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Plastic Jesus posted:You can do everything you're asking about on freestockcharts.com. In particular you want to look at the Average True Range (ATR) indicator, which tracks the smoothed average movement of a stock over a given time period. Thanks for the link, very interesting. Switching gears a little bit, can someone tell me how options work? The basic idea I have is that you purchase an option for a stock at a certain price, and if the value of the stock rises, you can then buy the stock for the lower price and then immediately sell it for a profit. Is this correct? Also, how do the options devalue over time? I read that as time to their expiry date approaches, they are worth less and less, but wouldn't they be worth whatever value the stock is worth right up until they expire?
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Oct 8, 2010 04:38
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IratelyBlank posted:Thanks for the link, very interesting. http://www.investopedia.com/university/options/
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Oct 8, 2010 04:44
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So...frontrun the fed on pomo days, or sell interest rate futures? I'm tempted to sell eurodollar futures bc really how much lower can rates go. Otoh, I remember qe1 and shorting the fed initially would've been a bloodbath.
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Oct 8, 2010 07:30
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Is there a POMO calender someone could link me to?
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Oct 8, 2010 14:14
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Thoogsby posted:Is there a POMO calender someone could link me to? All that information is on the NY Fed's page here.
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Oct 8, 2010 14:28
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Argh, KLIC warned of a weaker Q1 revenue, the stock dropped 13%, and my calls are back at the price I paid for them xD. EDIT: Although it seems to be rallying back.... At least my MU calls worked out. Gamesguy fucked around with this message at 14:50 on Oct 8, 2010 |
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Oct 8, 2010 14:46
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Thoogsby posted:http://www.investopedia.com/university/options/ If I'm understanding this correctly, you don't actually need to buy the underlying stock that the option is for, you can just sell the option at the increased price, and this is what most people do anyway?
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Oct 8, 2010 15:07
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IratelyBlank posted:If I'm understanding this correctly, you don't actually need to buy the underlying stock that the option is for, you can just sell the option at the increased price, and this is what most people do anyway? With calls, you have the option to buy the underlying at the strike price. With puts, you have the option to sell at the strike price. Assuming you're in the money, your profit will be the difference between the current price and the strike price minus what you paid for the contract.
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Oct 8, 2010 15:12
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Thoogsby posted:With calls, you have the option to buy the underlying at the strike price. With puts, you have the option to sell at the strike price. Assuming you're in the money, your profit will be the difference between the current price and the strike price minus what you paid for the contract. You can make a profit even if you're OOM assuming the underlying stock is closer to the strike price compared to where you bought and you haven't lost too much IV value. Of course you'd have to sell before expiration.
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Oct 8, 2010 15:19
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IratelyBlank posted:For all the shares I'm looking at, the difference between the bid/ask is only .01 so it doesn't seem like that big of a deal. Is this the only impediment in what I was talking about above? It seems like an "easy" way to make some extra cash (if you have a huge chunk of cash just laying around, it doesn't seem like it would work with anything less than a few thousand dollars). No, that 1 cent is a big deal. The bid/ask spread, even on really liquid stocks where it's 1 cent (or less if you have access to dark pools and midpoint prints), is what can make or break you with this type of strategy. Anyway, what you're describing is called scalping and it's extremely difficult to be profitable at it with DMA ECN fee schedules (let alone retail fees, ugh), not even considering the fact that you're always aggressively executing (i.e. buying at the ask, and selling at the bit - losing 1 cent on each leg of the execution). Take GE for example. It seems to easy enough to buy 10,000 shares and catch a 5 penny move for $500. The price is currently 17.19/17.20. So you buy 10,000 at 17.20. Immediately you're in a losing position: if you sell right away, you will sell at 17.19 and lose $100. If the price goes down 1 cent, and you sell you lose $200. If the price goes up 1 cent and you sell, you make $0. Subtract fees and the picture starts to look even worse. To make matters worse, when scalping execution speed matters, a lot. If you're at home, on your computer trading through a retail brokerage you don't have nearly enough speed to catch moves or exit positions quickly. Based on what you're trying to do you will never make money consistently doing it. Never. Trust me (though you have no reason to, I suppose), I've been involved in DMA trading for a while and know a lot of scalpers (was one myself one time) and it's nigh impossible to make consistent money doing it. You have to be "naturally talented" or have enough buying power to be able to affect the price of the stock yourself. Don't even bother trying to get data from Yahoo! like you're suggesting, it'll be worthless. You need accurate data or else your backtesting will be meaningless and unfortunately, as you said, you're not going to get that info without paying. As a start, you can get "reasonably accurate" minute data from eoddata.com for like $20 a month. Save yourself some time and effort; I know you're new at it but if a strategy sounds too good to be true, it is. There are thousands of people with a lot of experience trying to figure out exactly what you're suggesting, and it just doesn't work that way. Sorry this is a bit of a rant, but it bugs me when people think "omg this sounds so easy" without ever having put a penny in the market themselves. mik fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Oct 8, 2010 |
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Oct 8, 2010 18:39
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mik posted:Sorry this is a bit of a rant, but it bugs me when people think "omg this sounds so easy" without ever having put a penny in the market themselves.
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Oct 8, 2010 19:15
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Dr. Eldarion posted:Sometimes it's best to let people learn from experience. Nothing teaches you how wrong you are quite like losing 10% of your money in a couple days. That's pretty much what I decided when I deleted the "here are all of the reasons why this is a bad idea" sections of my previous post before hitting submit. Also, trading options is very different from trading equities. Feel free to ask questions but unless you're familiar with the absolute basics it'll be difficult to give useful answers to anything.
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Oct 9, 2010 00:54
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mik posted:Sorry this is a bit of a rant, but it bugs me when people think "omg this sounds so easy" without ever having put a penny in the market themselves. Thanks for all the info. I didn't think it would be easy because it would take a lot of programming to actually come up with reliable +/- numbers that would just serve as a guideline. Out of curiosity, how do you get fast execution speeds? I'm pretty new at this, the only experience I have is buying shares and selling them when they raised quite a bit in price which is pretty basic. Also, why is Yahoo! unreliable? Is Google the same way? Is it because there is some kind of delay?
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Oct 9, 2010 03:53
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I think you're acting under the impression that you aren't the zillionth person to try to program yourself an advantage. Unless you're brighter than everyone on Wall Street, you're still playing the same losing game.
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Oct 9, 2010 04:24
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Hey man, just go ahead and do it, don't be discouraged by what they say, but be prepared to lose all your money if you screw it up. Also if you strike it rich, remember that i'm the one who supported you, and throw a thousand dollars my way. Thanks!
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Oct 9, 2010 04:42
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I've given up on the idea, I am just curious about the other things. I was playing with options today on investopedia and I managed to make a 25% gain (profit?). I will probably keep playing with it for a few more weeks before I introduce real money.
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Oct 9, 2010 04:47
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IratelyBlank posted:I've given up on the idea, I am just curious about the other things. I was playing with options today on investopedia and I managed to make a 25% gain (profit?). I will probably keep playing with it for a few more weeks before I introduce real money. One thing you should know is that the game changes when it goes from fake play money to real money. One another note, NFLX's shorts are being covered today (from the looks of the "rally") and who else wants to play APPL@300 in 5 days on the other hand NFLX Calls for 170 is looking like a dumb buy.
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Oct 11, 2010 14:47
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I expected some kind of movement with MSFT because of the WinPhone7 announcement.. but nothing?
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Oct 11, 2010 16:03
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I'm looking to start a long term position in agriculture. I would prefer to invest in the commodities directly but that doesn't seem possible outside of futures or funds like DBA which I would never touch. The other option is to buy some farmland but I'm looking for something with a minimal time investment from my side. Is anyone else playing the ag sector? How are you doing it?
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Oct 11, 2010 16:27
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vanjalolz posted:I expected some kind of movement with MSFT because of the WinPhone7 announcement.. but nothing?
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Oct 11, 2010 17:23
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I really don't understand how BIDU can trade at a P/E of 100+ while SINA sits 7. I bought some SINA last week during the downtrend and it's paying off at least a little today. Maybe there's something obvious I'm missing, but why is BIDU valued so much higher than other large Chinese websites?
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Oct 11, 2010 17:46
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Nifty posted:FR (a REIT mentioned here previously) was up almost 8% today. I dont see any news from today and the sector as a whole didnt perform especially well. Its not that I am specifically curious about this stock today, but how would I be able to find out why such a big price move happens? I see this regularly, especially with smaller securities, where there is a big move but none of the major sites list any news for that day. So did anyone else get positions in this below 5? because it probably would have netted me a little extra cash if I would have exercised more discipline with this a year or 2 ago...don't hesitate to take your profits at this point and enjoy the cash. As I mentioned I rode this one up and down missing a sell opportunity and making some cash in the other events, but if I would have been emotionless with it from the start I would probably have made even more money. It is a relatively stable company in a pretty sturdy industry, with a highly volatile share price. That volatility won't start settling until they're making consistent profits per quarter once again, the debt is down to a level most people are comfortable with, and the dividend is either restored or talked about so often that it's restoration is on everyone's minds.
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Oct 11, 2010 18:15
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Jabbu posted:So did anyone else get positions in this below 5? because it probably would have netted me a little extra cash if I would have exercised more discipline with this a year or 2 ago...don't hesitate to take your profits at this point and enjoy the cash. As I mentioned I rode this one up and down missing a sell opportunity and making some cash in the other events, but if I would have been emotionless with it from the start I would probably have made even more money. It is a relatively stable company in a pretty sturdy industry, with a highly volatile share price. That volatility won't start settling until they're making consistent profits per quarter once again, the debt is down to a level most people are comfortable with, and the dividend is either restored or talked about so often that it's restoration is on everyone's minds. I sold thursday at $5.27. It closed Friday at $5.66  Still a profit none the less
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Oct 11, 2010 18:21
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Nifty posted:I sold thursday at $5.27. It closed Friday at $5.66 Very nice. The volatile wave of FR is nauseating to ride. I don't remember who I learned it from, but the general lesson was "never tell anyone to buy anything unless you can confidently tell them when to sell as well". In FR's case I'm pretty sure beneath $5 was the time to buy, but unlike times in the past where the general trend of the market, demand for real estate, and other little technical bits that seemed too convenient to ignore, made me say "buy beneath 5, sell above 6 and you can be happy with your trade", this time around I'm not sure where it's going to land. In that sense just taking a profit, even if it may have been a bit premature in hindsight, is still the smart and cautious thing to do regarding FR.
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Oct 11, 2010 18:53
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Thoogsby posted:
Did you keep the SMOD trade on after the 10/1? I really liked the look of the chart, but traded to plan an exited on 10/1. It's up 14% since then and I'd like to think that somebody made money where I refused to.
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Oct 11, 2010 22:16
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Got stopped out of CADX this morning, ah well, it was a good run. Started a position in LCI at 4.78
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Oct 12, 2010 03:52
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Just sold out of FCX this morning (bought it at $75), was a very good run up and used the money to increase my positions in ATPG and CHK. Cross Fingers....
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Oct 12, 2010 16:16
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Nobody playing the semis ahead of INTC earnings? Edit: threw some chips on the INTC 20 spot at the bell. Tape looked too tasty to resist. Plastic Jesus fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Oct 12, 2010 |
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Oct 12, 2010 20:55
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Debt market strips US of triple A rating I seem to remember Goldman Sachs traded credit default swaps on US government debt. But I can't think of anything that would destroy the US's credit but would save the credit of any of its insurers. I mean, unlike Greece, our government may be broke but we haven't sold the printing press.
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Oct 12, 2010 21:13
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What do you guys think of Activision with their dual releases of Black Ops and Cataclysm this year? This will be the first time they have an overlap of the two big franchises, so they should get a decent boost?
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Oct 12, 2010 23:31
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Plastic Jesus posted:Nobody playing the semis ahead of INTC earnings? Looks like in the money already with 19.94 bid, I think people who wanted to play semi jumped in last week with MU earnings (Which was great+forecast was good). I'm in the Semi's through AAPL calls @ 300. RIG has been climbing back up from its pre-Gulf Oil Spill dip with the todays news on the lift on Deep Sea drilling in the Gulf.
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Oct 12, 2010 23:48
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Dr. Jackal posted:Looks like in the money already with 19.94 bid, I think people who wanted to play semi jumped in last week with MU earnings (Which was great+forecast was good). Yep. Bought 100 oct MU calls ahead of earnings last week, up about 250% on them so far. I think I will probably just wait till friday and exercise them. There is little time value left in them anyways(like a penny) and I like MU's chart.
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Oct 13, 2010 05:09
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Yeah so since I brought up MOTR a few weeks ago it's up like a good 150%. I know it's horrible to have all my net worth tied up in this (I'm still restricted) but at the moment I don't feel too bad about it.
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Oct 13, 2010 16:52
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goddinpotty posted:Yeah so since I brought up MOTR a few weeks ago it's up like a good 150%. I know it's horrible to have all my net worth tied up in this (I'm still restricted) but at the moment I don't feel too bad about it.
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Oct 13, 2010 18:53
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OGS-Remix posted:What do you guys think of Activision with their dual releases of Black Ops and Cataclysm this year? This will be the first time they have an overlap of the two big franchises, so they should get a decent boost? I don't like their stock, not because I think it's in danger and you're going to lose all your money, I just don't think it has the potential to offer home-run style returns anytime soon in relation to the duration you'd have to hold it. I've wanted to get a couple shares with them because relative to other companies in their market they're head and shoulders above the rest in terms of quality, but every time I check their price and seriously question my motives I figure I can get something for the same price or cheaper with what I feel to be a bit more upside in a shorter time frame. My verdict on it is you could probably do worse, but you could probably do better as well. If it's a company you genuinely like though and want to own shares in, then you have a better reason than most people when it comes to buying and you might as well pick up a couple shares. It's a much better feeling than not buying them only to later say "I loving knew it was going to go up" and sitting their with your dick in your hand.
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Oct 13, 2010 19:01
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Jabbu posted:I don't like their stock, not because I think it's in danger and you're going to lose all your money, I just don't think it has the potential to offer home-run style returns anytime soon in relation to the duration you'd have to hold it. I've wanted to get a couple shares with them because relative to other companies in their market they're head and shoulders above the rest in terms of quality, but every time I check their price and seriously question my motives I figure I can get something for the same price or cheaper with what I feel to be a bit more upside in a shorter time frame. My verdict on it is you could probably do worse, but you could probably do better as well. If it's a company you genuinely like though and want to own shares in, then you have a better reason than most people when it comes to buying and you might as well pick up a couple shares. It's a much better feeling than not buying them only to later say "I loving knew it was going to go up" and sitting their with your dick in your hand. I know a guy whos been holding ATVI since last july and it's still below the price he paid for it. Stock is dead tbh.
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Oct 13, 2010 22:35
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I covered my GME short on the 30th since it looked like it was consolidating. Took yesterday's dip below the 20d on high volume as an opportunity to get back in and it looks like it's finally ready to crack, closing today below the 50d. Looking for it to fill the 9/16 gap, and more.
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Oct 13, 2010 22:43
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I'm kicking myself for selling my stocks late September. I was so certain the markets weren't rising past 1150 (S&P500). While I pray for mayhem, I've put $1000 of canadian money into my USD cash account since both dollars are just about at parity. That play could backfire if the canadian dollar rises to 1.1:1. I just want to be prepared for a play when/if markets go down after the midterm election, and after the US government isn't as focused or capable of juking the stats (just finished watching The Wire). This rally seems too unexpected and not particularly authentic. But I'm still a n00b at this, so I'm probably missing some obvious reason.
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Oct 14, 2010 13:45
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Why do people buy options for +/-$20 of what the stock is worth? They are only $.02 and $.01 and very low numbers like that so do they just spend the $3 "just in case" the market takes an unexpected dip and then it one day they might see a return for the $3 they spend every few weeks?
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Oct 14, 2010 14:25
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IratelyBlank posted:Why do people buy options for +/-$20 of what the stock is worth? They are only $.02 and $.01 and very low numbers like that so do they just spend the $3 "just in case" the market takes an unexpected dip and then it one day they might see a return for the $3 they spend every few weeks? Yeah. At least it has better odds than the lotto!
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Oct 14, 2010 15:03
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