The Donald Has A Real Storm On His Hands
I don’t know about you, but I doubt that everything is A-OK at the White House these days. It started with a rumor first reported by In Touch Weekly, a tabloid, that the President had been having trouble with his martial vows and then it gradually escalated over the next few weeks. Of course, Mr. Trump denied it all as fake news, and that there was nothing to the accusation that the President had a tryst more than ten years ago with an adult movie star named Stormy Daniels.
The accusations went largely unnoticed for seven years until the Wall Street Journal reported on January 12, 2018 that Mr. Cohen, the president’s private attorney had paid Ms. Daniels $130,000 in October of 2016 to make sure that the alleged tryst never occurred. On January 30, 2018 Mr. Cohen produced a letter on the Jimmy Kimmel show that claimed that Daniels admitted the affair never happened. That blew the lid off the story when Ms. Daniels claimed that the letter was a fraud and forced Cohen to admit that he had indeed paid Ms. Daniels $130,000 as she alleged. Then the story took on a life of its own.
Ms. Daniel’s, whose real name is Stephanie Gregory Clifford, has a long history of success in the adult movie business as an actress, a producer and a director. She got her start in the business as a dancer at 17 and was the Penthouse Pet of the month in 2017. She is also no dummy. The affair was reported as long ago as 2011 by the blog The Dirty but was largely pushed under the rug when Mr. Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen threatened to sue The Dirty if they could not come up with more proof that Ms. Daniels claiming of the affair.
With this story constantly changing it angered Mr. Trump to the point that he eventually fired Mr. Cohen in favor of hiring the ultimate pit bull Rudy Giuliana to represent him in the case. I am not sure what Mr. Giuliani was smoking or dirking but on May 3, 2018 he told the press that Mr. Trump “repaid Cohen” the $130,000. If fact, he thru in the towel about the affair and basically admitted that Stormy was telling the truth and that The Donald was the one that had got the fake news rolling.
Why can all this matter? Midterm elections are coming up and if the GOP can’t hold its edge in the House and Senate, you know that they are going to try to get Mr. Trump impeached over this affair with Stormy. I can guarantee you two things will happen. First women will come out of the woodwork saying they had a little fun with the President making this the circus of the century. Second, the majority of the moral prosecuting voices probably couldn’t withstand the skeletons in their closet either.
Ask Mr. Seifert
I am constantly asked questions about trading and how to exploit certain market factors to insure success. Each week I will answer one of those questions with a short paragraph.
What is a collar and how does it protect my portfolio?
A collar can be used in many ways. It is used to avoid paying taxes in this period on a stock position that has a large profit. However, it can also be used for any purpose where you want to keep the stock but have no market risk. The collar is put in place by selling a call above the current market price of the stock and buying a put below the price. As an example, you own 100 shares of TSLA that you bought last year at $150. The stock is now trading $300 but you don’t want to sell it. To put the collar in place, you would sell the $305 call and buy the $295 put. They both will have the same amount of premium so whatever you lose in the call you make in the put and vice versa. You have collared the stock and locked in its value at $300. When you want the stock to trade freely again you can either let the options expire, if they are both out of the money or you can buy back the collar if one or the other is in the money. In either case you have protected your investment for the time involved with the option serial that you used.
The Wise Guy Report: The View From The Electronic Floor
Each week I talk about how the Wise Guys (floor traders) are finding soft spots in the market to take advantage of price dislocations in one of the following major commodities: Gold (GC), Crude Oil (CL) or Long-Term Interest Rates (ZB).
Will Crude Hit $80 A Barrel In 2018 (Bull Market)
Now that the equity markets appear to be trading in a wide congestion pattern, the Fed has promised to hold interest rates. While we have very low employment levels and precious metals are at the low end of their range, talk has shifted once again to the Saudis pushing their agenda of getting oil to the $80 a barrel. While the 32-year-old prince Mohammed bin Salman tells the west that he wants to keep oil level at around $60 a barrel, the truth of the matter is that he is trying to nudge it higher. For every dollar that crude climbs, the Saudis make an additional $3.1 billion of revenue. Saudi exports are up more than 750,000 barrels a day since the nadir a year ago and I am sure the crown prince would love to see them continue to climb. US fracors still remain a big part in the game as more rigs are added each day. The race is now on to see if the fracors can get their machine moving at a high enough pace to stop the Saudis attempt to push oil prices back to the stratosphere. We will see who wins.
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Each Monday morning by 10:00 EST, the plays for the upcoming week plus updated model portfolios for each strategy are posted on the site. The prices in the reports are Monday morning’s opening prices. In addition, I have a webinar on Wednesday where I discuss various option strategies, what is happening on the floor and answer any questions that you may have. Don’t worry if you miss the show. They are archived on the site. Sound Good? Good! You can subscribe to one or more of the subscriptions for only $20 per month on a month to month basis with no contract or strings attached. I think you will agree that this is a super offer so give it a try. Click on optionomics@marketedge.com to access the Optionomics LLC web site and get started today doing what the pros do – “Don’t Buy Them – Sell Them”.
Mr. Seifert