Making Money in the Market
What a fun week in the market. I’m making money.
The weird thing about playing in the market is that you can make money and feel like you lost.
Yes, I do mean playing. I have play money. I categorize it in the same vein that I would blackjack money or poker money. If I make money, great. If I lose it, it was fun anyway.(No offense to real poker players who really know how to play.)
It’s not a lot of my money that I play with, just some.
Some of that being in, of all companies to gamble on, MGM.
I was just talking(email) with my brother about this.
MGM just went on a tear. It’s been a big gainer for several days straight and as near as I can tell it is all based on an analyst changing his position on WYNN.
Holding on to some shares of MGM that I like to sell options on, I tried to guess where the peak was. It’s all well past the point of making money for me, now it’s just a matter of how much. And so I guessed yesterday that it was close to the peak just before market close.
And then it just continued to rise today. See, I made money. 9%. Potentially 40% (I sold option contracts, so I got 9% now. If the stock stays under the option strike through Oct, I keep my shares. Over, I get the other 30%)
If I had held out until today, I would have made 18% up front.
And somehow I feel like I lost money even though in my worst case, I have the opportunity to sell the stock again in 30 days.
