I'm glad you like my site. Let me know if there are any good tools that I'm missing; I'll add them in.
Yes, I still own 800 shares of UGLY. I lost 125 because I didn't call Lombard in time to clear up my margin. Lombard goes through US Clearing, and apparently US Clearing was selling my stock at about the same time as I was speaking to an account representative, who told me my margin was fine. I bought back 25 of the shares at a slightly higher price to round out the position.
Overall my repairs have worked pretty well. I'm at $13.50 now, with the Dec 15's out there. UGLY's coming down off the upper band at $15.25, nice and easy, just like it went up. I'm hoping to cover before the earnings in mid- to late-Oct. Nothing I can do to average down now, though.
Looks like VVUS is going for a ride today... $33.75 - $34.75 while I've been typing this. Too bad it's out of my price range.
Hey, regarding Wade Cook: I subscribe to Mark Skousen's newsletter, and in the issue I got yesterday he trashes Cook. But, in the end he discusses three of Cook's favorite strategies, buying splits, CCs, and dividend capturing. He says that all three work fine in bear markets, but are big losers in bull markets, and so they're dangerous. But, Skousen's big thing is predicting that this bear market will go on at least until the Dow breaks 10000, in which case Cook's methods will work, which means we should be making 20% - 30% a month! He mentions, but doesn't emphasize, the real problem with Cook: heavy advertising for the way overpriced seminars.
Later in the newsletter Skousen answers a letter about the year 2000 problem. He says "I'm convinced this computer glitch will cause a limited amount of chaos, temporarily shutting down operations at companies and in the government. But I don't think it will cause a computer scare....As for now, I'd simply say: Don't be on an elevator, train, automobile or airplane at midnight on Dec. 31, 1999." I couldn't beleive he said that. For a guy who claims to have the best contact network in the industry, you'd think he'd be smart enough to figure out that elevators, trains, automobiles, and airplanes don't care what the date is, and will be absolutely unaffected by this. And, the financial industry, which could potentially feel the greatest impact, has more than enough resources to handle the problem ahead of time. And, this isn't even the first time this happened; computer clocks have reached their limits a couple of times before, and no one outside the industry ever noticed. This time it's different simply because of those three zeros.
Alright, I guess that's enough ranting about Skousen. If he didn't pick good mutual funds for my mom's retirement, I'd probably cancel the subscription.
Doug. |
