Seems like recent postings in this thread is all about equity options rather than about actual stock investments.

By the way, do of you posters here own US stocks or purchase such stocks upon which you trade options?

Been doing that for more than a decade.

From my experience, it's a lot better if one owns the underlying stock upon which options are bought and sold rather than just trade the options themselves.

This post has been edited by bellion: Mar 25 2011, 08:47 PM

Typical straightforward option strategies but the rule of thumb being that particularly every option trade that I do, I own the underlying equity or at least intend to purchase it at a targeted price if the stock price drop (such as in a naked put strategy).

Covered call writing and naked puts are my preferred option strategies. I also always look to buy back options that have over time fallen in value as a risk management technique.

I am not much of a technical analyst (very much a value type investor + a bit of growth investing thrown into it for good measure).

You mean credit spreads? I don't have a knack for it.

My primary returns from investment are derived from value investing which means long hold on fundamentally sound stocks - I utilize option writing to augment these returns from time to time.

This post has been edited by bellion: Mar 25 2011, 10:21 PM

As its earnings season, you gents and ladies should consider making day trades now by reading the pre-market announcements.

I bought Bed, Bath and Beyond (BBBY) and Immucor (BLUD) yesterday and sold them a short while ago for some quick profits. BBBV went up almost 5 bucks today after earnings announcement was made yesterday.

That's why you need to read the reports before the surge happens or just at the start of it and catch the momentum.

A hedging method is to buy those stocks which you don't mind holding long term even if prices go south.

On the contrary, I have had good success with day trades in my years of trading during earnings season. There are several factors that I consider beyond merely EPS.

Why is buy and hold no longer relevant? Please provide some reasons. I do a combination of buy-and-hold (value investing) augmented by selling options and day trades during earnings season.

Check out North American centric energies with good FCF and low to mid PEG ratios.

For value investing, I suggest looking at global macro themes e.g. energies, transport, etc and then zooming in on those companies that meet your requirements. Personally, I utilize a mix of growth and defensive stocks e.g. Apple for growth and Coca-Cola and P&G as defensive, dividend-yielding stocks. Note there are some stocks that have good dividend yields and still experience relatively good growth such as the North American energies and some South American FSIs.

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Added on April 8, 2011, 10:11 amYou are examining the validity of buy-and-hold strategies from a time perspective and in a literal sense. Note that buy-and-hold can mean a time span of a mere few months to several years. In reality, fund managers who employ a buy-and-hold strategy (none less than the guru of them all Warren Buffett) have exit strategies as well as sell prices at which they will dispose of their stocks.

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Added on April 8, 2011, 10:22 amSome of the banking counters look like a good buy with attractive price to book values. JPMC and Wells Fargo are my preferred picks for a long term hold (i.e. holding until the next economic boom).

The longest stock that I have held (and still have a good number of shares in my portfolio) is Coca-cola from 2001. I bought them after reading Warren Buffett's high praise and keen interest in the company.

This post has been edited by bellion: Apr 8 2011, 10:22 AM

You can't get anymore objective when its comes to value investing.

I am keeping only one home-grown stock at the moment which is Public Bank and it has been a good compound growth stock over the years.

Just as we select our entry points in buying stocks, we should always have exit strategies and a sell price discipline.

Regarding metals, I have very little experience in it besides a one-time purchase and eventual sell-off for a Canadian gold producer called Yamana Gold.

My current preferences are North American centric energy stocks, South American utilities and banks, a few US retail centric banks, one or two technology stocks, a few pharma counters and global O&G service providers. I periodically balance my portfolio with dividend-yielding defensive stocks such as the likes of Coca-cola, P&G, J&J, American Exp, etc.

This post has been edited by bellion: Apr 8 2011, 10:47 AM

Buy and hold strategies does not exclude the premise of a selling strategy. It merely means holding until an opportune time exists to sell.

Note that NO INVESTOR - either amateur or professional has been or will be able to time the market consistently.

This post has been edited by bellion: Apr 8 2011, 10:52 AM

I am semi-retired so I do spend a fair bit of time reading and researching stocks, bonds, index funds, REITs, properties and other asset classes. I utilize trading strategies revolving around two option approaches and day trades during earnings season to augment my returns but do NOT replace my overall strategy of value investing, asset class diversification, cost averaging and portfolio rebalancing. In my opinion, any investor (amateur or professional) with NET returns of 15% or more annually for a period of 5 years or more is doing a might fine job for his or her net worth.

If you had the holding power and kept gold and silver related stocks over the past several years, you would be a rich man now.

I have very little understanding of these precious metal markets hence I refrained from investing in them.

I suppose "buy-and-hold" or more accurately "buy-and-hold until sell off at your sell price" is not so appealing to a lot of the younger investors due to its longer time frame, the need to do copious amounts of research and most significantly, the amount of capital that needs to be locked in during the holding period. More so when purchasing US stocks such as Apple, IBM or Goldman Sachs which go well into the 3 digits for share prices.

2008 would not be a shocker now if you deployed dollar-cost averaging strategies. That's where available cash to invest is king - always keep a good hoard of ready cash to pounce in such special situations.

Dollar cost averaging and portfolio re-balancing have been the main contributors to my stock returns in all my years of investing.

This is due to the fact that no-one except God can consistently time the market. Anyone saying they can is a poker-faced liar.

If the fundamentals are there, you will eventually get your returns.

What is your definition of buy and hold?

Warren Buffett never said such a thing - let's be clear about this.

You are correct that nobody can predict the future - more so when one is doing swing trades or depending heavily on derivatives or special instruments as one's primary investment vehicle.

Value investing has NOTHING to do with predicting the future - it has everything to do with buying viable businesses at prices which are deemed undervalued and selling them when the price reaches the level where one's objective or gains are reached.

I said no such thing. Please re-read what I posted.

"Not in Dow" means you are practising asset class diversification which is a good thing.

A low interest rate regime promotes the rise of stock indices hence your premise is not correct.

Huh? What seminars? Who's selling anything here?

Let me get this straight - I am not selling nor pushing any sort of investment seminars or gimmicks.

Getting a bit paranoid here, aren't you?