HOTT / Got great trades with it: Enter 6.75 at open, out at 7.18 (avg) at 10:13
Reentered at 7.00 and out all 7.11 few minutes ago- Was a small play but I collected enoght for next month PSW subscription.

- Spider

I have learned more about options in the past 2 weeks as a full PSW member that the previous 5 yrs of making more bad than good option plays. The educational material alone is worth several times the price of admission. I have had an expensive education on what not to do- what is past is past- I am looking forward to profitable/fun future.

- Pstas

Phil, You were on the $ today with your calls almost exactly on the turns – Krap kuhn krup (Thai for thank you very much).

- Jomptien

Your board has been fantastic helping the less experienced (includes me) navigate through all the turmoil. The contributions from your members has been well rounded, objective, and extremely helpful. Sans the politics you have built a fantastic community and that is a tribute to you. I thank you and all fellow members for there contributions over the past few days. Fantastic group!

- dclark41

Phil - Rode the /QM down from 99.65 at 7pm and now I'm taking your advice, taking the $$ and going to enjoy a restful night sleep. I don't post often so I want to say thanks for sharing your incredible market acumen with all of us. Your site has a unusually talented group of investors (and some characters) and I enjoy my days trading more because of it.

- DaveW

Phil - I just referred 10 people. Last week was a 50% gainer for me. There are companies that want to sell mentoring service for thousands of dollars. This is far better of a deal with very good advice.

- Steve

Phil: Closed out ZION with 49 % gain!

- RMM

GOOG, NFLX and AAPL all bought last hour Friday. Sold into the excitement the first hour today for an average of 15% on the options. And lots of them. Thanks again Phil for teaching me so well.

- lflantheman

Way back did 20 of your suggested short BP Jan 11 26 P @ 4.3 now .85 — sold half. this am —
paid for a years sub AGain!! thank you very much!

- Ban2

Phil – In the event of a mkt meltdown, which of the indices, in your opinion do you think has the most potential for % move down. I'm looking at call options on SDS and the DXD. Any thoughts? Ideas?
Thanks .. and thanks for being a great teacher! I've learned so much in only a month!

Thanks for the USO directions today. Made it 3 times (up/down/up) for a very nice win.

- Doro165

Boring trading – Phil/ Thanks to PSW, my yearly covered-writes are on pace for 15%. Add the long puts and well over 20%… and I look at it once a day and never lose sleep over it. Actually doing better than my trading account at this point (Thanks, summer 2013)
Anyway, the point is that anyone with enough money would be wise to do the 20% – 40% stuff and do trading as a hobby…

- Arivera

I love it when a trade really comes together. After 4 DD's and a roll, I cashed out 16 times my initial position in TLT today for a 140% gain. Thank you Phil for the lessons in scaling in, and paying for position.

- 2Can

Nice intraday trading calls this week Phil. You have me hooked on trading SPY options analogously to your DIA moves. I paid some tuition the last few weeks but I think I have the hang of it. Don't be greedy and be happy with 0.05 to 0.10 and sometimes you're lucky with much bigger moves. Thanks for the training!

- TmDecay

Tesla et. al. – I've spent many months getting hammered shorting overvalued Momos, until, finally, I internalized Phil's message. Play small; give yourself plenty of room to double/move up the [lack of value] chain in terms of price. Play short; take [Musk's, eg.] latest bleep and sell the spike for a short time frame, because his tweets always come to naught. I've been coining money doing it, I just watch that premium melt away with scarcely veiled amusement. Swinging for the fences is for suckers [me, for a long time]. Those little gains really add up — $2k per week of evaporated premium and you could actually buy a Tesla by the end of the year!!

- zeroxzero

Dear Phil, I have followed along with your commentary and alerts and have been flabbergasted at your quick analytical skills and your journalistic skills to explain it clearly. In a little over three weeks I have cleared almost 1000.00 dollars and got an intensive education at the same time. I would like to immediately upgrade my membership. It is hard for me to follow all evening as I am in Tokyo but I can join you at the beginning of the market and read the next day.

- Tokyolife

Thx Phil. Lightly moving in the bullish direction. Took PFE for $14.35 and sold the Jan 11 C/P for $2.85 giving me a net entry below Mar 09 low. And I bought back those calls on BTU and JPM I asked about the other day and am leaving them uncovered for now, so feeling better. Still just learning the rhythm.
In the three months I have been using your system, my little portfolio is up 9.9%, so not only am I learning, but I am APPLYING that knowledge, and it's paying off. Thanks.

- Hoss

Phil - Thanks for the welcoming gift of the POT at a buck
Just paid for this month and my membership is not even 24 hours old!
looking forward to many more - bk

- Bjkeck

Phil/BCS - Didn't realise they traded here. Should've known really. Thanks for the tip. managed to pick some up just before the close at a 15% discount to the UK closing price.

- DB

Phil, have to thank you for saving me today. I think the discipline I have learned from this site has helped me as much if not more than the actual picks.

- Rustle123

The virtuous trade / Phil throws out so many ideas, that understandably he rejects all calls for a running total of how all ""quoted"" ideas are performing – it would be unworkable. But without such a list, I think it behooves us to call out the trades that have made a difference. January 13 expiration is going to be a big month for me as a significant number of sold put positions will expire worthless. One example of the power of patience and leaving well alone:
VLO – sold Jan 13, 17.5 puts for $3.45 – and this trade was placed in August 2011. VLO is currently a tad over $35!
And as time went by, and I got more experienced – with the help of Phil and the contributions from board members, I started selling short term puts and calls around this position. Sometimes having to roll, sometimes doubling down but always knowing what I was getting into, and feeling very calm and focussed that whatever happened I could handle it. And if I couldn't then there was always Phil to lend a helping hand. All in all, my profits since August 2011 would qualify as a tidy addition to any earnings from the day job.
Thank you Sir.

- Winston

Phil, I have the SRS 2011 $7.50 short puts you recommended awhile back. I sold them for $2.20 and now $1.51 (up 31%) although SRS has been down since inception. This was a nice mellow way to play it like you said, thanks.

- Jomptien

I have been very fortunate over the years as an investor. Last year was on of my best in terms of percentage gains. I have to attribute much of this success to my membership in PSW which gave me the best education available anywhere when it comes to the understanding of option trading , discipline and general trading strategies. I will be forever grateful to Phil and the many "highly skilled" traders that have offered their advice.

- Gel1

I think that Phil is super, I am up 39.3% YTD. Thank you for your kindness and the opportunity to observe Phil from February.

- KMisko

Maya, After years of being pretty good at picking stocks I still managed to lose almost as much as I made.All the reading Phil asked us to do as a new member (And everything else I can get my hands on lately) has revealed my Achilles Heal.Good stock picks do not necessarily make money. My problem was swinging for the fences. Since becoming a member Jan 1 this year and getting into to scaling into small trades I am amazed at the steady profit growth I have experienced already while not worrying about getting killed. And having fun doing it.. Phil, Thanks for the education, the help you give and the chance to learn more and get better. Also thanks to all the members who have answered the few questions I had when your not around.

Sign up today for an exclusive discount along with our 30-day GUARANTEE — Love us or leave, with your money back! Click here to become a part of our growing community and learn how to stop gambling with your investments. We will teach you to BE THE HOUSE — Not the Gambler!

Dear Phil, I have followed along with your commentary and alerts and have been flabbergasted at your quick analytical skills and your journalistic skills to explain it clearly. In a little over three weeks I have cleared almost 1000.00 dollars and got an intensive education at the same time. I would like to immediately upgrade my membership. It is hard for me to follow all evening as I am in Tokyo but I can join you at the beginning of the market and read the next day.

- Tokyolife

Thanks Phil for helping make this a much, much better year this year than last. Your tutelage has been so very helpful. Don't think I can say Thanks enough. And I thanks all the members here who were work hard in helping us all to become better traders, and I would say better people as well. The support many of you offered when we evacuated during the fire this past year helped me immeasurably.
Happy New Years to you all!

- JBur

Gel1…..I've been here 6 months, mostly watching and learning. Lots of smart people on the site and I've learned a lot from Phil and many others. //// Inflan - I have to trump your sentiments regarding the wisdom of the board. I have to thank Phil and the many contruibutors for a 80% profit for 2009. I have learned a lot and am still learning ( even occasionally about political issues - ha! )

- Iflantheman & Gel1

Maya, After years of being pretty good at picking stocks I still managed to lose almost as much as I made.All the reading Phil asked us to do as a new member (And everything else I can get my hands on lately) has revealed my Achilles Heal.Good stock picks do not necessarily make money. My problem was swinging for the fences. Since becoming a member Jan 1 this year and getting into to scaling into small trades I am amazed at the steady profit growth I have experienced already while not worrying about getting killed. And having fun doing it.. Phil, Thanks for the education, the help you give and the chance to learn more and get better. Also thanks to all the members who have answered the few questions I had when your not around.

- Ricpar

WOW, glad I went bearish… Phil, thanks for the help on the QID calls yesterday, I turned it into a partial cover rolling down to the Feb 52s selling the 55s 1/2 covered. Sold 1/2 and now lowered my cost basis to $4.38 on the $52s (fully covered).

- Texasmotion

Opt, I think the hardest thing is being disciplined enough to trade with you. Atleast now when I see something go in the red I know how much I'm going to loose and that I will profit somewhere else and have enough money left at the end of the day to trade again. Thanks for all your hard work! My stress levels are down 75% and I have even made a small profit in the short time I've been here

- Mopar

Phil/ Thanks to your obsessive bearish anxiety over the last few weeks, I made money on the long side this month, phased gradually to bearish, came in net short today and managed to make money both long and short all week, ending today [and each day this week] in the green. I don't know how you do it, but thank you.

- Zeroxzero

Thank God for Phil.
A few months ago (April) I didn´t even know what hedging was, and someone recommended I should check out some of Phil´s plays, especially on the retirement portfolio. When I first started to read it, none of it made a blind bit of sense to me, but I stuck with it and gradually began to work through some of the trades to see how it worked. Now I am putting on 5:1 SPY backspreads combined with bear put spreads, entering and leaving positions after consulting the VIX, and engaging in other esoteric maneuvers that are keeping my portfolio above water.

- jmm1951

You guys gotta give it to phil–the voice of reason yesterday, last nite and this morning.

- Corleone

Phil - I followed your great pick re F and sold short the 1011 2.50 puts (200 contracts) and paid for the next 10 years of membership fees…. Thanks!

- Gel1

My watch list looks like a grid where Phil's recommendations went UP and everything else went DOWN! It looked something like an ad for Philstockworld. I am half in cash, followed the recommendations (AAPL TASR YHOO) on a 20K portfolio and still up 1% for the day. Thanks!

- Sn0gr00ve

It is hard to learn the process that Phil teaches, but it is worth the effort. I think it is finally sinking in & so I say Thanks teacher for your patience & expertise! I've had a very good week so far & I know it is because of persisting in this learning process that you teach.

- Pirateinvestor

It is amazing how much confidence you engender, Phil………..I knew the 1% a day trades and repeated often were possible as I had done in stretches, and I knew kill zone trades were also possible and 5% to 10% returns per month were very possible with practice, experience and smart risk management all without having to take a lot of risk, but I guess I was talking to the disbelievers and since I have dropped them into my 'why bother to try to explain it' file and come over to the dark side at PSW I feel soooo much more content not only with the returns, but with the company and a comments and the obvious opportunity to learn and learn and learn some more.
It all helps the mental and emotional discipline of the trading too. So thanks again.

- Roro

Newer member here, but just wanted to say thank you too. I've learned so much and I hope you'll be around for a long time helping us learn along the way.

- Where

Phil: well, often you say, just for FUN, great comment, TXS,
closed 2 SKF positions, one with 10 % , the other with 6 % gain,

- RMM

Phil: UNH, hedged stock position, doing great, up over 50 %,

- RMM

Phil - It is nice being more discipline with my trading. Generally, I am out earlier than most, but my results, overall, are much better than they were when I was trying to squeeze 80 cups of lemonade out of one lemon! On the other side, I am learning the value of rolling and turning losses into non-losses or small gains. I so appreciate the time you have spent with me and others who have benefited greatly from your knowledge. Thank you!

- Dclark41

Phil: That NFLX call was awesome. The speed at which NFLX options decayed was precipitous. The blow out spike that allowed me to double and roll my callers to 190(!) and the ridiculous 170 weeklies @3.50 a day away from Op-Ex. The gains I realized in that trade floored me when I took a long at my portfolio value on Friday. What a great way to start the 3rd Quarter.

- Kinkistyle

Phil,
thank you for the thorough response(s). I joined this group last week to take my education to the next level. the school i am involved with very good at calling out levels but very little live trading and little help in managing a position going against you.
I like the combo of knowing where the major levels are coupled with your approach to getting in. learned a lot this week.
thank you!

- DawnR

Thanks Phil, for banging the table on getting short and getting to cash. Usually when this happens in the market I am freaking out but I actually made money this week thanks to you. That HOV trade was a great way to re-deploy some of my cash.

- Julian

I cannot believe the success I have had in the last 6 months because of what I have learned here! It has been truly life changing. It's like the old adage about teaching someone how to fish instead of just giving them a fish. Thank you Phil, I am forever grateful and hope I have helped someone else along the way.

- Craigsa620

Just closed out my V put for 50% in 24 hours thanks Phil!

- Humvee

Phil, I have the SRS 2011 $7.50 short puts you recommended awhile back. I sold them for $2.20 and now $1.51 (up 31%) although SRS has been down since inception. This was a nice mellow way to play it like you said, thanks.

- Jomptien

Phil, 26% on the week for the 20% I day-trade, and since drinking the kool-aid last fall, the whole portfolio has doubled. Have a great weekend !!

- JRW III

I have been here a year, and made most of my money back from the 14K fall. The people here are more than willing to help whe Phil cannot get to it. FWIW - This site is my brokerage firm, I was with Wells Fargo Portfolio and it was costing a fortune to trade, the costs here are more than offset with the data, trade ideas and profits you should make.. and I get a chuckle out of Cap and Phil's rantings on healtcare, guns, oh, yeah, and government….

- Pharmboy

Fed days are fun! Just for grins I decided to see how much money I could make in two clicks. I bought DIA calls right when the surge started and then sold them the minute they hit my account. Net gain of 20% in 20 seconds. Can't do that very often…

- MrMocha

Phil – I think I finally figured out your "crystal ball" time frame. You're about 5-14 days AHEAD of what the market is going to do. It's taken me a long time to realize this, but boy it's been profitable. I go in when you recommend something at about 25% allocation, and then add to it each day it "goes the wrong way" Then BOOM, one day it's all good…. The long put list was literally exact in it's timing.

- Burrben

New member/1st time posting: Thanks Phil and Pharm for the rec on TOS. I've emailed Scott to get myself setup so I hope to hear back soon. As a newbie on PSW for a month now, I've been readin' and readin' and readin'. Gonna start paper-trading for a while. See how I do before putting a single dime into it. New at options but seems like this is the best training and educational platform out there.
I'm a long-time mortgage broker who got too involved with real estate investing. LOVED your article, Phil, on mortgage interest scams. Right on!! Let me know if and how I can contribute back to the community here. Cheers! - Mark

- Mark

I did the same thing via your logic (sold puts that is). I glanced one time and they were already up 15% which is considered a good return for an overnight hold in most circles. This is PSW though and to us it's just another day…

- Kwan

1,000% on SKF - It was a freakin' monster into the center field bleachers! I saw it play out live and squawked it from the StockTwits ID which 14k people follow: Home run trade of the week @philstockworld just knocked cover off ball w $SKF puts. http://bit.ly/piBL Great trade bud!

Next week is "Super Saturday" (they seem to just make this stuff up every year) but I was not overly impressed by the crowd at the Wayne Town Center Mall yesterday. We were not even shopping, just picking up some cards and having lunch (the food court was packed). There were plenty of people, too be sure but, like us, they didn’t seem to be carrying very much actual stuff. The clear exception, in my brief trip into the mall, was the Apple Store – where they couldn’t have packed more people in if they were just giving it all away – boxes were flying out of that place!

As to the other stores, Tina no longer leaves the house to buy things for Christmas – AMZN ships everything for free (annual $79 Plus Membership, which includes movie rentals now) and has gift-wrapping and card-writing and often the best prices so it really doesn’t make sense not to use them.

Personally, I can’t buy like that – I need to see things and I kind of like poking around stores and talking to people but, then again, I also pay the people in the mall to wrap my gifts as I’m sure as hell not going to spend a day doing that (and, despite having spent my 16th Christmas working at the Macy’s gift wrapping counter – I pretty much suck at it). Fortunately, I’m grounded enough to know this is not how normal people behave – even in upscale North Jersey.

Grounding ourselves is why these surveys are so valuable. We have a lot of smart Members from all walks of life with combined centuries of experience – who better to ask about shopping conditions all over the country, and the World?

The official estimate from the National Retail Federation is that there will be $469.1Bn (pretty exact for an estimate) spent this holiday season, which is an increase of 3.8% over last year, which was a 5.2% increase over 2009 ($437Bn), which really sucked! Still, it did not suck so much that $469Bn is not an new record for Q4 shopping.

“After strong sales reports in October and November, along with a successful Black Friday weekend, retailers are cautiously optimistic that this season will turn out better than initially expected, bringing added stability to our recovering economy at a time when America needs it most,” NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said. “However, a number of factors, including the debt crisis in Europe and continued political wrangling in Washington, could impact consumer spending this holiday season and into 2012.”

This is important stuff because 42M Americans work in 3.6M stores in America, a country that loves to shop. In fact, we love it so much that gift cards are now one of the top holiday gifts so that other people can have the fun of shopping with your money. Again, I’m old-fashioned and don’t feel like a gift card is a "real" gift but my kids actually put them on their Christmas list and this year they want cards from AMZN, Toys R Us and, most interestingly, the Itunes Store. My kids are certainly not alone. In a First Data survey:

When asked whether a recipient would rather get a $20 gift or a $25 gift card, 92 percent opted for the gift card

When asked whether a recipient would rather get a $25 gift or a $25 gift card, 87 percent opted for the gift card

When asked whether a recipient would rather get a $30 gift or a $25 gift card, 79 percent opted for the gift card

When asked whether a recipient would rather get a $45 gift or a $25 gift card, 52 percent opted for the gift card

I find the last item VERY interesting, 52% would rather get a gift card that’s half the value of an unknown gift – perhaps a good indication of how lousy people are at picking out good gifts for each other! Still, we need to be careful when we hear about these trends as gift card sales are expected to be $28Bn this year, up significantly from $24.8Bn last year but representing just 6% of Holiday Sales. CSTR machines now interestingly pop out gift cards in exchange for your change. To some extent, the rise of gift cards does shift that 6% off the holiday quarter and into Q1 as most retailers do not recognize the sale until the gift card is redeemed (despite the fact that they have the cash). Also, despite all the fuss, on-line sales are still under 10% of all retail (good growth prospects for AMZN!) – here’s a good chart from last year:

Still 10% of the sales on-line explains 4M jobs going away (as does inflation meaning less stuff is being sold for more money). Amazon only employs 33,700 people to replace 4M retail sales associates – now that’s efficiency! Also, you would think that’s not so good for the REITs, and we have a massive, empty, $2Bn mall right here in New Jersey that proves you don’t have to go to China to find very poorly thought out planning projects. What was originally aptly named Xanadu has now been horrifically and ironically been renamed "The American Dream" and is now scheduled to finally open in late 2013 – a full decade after this nightmare began!

I’d like to hear about your own shopping experiences and I’d really like to hear from people who own stores. According to the National Retail Association, most shoppers are only half done with Christmas shopping. That seems crazy but they said the same thing least year and they were right and this year we have an extra day so I guess it’s going to be a crazy week in the malls. The Retail stores are open all kinds of crazy hours this weekend so staffing costs will be high and I do hope it works out for them, for all our sakes!

It’s very hard to get a good read from the news because they are paid by retail advertisers to encourage you to shop so they’re not going to interview a store owner who says "This is the worst holiday ever, I’m thinking of setting fire to the store for the insurance money." No, all you hear is the good stuff but we need to know what’s real so we can make good investing decisions so if you are in retail, or know anyone in retail – please help us out and let’s try to get some good numbers (comparisons to last year and "normal" years, etc.) in our last week of shopping.

If you are out shopping, all you have to do is keep your eyes open when you go to the stores, not just as to whether they are busy but as to whether people are actually buying thing and what kind of things they are buying – then just tell us what you saw.

Obviously, we care the most about stores we can invest in but general observations are good too. This is going to be make or break for the holidays but I think a lot of high expectations are already built in and this survey is a great way for us to gian insight as to what’s hot and what’s not around the country.

Try to include the symbols for the companies you discuss and be sure to give us a good idea, geographically of where you are shopping. Last year we got a great picture of what was going on in the country and it kept us from falling for the media hype about holiday shopping last year.

Only by comparing many people’s experiences can we begin to get a good picture of the retail situation in this country, Thanks!

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Phil - I am 3 month follower and shout a big thanks for all the good advice and training. I read all the materials and posts as suggested. I am retired CFO and took over my investments 2 years ago from broker after frustration with returns. I followed some conservative advice for retirees and have 60% bonds currently in a 5m portfolio. I had been doing covered calls on my stocks to boost returns and slowly am getting more aggressive after following your site and my son who has been with you for 6 months. I allocated 1.5m to stocks and am scaling up from 30%. I did some of the trades suggested in early June using Aug & Oct buy/writes on CSCO, WMT, MON, WFR, DO in addition to calls on XOM, CVX, PEP, PG, WM, T that I owned. Most are doing very well (4-24%) in 60 days. My good problem is that instead of getting longer, I will be making 6% quickly (50% plus annualized) and getting called away on many positions. What would you advise for getting long again. Thanks again for such a great job advising all of us!

- TXChili

Phil/Eric/Cwan/Matt/Cap/etc.. - I've learned so much from all of you and want to thank you. I'm up 23% this month thanks to all of your advice - Thanks, guys!

- Josiah

Phil - DIA 107 Calls. As suggested I am taking the money and running to home depot for some shelter supplies! This is the grand finale of several successful trades from you through this roller-coster and as you have further suggested it is time for me to sit back and relax in cash. May even be able to talk my wife into the premium membership after these intelligent trades in a stupid market.

- DOStrade

GOOG, NFLX and AAPL all bought last hour Friday. Sold into the excitement the first hour today for an average of 15% on the options. And lots of them. Thanks again Phil for teaching me so well.

- lflantheman

I really would like to meet all of the posters here who seem like an intriguing bunch of intelligent, opinionated (without being obnoxious or condescending most of the time), and well spoken people. Not so easy to find in this age of instant gratification and me first attitudes. Usually this results in groups where misinformation is used to gain an advantage, or whatever it takes to beat the other guys. I love the one for all, all for one vibe here, sharing your best ideas and helping each other work together for a common goal, to be successful investors!

- craigsa620

Against all prognostics (bears) Phil pointed in the morning the correct direction, and in middle of day he pointed the possible move to 2.5% Incredible… I'm starting to serious believe on the program trading and the human nature behind the programing those "trade-bots".

- Spider

Happy Thanksgiving Phil and to your family and associates. Also to all of the other fellow citizens of Phil's Stock World. I am particularly happy and thankful that I clicked on your article in Seeking Alpha a number of years ago. That opened the gate to Phil's Stock World and "being the house". My wallet thanks you as does my peace of mind in trading options, stocks and rarely futures. Your liberal views opened up my views—being a boot strapper (pulled myself out of a poor background) I was a CONSERVATIVE—cynical of others who weren't as driven. Now, I am much less so; you have taught me more than how to make money and manage risk. So, again I give thanks to you and the others of PSW!!

- Newthugger

Being on this board is better than successfully completing the Times crossword. Phil's panoply of comments manage to excite, illuminate, frustrate, exasperate, confuse, enlighten, outrage, invigorate and stupefy (and that's par for the morning session only!). But goddammit, it's addictive, informative and when it all goes right extremely profitable.

- Winston

You guys gotta give it to phil–the voice of reason yesterday, last nite and this morning.

- Corleone

I have learned more about options in the past 2 weeks as a full PSW member that the previous 5 yrs of making more bad than good option plays. The educational material alone is worth several times the price of admission. I have had an expensive education on what not to do- what is past is past- I am looking forward to profitable/fun future.

- Pstas

Phil/ I hope the next 5 year bear market will be as much fun and as profitable as this 5 year bull market. For those who survived 2008/2009, and who imbibed the wisdom of PSW, what a time it has been. Good to have you by my side. I think you are selling yourself short – you need to triple your prices :)

- Winston

I started with $250,000 in cash as of Oct 1 and have realized gains of $81,000 thru close of business. And that's in an IRA with no margin or naked trades. Whenever you are in Argentina or Chile I owe you a drink. I'm looking forward to it.

- Denlundy

Hi Phil,
Thanks for the free disaster hedge ideas. I implemented variations of two of them on SDS bull call spreads and EEM bear put spreads (haven't done the TZA yet) and they really hedged my short term longs nicely today. Makes it seem a lot less like gambling.
You are the man (of the people)!

Phil: I cleaned up today. A rather stark contrast to my untutored performance April/May 2009, after I had written to you to explain how wrong-headed your bearishness was. Many thanks.
I ran into someone once who played on the Bulls with Jordan for quite a few years. He was asked what he had learned from playing with MJ for so long. He smiled and said "Give him the ball."

- Zeroxzero

Phil - Rode the /QM down from 99.65 at 7pm and now I'm taking your advice, taking the $$ and going to enjoy a restful night sleep. I don't post often so I want to say thanks for sharing your incredible market acumen with all of us. Your site has a unusually talented group of investors (and some characters) and I enjoy my days trading more because of it.

- DaveW

Oil – thanks Phil,
got in late at 0.53 on the 38p today, set a sell for 0.75 and took the dog for a walk – 70% gain and more than enough $$ to buy dog food. TZA Aug 35/40 BCS – closed out for a 100% gain in under a month – thanks again for introducing me to these trades.

- CanuckBob

I traded with Phil for approximately three years, and consistently averaged 80% returns yearly... some of which was due to my skills as a trader, but much was a direct result of what I learned as a member of Phil's site.... both from Phil, and the many talented traders that hang out there. Phil... if you are reading along... thanks, again for the approximately $ 3 mil I made tagging along with you.... in order to make you feel good for the work you did... I gave the government 50% of it all, so you made your contribution....

- 1234Gel

Blessings, ALL: So we have completed two months of 2015. So far it has been a good ride with my PSW all short put portfolio showing a 15.73% gain with $83K in profits harvested in 2015.

- IHS4GOD

Phil – BTW, the new STP/LTP coupled with the income portfolio is Perfect! I do not trade all of them, very few actually since I work during market hours. However, following the trades real-time is very educational.
I did enter the ABX call if you recall, I rolled to July on that nonsense news that sent it tumbling. Out today for 110% gain (2.00 stop) not counting covering the loss from the earlier roll. Nonetheless, a good trade.
Keep it up…. Thanks

- JFawcett

Peace of mind / I have a portfolio mainly consisting of long term long calls, short term short calls and puts, and long term BCS. Three years, ago when I started my journey on this board I would be freaking out panicking as to what to do, as many of the short calls are ITM, Three years later (today) I look at the screen and serenely process the information. Three years ago, I inevitably made the wrong decisions which cost me a lot of money. Three years on I calmly roll the positions to whatever makes sense. No drama, no hair pulling, and a great cost saver. I guess they call that the power of education.

- Winston

I think that Phil is super, I am up 39.3% YTD. Thank you for your kindness and the opportunity to observe Phil from February.

- KMisko

Phil// Cashing out of my LT holdings have been going on for over two weeks. However, I have elected not to cash all of the holdings including my AAPL, Jan 16 Short Puts at $470 and $480. Plus, I am being opportunistic in selectively putting on those positions for beat down stocks by selling 2016 Puts. That said, YTD harvested profits now stand at $135k on a current account balance of $683K or a 19.81% YTD return. Thanks for your expertise in teaching me how to be patient, be the banker, but also not being greedy, cashing out and harvesting profits.

- IHS4GOD

Phil is a master at keeping you laughing, as well as making you money. - It is like " laughing all the way to the bank!"

- Gel1

The virtuous trade / Phil throws out so many ideas, that understandably he rejects all calls for a running total of how all ""quoted"" ideas are performing – it would be unworkable. But without such a list, I think it behooves us to call out the trades that have made a difference. January 13 expiration is going to be a big month for me as a significant number of sold put positions will expire worthless. One example of the power of patience and leaving well alone:
VLO – sold Jan 13, 17.5 puts for $3.45 – and this trade was placed in August 2011. VLO is currently a tad over $35!
And as time went by, and I got more experienced – with the help of Phil and the contributions from board members, I started selling short term puts and calls around this position. Sometimes having to roll, sometimes doubling down but always knowing what I was getting into, and feeling very calm and focussed that whatever happened I could handle it. And if I couldn't then there was always Phil to lend a helping hand. All in all, my profits since August 2011 would qualify as a tidy addition to any earnings from the day job.
Thank you Sir.

- Winston

Phil, i wanted to thank you again for helping me protect future stock allocations at work - finally, i feel like i am owning my own destiny with stocks vs. letting the market dictate what you get – thanks again.

- Nramanuja

I have been trading for quite a few years and in good years made about 25%. After joining PSW, I followed closely the PSW strategy and my trading profit for this year is close to 70% to date. For fun, I like to mix in a few "Hail Mary" plays that really worked out well, but overall the simpler Buy/Write strategy, as presented by Phil so often, created the majority of the profit.

- Gel1

Great call on expe Phil! Went long 50 shares and sold for a nice profit! And Great call on the nkd shorts as well. I didn't use a stop that tight and was able to cover for a $400 gain. Works been keeping me pretty busy and I'm jealous of all the members who are able to check in here more often! It's almost always quite profitable! Looking forward to Vegas!

- Jromeha

CZR – well that was fun! Opened the play yesterday. As the arb premium was now almost all gone from the box spread today, I just decided to close it. The rundown, after all commissions: my net was $183.51 profit for an overnight trade tying up $2000 margin in an IRA account. That's a 9% overnight return (3200% annualized!) …And all that learning, too! Thanks PSW!

- Scottmi

I cannot believe the success I have had in the last 6 months because of what I have learned here! It has been truly life changing. It's like the old adage about teaching someone how to fish instead of just giving them a fish. Thank you Phil, I am forever grateful and hope I have helped someone else along the way.

Here in the Dominican Republic a young Haitian woman of my aquaintance is excited because her father is going to give her a female goat, and she is expecting it to give her several kids plus milk. Unfortunately there is not much of a market in goat feed or accessories as they will eat anything. She also wants a blackberry.

A goat can be a good investment, but like any market, you need to know what you are doing, as not all breeds of goats are the same. Black ones and white ones, I am told, give more milk than the brown ones and the value will also depend on the size of the goat and the "race" or breed of the goat. A decent sized best-of-breed goat of a desirable color can be sold in Haiti for about $130. Any father wanting to teach his children about investment, capital, and dividends could do worse that give his teenager a goat under the Christmas tree this holiday season. At least they will not have to worry about disposing of the tree.

It is extremely important to keep the goat on your own family property and not to invest in goat futures held by a goat broker. If you own title to a goat in a herd, but do not have physical possession of the goat, in the event of the herd of goats being attacked by wolves, or goat rustlers your piece of paper will be worthless.

jmm..Instead of a BB please tell her I will give 15 shares of RIMM for the goat!! I’ve been trying to have a kid for 8 months, sounds like that goat is very virile.

Boca, Delray, always packed. I must say most are in a jolly mood. With that said I can still buy a house down here fairly cheap and there are lots of people with assets looking for hard money. If everything goes well I will be giving a loan to a gentleman of 350k at 12%/2y and his collateral, a strip mall in Tennessee worth 650k he payed 1.3m in 2004 (being verified). Unfortunately he has 1 property here in Delray thats going into foreclosure. Trying to get the bank to short sell on the cheap to me. The guy still drives a new Mercedes and is going to Paraguay for vacation…how wonderful is that!

This point is very important…
The guy I mentioned above had half of the building rented (Delray) and when the tenant found out he was having trouble with the bank, they stopped paying rent!! For 8 months now. I think its impossible to gauge the economyproperly since I believe this is wide spread.

I have a suspicion that we may be moving away from a credit economy in the US towards more of a cash based economy, and therefore both individuals and businesses may feel that they may as well free themselves from the shackles of a credit rating, since even after bankruptcy, it can be recovered in a few years if desired. Once people stop caring about their credit rating, they will stop making payments if it seems advantageous. The result of Wall Street shenanigans like the collapse of MF Global is that more and more people see the advantage of getting their retaliation in first, as this is what the pros are perceived to do. Example, American Airlines filing for BK to get out of employee contracts and pension commitments.

Even if this perception is not entirely correct the Tea Party movement shows that there is considerable public sentiment in favor of both governments and individuals and businesses reverting to living within their means. My parents ran a number of successful businesses in the 50′s and 60′s (minimarket, butcher’s, antiques shop, real estate trading) and would never have DREAMED of using borrowed money other than a mortgage on the house they lived in.

When my middle sister and her husband got married, they lived in a small cottage with no furniture whatsoever other than a bed and a basic table and chairs until they had saved enough to purchase some good quality furniture, about 3 years. My brother-in-law raised sheep and hens, had the lambs butchered by his brother and swapped some of the meat for pork and beef, so they never, ever had to buy meat. He bought a new Mercedes and sold it after 3 years with only 2,600 miles on the clock as he did not think it was cost effective and my sister could walk to the supermarket for groceries and get exercise at the same time.
They are somewhat secretive (as misers often are), but now are reputed to be the wealthiest residents of the town where they live and own more than 20 houses that are all paid for. They skipped my mother’s funeral 10 years ago, because they had a prepaid vacation and did not want to pay a surcharge to change their flight dates.

Oil: I find it confusing. This, from FT: "The Brent benchmark has been in backwardation since February when the Libyan revolution broke out, depriving the market of 1.6m barrels a day of supplies, but this week the price difference between oil for delivery next month and for delivery the following month tripled to 45 cents a barrel. “Clearly the physical market is still quite tight,” said James Zhang, oil analyst at Standard Bank."

jmm. Sounds like the Baltic states in Europe. Huge underground economy. Gov’s are cracking down as they cant get a piece of the action except of course for the crooked politicians. Cash is king but credit is still plentiful for low ticket items.

In 08 I wanted to buy farm land in Europe. Someone from Germany got wind of this and sent me a warning, walk away while you still have legs. Guess what, I ran! In certain parts of Europe you can have a funeral for about 2k Euro..of course it would be an unmarked grave so whats the sense.

pahurik, If I offended you in anyway I must apologize. If there is anything that you feel I miss represented then please state your case. If you have a personal issue, I will be more than happy to share my email. I feel there should be a level of respect among us. If you feel differently there is an ignore this user option.

Kustomz, which East Europe and Baltic states you are visited and do business? We have more economic freedom then most of world countries. I personally do not care you incorrect worldview, but may be many people feel flame. For example: http://www.heritage.org/index/country/estonia

Phil — in Seattle — I went to the mall though I go at a time specifically to avoid people. So the mall closes at 11 PM and we were there at 9:45. My wife and just bought a house so we kept spending down, just drifted from store to store browsing really. Every store was loosing money. There was no need to be open past 10 PM, the place was dead, and this is the last shopping weekend before XMas?!?

I talked with the security guard in the foodcourt (bored out of his mind) watching 6 people eat. He said they expected to staff up after Black Friday for the holiday and never did; no need too, so maybe it’s not just a quiet Saturday night, after all, may a quiet season….

pahurik, Seems to me you assume much while knowing very little. The right response for you would have been to post the above question before insinuating that I am somehow an "idiot, know nothing and reveal my stupidity" far too easily that even you could pick up on it!!!

I was brought up to never ask a fellow man, what he does for work, his religion, his political affiliation and never ever assume to know where a fellow is from. The area I spoke of is Serbia. The exact area in Serbia is a town called Plandiste. I had the same issue in Montenegro.

In the future keep your opinions to yourself if they evoke a lashing out of the kind you demonstrated above for reasons you just represented. You dont have legs to stand on in this exchange. I think you and I should stick to small talk like, hows the weather?

And here I was thinking it was the comment about trading RIMM shares for a goat!! Hey at least you have a sense of humor.

From Atlanta:
As late as last Tue (12/13), the Macy’s in the money end of town (north end) was significantly less patronized than last year and, per sales folks, than in recent memory. Parking spaces and sales associates readily idle and available. However, as of Friday, 12/16, surface street traffic congestion around malls was reported to be much heavier – so a mixed report.

We went to a nice mall in Ft. Myers Friday. There was a live band as an attraction, and from my rough estimate more people were sitting in the chairs listening to the band than were shopping. Note to storekeepers: Next time, skip the chairs. Williams-Sonoma was as busy as ever, despite the outrageous prices, and there was at least some buying going on. Brookstone used to be my favorite mall store since they are one of the few that doesn’t sell women’s items. I don’t know if they are a stock, but it is now time to short them. The stuff in the store looks pretty tired and uninteresting. For the 15 minutes I hid in there I saw more clerks than customers, and nobody bought anything. It was late afternoon, and it seems as if the restaurants were doing big business while the stores were pretty light. Happy Hour is still a big draw, even though these days it is Happy Three Hours, every day, not just Friday.

We do almost all our shopping on-line, with no sales tax and free shipping. If they ever wind up taxing such sales, it will make a big dent in them. Hey, it moves and they havent figured out how to tax it yet? Amazing.

this is a bit of a personal anecdote but……..materialism is not really my thing although i love to trade and learn which may seem a bit odd, and i like nice things too. i just found i really don’t need a lot.

i have had several careers from capital raising to art design to research/education/trading.

i lived and worked in the US for the better part of 10 years when i had my thing in design and sold my work to stores like Barneys and Neiman Marcus and Simon Pierce and Kate’s Papery among a whole host of other smaller retailers so got to know a lot about the business from retailers’ side. i had to because i was selling to retailers.

i think what i learned was retail was a tough business, and tougher if there are more people like me around who maybe think having a lot of things is also just a lot of things that have to be dusted, insured or put away some place and stored for years or looked after day to day or polished or whatever.

i guess i find the whole consumer thing just way over the top and have for quite a while too.

minimalism works. kindness and generosity works. honesty also works where it can be found.

i knew Constance Kay. she had an art card design business with 1000s of handmade cards with fantastic original designs by individual American artists for all occasions (made in America) and did very very well with it.

Spoke today to a guy from New York who has a local store. He offered me a new in-the-box iPhone 4g (AAPL) for $350, but what was more interesting was that he told me he had 15 of the new iPhones and was not able to sell any of them, even though he had them on display in 3 or 4 local stores. People liked them, but they simply could not afford them. Eventually he shipped them back to New York to sell them there. He also told me that a lot of the new iPhones are being returned due to quality problems. I don’t know how true this is.

Well, the DR is not the US, but I think that the iPhones are very expensive when compared to to the iPod Touch, which I have, which is to all intents the same device, except that it has no SIM card for making and receiving calls. However I can use it to make Skype calls via Wi-Fi and with a battery powered Internet modem. Not very convenient, but it does seem to me that for the non business user, having an iPod to play music, use as a camera, or surf the net, plus a cheap phone to make calls is a much more economical alternative for the cost conscious than buying a very expensive iPhone or taking out an expensive contract. While this won’t limit the affluent, it may put something of a cap on sales overall, particularly with younger cell phone users.

barfinger/sales taxesWe do almost all our shopping on-line, with no sales tax and free shipping. If they ever wind up taxing such sales, it will make a big dent in them. Hey, it moves and they havent figured out how to tax it yet? Amazing.

I think they have figured it out, but the Supreme Court in its infinite wisdom has decided that mail order businesses should not have to pay state sales taxes unless they are based in the state where the merchandise is being sent to. I’m not sure of the logic of this, but it is based on some obscure US legal tradition. Certainly Amazon has to charge consumers sales taxes in Canada, or VAT in Europe and they do so without much protest on either side.

The answer is simple enough. Congress has to pass a law that will override the Supreme Court on this issue. Now whether Congress WANTS to do this is entirely another matter. You would think that with the States in a desperate situation for tax revenue, they would want to, but on the other hand there is also a strong anarchist movement that believes that all Government programs should be abolished. Which side will win?

Not sure where 1020 has been going, but our neck of the woods has been pretty dead. Mall in Carlsbad was empty at 10:30ish on Sunday, but Costco and Target have been crazy buzy. Now, I think those two stores where we are are the exceptions to the a rule, as I believe these two places are the ‘best’ stores the companies have! Other areas have been less traveled, and a few of the ‘off’ stores that are not chains have noted that they are not crazy busy like last year. I dunno, I would like to hear about the midwest…

Here is a report from the upper Midwest ( MN). Target ( local favortite) and Costco have been busy, Target more so, seems like some people use Costco for cheap gas. Best Buy & Home Depot were quiet, Malls have pretty full parking lots- Many people out enjoying the fall like weather. Retailers can not blame the weather here for once. I’m pretty pleased with an early present. I came home Friday to a Vinotemp kegerator. This could be dangerous!

Back from NYC. Holiday activity was high, Rock Center packed, Bryant Park packed, restaurants packed but streets not crowded at all (was the first cold weekend but that shouldn’t stop New Yorkers) and stores not busy for a normal day, let alone Christmas. Everyone is eating but no bags – very strange. Didn’t go to any normal stores, there are about 100 specialty kiosks in Bryant Park and we had lunch, skated and visited all the little shops. Earlier we had intended to go to times square but Carmines was sold out all day as was the Hard Rock and the kids were hungry so we headed up there and had a great lunch at Celsius outside under heat lamps above the skaters – very nice way to spend an afternoon. Found lots of cool little gifts too but even the winter shops were not very crowded – even with about 1,000 people hanging around the ice rings.

My conclusion so far – people are just cutting back on gifts this year – leaving them more money to go out. We’ll see what happens but I think that some of that 50% of the business they are counting on this week doesn’t show up.

Meanwhile, Dear Leader has died and that shot the Dollar back to 81 and knocked the futures down half a point. Asia is down more like 2% as no one is please with Jr. taking over in South Korea. I always find that amusing when leaders who are hated die and the markets react negatively – as if the next guy could be worse. Markets just hate uncertainty but China is in charge of N. Korea – I doubt Kim’s son is going to suddenly declare war or whatever it is people are worried about. He’s just 27 and probably not suicidal.

If anything (but I’m going to bed), I’d take oil long off the $93 line (/CL), which is where we liked them Friday. Gold already zoomed back to $1,600 and has been rejected there so far and the Dollar doesn’t look that strong above 81 so far.

S&P is 1,204 so below 1,200 is bad and the RUT is just under 715 and, if they don’t break over, there’s no point in being bullish on oil (or anything else). Dollar below 81 and RUT over 715 should confirm the oil play.

Kustomz- you learned a valuable lesson, don’t mess with pahurik’s authority in all matters in eastern Europe and Russia…He is the only member with knowledge of these areas. I made the mistake of commenting on Estonia’s stupidity for removing a statue dedicated to Russian troops who fought against the Nazis and he brought the verbal assault against me as well…

Shopping- I’m back in WA for 5 days and in Seattle/the suburbs traffic seems to be robust. Skagit Valley, my home (a more rural area about 60 miles north of Seattle) is hurting and traffic seems to be down significantly…

Home Depot is one of my frequent and favorite places,I have talked with the clerical staff at a number of the locations around the Puget Sound (Seattle Area). Seems sales are not as good as last year and the day after Thanksgiving their volumn was off from last year also. Saying that, the construction trade has picked up a little the last couple of months per the statements of the trades people, and that is incongruent with the Home Depot clerical comments. Costco on the eastside of Lake Washington was crazy busy the last several weekends, but this weekend it seemed there weren’t that many customers. Time will tell. Restaurants are busy but one of our favorite steak restaurants had tables immediately available last week end—usually they have two hour waits. …for what it is worth. I enjoy the local flavor comments. Merry Christmas to all.

Oil topped out at $94.50 but, if that’s the only trade we find, it’s a good one at $1,500 per contract! Dollar broke the line at 11:50 – If I had just stayed up another half hour, I could have caught it myself but, c’est la vie. As usual – I’m sure we’ll find something else to trade!

The Euro topped out at $1.304 at Sunday’s open, fell to $1.298 when the Dollar topped out at about 11:30 last night, made a run back to $1.303 and double topped there, now back to test the line at $1.3008. The Pound is below their safe line at $1.5497 and the Yen topped out at 78.16 at about 11:20, fell to the 77.80 line at 3am and now 77.90 and we know Japan really wants to defend 78 so they’ll be pushing to hold 78.80 on the Dollar.

EUR/CHF is interesting this morning as it fell to 1.2185, indicating the drop in the Euro was sudden and unexpected, even to the Swiss (who want more Francs to the Euro) so we can expect $1.30 to be vigorously defended. That means the Swiss and Japan are at odds today but I’ll bet on Switzerland in a currency war because the BOJ has simply botched all of their attempts to control things this year while the Swiss run their manipulation schemes like clockwork.

So, if we assume the Euro holds $1.30 then we can assume the Dollar will not go over 81 again and that will give the markets a chance to do whatever they want to do without getting adjusted by the Dollar and I’m pretty sure they want to go up – despite the death of Kim Jung Il, which I suppose we’re just all going to have to get over somehow…

It’s a little late to chase futures now, I’ll be going over the news in the morning post but we’ll be looking for Friday Morning’s highs to be broken if we’re going to get bullish – otherwise this is all just pre-market BS (up about half a point at the moment).

I am in small town Knoxville (compared to some of the other guys here), and was at the Lowes this past weekend. They were still trying to get rid of their Black Friday deals, at the same price and some even cheaper. There were mounds and mounds of items that did not get bought on Black Friday. I was able to negotiate a $200 tool set for my brother down to $40. Seems like they were hard off for business IMO.

went shopping this weekend in suburb of Cleveland—-high end malls and shops were crowded (no hardship here)—-lines were long parking was a problem —tempers were flaring—-but Costco and Best Buy were not as crowded , was able to get in and out relatively easily

Observations from the weekend….. locally – Wilmington, DE – was at old-style shopping center w/ Sears, JCP, etc., on Thursday night. It was barren. In NYC for the weekend and saw plenty of people on the streets and subway carrying more than they could reasonably handle. Was in an out of a lot of "normal" stores – both high end and not-so-high-end and traffic was brisk and people did appear to be buying. One place in particular – Century 21 (not the real estate guys) was a mob scene. They sell discounted top designer brands. People were carting baskets full of items all over the store and checkout lines reflected the # of deal seekers.
The drive home presented another view again… drove past local Walmart and parking lot was overflowing into adjacent office park. Passed about 10 Christmas tree vendors who appear to be on the verge of taking it on the nose with large inventories remaining with a week to go.

Traffic at my restaurant in Vegas seems to be up over last year however the mix has shifted to small group reservations from holiday banuet bookings, with almost no company christmas parties (ie. company paid). People are trying their best to stay connected but clearly there is very little christmas spirit in the air in Vegas (arguably ground zero for all ills in this recession). Casino take is up single digits y/o/y however hiring growth is nonexistent. Local economy seems to have bottomed and people are starting to come out of their hunkered down state and acting less depressed (in our place people drink more when they are happy and stay home when they’re depressed…contrary to popular lore). I’m starting to bottom-fish on the local real estate market, expecting no more than 5-10% downside next year with equal odds of a flat year. So, there is a large overhang, both in christmas spirit, economic activity and real estate prices but clearly the worst is over in Vegas and the anemic recovery is beginning to appear here.

regular malls in the city were packed to capacity, Santa busy but not very large bags…Macy’s packed seeming people buying, Best Buy and IKEA also jammed…My guess is a decent shopping crowd this was this past weekend.

Streets are emty in eastern Idaho and western Wyoming. You can park at front door. University of Utah nuroscience clnic had no christmas showing. Lowest traffic I have ever seen in Salt Lake, many closed shops, even Micky Ds empty lot at noon.

Here in Hong Kong there are not many locals carrying big bags, but thousands of mainland Chinese tourists doing a bit of buying. Seems about the same as last year. Apple store filled. Seems they are looking for that one high end item, and getting some comfort items harder to come by up North. The usual shortages of baby formula ect, as the Mainlanders stock up. They obviously don’t trust what they are getting North of here. Not much traffic on mid-priced items.

Went to IKEA and the International Mall here in Tampa yesterday, shopping with my daughter. IKEA was not half full, and the mall was no busier than a normal Saturday. Apple and the Pandora Stores were very busy, but Dillards, Nordstrom, Ann Taylor, did not appear busy.

Sorry, I’m an imbecile, didn’t realize this was a "shopping survey." My kids all wanted iPads; considering they’re all 10 and under, I suppose that bodes well for Apple’s future. We play iPad hand-me-down, gives parents an excuse to upgrade. Brookstone was the favorite this year: lots of cheap, attractive gadgets, since quantity counts over quality when Santa starts giving stuff out, and that Quad-helicopter really is cool, although I couldn’t fit it in my suitcase. So tech and clothes were the top picks.

The view from London
I’m seeing ALOT of shops starting their sales early. Clothing stores seem to be suffering with people appearing to wait for the post Christmas sales.
I work next to the Ab & Fitch store which previously has had queues of crazed teenage girls outside but again, its busy but not crazy busy.
Both Apple stores are filled with people but not everyone has bags.
Generally Oxford Street and west london in general seem a bit quiet. Our Westfield malls (newest opening next to our recently completed Olympic park) are by all accounts crazy busy. I’m afriad I have not dared go out their as those places drive me nuts!
Happy holidays and bring on the Berkshire.

Greetings my PSW friends — I wish I had more US comments, but we’re spending the holidays in the Far East. Although, before we left last week, my wife tells that "the 1% are out in force" in the high-end stores in Beverly Hills, like Barney’s, which was "a madhouse." Although she also noted that that may have been because of their "second mark-down" of the month. But the merch is moving. Anyway, Hong Kong was very vibrant and busy. Then, on to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Did you know that all they use in Cambodia are U.S. dollars? And they want crisp, new ones. I mean if you give them a worn one, with a slight tear or something, they will say "do you have a better one?" There is a local currency, but they want none of it. Very cheap place to visit. Now we’re in Hoi An, Vietnam, which is near Da Nang. And the dollar buys 21,000 dong! I’ll check out the shopping later. Hanoi on Tuesday. Trading the US markets from here is from 9:30 pm to 4 am! Rough. Happy Holidays to all.

France ( near Toulouse): Have to say that despite the “crise economiqe” the stores and markets this week seem very busy, from a visitors perspective. Those we know here are very concerned about the economy and have had a business slowdown. McDonalds is building some very nice restaurants ( which are packed), free WiFi for us is reason to be here. Happy Holidays to all at PSW!

View in Minnesota:
Yesterday I went to the local mall to do my last minute xmas shopping. Throughout the year I try to stay as far away from malls and shopping centers, so I can’t speak to the volume of shoppers on a typical day. However,the place was been packed. Parking was horrendous and what should be a 5 minute entry ended up taking me around 20-25 mins (I’m getting annoyed just thinking about it). I went to Macy’s to purchase some perfume. They had tons of items marked 40%-50% down. The stores were loaded with people holding multiple bags and I noticed that even the gift wrapping kiosk was fully staffed and busy. In what I was expecting to be a quick in and out 15 minute trip ended up costing me well over an hour to purchase 1 item. The Mall of America is about an hour away and I have heard from a friend working there that the place is also crazy busy, the hell if I’m driving an hour to waste time at that zoo! Just my perspective from the area. Merry X-mas to everyone at PSW!

Poughkeepsie, New York (2 hours north of NYC) on Christmas Eve morning:

I ran out to get a hair cut at 9 AM and went through two strip malls near our house that are usually packed the last week before Christmas. I went to TJ Maxx, The Dollar Store and Barnes and Noble to get a few stocking stuffers (bought all the major stuff on-line through Amazon this year as I hate the mall.) It seemed like a normal somewhat busy Saturday shopping day. It is a very warm and sunny day here, no snow on the ground yet, and usually I have a hard time getting any parking in the places near our house. Unless people are more organized this year, it looks like a low shopping day to me.

I can also note that holiday donations were down at the homeless shelter where I work. Our usual supporters brought the stuff we need, like McDonalds gifts cards and so on, but usually we get so inundated with clothes, coats and stuff that we can’t deal with the volume and call Salvation Army to come cart it all off. It was noticeably lighter this year, which was a relief. (Most charities prefer catch which can go for what we need, when we need it, rather than bulk stuff that takes up a ton of storage. Food banks are probably different.)
Happy Holidays to everyone! Peace to you in the New Year!

Just back from the mall in New Orleans:
First blush seems very good. Insane parking lots! Spent 20 minutes getting a spot. The view inside was more mixed. Crowds, but not tons of shopping bags. Many people, like me, had just 1 not-stuffed shopping bag. MANY stores with major sales. 40% off… even 50% off at coldwater creek (the least busy store). Also empty, surprisingly, Abercrombie and Fitch. Only the Apple store and the food court were doing what I would call a brisk business.

Terrapin — Yes, we visited both Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom, and some other temples as well. Probably every tourist who goes to Siem Reap — or who goes to Cambodia in general, goes there. Beautiful! What a civilization that must have been, to build those things. They are true world treasures, and the Cambodians are doing everything they can, it appears, to protect them and restore them. They are huge. They were abandoned and forgotten for centuries. Our guide said that when they were re-discovered about 100 years ago, it took three years just to clear the trees and vegetation from Angkor Wat, so that it could be seen and appreciated. We go to My Son today (near Hoi An), to see more old temples….at least the ones that are standing after the bombing 40 years ago.

Sobering thought.
The other day I found in a safe I used for one of my closed down businesses the total amount of 32,800.00 Mexican pesos.
The date was, in which the little bags were holding the money went back to July 2009. Great you think you found some extra funds.
However In July 2009 I would have received 2733.00 US$, today it is reduced to 2,342.00 well you say so what 400$ US short.
If I would have bought gold in July 2009 for 2,733.00 I would have 5,096.00 US$ in my pocket today meaning that the 32,800 pesos are now only 16,400.00, two and a half year later.
That is a Christmas story about paper money.
Happy Christmas

I had to go to Ridgewood, NJ to pick some stuff up on Christmas eve and it was nice so Jackie and I walked around town in the afternoon. Ridgewood is ranked #26 as one of the best places to live in America (small towns) and is, indeed a lovely town. Unfortunately, it is not so lovely if you were a retail merchant on Christmas Eve – the town was dead and, even more disturbing, there was A LOT of empty retail space – a shocking amount as I used to go to Ridgewood often and would rarely see a store and I always notice because it’s a town I’ve considered having a business in as well as living.

They just rezoned to allow fast food in town – a very bad sign as that was one of the things that made it nice. The town has a commuter train station to NYC but even next to the station, there were a couple of empty stores..

New York City also still has many, many vacancies. On the one hand, it’s a fantastic time to start a business (see Build a Berkshire Workshop) but, on the other hand, I think we need to start looking at some of these CRE statistics and see if we’re still in a downtrend.

Keep in mind a lot of retailers will "hang on" through Christmas but its possible that some of the remaining stores haven’t paid their rent for 3 months and there will be many more "space for rent" signs in the spring.

If anyone knows Realtors or people in that end of the business – I’d love to hear what they have to say from different parts of the country.

Was out working today- taking advantage of some time available and light traffic to get around easily. Looking at possible jobs- my business is construction / R&R related – commercial/restaurants. Some uptick in requests for quotes but not anything significant. Purely anecdotal but also noticed a seeming plethora of empty commercial and office space- N/W Indiana and west Chicago suburbs. I would characterize these locations as middle to upper middle class communities.

Yodi- a related sobering thought on currency devaluation. I had a conversation at a Holiday gathering with the owner of a chain of restaurants. He related how he opened his first location in 1970 for about $7000. In 2011 dollars , that would be approximately $40,000. More sobering- the initial fixed capital required to open an equivalent store today is nearly $250,000. The difference? Mandated equipment specifications (NSF certification); mandated health/building codes, etc.
You can fill in the blanks on the rest of the story.

Phil……Happy Holdays (from on the road) to all.
Farmers and Merchants Bank in california has been very well run by the Walker Family for many many years. Commercial real estate is a significant/majority of their commercial/private loans. Highly respected bank here in the west. Did not get caught up in the financial meltdown and mistakes that has taken down so many institutions. They also advise us in directing our corporate retirement funds. I can say they have been telling us for some time the rate of commercial loan defaults and vacancies in their commercial buildings has not stopped accelerating. Federal bank regulators have not helped. F&M were re negotiating a significant portion of their commercial loans in house to head off potential defalts. Regulators have brought that process to a trickle.
FYI….

I live in Austin, and have several real estate friends and was a builder here for 20 years till I moved to Costa Rica and started a beach house vacation rental business about 10 years ago. The recession (since ’08) hasn’t been bad for the Austin real estate market. I’m not too sure about the new home market, but I know the resale mkt has held up pretty well. Down about 15% at the worst in ’09/’10, but this year it’s back up to near where it was in ’07. The job mkt has held up well, with lots of newcomers getting work and thus the real estate mkt has held up as well. The rental mkt is tight, real tight. I sold my home in ’09, expecting a much bigger downturn in real estate than we got here. the plan was to rent tll the bottom and then buy at a super low mortgage rate and at a fire sale price. Well it didn’t happen, at least not here, and so I’ve been in the rental mkt, and I know first hand that rents are going up and it’s hard to find a decent 3/2 for reasonable rent. Retail has been slow this Christmas. Not as much action at the malls as normal, although I’m more in tune with the scene in Costa Rica than here in Austin.
The Costa Rican economy is directly tied to tourism. Tourism is down big time since ’07, and so is everything else there. Real estate mkt has tanked. I’m trying to sell a beach house. Probably the best location in the country for a nature lover to have a vacation home, and no luck for 6mo. Retail has followed. My taxi driver friends in San Jose tell me it’s down 20% from last year, but they are the most pessamistic group of people you’ll ever meet. The real number is probably 5%. They’re so into complaining that in the morning you’ll get in a cab and the cabby will complain about how cold it is. By noon, he’s starting to complain about how hot it is, Ha Ha!
Well, that’s my report. Sorry it’s a bit downbeat. Personally, I’ve had a blast since I joined this group a month ago, as well as having paid for the egg mc muffins for the next year. God bless you all.

Phil/realtors- my closest friend is an agent in Vegas. He works on flipping short sales or foreclosures for individuals or groups with a minimum of 250k… He was making good money but now the market has been saturated with buyers and people are over-paying for the auctions…Banks still have a ton of inventory but it isn’t getting released. He does believe there is a decent opportunity in buying houses for rentals and getting section 8 tenants in there….

At our local mall in Natick, Ma. (18mi w of Boston) foot traffic was brisk but not hectic. Lots of people but less bags. 40 -50- 60 % discounts on entire store contents was common. Found this different from last year where pre Christmas sales was only select merchandise. Parking was generally impossible and it seemed tempers were much shorter and hotter this year.

Small lines at the Santa Tree where children make their Christmas wishes.
Kiosks down the center of the mall were fewer than last year but seemed like they had a steady flow of customers.

Macy’s "M" was very busy – and people were buying. Constant discount coupons in the mail and they seem to work well – I’m always on the look out for them.
Good quality and name brand merchandise can be had at nice discounts and generally good selection and quantities. (50% off is common)
Neiman Marcus? and JWN did not seem as busy in comparison to M.

Went by the Micheal Kors store several times and from what I saw I’d be shorting the recent run up in the high end pocket book IPO. In contrast COH at least had people roaming around the store.

I know SHLD, has taken a beating recently and I think it is just not marketing itself well.
I purchased a tool box on line, was able to take advantage of online discounts, check various store inventories, arrange a self pick up at that store by sliding my credit card thru a machine that ID’d me and my order and started a time clock to measure how long it took the merchandise to come out.(4 min).
I never interfaced with a live body until a clerk put the tool box in my car. This was easily the best shopping experience I had this season.

I think stores with online shopping and brick and mortar pick up centers could be very competitive against the likes of Amazon. BKS could do this and stop the flow of folks shopping books there and then going to Amazon to buy them.

BKS — Last year the Nook was being marketed from a small desk as you entered the store – This year there probably 30 Nooks stations where people could try the device. Not sure how they are doing but only about 1/2 the stations were in use. Store was busy but check out lines were very reasonable.

BBY was busy and folks had bags but I was able to get help easily. Last year I remember much busier, impossible to get a clerk and there were 10′ snow mounds in the parking lot.
.JOBS --Joesph A Bank. This store does the most local TV advertising of any retailer. "Buy one get one free, buy two get three free" – but 5 get a free Ferrari. This guy must have a 10x markup on his merchandise. Expensive TV advertising with constant 50-60% discounts and JOSB still runs a 62% operating margin!! (I have purchased clothes here and think it is inferior quality --the three dress shirts I purchased made it thru just 4 cleanings and that was their top of the line.). – I looked in a stand alone store and folks were buying like crazy.

WMS – busy but not overwhelming so. Not much on sale.

AAPl – Well this mall store generally has a wait line to get in but I walked in was was attended within 10min – It was busy but way off what I’ve seen before. I picked up the TV module allowing me to remotely connect my MacPro to my TV and can say that was well worth it. It’s fun spending time in the evening punching in various topics on Youtube and see what comes up.

Also pre Christmas we visited a large outlet mall in Wrentham, Ma. The foot and car traffic was horrific. Lots of people and lots of bags.
Two stores stood out as there were lines just to get in the store. COH. My god, what is the attraction with handbags and women? Somebody should do a study on this – I know shoes are a big deal but how many pocketbooks does one woman need?

The second was Lindt a chocolatier.
People go crazy for chocolate – This might have something to do with the sugar high obtained from consumption and help counter the depression of constant negative news. I tried to get into the Lindt store and could have made good use of nun-chucks just to secure my place in line, which extended well outside the entrance. Same goes for a kiosk in the mall set up by the SEE’s Co of Calif. People were grabbing 5, 10 boxes at a time!!! ( Nuts and Chews are the best http://www.sees.com/prod.cfm/Chocolate_Assortments/Nuts_Chews

And as long as I’m on sweets and sugar highs, the worlds best almond toffy comes from Enstrom’s in Grand Junction, Co. Only order 1 # at a time since one bite will hook you till it’s gone.
Since none of these company’s are public. options on coca or sugar might be appropriate plays for post Christmas season

Conclusion — busy but hard to see where we’re much better than last year.
I’d look at M or COH if not already up to much – look at cocoa or sugar futures and maybe take a flyer on SHLD as they might be a good takeout candidate. I think I read somewhere that AMZN might look at them to put brick and mortar in play to compete with TGT ,WMT, KSS

Post Christmas
Sales on sales — generate revenue seems to be the order of the day at any cost – ANF 50% of everything in the store including all previous markdowns – standing lines to get into the 3 stores in this mall.M very busy and sales coupons in use everywhere – bought a NXT Victronix luggage for 70% of list.(one of the few that still gives a life time repair warranty.
I’ve never seen so much left over Christmas decor merchandise as this year – usually the after Christmas 50% discounts have folks scrambling for stuff – no sign of that this year and piles at 70% off at WMT, TGT and M
Heard one clerk at BBY talk about "buyer remorse" as several customers had returned flat screens TV’s they decided they couldn’t afford.

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