blue lines are converging and ultimately touch, forcing price to break upward or lower.
The pattern is a horizontal triangle. Those two lines are clearly not parallel.
If the history of the last few months repeat, price bounces off the lower blue line (which is actually floating above, and sometimes touching, SMA(100)) then goes higher until price reaches the upper blue line.
Teva is being held down by a "price fixing" law suit. Other companies (identified within that same law suit) have settled (AKA bought their way out by forking over money without admitting fault), but TEVA refuses to do that (and probably for good reason as they were just following the pricing of the other companies they were competing with).
TEVA trading at bottom of pattern.
Most likely will trade higher next week (assuming pattern continues). However, the pattern says it won't trade much higher than $12.50 (extrapolating the upper blue line).
I initiated trades on this stock near the end of July. I'm currently on my third trade for this cycle. The method I follow all the time is to buy a stock; sell weekly CCs against it; then repurchase the stock if assigned then write more Calls. Without reinvesting earnings, the volatility of this stock suggests an annual return of about 80% while using this CC method.
But I reinvest earnings when the income allows buying an additional 100 shares (which is needed if I want to sell an additional Call option). That expansion of holdings (AKA compounding) makes this CC method capable of annual gains much higher than 80%.
Qualification: this only works for stocks with predictable behavior.