This was almost comical. I had not been paying attention to my TD Ameritrade (AMTD) Account with respect to margin requirements because I wasn’t expecting it to come into play yet, but also because I knew liquidating wouldn’t be a problem if/when that day came. I opened the account today to get to their Trade…
Bought Gold (GLD)
I’m late to the gold game, but I finally got back in. For months I expected the dollar to strengthen on the weakening euro. Now I’ve come to accept the fact the US has to weaken the dollar to have a chance of getting a handle on our debt. This weakening will just continue to…
S&P 500 Chart – When To Buy?
This S&P 500 ($SPX) chart shows the past six months of daily prices after it finished the week at 1,199.38 on Friday, August 5, 2011. This past week was the most painful fall for bulls over such a short period since 2008, but a lot of that pain could’ve been avoided by traders who were paying attention…
End of the Month Summary – July 2011
The Dow Jones and S&P 500 both lost close to 2% in July. That makes my 1.4% loss not feel quite as bad. If nothing else, it allowed me to pull ahead of the S&P 500 and Russell 2000 year to date returns a little more. I finally got around to increasing my exposure some,…
Sold New SSO Naked Put Too Early
I must have been feeling a little giddy after charting the Dow Jones yesterday and thought it could be wise to get into the market early to ride the wave back to the upper side of the trading channel. Almost three minutes into the trading day, while SSO was trading at $51.85 I sold one…
Dow Jones Chart – Sitting on Support
I charted daily prices for the past year on the Dow Jones Industrial Average ($DJIA, $INDU, $DJI) after it closed on Friday, July 29, 2011 at 12,143.24. When I posted a DJIA chart two weeks ago I pointed out that we would probably see the index come down to its 200 day moving average and…
Sold Another January UWM Naked Put
Over two weeks ago, on the morning of July 13th (the same day I sold my last UCO naked put), I was looking at my TD Ameritrade (AMTD) account and was thinking that I still had more margin not in use. I figured I could sell some more longer-dated options, far out-of-the-money and not take…
Sold VNQ Naked Put
I exited my last VNQ position in February when my covered calls expired and I sold my shares at the $55 strike. I waited a little while to make sure the wash rule passed and then kind of forgot about getting back in. I started watching the REIT again about a week ago when it…
S&P 500 Chart – July 22, 2011
I charted a little more than the past six months of the S&P 500’s ($SPX) daily prices after it finished the week at 1,345.02 on Friday, July 22, 2011. After falling to its lowest levels of July, the large cap index rallied 2.2% this past week which brought it up to a 6.9% return for…