well to hedge their bets people commonly buy "protective puts" which will increase in value when the stock goes down.  I'll leave it to the experts to suggest the correct strike price etc.  Obviously though, you'd want an option that expires after the expected FCC decision.  If you get the quote for SIRI then click on "option chain" you can see the options for SIRI.  I'd suggest going to education-> "options playbook" and "options strategy" to learn about options.

I'm relatively inexperienced with options, but i'm sure you'll get better replies, but I think this would be a good starting point.

Cheers,

G 

Well nothing like body slamming a noob, lol. I take it that you're not going to buy it?

I'm well aware of the risks involved with SIRI. I'm just trying to learn.

Props to G for answering my question and if anyone has anything productive to add, I would like to hear it. 

RP - "body slamming" :))  - You need to understand my motives - I've seen so many people dreaming to stop been a cubicle slave and ending up all the same - due to the set of the same reasons:

1. Not having a reasong for a trade ( in different type of market there are different "reasons" - sometimes it is fundamental reason, sometimes it is purely technical, sometimes it is time for novice trader to stay in cash - now is that time

2. Not respecting the risk - I glanced over your trades - most of your positions are down more than 10% - and you keep adding without asking yourself a question: "What do I do wrong if my trades loosing money?" - instead you keep piling up you hard to earn money into yet another "no good reason" trade. And even if you close loosing trade - 33% loss?????? Is that your pain level? 33%?

Or you sell at profit ...3% profit? so u r ready to accept 33% loss in order to make 3% profit?

There are more "rules" - but they will not work unless you are going to respect risk and stop diluting yourslef with "long term investment into loosing trade"

 My point is: you asking wrong question ( still better than not to ask at all )

I think first and before you ever place ather trade you need to answer the main question - WHY DO you trade/invest? I know only one good answer - to make money.

And make money in stock market IS difficult - trust me - do not worsen it with absence of discipline and reason for trade. I sound a little harsh - mean no disrespect, but I was teaching trade classes - and I've seen a lot of spoiled kids wanting to get rich without learning FIRST.

 The least but not last advise - stay away from "cheap" stocks - you V will beat any other"money pit" under $5 you will ever buy.

I would post the link to my sitte but there are already a lot of upset people here who don't want to be helped :)) 

3.  

This is a better and more useful post filled with constructive criticism I can learn from.

You're right that it would appear I have a very high pain tolerance and am just plain dumb. It is true that I am inexperienced in trading and do not yet understand a great many aspects of investing. My goal is to make money, of course,  but this market isn't very conducive to my skill level.

I have reasons for investing in all the companies I have for the better or for the worse. ETFC was my first trade and I got spooked by quick and steady declines and sold (same with DFR). SOYO is risky position but I'm in it for the long haul of 5 years or more. So I put it's decline out of my mind providing they do not release information indicative of them going bust. Student Stocks has some interesting posts on that position which I've found helpful to me and I agree that Soyo is a good company. 

I, myself like UEC, a lot, and while they are in the red because they do not yet have full scale uranium production, I believe that the estimated 41 million pounds that they sit on will produce fruit over the next few years. I sold them at a meager 3% so I could clear up funds to buy 100 shares of CRNT because I thought it better. Danny Upshaw has good posts on this company and I wanted to follow his lead. It's been paying off as my investment is now in the green. I am planning to go long on it. I will be buying into UEC again, maybe 200 shares or so in the next couple months with a plan to hold for 5+ years. 

SIRI is pure speculation and probably not the smartest investment. This one is where I have less clear goals on. They have too much debt for me to be willing to go long on. But I never invest more than I can afford to lose. While my thinking that it will pop on news from the FCC may not be as refined as yours, I think the market, in the short term, will give me what I want if it does.  But at the same time, I'd also like to try to protect my position here even though i can afford to lose my total investment in SIRI. 

I was telling danny earlier that I would have either broken even or been slightly up if I had held some previous buys till today. But I chock that up to insecurity and inexperience with being new. I paid tuition to the market to learn that sometimes it is best to simply hold and that short term investment is hairy.  

I wish you would post your link because I check out anything that may benefit me. I'm still learning, I have no doubt that I'll lose money from time to time. If I sell CRNT on open tomorrow, my account will be $7 above my losses including comissions and so I'd break even.  But I don't want to sell just yet.

Despite appearances I'm not completely stupid and I understand what you are saying. I appreciate your criticism and I need it. I've done reading and I trade on paper. I will probably be learning for the rest of my life. I have trouble understanding options, but I just learned I don't have the income requirements to be worried about things like straddles so it lowers my education needs at this time. If one thing is clear, the earlier one starts investing, the better. The only way it could be bad is with no education on the matter and no guidance from fine folks like you. 

Now we are talking :)  ( and believe you me I neer thought of anyone on this board as "stupid" or "dumb", beside - my handle "DavidDT" stands for DavidDumbTrader - I need to remind myself that I am NOT smarter than the Mr. Market )

"Student Stocks has some interesting posts on that position which I've found helpful to me and I agree that Soyo is a good company"

Rule #1 - do not EVER trade on tips, 99% of tipsters are loosers ( I am in 1% :) - you may look at my site and judge my performance :) Also, scroll through my posts here - and see if timing/profit was right. Anyhow - you need to have YOUR reason to be able to stay with the trade. period.

"I, myself like UEC" - rule number 1 ( they all "number one" :) - do NOT fall in love with the stock - ever. If "you" like the stock or company ( mistake number one - never confuse "stock" with the "company" - no relation whatsoever) and market sells it off - then you liked it wrong.

"Buy and hold" - once in a lifetime WallStJournal is right - 10 year hold produced NADA, NIXT, ZIPP ... except for pain. There is no "buy and hold", no "set it and forget it" - GE was in and out of DOW 3 TIMES!!! ( an dthat is exception - all others were dropping out like pot smokers from high school )

got to go now  http://www.trading-to-win.blogspot.com/

 CRNT - I think you might want to hold it longer - it broke out of descending price channel on 4x avg volume, money flow improved first time in 4 months  - it did not base properly, so move most likely will choke soon, but I think 11.23 sell pice target for tomorrow might be OK. ( Learn to scale out of winning position - sell in parts - when u have decent number of shares )

Last word of advise - never watch CNBC :) and ... stay away from options - learn to profit from stocks first ( judging by your trades you will buy "cheap" front month options and time decay will wipe you out )

Geez - forgot to tell you simple secret how to make $1,000,000 on stocks...

stop looking at P&L - start thinking about trade itself 

Here is some investment advice. It should take you less than two minutes to figure out and use a major index like S&P or DOW.

The use of this strategy is simplicity itself - you buy the SPY (or a S&P 500 mutual fund such as VFINX) when the 20 week moving average crosses the 50 week moving average by more than 1%, and you go to cash (or treasuries) when the 20 week moving average crosses the 50 week moving average in the downward direct by more than 1%.

The 1% threshold is to reduce whipsaws - typically, on a real trend change this only keeps you in the market (or out of the market) for another week or two beyond making the move right on the cross.

If you go back and look at the S&P 500 for the last 20 years, you have never been left out of a bull, or in a bear, if you followed this signal. Never.

It is what I have been trying to tell everyone. Yes there are very sharp gains followed by slow declines, but why would you invest in a bear market. Use the FXS, FXE, FXY or some treasury fund. Invest less than 10% or in my case I am trying to go 100% puts. Again it is your choice.

Snowman - why would you want to make me work?

I just backtested - I don't know if this "works in real life"

from 1970 to 2008 time "IN MARKET" is about 4 years with "IN MARKET profit" = 7.4%, so what to do for 34 years? short? day trade? wait for "in market" time? there is no system built on any indicators wich produces profit over 30% with huge drowdowns to boot.

Hey, snowman, am I the guy who's stock went up 30% the next day? hehe.

Anyways, I only deal in options sparingly.  I only buy them if they are:

1) cheap

2) long term

Occasionally, I'll buy a shorter term option, but those are usually unique circumstances. 

However, I am looking more into selling options. 

Personally, if I have one fault in my trading, it's that I sell too soon.  I've done that with AFSI and now CRNT.  When I make a quick 10%+ profit, I tend to unload.  I try to research my companies well, but I've lost huge profits before by trying to "sell at the top".  So, I tend to sell too soon and book some smaller, but profitable trades, rather than trying to ride it out.  Such is the nature of swing trading. 

This morning, I made about $1 per share on my CRNT, and then the stock rose another 50cents from my sales price.  I lost about $200 by not holding, but I made about $285 by selling when I did.  I can't complain.  BUT, I did break one of my trading rules.  I always prefer buying or selling in the evening.  It seems like if there's good news in the morning, you can usually expect to ride it out throughout the day - up down up down, but usually ending up a good bit.  This happened to today with CRNT.  Now, I wish I hadn't sold, but hey, I can't complian on making a 10%-12% gain in four or five days time.  Profit is Profit.  (but, making that extra $200 sure would have been nice.)

Options are something that it's best to tiptoe into.  I suggest buying a couple hundred shares of a good stock and selling short term options.  Get your feet wet that way and don't mess around with puts, strangles, and that sort of stuff until you're ready.  Remember, an option can expire worthless, but stock will usually maintain it's value, even if you have to wait out the dips.

For example, 1 month, 2 month, and three month AAPL calls that cost thousands of dollars a few months ago ($200+ per share calls back in December) expired worthless.  The stock tanked.  I owned AAPL *stock*.  I was down a lot.  But now, I'm getting closer to break even.  and when AAPL hits $200 (actually $160) again, I'll be in the money. 

Anyways, I tend to follow snowman's trades fairly often because he makes his bread and butter doing the put/call thing.  I learn from those trades.  But so far, I like owning actual stock.  It may dip, but unless the company goes bankrupt, it's usually worth something.  I've had friends get burned badly by option plays.  ...but look, cheap options aren't so bad.  I just advise caution.  If you buy a high priced option and the stock tanks, you can kiss that money goodbye.  So, then, you buy the put to offset the call option.  But then, you've got more money invested contracts that expire in time.  There are pros and cons to the whole set up, but from my experience, just picking a good company and riding it out is a lot easier.  If you buy a sirius call/put combo, that might be a way to get your feet wet in options, but I wouldn't put too much money into it unless I was fairly sure that I knew what was going on with the merger and was familiar with the stock.

In regards to the merger, I'm not familiar enough with it right now to give decent commentary.

I do some option trading, a very small amount, but I'm considering selling 30 day expiration calls.  If I had done that with CRNT, I would have picked up more $, I'm almost positive. 

Hay RP whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaats Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup!!!!!

I realize you might have exited your position already, but this is my take on SIRI

Utilizing the Trade King Crystal Ball and handy tools you can answer your own questions on what should be done with your investment in SIRI. It is hard for any community member or myself to tell you what to do in your trading but looking at the information that is what i would do.

If I look at SIRI Technical indicators under Technical Analysis SIRI has three short term bullish indicators. commodity Channel, short term KST and Triple moving avg. crossover. Not the greatest in the world of indicators.

Under the peer performance on the stock qoute page is showing red amongst and with its peers.

Dreamworks is showing a little green. But Nothing special or exciting about it.

Market Grader under Research Reports is showing bad grades and a SELL RATING. pretty much on the money on that indicator. In my opinion.

Aside from that an Excellant Investor will look at all the data contained in the quarterly reports and Annual Reports. They are boring to read, but the numbers in the reports are more accurate and can be used for caluculations Before Investing in the company. Granted Websites do an ok job of posting, but a good investor does there own DD and decision on Whether a company is actually worth investing in, after all it is your money.

Second most ask why a daytrader or Swing trader would even look at that junk. Reality is that they do and they have a handfull of good quality stocks that they play in and out of constantly. Why get stuck losing on a bad company? If everyone knows it is bad, chances are there isn't going to be THE GOOD volume to aide in the endeavor of profit!!! (Think about this for awhile in the meaning)

Good Volume is all of us that are going to hold long term in a Good company. We already know that there are people betting against the share price and there are people that jump in then jump out on technical data. But that is what makes it a Good stock and usually the higher priced stocks above $35 that are good will fluctuate, but the overall trend will be up. like DE, CPB, HNZ, CAT, MAN ect. and pay a dividend to boot. and these can be optioned or daytraded.

Looking at your portfolio seems that your entering and exiting trades quickly and buying multiple times through out a day and then quickly selling by the end of close. Your ROI was -25% yesterday and positive today at 12%. not bad. but I believe with a little more thought and a little better strategy your winning could have been better by not playing the penny stocks in this type of market. Plus would eliminate the risk with the added benefit of more positive gain. 

I believe your 12% gain is wiped out from transaction costs. If this was a bull market, and no problems were existing, your ROI would have been a very nice positive and I think you would have much more profit. But Reality, it isn't. I would, if I were you step back, arm yourself with some more information on day trading and swing trading through some good books or TradeKing education site. Keep the majority of your cash that you are saving in the money market. about 75%, use the other 25% on better plays that have better intermediate term indicators along with better short term indicators. I also would, if I were you, pick stocks that also pay a dividend to play. or that are getting ready to split. This will increase your chances of success and possibly enhance your profit.

First look at the Finiancials and make sure the overall fundamentals are present b4 putting your hard earned dollars on a company. Even in Daytrading. Peace

My strategy is dividend stocks or growth stocks, by 100 to 200 shares wait for them to double in share price and sell half my shares. I recoup my investment and leave the share to grow for free.

If that sounds better to you then be my guest and use the strategy, it is from thebowserreport.com. One bit of advice the bowser system hasn't been doing well on the smaller stocks under three dollars. The system is working out better for me on stocks between $4 and up.

I hope this helps in your decision, and wish you all the best in your thoughtfull investments. Peace