Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Is It Really China?

Everybody is sure that current sell-off is triggered by China. I have my doubts.
Yesterday everything was down. Global panic. What usually happens during global panic? Yes, everybody buys dollars, which is going up. What happened yesterday? Dollar down. Why?
There is one possible explanation. I am not sure it's true, but it fits know data, including the fall of the dollar. This sell-off is driven by sovereign wealth funds of oil producing nations. It's a well known fact that Saudi Arabia has deficit budget this year. They are not borrowing money, because they have more than 700 billion reserves. And most of these reserves are kept in sovereign wealth funds, mostly in US. Other oil producing nations have similar investments. It's not easy to follow them, the don't report daily. If they are selling, they are selling dollars as well, converting to local currencies.
If this idea is right, this sell-off should end soon, most probably this week. One thing can make things worse: window dressing. Hedge funds are probably selling like crazy, to show their customers in the end of month report that they were in cash (mostly).
In any case, I am going to make a purchase or two by the end of the week. Wrong or right, time will tell. But discipline tells me to buy when there is blood on the streets.

Saturday, August 8, 2015

Trading Around

This is trader's market. If you are buy and hold (or buy and pray) investor, bad luck.
I did several trades around my positions in last several months

Facebook (FB): was selling put and call out of money options. Unfortunately, last call option ($86 on Jul 31) was exercised, so effectively I sold part of position for $88. Less profit than expected.

Polaris (PII): Added to position at 143 some time ago, sold at 150 before earnings, bought back several days ago at 133.

Raytheon (RTN): Added to position in June at 100, sold lately at 110.

I'm going to continue such trades, that's the only way to make money in current market. Yes, Google (GOOGL) and Facebook (FB) made money for me, but with everything else down or flat, that's not enough.