Trade Alert: Some alcoholic said beware of the truth, people hate to face facts (and selling some FIO calls)
Advertising may be described as the science of arresting human intelligence long enough to get money from it. – Stephen Leacock, 12/30/1869 – 03/28/1944 British-Canadian humorist & economist
Just saw that quote today and my immediate thought was — could you imagine what Leacock would think of the endless barrage of advertisements we’re subjected to in this day and age? If he’s right, then there’s very little we do in this society today during which our human intelligence isn’t arrested. I’ve got an ad for ID’s latest show on the screen on my TV right now, which is frozen on a Paula Zahn show that I was watching off the DVR yesterday and haven’t bothered to change since I tuned it on two hours ago. The ad sits there trying to arrest me. Google squeezes ads into my email, into my music videos on YouTube (check out my band’s old YouTube channel, by the way, http://YouTube.com/TheMuddySouls), on the searches I do, the stock quotes I check…corporations even buy my name and advertise on it on Google.
The trader’s thought of the day from this discussion is simply that you need to make sure you’re not making any of your trades or investments based on something somebody is selling you. You make a trade because and only because it makes sense to you. And if it doesn’t make sense to you and somebody’s still trying to convince you to do it, then free your intelligence and walk away.
As for trading today — I’m looking to put in an offer to sell my FIO calls if the stock gets closer to $33. I have an average cost basis of about $1.50 for the remaining tranche of these FIO calls, just FYI. Which leads to me to another trader’s thought of the day — in the grand scheme of things, your average cost basis is meaningless. You sell something because you think it’s going to go down or because your portfolio needs adjusting, not because you have huge profits. FIO is still an 8-rated stock for me, I just need to make some portfolio adjustments. You hold onto something because you think it’s going to go up, not because you want to try to recoup your losses.
Anyway, I’ve got a couple more trading ideas that I think are setting up for us and will let you know as I pull the triggers, as always.
One correction to note. I’d made a typo in yesterday’s chat at one point when I’d typed that “We’ve shorted STX” and we didn’t correct it in transcript we sent out for some reason. Sorry to confuse you. The bottom line is that I am short WDC commons and long STX calls. I am not short STX at all.
Here’s a music video from my band. “…Some alcoholic said beware of the truth, people hate to face facts.
Sh*t burns 90%, slap a target on your back…” – The Muddy Souls
The Muddy Souls – We Will Win Again
