It’s vacation time for Cape Cod Doug — once again to the Tampa – St. Petersburg area for a week until March 2nd. This is going to be an unplugged vacation, which begs the question, what to do about open market positions? Well, since my primary wish is to see a rise in the VIX, […]
Looking for a new trading system? An indicator seldom followed that outperforms the market consistently? Try trading the air pollution index. At least that’s the theory of two academics who looked at returns from a number of markets over a ten year span: The stock market hates dirty air. The authors of the study from […]
If I’m successful in my quest to double my stake in a year, a lot of the credit will go to the Cost Plus Word Market trade that eventually panned out in November. Yes, I sold out too early, but remember, woulda, coulda, shoulda doesn’t get it done . . . Take a look at […]
Signs are brewing that the market rally, seemingly unstoppable, may actually be in its tired stage. One of my favorite charts is Thompson’s insider buy/sales ratio: The idea is when insiders aren’t buying anymore (and the red line shoots up) its getting to be a good sign to sell (or short, or panic, or whatever […]
It sure looks like Cisco is getting a well deserved reputation as a stock to short right before earnings are announced: That’s three massive gaps down on the last three announcement days. It will be interesting to see how long CSCO keeps this pattern going.
Just last month I made a nice score betting against AT&T on their earnings announcement. The thinking was that expectations had to be lowered with the exclusivity of their iPhone contracts in its waning days. The trade played out nicely, as T gapped lower, a gap which still hasn’t filled: Swing traders alert! It might […]
Woulda, coulda, shoulda doesn’t get it done. Certainly not in the equity markets. So I won’t kick myself for not getting on board the Disney train yesterday: Though that was a nice pop for DIS, in the end I just didn’t feel either bullish or bearish on playing their earnings. I’m not mad about missing this […]
Well, I didn’t exactly double a short position, technically put another $1000 into VIX calls. This time I bought 5 of the April 20 calls for $2.00 each. The VIX closed at a low 16.07 today. Previously I picked up some VIX calls expiring in March, so that’s why I consider it doubling up. I […]
With the stock market seemingly in a permanent melt-up phase, surely it couldn’t hurt to make a bullish options play on Walt Disney, which reports fourth quarter earning after the bell tonight, right? Well, I for one just don’t see any edge in it, so I have decided to sit on the sidelines and just […]
So there is rioting in the streets in Northern Africa, and the US market is soaring back to its post-crash highs, and volatility is again shrinking, with the VIX back down to 17.50 today: This is a good opportunity to bet that something — don’t ask me what — will be brewing to spike that […]
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