checklist34 (99.81)

a dividend based trading strategy that might be of interest

March 26, 2009 – Comments (4)

The strategy works like this:  [more]

Hedging part 5. leveraged ETFs + hedging with options = winning in both directions?

March 24, 2009 – Comments (2)

This blog is entered this afternoon with the intent of having a small discussion with myself about the possibility that one could create a strategy that wins in both directions of the market.  There's no doubt that you would have gains that were less extreme down and less extreme up than simply shorting or being long (respectively) but its not hard to see the value in such a strategy.  [more]

the market can be pretty forgiving

March 23, 2009 – Comments (1)

I've made tons of mistakes since starting to manage my own money last december.  And I mean tons.  Some of them classic, bonehead mistakes.  Some of my highlight reel:  [more]

options are fun! whats your favorite option strategy?

March 23, 2009 – Comments (0)

I have used options in a few ways in the past months.  Of these ways, some have been successful, and some have not.    [more]

random musings on finding an "alpha"

March 19, 2009 – Comments (2)

All week I've been slowly trimming shares and selling covered calls (a great tactic in my opinion) on my portfolio and bracing myself for a downturn.  And I have bought some puts on select indexes, ETFs, and securities.    [more]

Chemtura has me on pins and needles (CEM)

March 18, 2009 – Comments (7) | RELATED TICKERS: CEMJQ.PK.DL

well i'm long CEM. Bought mostly for about $0.17, and don't have all that many share, but trading is halted this morning pendng announcemen of material news.

Buyout?  Major asset sale?  Related to their de-listing froman S&P index recently?  Bankruptcy declaration?

I haven't any idea, but i'm as curious as all hades.  Fun times.

where can i see information on stock futures?

March 18, 2009 – Comments (3)

We all know a thousand places and sites to get stock quotes and look at stock charts.  Yahoo, MSN, caps, thestreet.com, google finance, on and on and so on.    [more]

I suck at CAPs

March 17, 2009 – Comments (4)

Its true.  

I never remember to update my CAPs page to reflect my portfolio at all. 

That is all.

My first hedging attempts / more thoughts on hedges

March 17, 2009 – Comments (2) | RELATED TICKERS: FAZ , FAS , SPY

Well...  American Express spoiled the fun.  But yesterday in the morning (when the market was soaring) I took out a few hedges.  [more]

Whats the best hedging strategy?

March 13, 2009 – Comments (8) | RELATED TICKERS: SPY , RCL , BAC

Well my big bet from last week and earlier this week on has paid off pretty handsomely and my portfolio finished the week up almost 30%, and i'm not up overall by almost 20% ... with no short term profits to pay taxes on, since I started making my own investing decisions in December.    [more]

I'm betting big on BDCs, insurance, and banks ACAS, BX, ARCC, ALD, HIG, etc.

March 10, 2009 – Comments (13) | RELATED TICKERS: ACAS , ALD , HIG

In my last post I talked about how perhaps the best play on the market was a play betting on eventual mark-to-market accounting reversal.  [more]

Mark to market relief bounce... coming up?

March 03, 2009 – Comments (1) | RELATED TICKERS: XL , ACAS , BX

I want to talk mostly about mark to market accounting, but first I'd just like to say folks, this isn't the time to sell.  I'm not afraid to sell when I'm down, even way down, on a stock.  But right now I will not be putting any more money into cash.  Whatever I sell goes back into something else.  Because we're getting severely oversold and the hype about how stocks are still expensive (which is silly) is getting a bit long in the tooth.  I was very long the market just 2 weeks ago (just slight cash reserves in my investment account), but then my biggest holding got sold out and that left me with a whole lot of cash... so on last teusdays bump I dumped alot of holdings I was well down on to offset some of the gains on the sellout...  which left me alot of cash.  [more]