Apr 12 16:38 2007 from Dave I'm looking for a web site that can tell me the current (or slightly delayed is fine) biggest stock price increases & decreases by percentage. I haven't fully explored Yahoo's finance page, but I didn't see it right off. Anyone have any suggestions? Apr 12 16:41 2007 from Dave Ah-ha! Nevermind; found it. Apr 12 18:18 2007 from JM where was it? I'd expect most sites to have "biggest winners and losers" each day, but possibly not intra-day. Apr 12 18:21 2007 from Dave http://finance.yahoo.com/losers?e=us Apr 14 01:21 2007 from schtoofa Dave: I check that stuff daily, just for fun. Are you just curious to check that stuff out? Apr 16 03:36 2007 from Dave No, I was considering the following investment strategy: 1) wait for good company to experience some sort of bad thing (lawsuit, bad earnings report, CEO caught in bed with a teenage Thai boy) 2) watch stock plummet in early trading due to panicking, etc. 3) buy stock at "bargain" price 4) wait for (already determined to be good) company's stock to "right itself" when people realize that they're still a good company 5) Profit! Admittedly, I wouldn't want to rely on that as my sole means of investing, but I wanted to pursuit it as least one of my strategies. Apr 16 04:19 2007 from Josh The next step is to furnish major CEOs with Thai boys, and then alert the media! Apr 16 05:12 2007 from Dave Only if you find that sort of thing works. It's possible that the stock doesn't recover quickly enough to make it worth your while. But I needed to find out how to discover the drops before I could figure out if there's a point in trying to capitalize on it. Apr 16 06:41 2007 from zap Apple has been showing a lot of delayed reaction to bad news recently. People who have been daytrading it have been spanked, I bet. Apr 16 09:56 2007 from trishimi Josh: LOL Apr 16 14:31 2007 from Dave zap: delayed in that they don't go down quickly or they don't go back up quickly? Apr 16 14:49 2007 from byter I think he means delayed in that investors are not reacting much at all. The most notable example is the news of the delay of Leopard announced last week. It was met with a relative shrug in regards to the stock price. Particularly that announcement can be looked at two ways: first, it's understandable that it's not going to make much difference because OS upgrades/updates for Apple aren't major money makers. They make a lot more difference for geeks than for investors. That said, the second way to look at it is through the lens of a report that said that people would be putting off buying new Apple hardware because of the delay. The relative non-reaction of the stock price speaks to the fact that the market isn't buying that report. Apr 16 14:55 2007 from zap That, and then you see wild swings of the price on days with no news. Apr 16 15:22 2007 from byter ah, I don't watch that closely. With no vested interest (outside of product ownership) I tend to only look at their stock around announcement time. :) Apr 16 16:03 2007 from Dave Well, little to no price changes wouldn't show up in what I'm doing; I'm starting with big changes and looking at the companies that have them; not the other way around. Second, the idea would be to evaluate the reason for the drop and see if it's a reason why people would short-term panic and then regain their senses. As I said, it's in the "will this work" stage. Apr 20 20:24 2007 from Dave I wish there were a way to put in a special kind of sell order: instead of a stop-limit based on price, it'd be based on annualized gain. So, instead of stop 25, limit 24, I coudl say stop 13%, limit 12.5%. That way, as time wore on, if the stock stopped increasing, then it'd sell when it's annualized gain got too low. Ah well... Apr 20 20:40 2007 from Josh Apropos of nothing: I quite like ING Direct so far. It's nice getting an order of magnitude more in interest than my WFB savings account. Apr 20 20:46 2007 from rookie Seconded. Apr 20 21:00 2007 from Dave Well, it's apropo of a question I asked a while ago, no? :-) Apr 20 21:39 2007 from JM yup. I also like ING's "plain talk" legal BS. You can actually read their notices, and they make sense. Dave, a "sell on annualised gain" would be nice. Closest thing I've found is trailing stop-loss based on percentag rather than on price. Once some of my big winners are up over 20% from my purchase price, I put in a trailing stop-loss based on 10% under the most recent trade price. If it takes a 10% hit right after I put that in, I'll still get out with 8% over muy-in, even taking out for taxes on short term gain (and I still have a cushion of carry-over losses from previous years), that's stil about 5.2% up. As the stocks rise, the 10% floor ratchets up with it. Not quite what you want, but it's the closest thing I've seen. Not really all that different from a dollar-based trailing stop-loss, but the percentage-based seems more intuitive to me. Apr 20 21:44 2007 from Dave Hmmm...interesting sounding...I think they're for different problems, though. Yours is to save yourself from a sudden drop in price when you wouldn't be able to react in time. Mine is to keep from having to continually adjust a limit order as time goes on. Apr 20 21:44 2007 from Dave (In other words, I wouldnt' want to replace whta you have, since it sounds quite useful, too.) Apr 20 22:11 2007 from JM exactly. But I'm not sure why a trailing limit order wouldn't work for you (as opposed to a trailing stop loss) of you just want to avoid having to manulally adjust your limit order. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_loss_order#Stop_order (trailing stop limit, near bottom of page) I understand you'd like to base it on annualised gain, and that condition isn't offered by most trading systems, but would placing a limit order help if it were only entered after the ratcheting stop price was hit? Apr 20 22:21 2007 from Dave the problem is that with a trailing order of any kind, there has to be movement of the price to trigger anything. If it were based on annualized gain, then even no change could trigger a sell if too much time goes by. Apr 20 22:35 2007 from schtoofa Dave: interesting strategy. If you do good homework on the side and you are disciplined about your trade, I think you'll do OK making gains that way. FYI, a commonly accepted stock behavior after a steep "unreasonable" drop is that it's often the stock "soon" after gains back half of whatever was lost. I've tried variations of your strategy before, but I found that it was too capital intensive for me (doing trades, that is). I got into trading options. I know a lot of people are scared off, but I think options are under-utilized as a trading vehicle. So when I do trades now (as opposed to investments) I use call options (if I'm betting the stock will go up). My strategies are developing over time, and I'm moving toward a less risky options strategy for those trades, but money is just waiting to be made. I've found that I'll be willing to commit to such a trade if a good company with: a good balance sheet, good earnings potential, good value (where it hits) then I'll jump in for a trade. If all those three things aren't in place, I don't bother. There will be another opportunity, and I can earn interest while I wait (which clearly is better than losing and being wrong hehe). Anyways, here's an example. The first time I tried such a strategy was on 12/4/2006 with Pfizer (PFE). Huge news announcement that I thought was going to be an overreaction in a stock drop -- sure enough, it was (see: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=PFE&t=6m ). Now, if only I could have woken up earlier! To be honest, I overslept and missed out on a better deal than I got, but here's the scoop. I was betting on an extreme drop and a complete recovery within 6 months or so. Before the dip, the stock was in the upper 27s. I bought JUN 27.5 CALLs for 0.55 / share (or $55 for 1 contract which is good for 100 shares at $27.50/share on or before options expiration in June). I, admittedly arbitrarily, picked that it was going to rise sooner than later, so I submitted a GTC order to sell my JUN 27.5 CALLs at $1.00 / share (or $100 / contract). The order executed on 1/22/2007. Options trades are slightly more expensive than normal trades (flat fee plus a per contract charge), but shoot: buy at 55 in Dec, sell for 100 in Jan -- that's unreal). Granted, there was some luck involved. Either my analysis was right or I just had the winds blow in my direction. The closer the stock price is to a particular options price, and the farther out the option expiration date falls, the more of a "premium" you'll have to pay. I've since discovered that I'm much more comfortable trading "deep in the money" calls. These are calls where the strike price is far lower than the current trading price. The most recent "trade" of that type I carried out happened over the last month. I decided that Southwest Airlines was undervalued and was certain to continue generating cash. Southwest has a very conservative and proven strategy, especially when it comes to their fuel prices (they hedge their fuel prices out pretty far -- this makes their forecasts more predictable, so there is IMO less opportunity for downside and more opportunity for upside, provided that the airline industry doesn't fuck up). So, long story short, on 3/30/2007 I purchased a JAN '08 5 call for 9.80 ($980). "deep in the money" calls tend to not have a very high premium associated with them. I decided that I thought the stock (LUV) would rise at least a dollar and a half from where it was, but I wanted to lock in a 10% gain if possible. So I immediately put in a GTC SELL for my JAN '08 5 call at 11.00 ($1100). This week I noticed that I had $1100 more cash in my account than I had before, and sure enough, the trade executed this week. Apr 20 22:41 2007 from schtoofa So that worked out. Not all work out like that, and again -- maybe I just got lucky. But 10% in less than a month's time is fantastic. I'll take $100 for clicking the mouse and learning about companies. More on this whole "premium" business: on 3/30/2007 the stock was trading around $14.70. The $5 call went for 9.80/share (or a total of $980). So if it were to stay at the same price for a year or so, my call would be worth about what I paid for it. The premium was $.10 / share. My bet was that the stock would go up a dollar and some within the next year. If I were to buy the hundred shares @ 14.70 that would cost me $1470. If it went up a dollar and a half, I could sell those 100 shares for $1620. so I'd make $150 from $1470. With deep in the money calls, in this case, I wanted to lock in gains but suppose I stuck with the same sell price (+ 1.50 -> sell at 11.30 or $1130). I would have profited $150 from $1130, and I had other cash to do whatever with. Just some food for thought! Apr 20 22:43 2007 from Dave Interesting. I know NOTHING about options. From what little I could grasp, they sound VERY intersting. Apr 20 23:11 2007 from anne o_0 My brother, the amazing finance dude! Apr 20 23:11 2007 from schtoofa They most definitely are. They're an interesting tool for "long" investors, and they're interesting for those who want to bet on appreciation (or depreciation). Long story short, this is how the options market works. The most simple option is a CALL (why, I don't know). To describe a particular options contract, you need to know: the strike price, the stock symbol, the expiration date. Not surprisingly, the expiration date indicates when that option is no longer executable. You have the option -- but not the obligation -- to purchase the stock at the prescribed strike price on or before the expiration date. Each "option" is good for 100 shares. I don't know about you, but I'll admit -- I'm afraid to sell anything short, even if I'm pretty sure a stock price is going to drop. Another type of option (called a PUT) is an option where you bet on depreciation, aka same theory as selling short; however, your downside is absolutely capped at your initial investment. PUTs are kind of tricky, but here's an example. Let's consider the stock for Allstate insurance - symbol ALL. The stock closed at ~62.50. If I think the stock is going to drop steeply soon, I might consider purchasing a MAY 62.50 put for (ALL) -- which would cost me .70 / share or $70. What this means is that if I purchase a put, I buy the right -- but not the obligation -- to sell shares of Allstate at 62.50 on or before options day in May. In other words, I don't own shares of ALL but I'm betting it'll drop within the next month. If the stock tanks to $50 / share, surely someone out there would love to sell their stock at your attractive contract that describes $62.50 / share guaranteed selling price, so they might buy your PUT contract. If the stock goes up to $65 and goes no lower, who in their right mind (shareholder) would want to sell their stock at $62.50 when they could sell it for $65? No one, so you now have a worthless option and you've lost .70 cents a share for your bet that it would drop Apr 20 23:16 2007 from schtoofa also, for "investments" I've decided I'm never going to use trailing stop (whether by dollar amounts or by %). I classify an investment as something that I'm willing to hold long-term because I think it's more valuable than the current price. If I think there's a chance it'll go $1 lower (or some % lower), why risk selling it for some price lower than what I can right now? As in, if I'm not sure about my assessment of a company, I should probably get out now (instead of accepting defeat only if I lose another X % or Y dollars per share). If I'm doing a trade -- i.e., a short-term move to make some percentage gain and get the hell out -- I might consider the stop-limit or trailing stops as protection. But if this is a long term situation and I think the stock is overvalued -- and I'm confident in my assessment -- I might as well get out now and earn interest and/or look for another bargain. Apr 20 23:17 2007 from Change Wow...I really wish I had some idea of what y'all are talking about. :) Apr 20 23:19 2007 from schtoofa Aaaand one last boring post - I acknowledge that options are risky, and I've lost money with them. But I understand what I'm doing and I know the risks going in. No shame!! huzzaaahhh! I don't mean to advertise here that they are a sure-thing way to make money, but they can be another "interesting" investing tool for folks who take the time to learn/understand how they work. Apr 21 00:01 2007 from JM schtoofa, please feel free to expound more on options. I've looked into them, and read a bit on them, which tracks 100% with what you've written here, but I've never taken the plunge and played with them at all. Have you tried writing covered call options for stocks you actually own? As I understand it, that's a reasonable way to make some extra money beyond dividend income if you have a target price you'd be willing to sell at. You give up further potential upside for the premium someone else pays you and you end up either keeping the stock, or selling it for a price you were all ready willing to sell it for. Apr 21 00:13 2007 from schtoofa I haven't tried writing any options yet, mainly because I haven't figured out / read about what are good guidelines when deciding expiration dates and strike prices (given a current close). Once I read more on those things then I'll consider it. Dave, et al - to write a covered call, you must first own at least 100 shares of a particular stock. Since you own the shares, the call is "covered." You create an options "contract" out of thin air, and see if someone will buy it. If no one buys it, you don't lose anything from your attempt. If someone buys it and they haven't executed it (e.g., if the stock has dropped) then you gain money. You were paid $ and you still have your shares... bonus! Not good that the stock dropped, but not so bad that you made money during the drop. If someone buys the option and they execute it, then you've made money on the options sale and you sell your shares at the option's strike price. Seems like a pretty good deal, but yeah - I just haven't read up enough on theories behind computing what's the best covered call to write in order for me to feel comfortable doing that. (Another FYI - people can also write uncovered calls. I don't think I'll ever do this. What happens there is you write options for stock you never own. If the contracts aren't executed, you just have money coming in; if the contract is executed then you have to come up with the shares to deliver). Apr 21 00:33 2007 from JM exactly. uncovered calls are, in that way, akin to selling short. you are trading with things you don't have, and betting that it will all work out. but if the music stops, and you are left without a chair, it's gonna hurt. So, schtoofa. any good resources you recommend for learning more about this stuff? I've read the required Options Trading document Fidelity redirects you to (and you have to agree that you have read it), but I'm still a bit lost as to how to set and pick prices (if I were to write covered calls for stocks I own) or how to evaluate the ones on offer for trade. Obviously basic theory is good (short time, in money, less risk...long time, out of money, more risk) but as you said, how to quantify those numbers to find the "good bets" is still something way beyond me. Apr 21 01:39 2007 from schtoofa Hrmm, not sure (off the top of my head). Will look around, though. Although I don't take everything he says as a sure bet, you might find Lenny Dykstra (yep -- the former baseball player)'s column on thestreet.com interesting. He regularly writes about his deep-in-the-money picks. I'm not sure if there's a page that lists all his articles, but here's a recent one: http://www.thestreet.com/_dm/newsanalysis/investing/10351731.html I haven't read any good resources, yet, explaining the "right" way to write calls. If I find one, I'll let you know.