***Official*** 2008 Stock Market Thread

[aldamon]

Originally posted by: ricochet

Well, I'm wrong. This is a real rally. Over 500pts rally so far. It will end up positive for sure. Man, really kicking myself for not picking up GM.

Never lose sleep about "missing" GM. I'm sure millions of investors wish they never heard of the company.

 

[Ns1]

Money says this doesn't last the week.

 

[ponyo]

Sold the rest of Posco at 76. Mastercard got the boot at $170. Google at $367. Made good money on Posco and Mastercard. Tiny loss on Google.

Should've booted the entire GE position in the morning but that's easy to say now. I was chocking from exposure I layered in last week. Now I'm more balanced now. Now I can breathe free and easy. Buying last week was hard and selling here is hard but you must remember the pain and not let your emotions get in the way. Good luck everyone and hope this rally has some legs.

 

[ponyo]

Just to be clear, I still think this rally has more legs. We still have expiration this week and that's certainly going to add to the volatility. You have the potential for another rate cut. Fund performance anxiety also is a factor that adds to the bullish thesis. I'm simply taking trade while it's there and lightening up on some exposure I added during the fall into the abyss. I still have exposure that I will sell into further lifts.

 

[Noirish]

bidu is up 25% from friday's low.
goog reports on thursday, bidu next wednesday.
how long should i hold my position...already sold some from last friday.

 

[ivan2]

set to sell the BAC shares i pick up afterhour on friday at 23. planning to hit some options after oct 18

funny thing is that with BAC, you are making more money buying shares than options. And with MS, you actually lose money even if you got the calls on Friday. The speculators are running wild.

Weird market, no?

 

[rchiu]

Originally posted by: Naustica
Just to be clear, I still think this rally has more legs. We still have expiration this week and that's certainly going to add to the volatility. You have the potential for another rate cut. Fund performance anxiety also is a factor that adds to the bullish thesis. I'm simply taking trade while it's there and lightening up on some exposure I added during the fall into the abyss. I still have exposure that I will sell into further lifts.

Sorry to disagree. Buying anything at this point is pure gamble. Of course you could be right the Dow will go up another 500 points tomorrow with some surprise earning or fed action, but no one can predict that. The chance of another major bank somewhere in the world fail is equally likely and the main problem in this crisis has not gone away.

What's certain is we will have volatility. Good if you like to gamble and is risk seeking, bad if you are seeking long term return or is risk averse.

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

Originally posted by: Ns1
Money says this doesn't last the week.

i agree, it will drop and then everyone will predict doom and gloom.
it's ok, MS did well for me today

 

[Random Variable]

I was convinced there would be lots of selling towards the close.

 

[Azurik]

Originally posted by: rchiu

Originally posted by: Naustica
Just to be clear, I still think this rally has more legs. We still have expiration this week and that's certainly going to add to the volatility. You have the potential for another rate cut. Fund performance anxiety also is a factor that adds to the bullish thesis. I'm simply taking trade while it's there and lightening up on some exposure I added during the fall into the abyss. I still have exposure that I will sell into further lifts.

Sorry to disagree. Buying anything at this point is pure gamble. Of course you could be right the Dow will go up another 500 points tomorrow with some surprise earning or fed action, but no one can predict that. The chance of another major bank somewhere in the world fail is equally likely and the main problem in this crisis has not gone away.

What's certain is we will have volatility. Good if you like to gamble and is risk seeking, bad if you are seeking long term return or is risk averse.

I disagree with your disagreement, specifically about buying anything at this point is a gamble. The stock market basically nose-dived the past couple weeks and the losses were tremendous. Market psychology is difficult to predict, but as they say... the market is emotional and tend to over buy during the go-go times and over sell during gloom and doom. Look at the last one. Investors overbought during the dot.com craziness and than oversold into 2003. You would have had tremendous gains by pouring money during 2003.

Yes, there is a real threat to the economy, but it doesn't make every stock a gamble. There are a TON of bargains right now. You don't have to go to the financial/housing/energy sector. In 3-5 years we're going to look back at this moment in time and kick ourselves for not buying more of quality blue-chip names.

Invest accordingly and appropriate for your age. As you can see from the wide-range of posts here... some people are quasi day-traders, some are value buyers, some trade on technicals and others buy-and-hold. There's a lot of others who don't know what the heck they're doing and just executing on how they feel. Take advice with a grain of salt. No one can predict the interim swings of the market. We'd all be rich if that were the case.

 

[JoeFahey]

What is everyone's opinion on Western Digital (WDC)? I think it is undervalued and it cna be had for a bargain now. I wis hthe price/book ratio was a little lower, but atleast it doesn't have terrible cash flow or a profit margin now. Opinions?

 

[oznerol]

Does no one else find this market to be completely batshit crazy?

On top of that, the media is so insanely fickle that it just mimics the craziness. "Economy in a downward spiral - the worst yet to come!" "The bulls are back, as investors bet the worst of the credit crisis is over!" "Depression-like economy leaves investors running scared!"

It's just ridiculous. It's complete groupthink, only the majority seem to be manic-depressive nutjobs.

 

[JoeFahey]

Originally posted by: ducci
Does no one else find this market to be completely batshit crazy?

On top of that, the media is so insanely fickle that it just mimics the craziness. "Economy in a downward spiral - the worst yet to come!" "The bulls are back, as investors bet the worst of the credit crisis is over!" "Depression-like economy leaves investors running scared!"

It's just ridiculous. It's complete groupthink, only the majority seem to be manic-depressive nutjobs.

But only a nutjob would base their investing decisions only off of what they hear there.

 

[Special K]

Originally posted by: ducci
Does no one else find this market to be completely batshit crazy?

On top of that, the media is so insanely fickle that it just mimics the craziness. "Economy in a downward spiral - the worst yet to come!" "The bulls are back, as investors bet the worst of the credit crisis is over!" "Depression-like economy leaves investors running scared!"

It's just ridiculous. It's complete groupthink, only the majority seem to be manic-depressive nutjobs.

I agree. I can't count the number of "the worst is finally over" headlines I have read on CNN Money over the past year. Note that all of these are later followed by a "things are much worse than anyone expected" headline.

They do the exact same thing with oil prices. One day they will post a headline saying "Investment Banker: $500 oil by 2009" and the very next day "Analysts predict $50 oil by 2009".

I don't think anyone really has a clue what is going on right now.

 

[ponyo]

Awesome, awesome day! We were waiting for the mother of all rallies and we got it today. Discipline required I make some sales into this monster lift just as it made sense to buy into the extreme ugliness last week. You're not going to catch the low and likewise you're not going to catch the high. The trick is to catch the meat of the move and play in-between. I now have very balanced posture with exposure to sell into further lift and cash to buy into pullback and retest. The good thing about this rally is that there's lot of money sitting on the sideline that missed this move and you have performance anxiety building among funds. Remember the end of the year is coming up and these people want their bonuses. They're going try their hardest to push his market higher. You also have the Fed and the governments around the world basically pledging they'll do whatever it takes to lift the markets.

How much higher we go I don't have a clue but I do know straight V bottom is extremely rare. We're going to get a retest at some point so prepare accordingly. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Meantime, enjoy and celebrate today's monster move. Because we've earned it after what seemed like end of the world pounding we took last week. But remember what last week felt like and save that thought. When everyone says the coast is clear and is happy again, remember the horrible feeling you had last week and take caution and take the otherside of that trade.

 

[ponyo]

Originally posted by: ivan2
set to sell the BAC shares i pick up afterhour on friday at 23. planning to hit some options after oct 18

funny thing is that with BAC, you are making more money buying shares than options. And with MS, you actually lose money even if you got the calls on Friday. The speculators are running wild.

Weird market, no?

If you bought options last week instead of common, you were very stupid or crazy. Premium on options were beyond insane so even if you were right, you would've likely lost money. The only good option trade I saw last week was selling put options on stocks you wanted to buy. The premium was insane so you pocketed that and if the stock price fell to your strike price, you got to buy the stock you wanted with a nice premium to protect you little bit against further fall. Selling out of money covered calls wasn't bad either with the high premium.

 

[ponyo]

The banks US govt took stakes in are ripping higher. GS, MS, BAC, JPM, WFC, C, BK, STT.

Futures are showing 400+ higher open in the Dow.

 

[abovewood]

DOW ended with -79 points.

My account went up because BAC, it is still in the red for the year.
I will probably break even when DOW is at 11000 again.

I sold GE Jan 2010 $30 calls for 2.25. I am think of buying them back at 1.5. not too sure though.

 

[masterxfob]

i have a few grand to play with and thought i might try my hand at some stocks. short/long/penny, doesn't really matter. any suggestions?

 

[ivan2]

thinking about AA at 10-11ish, what you guys think?

 

[ponyo]

Just bought back some Posco and Mastercard I sold Monday. Positions are smaller as I'm trading smaller. I expect the lows to hold but I'm out if it doesn't. I'm trading with the belief the trading lows for the year was last week. We'll see.

 

[ponyo]

Added GE even though it's been trading like a dog.

 

[ponyo]

Added DBA.

 

[her209]

Originally posted by: masterxfob
i have a few grand to play with and thought i might try my hand at some stocks. short/long/penny, doesn't really matter. any suggestions?

Might as well just Paypal it to me.

 

[sohcrates]

looks like today and yesterday could almost wipe out all of monday's gains. hooray!