Category: Finance

I charted the S&P 500 ($SPX) after the markets closed on Friday, March 12, 2010, when the SPX closed at 1,149.99 for the week.
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I decided to go with a monthly chart this weekend after having an email conversation with a reader who had a question about the 200 …

The stock market can make you laugh at yourself sometimes.  UCO is playing its roll as the comedian today.  In my post on Monday I mentioned that I was trying to work a calendar spread on UCO.  I couldn’t get the limit order I wanted to work for me on a combined order so I broke it down and legged in with a single purchase and then waited out the sell order for the second leg.  With the VIX down option premiums are down.  That …

Occasionally when the markets are slow, like they’ve been recently, I mess around with a penny stock trade to try to make a little extra cash.  The risks of complete loss are fairly high with these stocks compared to my normal trades so I don’t “play” with much.  This is much more a game to play than a true investing strategy.  I don’t have a true penny stock trading system. So, I’m not suggesting anyone else follow my lead on these trades, …

My CSCO position started with a mistake.  While getting used to the platform after switching my account to IB I mistakenly sold calls instead of a put, as if I hadn’t made hundreds of trades for years and didn’t know what I was doing.  I didn’t panic.  Instead of closing out the short calls on a stock would go higher I sold in the money puts at a strike $2 higher than the calls.  This gave me a cushion to …

I charted the Dow Jones Industrial Average ($DJIA) after the markets closed on Friday, March 3, 2010 when the Dow finished the week at 10,566.20.
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In my S&P 500 chart last weekend I wrote that Monday would be a great indicator for how the markets would likely follow through.  …

Yesterday afternoon I place a few limit orders late in the trading day for new naked puts on three different underlying stocks and ETFs - UWM, ITRI and JPM.  All of them were sitting at levels that I would have been comfortable selling the options, but I wanted to try for a little extra.  I don’t know if it was a touch of greed, caution or an attempt at patience.  Anyway, it backfired on me as all three started off higher …

I’m pretty happy with how February worked out for me, especially considering that I’m not fully invested still.   I finished February with a combined balance of $103,076.06 ($91,897.17 with IBKR and $11,178.89 with AMTD) which is up from my January finishing balance of $98,663.75.  $1,500 of the increase is from the deposit I made on February 8th and $2,912.31 is from growth.  I’m 82.03% invested overall and of my equity allocation (aka my IBKR account) 79.84% is …

I charted the S&P 500 ($SPX) after the markets closed on Friday, February 26, 2010 when the index closed at 1104.49.
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A few weeks ago when I posted a chart of the SPX I said the Williams %R indicator would give us the best indicator of when …

I thought UCO would dip a little more than it has, but the lower US dollar opened the door for higher oil prices and I decided to take a nibble.  I mentioned in my post yesterday that I would probably sell April 11 puts on UCO, but with the move higher for UCO today I saw an opportunity to take in less exposure and increase my premium intake.  While UCO was trading at $12.20 I sold three April 12 naked …