Counting with Doug: Financing a trip to Lake Tahoe solely with blackjack winnings?

Uncategorized

A new year calls for a new strategy

A very Happy New Year to anyone who follows Cape Cod Doug, and I hope it will be a good one for you! Obviously, I haven’t been posting here much recently, as my work has overwhelmed me for much of the autumn of 2011, and my trading therefore ground to a halt. A preliminary review […]

Selling VIX position

I sold off half — the long half — of my VIX options position a little after noon today (and then watched VIX run briefly to 20, of course). While this will go down a loss for now in the trading log, I’m expecting VIX to moderate, and the expiration of the short side of […]

Most of the year’s gains gone . . .

Don’t look now, but after today’s session, most of the 2011 gains have been wiped out: The S & P 500 is now up only about 2.2%. The VIX closed today at 18.46. I still would dearly love to see it pop above 20, if only for a few minutes!

Break through at the close

I had previously marked 1340 on the S & P 500 as an important level, and although the market gapped higher in the first half hour, it quickly retreated to below that level for most of the day: The last half-hour into the close, however proved very strong, and we did have a close above […]

Which way for Corn?

Will this be a scorching summer for grains and agricultural commodities? Corn has been on a nice rise: The chart shows corn right in the middle of it’s trend channel, but sitting above support points represented by the 20 and 50-day moving averages. I’m passing for now, as I would prefer the bottom of the […]

Another trip around the board and back to GO

So today the market found yet another way to end up exactly where it started. VIX fell back down to the mid 16 range, which is fine with me. Options expiration (for equities and indices, not VIX) tomorrow — lets see if it brings some fireworks, or more of the same!

First big trade of the new year — shorting AAPL earnings!

I decided to come out of my winter hibernation Friday, and put on my first trade of 2011. To say we are going against the flow on this one is an understatement; I decided to short AAPL right before their Tuesday evening earnings announcement. Anyone with anything negative to say about America’s most beloved consumer […]

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Barring a market meltdown (fat chance of that lately!), I will be officially on vacation (in New Hampshire, not Cape Cod) until January 3rd,at which time we shall resume the hunt for good gap trades and see if I can push this account up over 100% by March 19th, which would be a full year […]

Enjoy Memorial Day Weekend!

Wherever Memorial Day weekend finds you or takes you (it is the traditional time for opening up Cape Cod summer cottages), I hope you will be happy and healthy. It is, of course, a time to reminisce on the lives of the persons who have died in service to the United States, and I hope […]

Five for the Weekend — April 16-18

Five links for weekend reading: * Near and dear to my heart: the CAPE index foretells tough times: (Money Honey). * The “predator” was watching for a trend day this morning — guess he found one! (PredatorsDen). * Avoid the three most common day trading mistakes: (TradeMark Academy). * People are spending money on discretionary […]

← Before