boilermaker75

No guts no glory. My source for that quote is a Drexel Burnham Lambert coffee mug on my desk.

If it works, keep doing it. I have been writing the 89-, 90-, and 91-strike weekly puts. The premiums are nice and if I get put to I have a great entry price. Boilermaker, Can you elaborate. I was just looking at the list for the 90s for dec. 20. Its $1.00. Is this what you mean - really short term. I guess it works okay until you get put to a few times and end up eating up your margin on XOM stock. Tx. Yes that is what I mean. I don't mind being put to, I would like to own some XOM acquired at $89. So I am only writing the amount of contracts equivalent to the position I want to have in XOM. Like putting in a limit order, where I make some cash while waiting to execute.

If it works, keep doing it. I have been writing the 89-, 90-, and 91-strike weekly puts. The premiums are nice and if I get put to I have a great entry price.

You read this in high school!? If so, damn precocious when compared to my high school mentality, when I would have passed over Adam Smith's The Money Game in favor of Tony Robbins's Money: Master the Game. I concede: Boilermaker 1, Buckeye 0. My parents lived through the depression, which greatly influenced me. So I was always interested in accumulated wealth in case of another depression. Growing up I did it by being a paper boy, caddy, etc., and saving everything. I had a sister who was six years older. She had a boyfriend who was a stockbroker. He told me about the book so I bought it and read it. I don't think I understood much. When I reread it about 10 years ago I understood what Adam Smith was talking about! If I had not gone into a technical/science/engineering career, I would have gone into something dealing with finance. Our football team is pathetic. So I am pulling for the Buckeyes to do well for the B1G.

Nice! (except hope you didn't pay full retail price: $1.25 then is $14.95 now.) Since we're carbon-dating ourselves, I'll mention I was growing up in Ohio at the time. 1969 was a big year for Ohio: an Ohio boy walks on the moon, an event overshadowed only by Mike Phipps about to become a Brown. Yes I paid full retail! I was not indoctrinated yet to value investing! In 1969 I was not yet a Boilermaker, but seeing Boilermaker Armstrong walk on the moon and Boilermaker Phipps beat Notre Dame three years in a row must have had an influence on me!

Here is my copy--notice the price in the upper right corner! I bought and read this in 1969.

Reading this gave me the sudden urge to re-read Slaughterhouse Five, but I'm on the first edition of The Intelligent Investor, so in the immortal words of Billy Pilgrim, "But I'm not ready yet!" LOL

LC, I started An Elegant Universe today. If you like popular books on physics, one of my favorites is In Search of Schrodinger's Cat by John Gribbin.

Just finished rereading Player Piano. I last read it about 40 years ago! I went to a Brian Greene lecture last night. A copy of his book An Elegant Universe has been on my stack of books to read for a long time. I'm going to start it.

Carnegie and Rockefeller had a competition to see who could acquire the most money and then to see who could be the most charitable.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/semiconductors/optoelectronics/the-blue-led-has-many-parents

Thanks!

Is there someplace I could look up the average SIR for all stocks in an index such as the SPX? Also is there a site that just lists SPX stocks by SIR? I did find one site where I can enter tickers and get the historic SIR. http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/de/short-interest The reason I am asking is that I have been reading Quantitative Value and there is a section that talks about performance versus SIR. So I want to start watching SIR to see if it might be something useful.

Sad commentary for society in general. I think if there were such women here, such minds must be extraordinary and fascinating. And with returns we would be envious of!

I love IB. However there is one thing that you cannot do with IB, which is a real pain for me because I do a lot of option trading. You cannot download from IB, like you can from Schwab, your transactions into Turbo tax.

How are you going to work in "should I cool it or should I blow"? Seems like you left off right before that . . . . I had a friend who was really good at this sort of thing. This was my first attempt, so I stopped before I got through all the verses and made too much of a fool of myself! Here is one my friend did that is appropriate considering the current market, Guess who just got back today? That wild-eyed Bear that had been away Hadn't changed, hadn't much to say But man, I still think his fur looks great He was asking if Abby Joe was around How she was, where she could be found I told him she was still at Goldman Driving all the old bulls crazy The Bear is back in town (Spread the word around Guess who's back in town) Weekdays he'll be dressed to kill Down at the corner of Wall and Main The knives will fall and blood will spill If the Bear wants to fight, there'll be a world of pain The big screen in the corner turning green to red The lows are getting near, the bulls have fled It won't be long till equity's dead Now that the Bear is here again The Bear is back in town (Spread the word)

With apologies to The Clash, Darlin you got to let me know Should I hold or should I sell If your payout ratio is going up I’ll hold here till the end of time So you got to let me know Should I hold or should I sell It’s always tease tease tease You’re happy when I’m on my knees One day is red and the next is black So if you want me off your register Well come on an’ let me know Should I hold or should I sell Should I hold or should I sell Should I hold or should I sell If I sell there will be trouble An’ if I hold will be a double So come on and let me know

I have accounts at IB and Schwab. Everytime I talk to someone at Schwab I tell them about the low commissions at IB, which got my commissions down to $4.95 at Schwab, and the extra security layer at IB, which has not resulted in additional security from Schwab, yet.

http://www.amazon.com/Way-Turtle-Methods-Ordinary-Legendary-ebook/dp/B000SEGDDQ/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411433380&sr=1-2&keywords=turtle+investing

It is a great book. One of those books that I occasionally give people. I just wish they would read it, including my daughter!

An example, Buffett had been reading IBM's annual report every year for 50 years before he purchased $10.7B of IBM stock in 2011.

I ordered a copy on Saturday ($39.99 plus $3.99 for shipping) and he shipped it on Saturday. Still showing, so he must have more. I wonder if it will by autographed? lol

It is well worth it if you ever get an opportunity to watch the episode of Inside the Actors Studio when Robin Williams was guest.

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to arbitrage and you feed him forever. (If, however, he studied at the Ivan Boesky School of Arbitrage, it may be a state institution that supplies his meals.),” Warren Buffett. “No matter how great the talent or effort, some things just take time: you can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant,” Warren Buffett. “It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent. There must be some wisdom in the folk saying, It’s the strong swimmers who drown,” Charlie Munger. “A stockbroker is someone who invests your money until it is all gone,” Woody Allen