WILL I BE HAPPY MONDAY? (Stock Market)

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

Just prior to the close on Friday, I purchased 20 of the 1450 S&P Call Options. Will I be happy Monday? Will the market spring up, due to "bargain prices" or will I lose my $11,450?

Opinions appreciated!

-- Joseph Almond (sa2000@webtv.net), January 29, 2000

Answers

The White House Plunge team will help you out

-- Paul R. Spooner (pspooner@ocis.net), January 29, 2000.

Sorry to say Joseph that I don't think you'll appreciate my opinion, but I don't think you could have picked a worse time to invest in the stock market.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), January 29, 2000.

Rangebound this week; up next week; another big fall the week after.

-- Just John (John@theBaptist.net), January 29, 2000.

The White House Plung-er Team will help you flush.

-- paul leblanc (bronyaur@gis.net), January 29, 2000.

I watch several favorite stocks every day and most look like they should go down one more day until they reach their resistance level. Then probably tuesday or wednesday the market will turn around and go back up.

Don't be greedy and keep holding on as the market goes back up. It only goes back up for maybe 4 to 5 days and then go down again. So get out at a profit on friday or the following monday.

When you sell, you should buy Puts and ride it back down for about 3 or 4 days and get out with a profit again. Most investors get greedy and stay in too long, just to watch their profits disappear in a few days. Take small little bites out of the market every 3 to 5 days and stay in your trade only a few days at a time. Good luck!

-- freddie (freddie@thefreeloader.com), January 29, 2000.



When the Fed meets they will only raise 1/4 point and the market will react with passion that it was only 1/4 instead of 1/2. If by some freak happenstance the Fed raises 1/2 instead of 1/4 all hell will break loose and if they don't raise it at all then the stock market will soar beyond imagination.

Beyond that it depends on what sort of breaking good or bad news that we have.

You sound like a big time gambler though. You must get comped all the time at Vegas.

-- Guy Daley (guydaley@bwn.net), January 29, 2000.


Came back for my once-every-week-or-so lurk just in time to agree with Hawk. The IMF in Davos is stating that the raging GDP growth in US is a threat to the world economy (50 rather than 25 basis points from the Fed coming?). Friday closed supposedly with a backlog of sellers lined up in the que.

I have labored over understanding what a modern correction will look like -- fast and furious or slow and torturous. I think the protection mechanisms may insure the slow torturous model. Big crashes also look like great buying opportunities to some. The "buy on dips" logic has to be refuted by a repeated those who do it. The euphoria can't end until the investors are demoralized.

I'm sure it was discussed in my absence, but I think the AOL/Time- Warner deal was the "shot heard round the world." They cashed their chips in for highly overpriced assets -- Time-Warner was no bargain. Why? Bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

One last time on the following sobering reality: The NASDAQ P/E has risen from a highly credible value of 25 in the early '90s to an outrageous 175. Returning to normal constitutes an 85% correction. Everybody really ought to be heading back into their bunkers for this one.

PS--Joe: based upon your question it is clear that you are in dangerous territory trading futures. You will lose your shirt at some point. My advice is to at least return to conventional investing strategies. "Someone who is not content with a DECENT return on their money is destined to lose it."

-- Dave (aaa@aaa.com), January 29, 2000.


Oh, Good!

Maybe I've found the right place to get an answer to my question I've asked twice before.

How are T-Bills for a retired couple at this point? Are they better or worse than moderate investments which were earning around 6.9%?

Thanks, much.

-- Connie (hive@gte.net), January 29, 2000.


Connie, People answered you before. Didn't like the answer? T-bills are fine at this point.

-- Mara (MaraWayne@aol.com), January 29, 2000.

Joseph,

Short answer -- neither happy nor unhappy on Monday. The market will probably sit around a bit, may go a bit lower. You'll probably be happy later in February.

Connie,

The T-Bills make sense if you believe the market is in for a correction.

{I'm not giving or selling investment advice here.....you have to decide for yourself what you think the market will do, and act on that.]

By limiting yourself to short term bills you have the flexibility to move iun and out of the bills if you later decide to put your money elsewhere. And, you really pay only a small price for safety, eh.......the loss of about 1.5% for a few months is the price of a good insurance policy. Your money, your choice.

-- rocky (rknolls@no.spam), January 29, 2000.



It will ALL be over Monday...now the only task is to figure out how to BLAME the Republicans for the debacle...

How are they (Demos and Media, no difference) gonna Hooverize the Pubbies...claim Dubya "has a nose like a vaccuum cleaner?"

Bet Carville could make it stick!

-- Z (Z@Z.Z), January 29, 2000.


Joseph A.---- 20 calls at 1 strike price? You put all your eggs in one basket! You should have considered hedging(at least some). You could have purchased a few S&P 500 "LEAP" put options with strike prices of 1300, 1250, 1200, 1150. You could easily have offset any losses were the market to continue declining-- which is quite possible given the current underlying volatility and remarkable similarities to the stock market in the late summer( Aug.,Sept.) of 1929!

-- NoJo (RSKeiper@aol.com), January 29, 2000.

HHHhhhmmmm. Friday's are usually the upbeat recovery day. Could be some bailed for the weekend and taking a wait and see approach to next week's market. I expect next week to be volatile, lots of wide intra-day ups and downs. The trend is now establishing an absolute down bias (see 200 day moving average). Look for any pop at either 10 am or 1 pm or at least the market taking a breather as TPTB attempt to control the wider swings. Not my bet but I hope the best to you. I will be watching the miday and close a lot closer than the openning.

-- Squid (ItsDark@down.here), January 29, 2000.

Let's see...

First Radio transmission 1900. Crash of the "Radio" Stock Market 1929...29 years later.

First Internet transmission 1969. Crash of the "Internet" Stock Market 2000...31 years later.

Dominant Radio Bubble (Entertainment+ hardware+services) company RCA.

Dominant Internet Bubble (Entertainment + services) company America OnLine.

That's it, folks...and the longer it goes, the longer it gets!

-- ~~~~ (Losing it @ Lost it .com), January 29, 2000.


Joseph,

IMHO, I would be watching for what some call a "Dead Cat Bounce". I think the market will have an "UP' day Monday and/or Tuesday then, based on what I think will happen, I will probably buy Puts on one or more of the indices. And this is just my opinion and worth exactly what you paid for it. Things are not doing what they're supposed to be doing in any of the markets, but I don't even think the PPT can sustain the market indefinately. I think we need to keep a close watch on the Bonds for a feeling of direction...a squeeze seems to be in the making re. short vs, long.

Best of Luck

-- Larry (Rampon@Dallas.com), January 29, 2000.



If you have to ask, you shouldn't have done it.
Do you have an EXIT strategy? I.e.,
1) When you reach a certain $ loss, or
2) When you reach a certain $ gain
What do think, when you opened the position, was your potential risk/reward ratio?

-- A (A@AisA.com), January 29, 2000.

Mara: I'm sorry , I never saw an answer.

rocky: Thank you much!

-- Connie (hive@gte.net), January 29, 2000.


Connie, you may want to look at energy stocks as opposed to T-bills. Many offer a substantial dividend with upside potential. Not foolproof, but widely considered 'safe' investments. Full disclosure-- I own several hundred shares of CPL. As someone said above, this is FREE advice and worth every penny!

-- justa (semi-novice@investor.org), January 29, 2000.

William Fleckenstein is apparently taking time off from SI next week to watch the blood bath. Not a good sign. Joseph, since you didn't have a crystal ball last week, I hope your horoscope is optimistic!

-- Gia (laureltree7@hotmail.com), January 29, 2000.

Dave: In regards to your statement: "Friday closed supposedly with a backlog of sellers lined up in the que." I suspect that was certainly the case. I was watching the last few minutes of live feed from the Dow on quotes.com and someone/some persons were dumping a large amount of stocks as fast as they could at the end.

-- Susie (Susie0884@aol.com), January 29, 2000.

Susie -

That's sometimes referred to as "the crowd at the door". When larger numbers of folks lose confidence in the markets, it often becomes difficult for everyone to "get out the door" as prices slump, thus magnifying the downward movement. People start dumping stocks at any price they can get, just to avoid bigger losses.

As noted elsewhere, Mondays tend to be down days for the markets, as do month ends. This coming Monday is both. Combine that with that crowd at the door and we could easily see another 1-2% loss on all the major indices.

-- DeeEmBee (macbeth1@pacbell.net), January 30, 2000.


Jo -- since you're located in what was once my home state (before I because a buckeye!) why don't you look into buying some commercial property? Being a landlord for a small building full of dentists and medical doctors is a lot solider than messing around with stocks or buying unused Y2K preps from folks. If you don't have quite enough money to invest in that, get together with a relative or two whom you trust. Remember how your state was terriorized the during the recessions of the 70s and 80s. That's a major reason that I moved out.

-- (ladybuckeye_59@yahoo.com), January 30, 2000.

Moderation questions? read the FAQ