a99kitten's Musings

Have been swamped with a couple new clients plus tax time so hadn’t looked at my trading account quarterly P/L until this morning. I knew it would be bad, but ouch. I think was a good case for ignorance is bliss. Sigh… – 10% for the quarter. 10.3 to be exact.

This is my first losing quarter since the 1st quarter of 2012. Which I guess is good but ugh. The really dumb thing is up until mid-March, I was solidly up. I place blame at the feet of Janet Yellen! Of course, my insistence at continuing to play when the game changed was very dumb.

Looking at my trades from the quarter, I **really** owe Elon Musk a big hug as I made a lot trading TSLA. CEO crush confirmed :)

And my second biggest gains are tied – trading PLUG and precious metals (both silver and gold in various forms.) This further solidifies my Uncle Scrooge love as well ;)

Another hero :)

Biggest loser? AMZN calls held through ER. Ugh. First time they let me down though so I guess that I can’t complain too much. 2nd biggest loser? AAPL. I made so much money trading AAPL calls in the past. It was so fun. The fun has sure been sucked out of that stock though. I am making myself a promise – NO MORE AAPL! I have my long term common paying me dividends (and that’s about all it does lately) but no more trading it. It’s a slug. And that’s insulting to slugs. Oh well. My fault. Tim Cook didn’t make me buy the options.

Had I listened to chessNwine (over at iBankCoin), I would have been less invested over this time period. But the gambler in me couldn’t help it. Luckily I never play too large in options since you can literally lose 100% pretty quickly (quickly when playing in the momo stocks anyway.) I know I’ll make it back. But I hate when I feel stupid. And there was more than 1 occasion (a lot more) when I KNEW I should sell something but the greedy devil inside me said “hold out for a little more”. And then POOF. Just like letting it all ride on black and the ball lands on red. Stupid. I get mad at myself when I do stupid things and KNOW I know better. Grrrr.

A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense…so I WILL make it back and then some. But all I can think right now is I should be adding to gains, not making up losses. *shakesfist*

Q3 has drawn to a close and I must say that I am pretty happy with how it went. And glad I did not sell in May and go away. Well…actually…I could have gone away at the end of May and then come back in July. June trading was awful. But that was soooo last quarter.

To be honest, I checked my numbers 3 times to make sure they were right. And they were. For Q3 I was +17.7%. Not so bad at all. In looking at most successful trades, a lot of them were calls. This is actually bad since I have been trying to limit my options trades and this won’t encourage that attempt at a new behavior ;)

I made some excellent trades in (and out and back in again) pure momo names. TSLA? Check. NFLX? Check. YELP? Check. Plus a few more of the usual suspects. Although — my biggest and best trade was in a former momo — AAPL (calls…doh!) I happened to own some calls *before* Carl Icahn’s tweet (aka pure luck.) I owe him a fruit basket of apples :)

My most absolute worst trade was in another momo – SODA. Ugh. Should have known better on that one though. 2nd worst trade? UVXY. I don’t think I need to say anything more about that one. Those ETFs are garbage. But oh well. I made a note next to it in my spreadsheet “Never, ever trade this again stupid” and highlighted it.

I also started taking more ideas from inside the 12631 trading room. I have typically followed chessNwine in all of his longs. I don’t short much at all though. And this past quarter I followed a few more of RaginCajun’s quick strikes and ideas from other members.

I also was able to take advantage of a few stocks that got beaten down on a single news event and make money on the quick pop up. BA, LL, WMT. This is actually why I keep CNBC on during the day as I wouldn’t notice the news fast enough otherwise.

I’ve also been trying to take more profits quicker. I promised myself that I was going to do that in my trading account. Stocks/companies that I believe in and want to keep – buy them for my 401k. But my trading account is for trading. I just don’t trust this market. So I’d rather take some profits and maybe miss out on another move up than lose them and be in a losing trade on a quick retrace. And you can always join back in if you’ve got a runner. I’ve done that a few times in the Chinese solars lately. In and out and back in (and out) again! (mmmmm….now I want a double double with cheese.)

Although what’s funny about that strategy is that I’ve not sold when a stock turns on me and then had it come right back in a day or 2 (or sometimes later that same day.) My semi-blind trust in the exuberant market working in my favor. It can hurt me too (SODA) but has frankly worked more than not so…

Of course as I say all of this, Washington is doing its darn best to wreck the 4Q. But we’ll see. I think by finding selective stocks and trading quickly, money can still be made. At least for now.

“Work smarter, not harder” ~~ Scrooge McDuck

Yesterday at lunch there was a guy showing everyone his Samsung Galaxy #*whichever number is the newest one*. Literally every other person sitting there had an iPhone so he wanted to show us what he could do that we could not. He was trying that ‘talk to the phone to get it to do things’ like in the commercials. But he had to yell at it several times to get it to make a call. If I saw some guy walking on the street yelling at his phone, I’d assume he was crazy :) But maybe he was doing it wrong?

He showed us the new Superman trailer. Definitely looked very cool on his screen. Cannot deny the screen is its best selling feature. After we all watched the trailer (and the girls ogled at Henry Cavill!) he assured us that we would all switch over if we tried it out. No. No I won’t. Again, the screen was nifty – both in clarity and size, no denying that. But the size was also the problem. There was no way that giant thing felt right in my hand. It was considerably bigger – not just the screen but the whole phone was a LOT bigger. There is no way I could do 1 handed thumb typing on it like I always do when hiking. I’m sure it works well for guys. Or the lady with man hands from Seinfeld. But I really, really hope Apple figures out a way to give us a slightly bigger/better screen without making the entire handset bigger.

And there was no way it would fit in ANY of my pants, skirts or shorts pockets. Girl pockets are very small. I’d like bigger pockets since I’m always carrying my phone, dog cookies and poo bags in pretty much all outfits, but fashion seems to disagree with that and has since the dawn of time unless you rock the mom jeans look like Obama (Never. Ever. Ever.) And it wouldn’t fit into half my small handbags. Or if it did, nothing else would.

I already almost drop my phone out of my pocket or jacket on a regular basis. Or it will just slip out of my pockets when sitting in the car, etc. which then gets it drop-kicked across the parking lot. Sonofa… Anything bigger, forget it. I’d need a backpack!

Funny thing is remember back in the 90s when phones were getting smaller and smaller. The teeny-tiniest ones were the best and we were all convinced it would just become a node in your ear (or implant in your head!) Obviously that won’t work with a smartphone (yet…) but no way I want a “phablet”. Plus since I have a Mac and iPad, Apple TV and iTunes – I have no intention in messing with my eco-system.

So here is hoping Apple designers already know the above. And don’t just bow to the cries of fanboys who seem to have to watch videos everywhere so demand a bigger everything.

After laundering my iPhone 4 last weekend (doh…also duh), I took it to a phone repair place recommended by a friend. They said they fix 9 out of 10 water damaged phones. I said it was submerged for a good 3-5 minutes. The woman said bring it in – it was worth trying. True, so I did. After 2 days of working on it, they did get it to turn on which is pretty amazing but said the damage was to the main board which is not replaceable so it was D.E.D. Damn.

The same friend suggested I take it to an Apple store and see if they offer me a deal on a replacement. Honestly, I didn’t want to spend anymore time on this and just wanted to find a phone replacement ASAP and not think about it anymore. I plan on getting the iPhone 5 when it comes out in 2 months so whatever. He said just try. OK, maybe I will I thought.

Decided to run over there today so that if they said “that will be $500 please”, I still had tomorrow to figure things out before the weekend, in case I decided to go up to Tahoe tomorrow night. As usual, the store was packed. I found the 1 rep not already helping someone and when he asked how he could help me, I told him about my drowned phone. He checked it out and agreed – yeah pretty obvious water damage. He said he could make an appointment with me for the The Genius Bar and maybe they could help me out with a replacement. I overheard the salesgirl behind me telling her customer that there were no appointments open until 5pm. I asked him if she had been talking about for the Genius Bar and he responded yes. He offered to make me an appointment for 4pm at a different location if that would help. I did my best dejected and pouty face. He said “Do you want me to see if they can get you in now?” YES – that would be so awesome of you! Off he went and I followed. He went to the back and came out and waved me over and handed me off to A Genius…at the Bar.

I explained that my phone was dead from water damage. The Genius asked if from ocean, pool, shower? I said washing machine. He responded “Wow – new one for me.” Yay I said – glad to help :) Then he took my info and started looking up my number in their system. Turns out I was still under warranty (YAY) but water damage is specifically excluded (BOO). But then he said he could help me out anyway with a replacement. WHAT??? No charge. HUH????

He took my phone, transferred the number and handed me my new phone. And asked if there was anything else he could do. Umm…no. You just made my day so we are all good here :)

I’m sure Apple knows they can lose customers at any time to Android phone buyers. So they treat customers well to keep them. Smart (Genius really…get it? Genius?) business move. And I’m sure they looked to see when I was due for my 2-year renewal with AT&T so how long would it be till I upgraded/bought a new phone from them, or if I spent hundreds of dollars now on a replacement phone what were the odds I’d do it again in 2 months for the iPhone 5. Plus we know they have $10gazillion in cash just sitting around burning a hole in their pocket ($10gazillion more than the US government does as the news stories pointed out last week) so keeping customers satisfied with some refurbished (I assume anyway) phones is a cheap way to keep existing customers happy so they spend more money with you!

So I have to say a BIG thank you to Apple and their staff for turning a pain in the butt yuck issue into an easy and very satisfying (and quick!) visit!

I will definitely buy my iPhone 5 when it comes out now! Oh – and will definitely add more AAPL stock to my portfolio! :)