<<Does this mean that Intl is now going on the pink sheets, or even worse, being taken over by KTEL? Maybe intl can perform some immediate magic by an early release of their Pentium 3.5.>>
Nothing would surprise me at this point <lol>
Not sure what to do with INTC....but then again, I'm not sure what to do with any of my stocks. Part of me wishes to average down on INTC or at least pick up one or two leaps. The other part see's how flatlined DELL wen't and is concerned Intel could do the same.
My main thing right now is Margin. I am about 35%margin/65%equity. Slightly deceiving because e-trade does not count calls as part of your holdings....well, it does, but not marginable...you know what I mean. So My equity % is actually higher if you add in my calls. However, this does me no good, as I am forced to go with the accounting methods that e-trade uses and they say calls are not part of current portfolio value, so I have no choice but to go with their numbers. Anyway, I have really been torn the last week or two as to how to proceed. I have sold some stock and bought some calls, which accomplished a couple things. It left me in control of the shares I bought should we run hard to january, and it cleared out some margin debt. My worry is that the calls are nothing but pieces of paper. If the market stays flat, which wouldnt surprise me, I will have alot of pieces of worthless paper come January. So, as nervous as being on margin gets me, owning all these risky calls have me nervous as hell too. I can't really go out to leaps, because the cost factor is so high, it would do nothing as far as eliminating any margin.
So here I sit.....wanting to get rid of the rest of that 35% margin, but the only way to do it is to sell stock and buy calls. And which stock do ya sell, and which calls do ya buy??? Maybe I am best to just sit tight as I am. Do absoluitely nothing about margin until we get a run upward....then sell something, cover something or whatever. My fear in doing this is if things do get very ugly, I may see a margin call.
Anyway, I sit here on this monday morning feeling like a child lost in the woods....I know I need to do something, I just dont know what.
Keith@whatelseisnew.com |
