Thursday, February 01, 2007

Welcome Back I Say!



Thank you for patiently awaiting the wonderful post I'm about to unveil for my day trading, option scavenging, investment guru audience! (ok so maybe some of you just started putting a couple bucks in the market like I did 2 years back...)

I've been doing some serious soul searching lately and I'm going to make this the personal part of this post. I've been trying to be the best trader I can be, a scavenger of information as soon as it hits the wire, an alert....all out hacker of the market, no limit hold em....die till I win with the money in my account and not yours mindset. I've been searching, testing, studying, reading, and taking on the most challenging battle I've ever fought. I believe this to be the best and most informing venture I've ever ridden. When I got into this mindset, I knew I wanted to form an all out blitzkrieg on the market...a self fulfilling adventure to turn my mind into a stone wall of psychological strength.

Now on to market stuff....
My Caterpillar Inc. (Public, NYSE:CAT) call on January 12th, 2007 is now up 231% on the FEB $60 Call Option. Remember Me? I called for long term support, and it bounced nicely. Seems as though cyclicals are definately back in the groove..

My long term Energy & Oil positions are boding well. In this post Here I said it would be a great idea to start buying up energy stocks as we all know oil wouldn't go any lower than $50 a barrel, come on Saudi Arabia loses billions each day oil goes down $1 buck..


Some random quips that have been on my mind lately:
The Metals sector is hot! (one of my first daytrade fetishes, Titanium Metals.

Corn which is eventually made into Ethanol has been on a tear, scalp! (ADM, ANDE, PEIX)

Stay away from Apple Inc., at this point in time you will get burned like a hot day in Miami while wearing baby oil..

RIMM options are a daytraders dream come true..30% a day is my forte

QQQQ options move slower than your grandmother's driving..

Follow oil & gas inventories, they make for easy money on the stock trading side...(BTU, CHK, DVN, CNX)

Make the best $69 a month investment of your life and follow Phil over at, Phils Stock World, he teaches me about trading the markets, how oil really works, and even manipulation in the market is easy to catch when you know what to look for..He only trades options, and always hedges them to even out the risk/reward, plays on momentum and sells into the rallies...don't we wish we all traded like that..?
*-Some of my favorite insights are:
"If I own $100Bn worth of energy stocks in my fund, what do I care if my energy trader loses 10% buying $1Bn worth of NYMEX barrels this month if it boosts my portfolio 5%? There are hundreds of funds with the motive means and opportunity to do this - all it takes is one dishonest fund manager - thank goodness there are none of those!"

"Don’t forget when I sell a contract, I buy it back when I feel like it (in a virtual sense). So If I sold 1,000,000 shares of $500 calls (10K contracts) for $22 yesterday to pick up an extra $22M against my $500M position, all I have to do is sell off 10 or 20,000 shares here and there to drive the price down so I can buy you out for $7, a $15M gain for me. If I shave $10 off Googles price in the process, what does that really cost me? At most $10M. And if I know the sell-off is BS because I’m causing it, all I have to do is wait for the other suckers to panic and then buy back my shares and cause a buying frenzy the other way.

Not that anyone would ever actually manipulated the markets for personal gain of course…"


I would like to say that this is one of the toughest businesses in the world. You fight for every dollar. Anyone who ever says playing the stock market is easy and money just flows like wine should be smacked. Wall Street is vicious, and there are hungry hedge fund managers ready to eat you alive. A great story of success goes to Steve Cohen, ever heard of SAC Capital? Baidu.com? Yea well he owns a large percentage of the companies shares for himself. A self made billionaire. His first day as a junior options trader in the Arbitrage Dept. he made an $8,000 profit, and eventually was making around $100,000 a day for the company.


Well if you want to know what arbitrage is, it's one of the greatest things one can ever get involved with...why you ask? No RISK! No way, a no risk trade in the stock market you say, yes well you have to be set up to do it, like a firm on Wall Street. 1 Option gives a great example of what Market Making Firms do in ARBITRAGE Plays. I found it to be very very informative & interesting...because it's for the big boys.

Trades today included scalping RIMM & QQQQ options, and buying the dips in the Dow Jones Futures (YM), and boy did that pay off today, whew!! New All Time High!

I shorted TIE near the top for 2500 shares and covered for a couple of nickels as it came down....
More to Come...
CalTrader

7 comments:

John Forman said...

Welcome back indeed!

Arbitrage is definitely great if you can find the opportunity. Mostly a game for the big boys who can move money around quickly, though. Beware of hedge funds who claim they are doing arbitrage, but really aren't - like LTCM. :-)

One thing I would say in terms of trading approach is that individual traders are usually going to be better of not going head-to-head with institutions. There are so many opportunities for us little guys to make really good money in places the big boys can't go. Why butt heads with them for chump change?

Just my two bits.

ODA125 said...

Cal,

We are calling off the search and rescue teams! We were all worried that you were being held hostage in the Trump Tower.

Glad you are back and engaged again. Look forward to your "stuff".

ODA 125

Trading Goddess said...

Cal!!!!!!!!!!

Good to see you back!

You had me worried sick!

No email!

No phone call!

LOL!

Anonymous said...

Phil's stock world should be put out of business, and I am actively trying by way of the SEC and FTC. He is a criminal and he's been wrong about energy, completely wrong... wrong too about the dollar and metals. You should find better advice.

Anonymous said...

Keep up the fire posts. Great to see you back and posting some trades.

ODA125 said...

Cal,

Something is wrong..... No posts and no activity. Have you taken a break or just gone silent?

Cal please call home........ :)

Anonymous said...

HEy Cal,

I happened to be reading this post when I stumbled across your mention of TIE. This stock fits my criteria and investment time horizon on the one-year weekly charts. Also, I have just posted on this analysis along with mention of your blog. Thanks again,

Stephen