I just got home. To the thread, this is basically OT as it's about my portfolio. Ed, I'll have to address your post directly, even though you have requested not to hear from me, but you keep mentioning my portfolio/pms/trading style in messages on this thread. I would prefer you stop doing this, as I consider it unethical at best, in particular either taking quotes out of context or sometimes making them up (a few days ago putting in quotations a phrase I didn't say, "I've lost all my money, please rescue me."). It's likely that on that Friday or Sunday, I was looking at my portfolio and calculating how much I'd be worth if I bought back all my open put positions on Monday at the open; they had ballooned in negative worth and were holding a huge amount of margin capacity. I have not saved your PMs or my PMs. The MDD thread is a very smart but bear thread I enjoy lurqing on and did so a lot that weekend, nonetheless, I was trying to prepare for a possible disaster such as the one they were predicting. I knew it might not happen, but then again it might. That's why I wrote you, since you were the resident expert on selling puts. My disappointment--yes, that is indeed the word I recall using; no vendetta, as some people have Pmed me they believe I have--was that you had nothing more to say than go to all cash. In retrospect that would have been a foolish decision, for the obvious reason above: I would have bought back positions that quickly recovered and many of which are now profitable again--losing scads of $ in the process. I had only leap positions in my KEOGH and IRA and wanted to keep them all and was not speaking of those portfolios, simply my trading account.
The person who helped me the most that weekend was Tom, otherwise known as Voltaire. He spent hours on the phone with me. MtnLady knows how generous he can be and maybe she will speak up here too. In fact, a man who enjoys life to the hilt had spent 3 days in a row with not even enough time to shave, because he took phone calls all day from investors asking his advice. He and I came up with a plan for the open, and I liked it and in retrospect am glad I executed it. It turned out I didn't need to do ANYTHING as the market recovered at 2 p.m. but I decided I wanted some cash in perpetuity. As Voltaire emphasized, go right back in there with at least some of that cash. He and I discussed the NTAP play and it's been quite successful.
Poet was not speaking for me earlier, I wasn't home to respond to all this, and I appreciate that she wanted to defend me. I did buy Sept NTAP 55s a while back, they became worth a lot, maybe 20K from 2K for each call, I don't recall; but I held onto them with plans to exercise them in Sept. I regretted that for a week or so. I'm not sure if I do now, since I do want to exercise them. It's a tossup for me in some cases whether I should just use calls as a money-making vehicle or whether I should exercise them. I didn't like the tax hit I got this year at all, which came mainly from rolling out QCOM calls. I've added to the Sept 55 position twice since then. I've used the Sept 100s on NTAP as a speculative profitable play (a triple bagger in a few days) and will probably do so again.
I kept my SEBL Nov 180s today too. I cancelled my sell order, as I decided it would continue to go up. I haven't even checked the close of the market yet. Anyway, they are also another short-term "speculative" play.
I've done well in the last few weeks--and in the last year. So has Poet actually--she's been making, she told me, about 5K a day on her trades in the last few weeks (as opposed to obscene amounts she made earlier. Sorry, hon, but I've got to brag for you once in a while.). Poet doesn't boast about her successes but she is quite a facile trader and has probably out-traded most of us in the last year. She and I discuss our plays and portfolios on the phone often.
By the way, when you refer to Uncle Frank and QCOM you actually mean Voltaire.
Beyond that, yours and PAL's points about Poet and myself and the nature of this thread, let me quote one more famous than I:
You could be right.
But then again, you might not be right.
My hunch is its the latter. In fact, I'm willing to "gamble" on that--all I have to do is wait. Time is on my side. |
