How I'm dealing with the stock market bloodbath
I'm down a bit but thanks to Stillwater Mining my bleeding is not as bad as some. After getting out of my position in SWC, I got back in last friday on a correction, and traded back out this monday for a quick 50% profit. Good thing I did, because SWC is now down to below where I initially sold. I am getting very antsy to buy back in but this stock is still above where it was a month ago, so I will keep eyeballing for now.
My position in silver (SLV) is really being hammered, but I am happy to keep holding it.
I bought back into ABX (Barrick Gold) yesterday after it got destroyed, and it held up today, which is more than most other stocks can say.
After watching the strange action in the markets on the heels of earnings reports, which involved great companies like Intel reporting blow-out earnings and going down after, I decided to hedge all my long positions with a purchase of puts in AMD. I was looking to sell after the AMD conference call. If there is one thing I know, it's that AMD is a shitty company. And my hunch paid off today as AMD was down 10% on the open and I doubled my (admittedly small) investment.
I've been watching Corning stock drop with great interest. Today it dropped 5% and I decided to buy a shitload of February 19 calls as a gamble on their earnings report next week. I predict great things from Corning's earnings and outlook. I believe this pattern of dropping on earnings cannot continue, the earnings are too good. The market is just confused now but people will ultimately realize that having their assets in dollars is far riskier than a stock like GLW.
I continue to hold LVLT, JDSU, ERTS, and GLD, as well.