Paula Vanderhorst · The Trading Journal

Practical thinking about money.

Options, stock selection, and the discipline of letting a portfolio work for you. Field notes from the trading desk.

JournalDecember 6, 2024

Quiet Days

The market was down across all three indexes. I ended up doing little in the way of trading. I tried to sell over fifteen contracts but only sold six - bought back two contracts…

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JournalDecember 4, 2024

Opportunities In Earnings

The market was mixed again today, Slow to get moving. By the end of the day the Dow Jones was down, and the S&P and Nasdaq were up a little. As I said yesterday, I was hoping we…

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JournalDecember 4, 2024

Option Accounting

The market hit record highs today. The strong showing of Salesforce (CRM) and Marvel (MRVL) helped push all the averages up and tech stocks in particular soared.

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JournalDecember 3, 2024

Trading in a Mixed Market

Mixed day on the market but the chatter is that we will continue to rise into year end. The Dow was down, the S&P 500 barely up but the Nasdaq shined. I am somewhat leery of the…

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JournalNovember 30, 2024

Covered Calls

It was a shortened day on Wall Street. The market closed at 1pm EST. Despite the short day, it was trading as usual. Closed a few puts on market open as the market was up. The…

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JournalNovember 28, 2024

Holiday Trading

It is always quiet the day before Thanksgiving and the Friday half day - trading volumes are lower as traders are out for the holiday. This is not to say that there is no trading…

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JournalNovember 26, 2024

Making the most of Headlines

Making the most of investments involves keeping an eye on things. It is not just set and forget. If you are serious about having enough money later in life to live as you want…

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JournalNovember 5, 2021

Taxes Deferred

Growing up in a family where both parents earned a living, and there was no spare cash for ‘investments’ (other than our home). Taxes were simply the cut the government took…

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JournalNovember 4, 2021

Don’t fight the Fed

The expression ‘Don’t fight the Fed” means that your investment choices should be aligned with the Fed’s policy. When rates are low or being lowered, invest aggressively. When…

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JournalNovember 3, 2021

Short Sale versus Fed Policy

So today, while the market closed at record highs, most of the talk was all about Avis (CAR). It had fabulous earnings but that alone did not explain it soaring from $173 at…

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JournalNovember 1, 2021

Choppy Markets

Some days the market can’t seem to make up its mind. Unusually, the market has one or two segments that are strong during the day, others that are weak, and that trend stays…

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JournalOctober 29, 2021

When good stocks go bad

Both Amazon and Apple reported today after market close and both, surprisingly, disappointed. They both dropped about 3-4% in after-hours trade and will probably take the…

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JournalOctober 29, 2021

Why are some stocks so expensive?

A common complaint newcomers have to the stock market is that the stocks they know best and want to buy are hundreds, even thousands, of dollars per share. It makes them appear…

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JournalOctober 23, 2021

Stacking returns

A Random Walk Down Wall Street is a classic investment book written by Burton Gordon Malkiel. It was first written in 1973, but been updated over the last 12 editions. It is a…

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JournalOctober 9, 2021

Speculation

The jobs number today left the market range bound, slipping between slightly positive and negative. The only real movers were the current favorites in the market, financials…

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JournalOctober 8, 2021

Market Bottoms

It is frustrating to hear talk of market bottoms. Today that was the topic du jour, as in, “Are we at a market bottom in terms of the September drop?” and “Is it safe to start…

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JournalOctober 5, 2021

Turnaround Tuesday?

Mondays are often tough days on Wall Street. The weekend may bring bad news and investors panic and exit on Monday. If the market has been weak, and it has, larger investors…

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JournalOctober 1, 2021

Is it different this time?

Another tough day for most market participants. September ends as the worst month in the past seven and the indexes have all dropped about 5% in this month alone, although the…

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JournalSeptember 30, 2021

Buying your first stock

I remember buying my first stock, McDonalds, in 1994. I think I paid about $8 dollars for it, bought about 100 shares, and sold within the year for just over $10. I was using…

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JournalSeptember 29, 2021

Things to do while on the sidelines

The market dropped today, about 2% overall which is a large drop. It is part of the slide that started last Monday and it is likely to continue as there are no clear positives…

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JournalSeptember 28, 2021

Practical Money

The market was mixed today, reflecting the action of last week where indecision seemed to be the theme. Today, the focus was on higher interest rates, which is why financial…

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JournalSeptember 25, 2021

Uncertainty

The week ended up neutral - the indices gaining back most of what they lost the first two days of the week. Most people are unsure of what that means. No one is sounding the…

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JournalSeptember 24, 2021

Buffet wisdom

The market adores Warren Buffet and many of his observations about investing have become almost gospel for Wall Street. But today I heard a new one that I had not heard before.…

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JournalSeptember 23, 2021

Headlines and Rumors

When I first learned about valuing companies, that is trying to determine what a particular company is worth, I was told it was all about earnings. In the simplest terms, I was…

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JournalSeptember 21, 2021

And so it begins…

I have been talking about the inevitable downturn in the market and woke up this morning to a pre-market slated to be down 600 points (the Dow index that is). Predictions did…

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JournalSeptember 21, 2021

Turn around Tuesday?

There are quite a few idioms used by Wall Street. Today the one everyone’s lips was the term turn around Tuesday. Usually this applies to a strong Tuesday rebound from a deep…

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JournalSeptember 18, 2021

The Winner’s Circle

It’s interesting to me to talk to people about their experience with the stock market. I grew up in a household where the stock market was an abstract concept, My parents both…

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JournalSeptember 17, 2021

Is it time to buy?

With the September malaise in full swing, and many stocks over 20% off their highs, many people wonder if it is a good time to buy. Normally, the consensus advice for people…

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JournalSeptember 16, 2021

Quadruple Witching

This Friday, contracts on four different kinds of financial assets expire. These assets are derivatives of stock index futures, stock index options, stock options, and single…

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JournalSeptember 15, 2021

Corrections

September is coming in weak (as predicted). The major indices have been down for six of the last seven days and unrealized gains are slipping away in most people’s accounts.…

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JournalSeptember 14, 2021

Cutting losses

One of the most common mistakes new investors make it letting losses get out of hand. There is a saying on Wall Street that you should, ‘Cut your losses. and let your winners…

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JournalSeptember 9, 2021

Is the bad news priced in?

Today the Fed released its Beige Book (which literally has a beige cover, thus the name.) This report, released eight times a year, gathers anecdotal information on current…

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JournalSeptember 8, 2021

“To everything there is a season..”

It’s September and market watchers are talking about seasonality. In the stock market this term is used to highlight the tendency of markets to perform better or worse during…

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JournalSeptember 4, 2021

The three Vs

So the jobs numbers were a bust. A third of what they were supposed to be. As a result the market slid. This Friday being a long weekend, the market slid even further into the…

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JournalSeptember 3, 2021

Jobs Report paradox

Once upon a time, the government reporting employment statistics used to be a ho hum affair. Economists found it hard to drum up interest, and it barely caught the attention of…

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JournalSeptember 2, 2021

Industry sectors

One of the key investing principals that almost every professional stock investor heeds is the need to diversify a portfolio. This can be hard to do if your financial resources…

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JournalSeptember 1, 2021

Stocks should fit the investor

While I write a lot about the market overall, many people ask me for specifics about particular stocks. Sorry, but promoting a particular stock is not likely to happen on this…

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JournalAugust 31, 2021

Thinking about protection

The market is heading towards its seventh straight month of gains. Last year was an incredible year (mind you that was in part because we fell off a cliff at the end of 2019…

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JournalAugust 28, 2021

Fed Theater

As there were no further attacks in Afghanistan, the market’s attention on Friday turned to the Federal Reserve meeting in Jackson Hole. Many people are confused as to why the…

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JournalAugust 26, 2021

Black swans

A black swan event in an unpredictable or unforeseen crisis that causes extreme consequences. The possibility of such an event is a major market risk. Today’s attack in…

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JournalAugust 25, 2021

How do I start?

I have taught a number of people how to invest and trade options. Today someone asked me how I approach teaching something so complicated. Easy - start simple. I began this…

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JournalAugust 24, 2021

A little good news goes a long way

So last weeks gradual sell-off was arrested today by good news on the Pfizer vaccine getting FDA approval (which should allow organizations to mandate it). The hope is that by…

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JournalAugust 20, 2021

Picking up speed

The market downturn is taking hold. While the S&P and Nasdaq indexes eked out gains after a mostly down day, the DOW was negative. The mood is very much wait and see. August…

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JournalAugust 19, 2021

More of the same

So the market was down again today. It’s earning season, that is the couple weeks every quarter when companies report their earnings. Most of the earnings were good, but the…

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JournalAugust 18, 2021

Down Days

The market was down today, again. It has trended down for the last couple of days and there is a lot of hand wringing going on when you listen to the pundits and economists.…

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JournalAugust 4, 2021

Day to Day

Someone liked my recommendation to watch Cramer and asked what else they could do to get familiar with the market. There are lots of ways, but let’s start the basics. Every…

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JournalAugust 4, 2021

Learning about the stock market

I was finishing up some numbers on the trades I had done today when Jim Cramer’s show, Mad Money, came on my CNBC feed. I don’t really watch his show much anymore but I did…

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JournalAugust 3, 2021

Investing, trading or speculation?

Since you are reading this, I assume you have some interest in investing. I hope you have your savings cushion and you are now wondering about next steps. Before we start I…

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JournalJuly 30, 2021

Coming Soon…

Have you ever been cheated? Then realized it was your own fault? By simply letting our family’s hard earned retirement savings run on autopilot. It was a devastating loss…

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JournalJuly 30, 2021

Start at the beginning…

To be able to manage your money, you have to have some. This is why you save. Growing up I lived in a home where my parents both had good jobs but money always a source of…

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