I have a couple resources that might help if you are also looking for answers to these same questions.

1. The book Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh – this book is actually the story of Zappos.com but there is a section in the end about happiness, and reading about how Tony figured out what made him happy and how he built his life and company around that, and was still able to profit was inspiring.

2. Another book, by Shawn Achor – but actually I have not read the book yet. I downloaded a brief work that was written by the author before be wrote his new book for my Kindle and then happened to find a talk given by the author. Here is the actually talk. At the very end he talks about a study he did in which they were able to successfully make people happy. Or better yet, the subjects were able to make themselves happier by performing some simple steps. I won’t ruin it for you, you’ll have to watch the video.

As a trader, I have noticed that when I am upset, I do not trade as well. So I try not to trade when I am not thinking clearly, like after a fight with my spouse, when I am still sleepy, when I am sick, and anything else that can upset my mental balance.

What I have not tested and I want to, is if I am a better trader if I trade when I am happy or in a good mood. That is what is sugested in the video – that we work better when we are happy before we start. It is an interesting hypothesis and one I will be testing. The problem is, how do I get myself happy everyday before I trade? I will have to figure that out first.

If you have any ideas on how or what makes you happy, please post them in the comments.

How To Be Happy is a post from Option Selling.
To learn how you too can earn 8-12% Monthly Returns Safely and Conservatively check out OptionGenius.com

Click here to view the embedded video.

Free Tool For Finding Trades is a post from Option Selling.
To learn how you too can earn 8-12% Monthly Returns Safely and Conservatively check out OptionGenius.com

Check this out:

Click here to view the embedded video.

 Here’s the description from the original choppy version of the video:

A time-lapse taken from the front of the International Space Station as it orbits our planet at night. This movie begins over the Pacific Ocean and continues over North and South America before entering daylight near Antarctica. Visible cities, countries and landmarks include (in order) Vancouver Island, Victoria, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles. Phoenix. Multiple cities in Texas, New Mexico and Mexico. Mexico City, the Gulf of Mexico, the Yucatan Peninsula, El Salvador, Lightning in the Pacific Ocean, Guatemala, Panama, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Lake Titicaca, and the Amazon. Also visible is the earths ionosphere (thin yellow line), a satellite (55sec) and the stars of our galaxy.

Flying Over the Earth is a post from Option Selling.
To learn how you too can earn 8-12% Monthly Returns Safely and Conservatively check out OptionGenius.com

Be sure to read the Tax List at the end.

This is about as clear and easy to understand as it can be. The article below is completely neutral, neither anti-republican or democrat. Charlie Reese, a retired reporter for the Orlando Sentinel, has hit the nail directly on the head, defining clearly who it is that in the final analysis must assume responsibility for the judgments made that impact each one of us every day. It’s a short but good read. Worth the time. Worth remembering!

545 vs. 300,000,000 People
-By Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The President does.

You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don’t write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don’t set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don’t control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.
 
*Sender adds this side note; Thomas Jefferson said in 1802: I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people – until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a President to do one cotton-picking thing. I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator’s responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The President can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? John Boehner. He is the leader of the majority party. He and fellow House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want. If the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted — by present facts — of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can’t think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it’s because they want it in the red.

If the Army & Marines are in Iraq and Afghanistan it’s because they want them in Iraq and Afghanistan …

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it’s becausethey want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like “the economy,” “inflation,” or “politics” that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.

Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees…

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.

What you do with this article now that you have read it… is up to you.

It might be funny if it weren’t so true.

Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, & our nation was the most prosperous in the world.
We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.

Accounts Receivable Tax                  Building Permit Tax
CDL license Tax                      Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax            Dog License Tax
Excise Taxes                           Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax                 Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax                       Gasoline Tax (now 44.75 cents per gallon)
Gross Receipts Tax                 Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax                       Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax                              Luxury Taxes
Marriage License Tax              Medicare Tax
Personal Property Tax            Property Tax
Real Estate Tax                       Service Charge Tax
Social Security Tax                 Road Usage Tax
Recreational Vehicle Tax                  Sales Tax
School Tax                              State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax Telephone Fed. Universal Service Fee Tax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Nonrecurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax         Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Taxes                           Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax                    Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax                      Workers Compensation Tax

Charlie Reese’s Final Column is a post from Option Selling.
To learn how you too can earn 8-12% Monthly Returns Safely and Conservatively check out OptionGenius.com

But there is a sector that is doing well.

Fast Food. Well not exactly fast food, but whatever they call the sector that is lower than the sit down meal with the waiter.

Take a look at CMG – Chipotle.  And PNRA – Panera Bread.  and MCD – McDonalds.

All doing well, all at 52 week and all time highs.

Why? Well run businesses with pricing power. But also because they are growing by building more stores, mostly overseas.

All 3 of these are in my retirement accounts and will stay there for years to come.

These Stocks Continue To Go Higher is a post from Option Selling.
To learn how you too can earn 8-12% Monthly Returns Safely and Conservatively check out OptionGenius.com

Orginal article here

Members of Congress Get Abnormally High Returns From Their Stocks

Members of the House of Representatives considerably outperform the stock market in their personal investments, according to a new academic study.

Four university researchers examined 16,000 common stock transactions made by approximately 300 House representatives from 1985 to 2001, and found what they call “significant positive abnormal returns,” with portfolios based on congressional trades beating the market by about 6 percent annually.

What’s their secret? The report speculates, but does not conclude, it could have something to do with the ability members of Congress have to trade on non-public information or to vote their own pocketbooks — or both.

A study of senators by the same team of researchers five years ago found members of the higher chamber even better at beating the market — outperforming it by about 10 percent, an amount the academics said was “both economically large and statistically significant.”

“Being one of 435, as opposed to one of 100, is likely to result in a significant dilution of power relative to members of the Senate,” the researchers wrote.

The researchers, Alan J. Ziobrowski of Georgia State University, James W. Boyd of Lindenwood University, Ping Cheng of Florida Atlantic University and Brigitte J. Ziobrowski of Augusta State University, noted that the circumstances are ripe for abuse.

“In the course of performing their normal duties, members of Congress have access to non-public information that could have a substantial impact on certain businesses, industries or the economy as a whole. If used as the basis for common stock transactions, such information could yield significant personal trading profits,” they wrote.

At the same time, House rules don’t require them to divest themselves of common stocks when they assume office, don’t prevent them from trading freely while in office — and don’t require them to recuse themselves from votes that could affect their own interests.

The House ethics manual clearly states that “all Members, officers, and employees are prohibited from improperly using their official positions for personal gain” and members must disclose their holdings annually.

But the House’s official position is that demanding that members either divest themselves of potential conflicts or recuse themselves when there is a conflict is “impractical or unreasonable” because it “could result in the disenfranchisement of a Member‘s entire constituency on particular issues.”

Ever since 2006, a small coterie of Democrats has been trying to officially prohibit members of Congress and their staffs from using non-public information to enrich their personal portfolios.

The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act was most recently re-introduced in March by Reps. Louise Slaughter (N.Y.) and Tim Walz (Minn.). It has not been heard from since.

The study found some significant difference based on party membership and seniority, with the Democratic sample beating the market by nearly 9% annually, versus only about 2% annually for the Republican sample.

And representatives with the least seniority considerably outperformed those with more seniority.

Why would that be? The researchers suspect need had something to do with it. “The financial condition of a freshman Congressman is far more precarious” than a senior member’s, they wrote. “House Members with the least seniority may have fewer opportunities to trade on privileged information, but they may be the most highly motivated to do so when the opportunities arise.”

The report does not make any firm conclusions on causality, although the researchers explain that their kind of “event analysis” has become a common “method for analyzing whether actors have profited from confidential information in their possession.”

*******************************************************************************

I say, throw the bumbs out. I for one am sick of these people screwing the country for the sake of reelection. Everyone knows the system is broken, but the power to fix the system rests in the hands of those that benefit most from it. Even when we elect new people to Congress they get corrupted in short order. I am not Democrat, Republican, or Revolutionary. I am just SICK.

The Best Stock Pickers Anywhere is a post from Option Selling.
To learn how you too can earn 8-12% Monthly Returns Safely and Conservatively check out OptionGenius.com

That’s what everyone wants to know.

Seems everyone hates their jobs and wants to sit back and trade options for a few minutes a day and make a very nice income.

And why not? Heck, that’s what I want. But it is doable? Is there anyone out there trading options for a living?

Answer: YES.

There are many people who trade for a living. But most traders don’t stick to just options or just stock. The ones I know trade everything – options, stock, bonds, commodities, even forex from time to time.

Can you make living selling options?

YES again. If you don’t get anything else out of my emails, I hope you see that making 10% on an option selling trade like an iron condor or butterfly is not that hard. We do it every month. The trick is to manage your positions and avoid loses since not every trade is a winner.

There are many people out there making a living or supplementing their retirement income by trading options. And the numbers continue to grow – just look at the trend in option volume. More and more options are traded every year. The volume numbers break records every year.

And if others can do it, so you can. It does not take a rocket scientist or a genius. I know some very dumb people who are doing well trading options. And with the upgrades in technology, anyone sitting at home has access to all the data and trading tools they need – almost all of them are available for free from your broker. Commissions are lower than ever as well.

So how much can you make?

Most hedge fund managers would sell their first born child for 20% a year returns. Warren Buffet averages 22% a year and he was the richest man in the world for several years.

I used to aim for 10% a month, now I aim for a more doable 5% a month. But even if we aim for less, say 3% that is still 36% per year. Try getting that at the bank.

How much money do I need to trade for a living?

It depends on your lifestyle. If you live in Texas, a 3,000 square foot house can cost $250k in a nice neighborhood. The same house would be $750k in California. Do you need to drive a Porsche or would a Honda Accord suit you just fine? Do you have 5 kids to send to college?

The amount you need depends on what your expenses are.

But to answer the question let’s say you want to make $100k a year. Cool.

If you want to make $100k before taxes and commissions and such, and you make a 36% yearly return, you need to have $277,777 in investible funds. Now, I don’t always use 100% of the money in my account. I leave about 20-30% in reserve. So let’s say you leave 20% in reserve as well.

If you only trade 80% of your account, you will need $347,500 in your account to make $100k with a 36% return on money put at risk. Let’s round that up to $350k.

Is that it? No. At least I don’t think so. I think you need to have a decent amount of money in savings and in other investments as well. I for example, have money coming in from real estate, and dividends, as well as a couple businesses that I have an investment in. So that if something bad happens to my trading or the markets, I will still have enough income to survive.

But what if you are a risk taker?

Ok so you want to gamble and go for broke. I would still try to maintain a 20% reserve cushion in my account to overcome any losses and to use for adjustments and any good trading opportunities that may come up.

But if you are a risk taker, get portfolio margin. Portfolio margin is for those traders that know what they are doing and it allows you to trade in larger sizes with less money. So with $100k you can trade up to $600k worth of options. WOW.  

This allows you to make money faster since you have more leverage but you can also lose money a lot faster – so be very careful. Greed can make you do stupid things.

How long does it take to learn to trade options?

This is a tricky question. It took me several years. I had no mentor or someone to watch. Nor were there as many websites, books, and videos available. I would say that if someone was serious and put in a couple hours a day into learning and trading, they could learn to trade for a living within a year. This will not be true for everyone, but I think it is a safe number to aim for.

What if I don’t have time to learn to trade?

I am not a big fan of giving my money to others to manage and then not knowing what they are doing with it. So even if you use a service like mine which has autotrade, I think you should still know how the trades work, how to use your broker’s platform, and keep a close eye on what is going on in your account. I have had members tell me they just want to check their accounts once a year – that is just stupid. It’s your money. You worked hard for it. And you have to work hard to make sure a) you don’t lose it and b) it keeps growing.

So can you make a living trading?

Yes, but it takes time, desire, and effort. Trading for a living is not a hobby nor is it anything short of running your own business. It is not like in the movies where they scream at their brokers on the phone to buy 1,000 shares of this or that and make a million bucks.

Take your time to learn the art of trading. Remember the markets will be here tomorrow. And with option selling, every month is a new game, so if you miss this month, just wait a few days.

Can I Make a Living Trading Options? is a post from Option Selling.
To learn how you too can earn 8-12% Monthly Returns Safely and Conservatively check out OptionGenius.com

Baby boomers make up the majority of OptionGenius.com members and prospects. And they seem to be the most motivated to learn how to trade quickly. This is a good thing but boomers have to be very careful. There are a lot of snake oil salesmen in the stock/investing/trading world that want nothing more than to take your money to “teach” you some magical trading system that does not work in the real world.

I am glad that you are motivated and taking action to take care of your own money, because no one care about it as much as you do.

The following article is from Forbes magazine.

The Golden Age Of Trading

Emily Lambert, 03.23.11, 06:00 PM EDT
Forbes Magazine dated April 11, 2011

The number of retirees trading actively online is growing.

 Maureen Christensen had put in 32 years as an information technology specialist when in June 2007 she retired with the intention of kicking back and letting her newly hired adviser worry about her finances. That plan came to a crashing halt a few months later when a full-blown financial crisis struck. The Portland, Ore. resident felt helpless watching her savings evaporate. It was scant comfort that her adviser assured her a “normal” correction was under way and the wise thing to do was to ride it out.

Unconvinced, Christensen started reading investing books, sitting in on investing webinars and buying and selling options in a dummy trading account. Now, at age 64, she climbs out of bed at 6 a.m. weekdays, careful not to wake her husband, and heads to a home office outfitted with several computers, a high-speed Internet connection and a backup power supply. She uses a portion of her retirement savings to manage a portfolio of high-dividend stocks. With the rest she actively trades stock options, keeping her busy until New York’s markets close. Then she devotes another two hours to paperwork and research.

“If I’d known I was going to do this when I retired, I’d have started learning about economics and world markets long ago,” Christensen says. “It’s absolutely fascinating.”

Nobody can say with certainty how many retirees are swapping golf clubs and bingo boards for a computer mouse and online trading account, but the anecdotal evidence is that their ranks are growing fast. In a business that’s long been dominated by the young, an invasion by the silver-haired set makes sense. Retirees have both the savings and the time to devote to active trading. Add in the fact that the financial crisis left many–rightly or wrongly–with the sense active investing is smarter than the buy-and-hold approach touted by many experts.

“You’d be amazed at the number of older people taking up trading,” says Kevin Cook, an options strategist at TheStreet.com in Chicago. “I think it’s a combination of demographics and technology.”

For many retired traders the intellectual challenge and camaraderie that often surround trading communities are definite attractions. The prospects of beating the market, much less trading themselves to riches, are sketchier.

The 2011 Retirement Guide

By definition, no more than half the market can meet or beat the averages. For retirees trading from home, the odds are far worse; computers, commissions, taxes, accounting and other necessities can easily consume 2% of assets annually (even before putting a value on the retiree’s time). In a market that nets 5% a year after inflation, an individual would have to earn 7% just to make up for the cost drag. How hard is that? In each of the past four decades fewer than one in four professional mutual fund managers has beaten the market by two percentage points or more.

For retirees intent on pressing ahead regardless, here are some pointers.

Take Trading Seriously

Trading is a tough business with high burnout rates. Adam Packard of Zaner Group, a futures and currency brokerage, sees lots of people try it for a few months and give up. “They realize it’s much harder [to make money] than they thought” and move on, he says.

If it’s a casual hobby you’re looking for, consider chess or knitting. To make a serious go at trading, approach it more like a job. That means educating yourself about how markets work, setting limits on the risks you’re going to take, settling on a strategy and pursuing it in a disciplined way.

For retirees in particular, the most important bit of discipline involves how much to put at risk. The soundest policy: Limit yourself to a slice of savings that, in the worst case, you can lose without ruining your lifestyle. Tuck the rest of your savings into a mix of stocks, bonds and cash.

Gerald Buddenbaum, 69, has done just that. After retiring from the electronics distribution business in 2000, he moved from Chicago to Bend, Ore. and then to Portland. He soon found himself bored and looking to earn more from his investments than his bond funds were paying. These days Buddenbaum has most of his savings in cash and blue-chip stocks like IBM and McDonald‘s.

With the remaining 10%, each morning at 6:30 a.m. West Coast time he buys and sells securities based on short-term momentum. When violence broke out in Egypt recently, Buddenbaum bought call options on energy stocks, like ConocoPhillips and says he quickly doubled his money. He logs off daily by 1 p.m. local time.

Educate Yourself

As with any discipline, an education in trading doesn’t come cheap. Danny C. O’Neal, 65, began trading after seeing former Dallas Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson pitch a stock-trading course on TV. O’Neal attended a free seminar at an airport Marriott, signed up for an online chat room and made a few hundred dollars a day mimicking experienced peers. Then came an $8,000 loss within a few weeks. Convinced the only way to make money was with his own ideas, O’Neal spent $5,500 on classes from a trading outfit called Value Zone and believes he’s on the right track.

It hasn’t been easy. Each morning at 5 a.m. he mans an office in his Knoxville, Tenn. home and studies market charts. He trades stocks and futures until breaking at 11:30 a.m. and then trades for another hour near the day’s close. O’Neal says two or three screens would normally be enough to monitor markets, but he has eight because his eyesight is failing. He’s still $7,000 in the hole but has no regrets.

“This is really like a college education,” he says. “It’s something for me to do that I actually enjoy

Consider Costs And Taxes

In addition to the $12,000 O’Neal spent on seminars and home study courses, he invested $4,000 in computer hardware. His ongoing trading expenses set him back another $500 a month. They include high-speed Internet access ($45), an online trading account with charts and live data feeds ($130), access to a chat room ($250) and an alert system that suggests entry and exit points ($79).

Taxes also take a bite. For retirees, or anyone else trading actively in a taxable account, all gains from stock and stock options positions held less than a year are subject to short-term capital gains rates of up to 35%. Even if you can verify trading losses, you can use no more than $3,000 worth annually to offset ordinary income (in contrast, you can use the losses to offset an unlimited amount of capital gains). Suppose one year you have $60,000 in ordinary income from a pension and $60,000 in trading losses. You’ll still be on the hook for $57,000 in taxable income.

Another option is to qualify as a professional trader and then elect a special method of accounting called mark-to-market. You won’t be subject to the $3,000 limit on deducting losses against other income, but any profits you make will be taxed as ordinary income. As a trader you can deduct various expenses (a home office, seminars) a normal investor can’t. Unfortunately, the IRS recognizes such status only for people who trade heavily and show they’re trying to making a living at it; few fledgling active traders come close to qualifying. Claiming to be a pro may also invite an audit, warns tax lawyer Kaye A. Thomas, who offers tax advice for investors at www.fairmark.com. “Because of the expenses involved and the cutthroat nature of the business, most people who trade heavily enough to qualify for this tax status go broke before they get around to filing a tax return,” he says.

If you join the futures trading boom, you’ll have to mark your positions to market at year’s end. Then 40% of your realized and paper gains will be taxed at short-term rates; the remaining 60% will be taxed at the 15% long-term rate.

The good news for some retirees: Trading income will not reduce the Social Security income you draw before reaching full retirement age, which for early baby boomers is 66.

One way around such complexities is to trade inside a tax-deferred 401(k) or IRA (from which you must start taking taxable withdrawals at age 701/2). You can also avoid taxes trading inside a Roth IRA or 401(k). However, you’ll be wagering savings on which you’ve already paid taxes, and if you lose money you won’t be eligible for any tax refund and can’t claim a loss against other income.

O’Neal, the Knoxville trader, is a good example of the effect of costs and taxes on actively trading retirees. Beyond the money he’s still out for seminars and trading gear, on an ongoing basis he says he’s grossing about $500 a week. After expenses and taxes it’s more like $225. Assuming he’s putting in 25 hours, O’Neal’s earnings come to about $9 an hour; that’s $1.75 an hour more than the minimum wage.

Control Risk

In addition to betting only money that, if lost, won’t wreck your life, set other risk parameters and stick to them. O’Neal, whose wife is jittery about his trading, limits himself to holding only one or two open futures contracts at a time (“for now,” he says). If two of his trades go sour, he calls it quits for the day.

“I can’t see gambling money I worked so hard to get,” he says.

John Smithman is a former pilot and a part-time management coach. At 69 the Vancouver resident limits his stock and options positions to $1,000 each, which is only a sliver of his $150,000 trading fund.

Many traders who are active, but not rabid, limit buying and selling to the morning and near the close. When you step away from the computer, much less go on vacation, at a minimum have a stop-loss order in place to cap potential losses. As the Flash Crash showed, however, stop losses are not fail-safe. A better idea: Make sure you’re “flat,” with no open positions, during prolonged absences. Another option is to bring a computer with you, as Buddenbaum did on an Alaskan cruise last September.

“I did a couple of trades, not much,” he says

Be Honest With Yourself

If you lose money trading, try changing strategies. If you lose more, perhaps you’re not cut out for trading. It might also be time to consider a change if you make money but not nearly enough to justify the time and stress involved.

Bottom line, the retirees we spoke with traded for the intellectual challenge as well as the profit potential.

“I don’t see retirement in my future,” says Smithman. “There’s so much to learn. It’s a whole new career.”

Christensen, the retired techie, says she’s made back almost all the money her retirement fund lost during the market crash. She’s also made friends and found an endlessly engaging pursuit: “Had I not gotten into trading,” she says, “I’m not sure what I would have done with myself.”

Baby Boomer Traders is a post from Option Selling.
To learn how you too can earn 8-12% Monthly Returns Safely and Conservatively check out OptionGenius.com

From what I can tell, LVS hit the resistance, and fell back into the channel.

Why? Well fundamentalists will tell you it is because LVS missed on earnings. Actually their earnings were pretty good but below analysts expectations so the stock took a beating.

Was that it? Or was it a technical move – LVS hitting its head on the ceiling of its trading range?

Who knows? But it was fun to play. Congrats to all those that got it right.

As for my trade, it is still doing ok. I don’t get into trouble until LVS goes below 145. Even then, I am happy because I will get to buy the stock at that price, which is the lower end of the range. I want to keep LVS long term and trade around it, so i plan to sell the shares when LVS gets to the upper end of the range again. (If I am forced to buy them at 45.)

Another way to play it would be to have enough shares to sell to offset the short options.

Say I had 500 shares, and then sold 5 45 puts. If LVS goes lower and it tooks like it will be below 45 at expiration. I can sell my 500 shares at close to 45 and then have to buy them back at 45 at expiration because of the puts. This keeps me in my position. Or I can just buy 500 more.

So at first glance, the trade might seem risky, but things are not always as they appear.

What LVS did is a post from Option Selling.
To learn how you too can earn 8-12% Monthly Returns Safely and Conservatively check out OptionGenius.com

Here’s a screenshot of a daily chart on LVS as of midday today. As you can see from the chart, LVS has been trading in a range the last couple months, but with the news today is moving towards the upper resistance level.

Click on the Image to Enlarge

So What Will LVS Do?

Will it hit resitance and drop back into the range, or will it break through and go higher?

If you pick correctly you get the amazing prize of knowing you picked correctly.

So please post your answer and your thinking as a comment, and maybe we can all learn together about how stocks move and why.

BTW: do you see the little red button with the -2LMT X in the picture? That’s an order I have enetered that has not gotten filled yet. It is a 45/40 Feb Put spread for a credit of .53 – a ten% ROI in about 2 weeks.  That’s a hint as to what I think LVS is going to do.

What Is LVS Going To Do? is a post from Option Selling.
To learn how you too can earn 8-12% Monthly Returns Safely and Conservatively check out OptionGenius.com