Tuesday, September 30, 2008

will hold till Congress does something....plsss

Thursday, September 25, 2008

phew....

the markets are crazy....we all thought we would go down today, so on the morning rise on IBM to 119, +2.5, i shorted it, i got a little overzealous and doubled that bet, still at 119 to 20 puts. the market kept rising IBM at 120, shorted some more....it keeps rising and at 3pm it's at 122....i'm freaking out....all my profits for the week plus some more are about to go down the tube. i can't even hold overnight because of the bailout plan rally threat.

i short at 122 and pray for the late afternoon drop....i watch the tape....i'm like a ninja....compute all exit points....IBM goes down to 120....i collapse all trades...it took nerves of steel.....my 122 was the only profitable leg, i couldn't sell it too early as it was counteracting the losses....but if IBM rallied into the close....with only 10 min's to go i sell the 122 / 120 at 122.3, wait 5 min's and i sell the 20-119's at 120.

total loss of 1K, but it could have been much worse. i was very lucky. some skill too. PHEW !!!

Thursday, September 18, 2008

see-saw on the Goldman Sachs ship

I shorted GS tuesday evening for a quick afternoon fade, but i didn't get it and so i was left holding GS puts !!!
as you know i hate holding stocks overnight in such volatile environment...a little bit of good or bad news and your position is fucked. especially with financials. so i was bummed, since after hours it was spiking higher.

But, on Wed. morning the gov. announced $85 billion loan to AIG. Logically, good news, but the market went ape shit over it. GS in pre-market was down $10....awesome. I saw the first 20 secs worth of action, saw that it would hit 120 and set sell level of $30 for my 150 puts. I didn't even have quotes, the options pit is a little behind in such cases. I was probably one of the first people to make market on that derivative that day. Great nice profit of $12.

I am at home for the moment. I didn't feel like rushing to work. So i am enjoying the moment. Watch the talking heads on CNBC, smoke a cigarette, take a crap (carry the laptop in there too :) and i come back thinking that's the worst. I do another quick trade on the upside, let it go down a little and go LONG. i wait a little bit and go LONG some more. Don't aske me why i must have still been hungover or sleep deprived or to exhuberant over my recent successes, that i went so heavily in. I get to work everything's down, GS down $25...i think great absolute bottom and i buy some more....you know the story the bottom on Wed. was $100....i had 29 $100 sept. calls with only 2 days to go. perfect way to blow your account.

i was up early thurs. morning. i had calculated various scenario's at different price levels and i was ready to take a hit. only thing in my favor was that volatility had created monstrous premium's so even though GS had moved down considerably, i was somewhat compensated. luckily, the market moved up and at $114 i had previuosly thought the risk / reward ratio was acceptable. i wasn't sure it would move to $120 and the hit at that point was not so bad, especially since I had made so much the day before. i am typing in the order, the fire alarm at work goes off, the boss is yelling everybody out, i hit submit and it's filled !!! yipppeeee....later on GS goes back to 100, then goes down to 91, where i wanted to buy it, then to 88, where i absolutely wanted to buy it...but for some reason my IB webtrader wouldn't accept my stock orders!!! i would have done call options but the lowest was 90's and they wanted $10 for it with stock at 88 and 1 day left. INSANE and DEFINTILEY NO WAY! 5 min's later that stock peaks back to 100. that was a definite gimme and i knew it. sigh.

the moral of this story is that i was able to salvage massive losses, buy not being greedy and keeping an eagle eye on the ticker of my stock. this is something i didn't always do before. but, now i know, that if you are trading options which are about to expire immenently you need to watch the ticker on that stock like a hawk. a couple of minutes could cost you thousands.

overall i only lost $500 (thank GOD) but i was up massively !!!

list of trades below:

BOT 10 GS IT SEP08 CALL 25 2008-09-17, 10:06:51
BOT 10 GS IT SEP08 CALL 23.5 2008-09-17, 10:11:25
BOT 9 GS IT SEP08 CALL 16.8 2008-09-17, 11:15:44
SLD 29 GS Option SEP08 100 CALL GS IT 16.50 CBOE(USD) 10:11:29 GMT-0400 on Thu, 18 Sep 2008 new
SLD 2 GS Option SEP08 125 PUT GS UE 13.50 NASDAQOM(USD) 15:50:55 GMT-0400 on Thu, 18 Sep 2008 new
SLD 2 GS Option SEP08 125 PUT GS UE 13.50 NASDAQOM(USD) 15:50:55 GMT-0400 on Thu, 18 Sep 2008 new
SLD 2 GS Option SEP08 125 PUT GS UE 13.50 NASDAQOM(USD) 15:50:55 GMT-0400 on Thu, 18 Sep 2008 new
SLD 2 GS Option SEP08 125 PUT GS UE 13.50 NASDAQOM(USD) 15:50:55 GMT-0400 on Thu, 18 Sep 2008 new
SLD 2 GS Option SEP08 125 PUT GS UE 13.50 NASDAQOM(USD) 15:50:55 GMT-0400 on Thu, 18 Sep 2008 new
BOT 10 GS Option SEP08 125 PUT GS UE 13.00 CBOE(USD) 15:25:53 GMT-0400 on Thu, 18 Sep 2008 new
SLD 1 IBM Option SEP08 130 PUT IBMUF 13.10 NASDAQOM(USD) 15:57:24 GMT-0400 on Thu, 18 Sep 2008 new
SLD 1 IBM Option SEP08 130 PUT IBMUF 13.10 NASDAQOM(USD) 15:57:24 GMT-0400 on Thu, 18 Sep 2008 new
SLD 1 IBM Option SEP08 130 PUT IBMUF 13.10 NASDAQOM(USD) 15:57:24 GMT-0400 on Thu, 18 Sep 2008 new
BOT 3 IBM Option SEP08 130 PUT IBMUF 12.00 NASDAQOM(USD) 15:53:34 GMT-0400 on Thu, 18 Sep 2008 new

my buddy ZSTOCK commented over at beanie's

zstock quote: "QQQQ chart looking awfully bullish, going into tomorrow. Could go either way, and or, all over the place."

my response: "thanks, that really clears things up :) "

it just really cracked me up....keep up the good work Z.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

LEH rumors sinks my ship

so i am doing ok today....i'm not feeling the market and keep on thinking i should go home and jack off or do something. last 10 min's of the market are my favorite and i have a nice short setup on AAPL, just watching it to set the optimal sell level. all of a sudden huge spike....everything runs up 2.5+ in 10 mins....unbelievable....

my online friend says LEH rumor that it is to be bought by BAC.....my gut feeling is there is a rumor out there too....this was news based trading, i have been dreading this whole LEH thing....

althought BAC already bought countrywide so that doesn't make sense. i'm dreading Friday now.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

this is how accounts get blown out

super bad day for the markets. lots of traders getting decimated, including yours truly with his epic NUE long, which gapped down 10% today...ouch! no worries. i made up most of the loss with some profits on IBM on Monday. i play the intraday short on AAPL, more money for the account. i'm breaking even overall, it's okay. brutal market.

late in the day it looks like another down play on AAPL is forming. I get in nicely. and it goes down nicely, but i set my sell a little too high and before i can change it, it's gone back up again. it's at breakeven. basically, bought at 151.9, 10 aapl sept 165 puts for 13.9 each.

Fuck James Bond. You want to know pressure, trade options on AAPL.

I have 10 mins left in the trading day and I don't want to hold anything overnight. I could lose some serious money here. What to do?

i am desperately setting my sell levels lower and lower. an idea forms why not buy some AAPL calls for the bounce tomorrow. there should be a bounce !!! BAD IDEA ! time is money, 145 calls look okay, i set the price at 9.1. 3 minutes left. screw this...sell the puts for 14 ($100 profit) and buy the calls for 9.25. 2 minutes left. i refresh the page and all orders executed. $100 profit for all that angst and now i have a serious 10 calls position. what if LEHMAN explodes overnite or Paulson has a heart attack?

Seriously Munney Penney, we'd be PHACKED !!!

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

finally back after blowing account

well, i blew my account in end june and on the very day the worst was happening i got offered a job. so phew, i had something to fall back on. i think it's better this way, since i will have something to do all day other than sit and think about my trades. sometimes i get over eager to just trade. possibly i will have more patience this way. this is my last chance. after this there is no more money. EEKS!!

bought 10 NUE SEP 42.5 calls at 6.9 (commodities oversold)
bought 10 IBM SEP 100 calls at 9.1 (oversold -- bought it too early, should have gotten in around 8.8, but i didn't want to be greedy and i am a little bit out of practice :)

see you tomorrow.