Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) Trade 12-15

Forgot to post this one. I bought a few MSFT 30 Jan 08 Put options. MSFT has been on a good uptrend, but I feel it has hit the top. Look for a pull back to the mid 28's soon. At that point I will determine to hold or sell.

UPDATE 2-13: I sold my put options for MSFT. I felt it had hit support levels and will now make way towards resistance. This trade made a 25% gain.

This weeks Investments / Trades (12-12)

It's been a while since I posted my newly aquired positions, I've been a tad busy. So in this post I am listing all the trades I have made over the past week.

USG
TM Update 12-15: I sold TM today at 125.73 for a 3.5% gain
SLV Update 2-14: I sold my silver shares this morning for a 8.1% gain.
NTGR Update 12-19: I sold NTGR today for a 2% gain. Felt it had peaked for now.
SWY Update 12-19: I sold SWY today for a 2% gain. Felt it had peaked for now.

Lowe's Companies, Inc. (LOW) Investment 11-29-06

I bought some shares of Lowes the other day. Since I feel the bottom of the home building market is here, Lowes should turn up with the rest of the housing market.

Update 12-11: I got out of LOW today, I felt a down side coming and did not want to buy more on weakness. This investment turned into a trade, which profited a mere 8%. But hey, a profit is a profit.

Apple Computer, Inc. (AAPL) - Investment 12-1-06

Bought some Apple Shares today. While in the middle of a pretty big down day Apple was only down a little bit. That shows it has the strength to ride out the bears, this one will be on the rise through December/January.

Update: aapl has been on a small roller coaster lately, I have been buying it pretty heavily these last few days on it's way down. Today's low of mid 85 looks to be the bottom. Look for aapl to start its journey upward.

Update: Apple has been getting hammered in the last few days, so I have been buying as it gets hit. I have brought my cost basis down 9 points!! I am in the low low low 81's now. All this pain has given me the opportunity to get in the black, or very close atleast.

UPDATE 5-21-07: In the post where I sold an apple covered call I gave them the right to buy my apple shares at $100 per share. Well I got "called out". Meaning they exersized their option.(they opted to buy my share from me at $100) So I had to sell them! This trade made a 26% profit.

Google Inc. (GOOG) Investment 12-1-06

I bought some Google shares today. With the days decline, "the google" was on sale, so I pulled the trigger.

UPDATE 12-22: I sold goog today. I could take the pain no mo!! Chalk it up as a 15% loss. I know it will be going up from here cause it knows I sold.

Exxon Mobil Corporation (XOM) - Trade 11-30-06

This morning I bought a few Dec 75 calls. In this recent surge in oil stocks it looks like Exxon is leading the pack. Many analysts have several reasons as to why big oil is moving. What ever....as long as it dose I don't care what the real reason is. My plan is to ride this one till expiration (12-15)

Update 12-14: I sold my calls this morning making a 40% gain.

Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO) Trade

I guess I forgot to post this one. I bought 10 jan 30 call options a few weeks ago. I sold them over the last few days. I sold 5 last week and sold the other 5 today for a gain of 126%

Chevron Corporation (CVX) Trade 10-26-06

UPDATE: I sold my call options the other day. Sold 6 @ .80 and 5 a few days later @ .70 for an average of .75. This trade made a 115% gain!!!

Forgot to post this one. I bought a few Nov 70 call options on Thursday before they reported their earnings on Friday. They beat the streets expectations, and the stock rose. My options went up a little, and now are down cause of the whole election thing, but next week CVX will rebound. So I will be adding to my position this week.

ExxonMobil Corporation (XOM) Trade 10-30-06

This morning I bought a few Nov 70 put options for Exxon. With the elections going on, the street has worries that the house may get over taken by the democrats, or at least take half the seats. If this happens all alternative energy companies will get allot of attention, which means the oils/natural gas companies will be on the back burner.

UPDATE: I sold my put option this morning (Monday 11-6)Exxon will be going up,so I had to get out of my put ASAP. Chalk this one up as a 40% loss.

Corning Incorporated (GLW) Trade 10-23-06

This morning I bought 4 Nov 25 Call options. Corning will report their quarterly earning on Weds. They are expected to beat wall streets estimates. Corning manufactures LCD (liquid crystal displays (LCD) and LCD televisions) Going into the christmas season LCD's will be big sellers.

Option expired worthless.... 100% loss

Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. (BUD) Trade 10-23-06

This morning I bought 5 Nov 45 put options. Bud has had a strong run, but now money is moving into the cyclicals since the Fed has contiuned the pause on rate hikes. Bud also reports their quarterly earnings on Weds. 10-25-06. They are expected to be short of wall streets estimates.

Option expired worthless 100% loss.

AT&T Inc. (T) Trade 10-13

I bought 4 Oct. $32.50 Call options for AT&T on the morning of 10-13 in anticipation of AT&T's proposed buy out of Bellsouth. Once this deal gets approved both stocks will posts gains. The Federal Communications Commission was to vote on approval on that Friday afternoon. Well the meeting took place and the FCC stated they would delay the decision till Nov. 1st. This decision did not make the share holders all warm and fuzzy, so the stock took a small dive. My call options went from $1.20 (where I got in) to .25 cents. So I bought 4 more options at .25 cents, this brought my cost basis down to .72 cents. Now I hold 8 call options at .72 cents. This week AT&T stock made a come back on a few huge contracts that they won. My options went from .25 cents to $1.40. On Thursday 10-19 I sold 4 calls at $1.40 making a 94 % gain. So today on 10-20 (options expiration date) I sold the remaing 4 calls at $1.60 making a 120% gain.

This was a good trade, taking a losing trade and turning it into a big gain.

ps.. I am think about getting back in on the Nov. call cause the FCC will meet again on the 1st. AT&T also reports quarterly earnings on Monday the 23rd.

News Corporation (NWS.A)

On Friday 10-13 I sold my options for NWS.A . I bought 20 Oct 20 call options back in June before this blog exsited. I bought them for .60 cents. On friday I sold them for .65 cents. Before last week I was down big in this trade. My options were all the way down to .5 cents, a huge loss. But stuck it out and they came back strong this past week. I said, "if I can recoupe my losses, I will sell" so thats what I did. This is not what I would call a successful trade, but more improtantly it was not a loosing trade!!

Applied Materials, Inc. (AMAT) Trade 10-2-06

On 10-2 I bought AMAT Jan 08 20 put option. I got in at $3.40 an option. My target date for exiting this trade is in March.

UPDATE: I have added to this position. My cost basis is now $2.70

UPDATE 3-14-07: I closed out this trade today. It just isn't going how I wanted it to, and March was my close target. So this trade ended up being a .07% Loss.

Accenture Ltd. (ACN) Trade 9-26-06

Update - 9-28-06

This afternoon I sold my calls right before Accenture released their quarterly earnings. I sold them at $2.10 per option, thats a 366% gain!!!!! NICE! Accenture beat the expected earnings of .38 cents. For the quarter ended Aug. 31, earnings grew to $346.4 million, or 56 cents per share.

This morning I bought 2 Oct 30 call options. Accenture is reporting their earnings on Thursday. I am speculating that they will meet or beat their estimate earnings of .38 cents. If they do, the underlying stock (ACN) will go up. When that happens the call option will also go up. The Delta for the Oct 30 call is .45 cents. Which means for every dollar ACN goes up, the Oct 30 call will go up .45 cents.

Every 10 cent move on 1 option, equals a 10 dollar gain.

Oracle Trade 9-18-06

UPDATE 11-17: I sold my shares in Oracle toady @ $19.44, for a gain of 18.5%

This morning I bought stock in Oracle. I got in at $16.44 a share. They report their quarterly earnings tomorrow. Looking to hold this one for a few days, maybe a week.

UPDATE 9-21-06

I have decided to hold on to this position until Mid December.

Goldman Sachs Trade on 9-11-06

I bought five september 150 call options of GS at $2.35 on 9-11. I sold those five call options this morning 9-12 for $5.80. Thats a 146.8% gain. Not bad for less than 24 hours.

Mark this one down as a perfect trade! This how I wish they all went...

Follow along with my trades...UPDATE 9-6-06

Lets try this...Since I've only gotten one question about investing, I'll post my trades as I do them (good or bad) so you can follow along and track my stocks performance. You'll be able to see when I bought and when I sold.

Today Monday 8-21-06:

Bought 5 contracts of VLO Sep 62.50 call Options at $2.25 per contract.
Each contract controls 100 shares.

UPDATE:

8-24-06
VLO took a litte dip yesteday, which presented an opportunity (because I feel it will go back up) to buy a few options at a lower price.

Bought 2 contracts of VLO Sep 62.50 Call options at $1.50 per contract
That brings me to 7 toatal at $2.07 per contract (when I bought 2 more at a lower price it averaged all 7 contracts to $2.07 per contract.

Update 9-6-06:

Ok it's been a few weeks since I updated my VLO call play. It went down again about 2 weeks ago, so I bought 3 options at $1.40. So this brought my total to 10. Then it went down again, so I bought 2 more options at .45 cents. Now it went down big time in the last few days..WTF. So now it is vauled at .5 cents. So chalk this one up as a loss, unless it reounds by friday the 15th (that is when the option expires)

So I had a golden opportunity to sell my options on 8-25, I would have profited $350. But being rather new to the options game I did not know when to exit the trade, so as you can now see I got burned. Live and learn. Moving on to the next trade. I will post it when it is executed.

Investing in a Co. that does stem cell research...Any Ideas?

Dear
Investing in Stem Cell Research,

I agree with your following comment.

"I think that when Bush is out of office, the US will be rushing to catch up with the rest of the world on stem cell research"

I have done some research on a few companies that do Stem Cell research. They are; astm, stem, gern, genz, amgn, and viac

Of These stocks Genzyme (genz) is the best of the bunch.

genz is currently starting to turn up, it is above it's MA (moving average) money is moving into the stock. Volume is great. last two day traded well above average volume. Price pattern may be a bit scary or some of you less risky traders. Debt to equity ratio is good. There are 568 stocks in this sector and genz is ranked -8% for the last 18 weeks (not to good). The price is a bit expensive but it is optionable, which is good cuase you can still play this stock but risk much less money.

I actually recommended this stock to a friend about 2 weeks ago. Since then it's up over 4 points.

update 7-28....it's up 6 points since recommendation

Update 8-2 ....It's over 69 now, thats + 7 points. After today it's time to take some profits off the table.

15 Minutes of Fame

My friends the brothersgentry which consist of 4. Brother #3's wife was spotted around the town. Hear what she had to say to (in my opinion) the annoying Mr. Tim. Q

Click Here to listen

Investing in the Stock Market

How many times have you bought a stock just to watch it go down? Yeah, me too! Seemed every time I bought into a stock it would go down as soon as I hit the place order button! Well, those days are slowly but surely becoming a thing of the past. I have invested allot of time and money to help me learn the ins and outs of the markets, and become a better trader.

I currently only do short term trades (1-6 months). I don't have the time or money to invest long term. I can't have my money tied up that long, for I may miss an opportunity to get in on something else. I like to change as the markets change. You have to adapt if you want to be successful! How many times has your broker called you up to say hey I think you should sell xxx? Never! They just want you to buy and hold, so they can continue to make management fees. So don't just buy something and sit on it forever, cause you’re missing out on huge profits and other opportunities.

So anyway.......the reason for this is to hopefully offer you some help or guidance. E-mail me your portfolio at bug-z@comcast.net and I will critique it and give you my opinion if (at the current time) you should hold thoes stocks or sell them. E-mail me questions about stocks that you are thinking about buying. I'll analyze them and offer my opinion if they are a good investment or not. I will post my opinions and analyzations on my blog.

For your privacy your email address will not be displayed or given to anyone.