leejo

Hmm. Yeah well good luck with that. If I see you on 5th I'll throw a bill into your hat.

leejo

Bought 250 TOL @ 22.77

bkelly

There are certainly many areas of investing into which I have never ventured and this league is a great opportunity to learn. In that spirit, I decided to take a dive into some options trading this morning.

Bought 5 .CRR at .2 - $100 purchase (.CRR is in lots of 100)

.CRR is a put option for Citibank at 17.5. A put option is an optional contract to sell a number of shares of stock at a set price at a later date.

So, I paid $100 today (plus the $15 transaction fee) for the option to sell 500 shares of Citibank stock for $17.50 on June 21 (the expiration date of .CRR). Here's how it can play out.

1) If Citibank stock is worth more than $17.50, then it would make no sense to sell it for $17.50 and I let the option lapse. In this case, I've lost my $100.
2) If Citibank stock is worth less than $17.50, then I buy it at market price and sell it for $17.50. The most I can make is $8750 but it requires Citibank stock to go to 0 (which ain't gonna happen).

Citibank is currently trading at $24.92 so this is a bet that they're going to pull a Bear Stearns in the next two months. That's certainly not likely, but that's why I get around 40 times my investment if they do.

bkelly
Account standing as of 4/23/08 10:18 ET - Down 3.48%

SmokingTarpan

Bought 100 JC Penny (JCP) @ $40.35.

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[squadl]
"I am the prettiest african-american, vietnamese..cong..person." -SugarNCamo

SmokingTarpan

So, I'm curious. I put in an order to buy a stock at price X, which was an educated guess on where the price might fall to after I put in the order. Over an hour later, the stock dipped below X, but my order didn't go through. Now the price is up above X again.

Is this a bug? Something that usually happens?

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[squadl]
"I am the prettiest african-american, vietnamese..cong..person." -SugarNCamo

leejo

That doesn't happen often at all, but it's possible. Tell me exactly how you entered the order and the stocks value at the time you placed it and how low it dipped.

If you like, PM me the ticker and I can see more detail about how the stock traded today.

leejo

I just want to say my balls hurt! Rough week so far.

SmokingTarpan

Bought Snap-on Incorporated (SNA), 100 shares @ $55.64.

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[squadl]
"I am the prettiest african-american, vietnamese..cong..person." -SugarNCamo

leejo

I just noticed that BRK/B stopped out on me yesterday.

Sold 3 BRK/B @ 4222.00

SmokingTarpan

I'm sort of annoyed right now because of that buy order that failed to execute yesterday. It's still early, but the stock I wanted to buy is rocketing upward (which is what I expected, and why I wanted to buy it).

What's worse is that, according to Google, my limit price was hit again today (listed as the low), but still no execution on my order. May be a glitch with Google though, as the low on the number don't match the graph below.

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[squadl]
"I am the prettiest african-american, vietnamese..cong..person." -SugarNCamo

Hambergler

Are there any strategies to minimize capital gains tax?

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War.mongeR1

Vote Republican

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"Common sense is not so common." -Voltaire

leejo

You pay cap gains tax on your net. This is why people will often close out losing positions at the end of the year to offset a portion of their ganes. Sell on 12/31 and you deduct your losses from your profits on 4/15. Sell on 1/2 and you have to wait FOREVER to get any tax benefits.

I try to talk all of my friends into opening ROTH Iras. Assuming your qualify to open one, which is likely, you can put either 5 or 6 grand into a ROTH annually (the cap just went up this year from 4).

The sweet thing about a ROTH that differentiates it from other IRAs is that you can always take out what you put in without penalty AND you pay no capital gains tax on your earnings.

In other words, if you add 5k to your roth, and by investing wisely grow that to 7k, you can still pull 5k out without penalty.

The downside is that you cannot deduct your losses, which should affect your investing and trading strategies and actions. In other words, you need to be making more long term, lower risk investments in ROTHS, same as any IRA.

leejo

Good point. There's absolutely no reason for anyone in these forums to worry at all about capital gains taxes. After all, you're not "rich" are you? That's a tax on the rich.

/sarcasm

Drizzid

Sold all 100 shares of Clean Harbors (CLHB) of a loss of $186.00. Other than that so far things are looking better, The Sirius Sat radio stock I bought has been a big boost to my portfolio. That is still climbing so I am keeping an eye on it and will be ready to sell when the right time arises

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