Lin Wei Wat-Ever-Goes

530 M-Sports - O2 sensor replacments 29 Jan 2011

2011-01-30T11:39:00.000+08:00

Finally the oxygen sensors came in from Singapore and went to Albert today to fix it up.
The process of dismantling the sensors looks simple although the mechanic needs to wait for an hour for the engine to cool down before starting to dismantle the sensors.

OEM Lambda sensor from Bosch, part no: LSH 25 - 0 258 005 259

Old sensors taken out. The one on the bottom of the pic seems dirtier

New sensors in place. 1 more at the rear of the pic (not shown)

Close up of new O2 sensors

The other day, the automatic gear light came up. Dang. Ask the mechanic to plug in the GT1 and see what problems do we have here. Did not solve the problem. Just wipe the codes off and see if it comes back the next time and we will see how to go about it then.

GT1 plugged in.

All possible error althought much of them are negligable or wrong error codes

Detailed description on error code

Automatic transmission error code

530 M-Sports - Fuel Filter replacement 22 Jan 2011

2011-01-26T20:41:00.000+08:00

Went to look for Albert at 10.30am and suprising there is no cars there. So started work on my car, changed the fuel filter and rear driver ABS sensor which occasionally give me fault codes. Suppose to come in today and change my O2 sensor but the stock have not arrive from Singapore yet. Dang.

Replaced with OEM Mahle fuel filter

Front Driver (RHS) lower and upper warm control rod

Undercarriage View

Underside view of rear driver wheel

Exhaust view

Frayed wire of rear driver ABS sensor for replacement

Old rear driver side ABS sensor

530 M-Sports - Polishing of headlights 20 Jan 2011

2011-01-23T18:16:00.000+08:00

The headlight are pretty badly chipped with stones and scratches. Today's Thaipusam holiday, so decided to give it a good sanding and polish. Started off with wet sanding with 800 grit sand paper, moving on to 1000 grit, 1500 grits and finally finsih off with 2000 grits wet sanding. Proceeded to polish with my old rotary orbiter polisher from the old car days, started with Menzerna Intensive Polish before moving to Menzerna Final Polish.
2 hours + for both headlamps. Results were not like some new headlamps quality but at least i got a pretty clear headlamp and quite happy with it. This baby need tender loving care !

RHS headlamps badly chipped and scratched

LHS headlamps badly chipped and scratched

LHS headlamps after sanding & before polishing

Close up of LHS headlamps after sanding

LHS headlamps after polishing

RHS headlamps with lights chipped and scratched

RHS headlamps after sanding & before polishing

RHS headlamps after polishing

RHS headlamps after polishing with lights on

RHS headlamps after polishing

LHS headlamps after polishing

530 M-Sports - Thermostat replacement 8 Jan 2011

2011-01-23T17:23:00.002+08:00

Recently, the water temperature has been rising to the 3-quarter mark and dropping after awhile and rising again. Especially after some hot and fast driving, temperature rises. Brought to Albert again on 8 Jan 2011 and he quickly diagnosed it as a faulty water thermostat. Lucky it's only a cheap replacement. Changed with new and running temp is OK now.

Dismantled thermostat

Fan, belts and hoses dismantled for replacement of thermostat

Plugged into GT1 machine for diagnosis. No major problem. :)

Drove up to Penang with Ah Sui after the repair at 6pm. Makan seafood at Tambun before going over to stay at Penang Northam suite for the nite.

Went to pray at Kek Lok Si temple next morning before driving back to KL. Some pics of Ah Sui driving on the way back to KL on 9 Jan.

E39 530 M-Sports 1st Major Service 13 Dec 2010

2011-01-23T17:03:00.001+08:00

Brought my new baby to Albert, WP Auto for inspection on what is required to be serviced. Albert came over at night on 12 Dec to bring over the car so the car is cooled down to be serviced next morning.

Changed fully synthetic engine oil TOTAL Quartz 9000 5W-40, drained off automatic gear oil and changed to ZF 5-speed auto oil for the ZF 5HP19 gear box together with new auto filter and (suprisingly the old auto oil is still in pretty good condition based on it's colour), changed spark plugs, new VANOS seals with VANOS hose, VANOS timing chain and tensioner, repair leaking steering rack with repair kit, changed front driver ABS wheel speed sensor, wiper motor and driver side power window motor. Left the car for 2 days with Albert. Damage about RM 4K. but the engine with replaced VANOS seals is excellent. The engine just pulls away with ease.

530 M-Sports

Mileage @ 126000 KM.

VANOS seals replacement.
Engine in very clean condition with golden yellow oil

Engine oil drained off for VANOS seals replacement.
Engine in very clean condition with golden yellow oil and no dark oil stains.

Timing camshaft off by quite a lot, maybe 10 degrees or so before adjustment

VANOS chain and tensioner before changing to new

Auto oil pan after cleaning.

Got my new baby 530

2011-01-23T16:09:00.001+08:00

Got my new car after dinner on 30 Nov 2011. Drove Chee Lee and Kah Fatt around Cyberjaya after that. :P Nice car !

Deposit for E39 530 M-Sports :)

2011-01-23T16:06:00.000+08:00

After 2 years of searching high and low with the right pricing in mind, finally found my car and bought it directly from an owner recommended through Herbert from BMW forum. Met the owner with Chian Howe and Chee Lee on 9 October 2010. Tested and look see look see for 30 mins, paid deposit straight away. :P

Lexus IS250 Test Drive, 15 Feb 09

2009-02-15T20:44:00.005+08:00

Scheduled a test drive for the Lexus IS250 today at 2-3pm at the Mutiara Damansara showroom. Went over with Kok Meng and Jong Yang. Had lunch at Burger King before moving over next door to the showroom.

Reached there at 2.30pm and Alex, the sales advisor arranged for the test car. It's black in colour. Sitting in front of the showroom, nicely polished and I think it looks pretty good. The car came shod with 225/45/17" Bridgestone Potenza RE050 at the front and 245/45/17" at the rear. Good performance tyres ! The car tested was the premium version, going for bout $300K+.

Entry into the vehicle is by keyless-entry and the car is also a keyless-go car. Just keep the keys in your pocket and press the start button to bring the engine to life. The seat are very comfortable and has plush leather seats. The premium version came with Mark Levinson audio... oh... it sounds damn good on the LS460 !

The dashboard and center console is the most boring looking of all the mid-size executive sedan. Plain vanilla straight forward.... bland.... boring... bahhh........ japanese... camry looking.... nothing compared to the german competitors. And there's this big bump where the rear drive-shaft is located at the center of the rear seat. It's so high up that it's quite hard for a 3rd person to sit at the center !

Press the start button and the digital meters (odo, tacho, etc) spring to life in white colour. The odo and tachometer makes a full sweep from left to right anti-clockwise before displaying the readings. Cool. Drove off to the Penchala Link. A gentle standing acceleration is not bad. Very mild-mannered drive off. Hit the Penchala link and took a gentle drive at bout 110-120km/h. Very comfortable and quiet cabin. Not until you hear what KM and KY says later....

Paid the Penchala toll and head towards damansara heights and took a U-turn back to the Curve. Once taken the U-turn back, i switched the gear from D to S. Sports mode gear starts with 4th gear and i floored the pedal, maybe like 80% down. Used the steering paddle-shifters to play round with the gears. In-gear acceleration is commendable and smooth. The car pulls away with easy. The paddle shifters is much more easier and friendlier to use compared to the Audi's. However you get the feeling that the acceleration ain't the kind you feel with the 325. With the 325, you can hear the in-line sixes revs up with tenacity and it's music to the ears. With the Lexus, you hear the engine revs, however it lacks the emotion and feel of going fast. Well maybe cause it's a Lexus ! Build for good cabin insulation and ride. With the paddle shifters, according to Alex, once activated it will stay in gear until red-line and won't change up automatically unless paddled with. Hhhmm....

Steering feels muted, not the kind of feel of the Germans. With the german's steering, you could feel the road, with the Lexus, it's not so much so. At speed, the steering is not weighted enough for a confident steer, not like the 325 or A4. With the 325 or A4 in Dynamic mode, steering feels weighted and you can actually feel more confident taking a curve / corner at speed.

On the way back to Curve on the Penchala, after paying the toll, it's pedal to the metal... it's pick-up from stand still is good... something like the 325 but nothing compared to the adrenalin rush of the Passat ABT or A4. Once in the Penchala tunnnel, we were doing like 140km/h or so... then I start to hear wind noise. Wat.... wat..... wat...... is this................... I am in a Lexus ! how can this happen.... and the noise is quite audible. Drove back to the showroom and parked the car.

Had a fag with JY and KM. 1st thing i ask how's the car and they complained bout wind noise, at 120km/h, on the way to the Penchala toll Mont' Kiara. They even make sure that they windows are fully up ! Hmmmm... ... Well i have to admit it the stretch of road before the toll has a lot of cross wind.

Well, lets sum it up this way, it's a good all rounder car compared to the 325. 325 ride is just stiff with the run-flats, which is bad in comfort. So it's a nice car to be driving, more of a family man kind of car. Well i guess it's just not for me. :)

Audi A4 Test Drive, 2 Feb 09

2009-02-02T23:42:00.013+08:00

It's a holiday today, Federal Territory day. Went to site for some work in the morning and later looked for Chian Howe for lunch. Went over to CentrePoint, BU for some good porky food ! Yum Yum !

Was thinking of what shall we do after lunch........ and since we were near to Glenmarie, I thought of going for the test drive of the new Audi A4. On the previous occasion, the sales personnel was suppose to bring the car to my office for the test drive but I was Fong Fei Kei. So we went over to the Glenmarie showroom and was greeted by another sales personel, Alex. The previous sales personnel who attended to me was not there today. Told him i wanted to test the A4 and he arranged the car for me.

Got the test car bout 10 mins later. Alex was explaining the various functions / gadgets in the Audi A4. Me and CH totally agree that the A4 has the best looking interior among all. The dashboard looks good. Much much better than the 3series, C-class & VW Passat. It looks just cool ! Trust me, Coooolllllllll............

I just need to speak out the details of this car, cause for once it has impressed me so much... so so much.... My initial opinion of this car is not the best, to put it the very least (apart from the striking aggressive front looks which is gorgeous!)

Lets start with the exterior. The front of the car looks really good, aggressive and cool, especially with the 14 nos of white LEDs each side acting as daylight running light. Cool ! One of the show cars even comes with 17" Pirelli P Zeros. Impressive ! The car looks bigger than the 3 series, and actually is longer by 7 inches. However the rear interior of the car is pretty tight on the legroom department, especially with the front seats adjusted to my optimal seating position. Done with aesthetics, what I am impressed are the gadgets offered compared to the competitors with this kind of price especially being a CBU car.

1st of all, A4 offers electromechanical parking brake, gone are the parking brake handle, now it's done with a push of a button, just as the Passat. It also includes parking brake function when stopped and auto-release when car is driven away, so you don't need to keep on stepping on the brakes at the traffic lights. The auto-release is very much smoother than the tested Passat. The tested Passat jerks when accelerator is depressed.

2nd, it has a 6.5" screen called MMI (multi-media interface), just like on the facelifted 3 series and new C-Class, but included at a much cheaper car price. All car info, radio-station, climate control are controllable thru the MMI, just like the I-drive on 3-series.

3rd - It has 8 multi-tronic gears with paddle shifters. The BMW only has 6 and with no paddle shifters. Chian Howe was saying the revs on the A4 was slightly less than 2k at 110km/h.

4th and most important of all is probably the Audi Drive-select. There is the Comfort, Auto and Dynamic setting. Self-explanatory !

So off we go for a drive. Alex explained that in the Comfort mode, the steering is much more easy and steerable with lower revs for more comfort driving. He switched over to Dynamic mode when I was driving and the engine drops a gear or two and maintains the revs up and with the steering feeling much harder and takes more effort to steer it. Auto mode is where the cars selects appropriate modes depending on driving style.

We drove off to the highway leading to the old Subang airport and managed to floor it. OMG !!!!! It's acceleration is superb !!! Comparable to the Passat ABT. This is a car which will probably win 9.5 out of 10 cars out there in a traffic lights shoot-out ! In the dynamic mode, the A4 is just so so willing to rev up and keeps on going ! In fact the acceleration is good from stand-still and all the way up ! The fact that you can select the gears using the steering paddle shifters makes you feel so much in control ! Alex explains if the car detects that you do not use the paddles in 5 secs period, it goes back to D and selects gears automatically. The brakes feel responsive and stops well too and so is the handling and ride.

Actually what really impressed me with the A4 is the power. I initially thought with only 160 HP compared to the 218HP on the 325 and although both has 250Nm torque, it would be struggling to move it's arse. But i was wrong,.....proven dead wrong with its superb go-go-going -gone feel !

We went over the test the 325 again on the same road. It was so obvious now that the 325 is lacking in stand-still acceleration. In fact, i felt that the 325 needs to be in the 50km/h and above before the power really kicks in. Pick-up is hmmmm... nothing to shout bout compared to the A4. Once moving, the power of the 325 is probably as good or better than the A4. But acceleration wise, i still felt that the A4 can beat the 325 from stand-still. Anytime !
Driving the 325 on the same route, I was speeding on the same highway and we went over a bump and the car actually took-off slightly and did not hug the road as much as i thought it would be. Disappointed. Need to retest the same route with the A4 and see whether is has the same problem.

Merc C-Class & VW Passat Test Drive

2009-01-10T21:59:00.006+08:00

Was busy for the last 2 weeks and did not managed to have time off for the other test drives. So today, Sat i managed to squeeze in some time for 2 test drives.

First, the Mercedes sales personnel drove the new C200 Kompressor to my office at noon. Took it out for a drive round my office area and took the same route as the one i took for the BMW 3 series.

First impression, the Merc definately have better internal trimming then the BMW. Much more classier and seats are more confortable. In fact the ride is as comfy as well. Taking over bumps and road undulations much better, providing better ride and noise insulation. In fact i took one of the road where the road condition was bad and it basically just rode it over with ease. Good points for ride insulation for the Merc. The handling is as good as the 3 series. Can't really comment which is better unless compared side to side.

Went to the Curve later after lunch for the VW Passat test drive. Was given the Passat ABT version for test drive. The ABT version is basically souped up package of the basic Passat. The Passat is powered by 2.0 turbo giving 200HP, 270Nm torque while the ABT version is a re-map engine providing 240HP and 330Nm torque. Hhmm.... sounds sweet....
The sales person asked me to gun the car down a clear road after the Petronas traffic lights heading to penchala link. Did what he said when the light turns green. Oh my.... i love the acceleration. It's damn fast !!! Did a hard brake approaching the end of the road. The brake feel is not as solid as the BMW. It hauled the car to a stop quickly, but the brake feel is just not as "feeling" as the BMW. There are 3 problems with the driven Passat. It has clocked bout 25k km on the odo. The suspension setting is too hard and ride is harsh.

First problem is there is a rattling noise with the rear passenger side when going over road undulation. For 25k km on the odo, this is not good ! Second problem is that when travelling at only 120km/h, there is an audible wind noise on the left hand side of the car. Bad !! Third problem is that when the test drive is nearly over, the brakes gives a gruntling feel and noise just prior to fully stopping. Worse ! Reliability problems here surfacing only 25k km, which is bad for a continental car !!

Acceleration wise, the ABT Passat is as good as the 325. It feels as quick as the 325 but the sound is not a sweet as the 325. Well can't compare a 4-cylinder to a 6 cylinder right :)

Test Drive of the BMW E90, 3 series

2008-12-27T23:00:00.005+08:00

I wanted to get myself a new car for quite some time now. Had thought of getting one and so far it has been merely a thought . But this time round, i am serious in changing and upgrading to a better car.

So I went over to Auto Bavaria Sg. Besi on Christmas day and sales person, Albert introduced me the new E90, 3 series after i told him i am looking for one. He explained well on the cars and the highlighted the difference between the various models and the old and facelifted models. Was initially looking at the 320i. But later he introduced the 325i Sports. Damn... The specs sounds so good...

The 320i has 156HP with 200NM torque, 323 which has a 2.5 litre engine has 190HP and the 325i which also has the same 2.5 litre engine but with 218HP, 250NM torque... now that is a lot of power. :)

So we arranged for a test drive today. Went over with Kok Meng and Jong Yang at 2.30pm.

He let me drive the 325i Sports first. Damn.... can't he take out the 320i first and we test out with a lesser engine... He knows how to sell... LOL

Albert briefly explained the available functions and features of the 325i inside the car. JY and KM was sitting behind. Took it out for a drive.

Not far out from the showroom, managed to find a clear spot and managed to floor the 325. OMG... it sounds so good ! The silky smooth inline-six just sings the tune you wanna hear ... and the accelerations is excellent i would say. Impressive ! We were touching 120+kmh or more on a short stretch of road, i wasn't keeping an eye on the speedometer, my eyes are glued to the road.
Took it around a stretch of badly maintained road with bad bumps and it handle quite well. The ride is a tad harder yet comfortble....not the kind of smooth comfy ride you expect from an Accord for example, but it's something expected from a Beemer.

Then we took the 323i out for a drive. This has the iDrive function, cool gadget i would say. For me, the 323 and the 325 ride and handling and power are quite similar. Would be hard pressed to find out the difference between them in such a short test drive, although there are extra 28 horses extra lurking in the 325i.

Later, I took the passenger seat behind and allow the sales person, Albert took the wheel. Kok Meng was saying that the 325i feels much bumpier when sitting behind. However, the ride feels roughly similar to me for both cars. In fact, the 323 feels harsher at the rear seat when riding over the badly maintained road i was earlier talking bout.

I told myself, SHIT!! I am poisoned ! They should label the 325 as a "Hazmat", Hazardous Material ! The power is so addictive...

My initial car i wanted was the E39 525. Although that car is an older car, i am waiting to test that out too and compare between the E39 and E90.

DELL 26 Nov

2008-12-06T16:03:00.003+08:00

Cut loss... sold out my Dell Dec 10 put options at 0.42. Bought it for $1.32. Loss of 68%. Dang. Wat happen to the 35% rule i have...!! Disicpline !! lack of it tat is...

New Online Broker, Interactive Brokers 20 & 21 Nov 08

2008-11-23T14:26:00.007+08:00

Dell is gonna announce earnings after close on 19 Nov. Decided to get some put options, based on previous earnings data, even if they announce better earning, the stock does not gap up by much and more on the underside if missed. In this kind of times, i doubt they will do well. So i got DELL 10 Dec put options for $1.32/contract

After close, dell beats analyst estimate by 6 cents but gives lower rev than estimates. Premarket wise, DELL gap up by 5%.

Went clubing @ Ministry of Sound. It's a boring place to be on a Friday nite. Crowd's not there. Anyhow, i managed to close out / roll out my ITM options last nite, so i m OK to leave my PC on a expiration friday and party.

Got home at 3.30am and looked at DELL. Ah.... upon opening, it started to fall till bout 8% below last close price. Sweet.

YS called bout 4.15am and told me market is coming up real fast ! Market rally on Obama's selection of his Treasury Sec. OK OK Time to take off profit. Sold off PRU Jan 17.5 puts @ $6.6 for a profit of $2.6/contract in 3 days time. Not bad i told myself. :-) Yat Sin, Cheers for this trade !!

Still holding DELL as i expect it to fall further.

1 day to Expiration Friday, 20 Nov 08

2008-11-23T07:56:00.009+08:00

Lately i have not been updating my trading blog as often as i do the trades. Lazy would be the only excuse. :-)

Ok lets see what has happen till date, tomorrow is Friday 21 Nov, expiration Friday which saw a lot of activity in my account today.

Basically most of my sold options are now ITM. Shit. Tat is not good eh... What happen is that most the the stocks fell below price level that i do not expect it to breach and i sold those options at price where i thought it would have a good support. BGC, MDR & LVS are very bad examples in which my sold options are deeply ITM. and i mean it's deep cause the delta is near to 1 !!DANG ! and it's options expiration on 21 Nov. Got to close all these out !

Decided to roll out & roll down the BGC option by buying back the sold Nov 20 BGC Put @ 11.33 and selling the Dec 12.5 BGC put @ 4.12 for a debit $7.2/contract. Remember earlier on, i rolled out to this BGC Nov 20 put last month on 17 Oct, expiration Friday as well. Earlier on, the reason i sold the 12.5 puts was cause i believe there is a good support at this level. I am proved wrong on 12 Nov when BGC fell below 12.5 and goes all the way down till $ 7.6 on 21 Nov. I decided to roll it down to the Dec 12.5 because of the excessive price drop. Made a loss of $7.63/contract. Not good....

I am lucky today :-) cause SWN gapped down sharply and fell down to $24 from $30 the day before. Bought back the sold SWN NOV 30 Call. @0.25 (which i sold on 20 Oct @ $6.17). Some nice profits here.

The LVS 7.5 Nov put which i sold earlier @ 0.5 on 31 Oct just because i wanted to make some little profit of $0.5/contract on the sold options was not a good decision. Dang. LVS is trading at bout the $4.5 range today. Sold option deeply ITM !! Roll it out and down by buying back Nov 7.5 puts @3.26 and sold the Dec 5.0 puts @1.61 for a total debit of $1.65 per contract. Now lets hope LVS touch $5 soon and i will close this sold position out. LVS last traded at $3.23. Lost @2.76/contract on the Nov contract.

MDR... this is one stock which has went all the way down and much below what i expected. MDR gapped down on 6 Nov on missed earnings estimate. Gap down sharply tat is !! and traded down from there onwards. MDR is trading at bout $6 range now. Roll it down and out again by buying back the 12.5 Nov puts @ $6 and sell to open Dec 10 puts @ 3.7 for a total debit of $2.3/contract. I would close this out even if MDR is trading near $10. MDR is just so so weak....
Lost $5.64/contract ($6-$0.34).

Sold LEN Jan 09 7.5 put @ $3.8 for a profit of $2.4/contract. Decided to sell of LEN Jan 09 puts even thought the option still has a fair bit of time left as i believe there is not much more room for it to fall further. How much more can it fall since LENs trading at $3.6. Another buck drop will just net me maybe another 90 cents or so. Might as well use the money to buy some other options.

To cap off, basically i was right on the direction of the stock but underestimate the amount of movement downwards. All the sold options are deep in the money and i have to roll em out. Lost some money there although not much. My pure puts bets of LEN & IBKR is making me $$$.

New Online Broker, Interactive Brokers 18 Nov 08

2008-11-19T14:01:00.003+08:00

Has been tough preparing the funds for the deposits for a better online broker, providing better commision rates and much more powerful trading platform based on software platform. Finally managed to sort it out with some help from Yat Sin chipping in as well.

Did the necessary application thru Interactive Brokers and all paperworks are approved last week. Online TT the funds over on 18 Nov in the afternoon and it's funded once i checked IB account later at nite. Tat is fast :)

I just checked on the overall account, my commisions totalled up to USD 1200 in just 6 months of trading with optionxpress. Dang. Might not be much to some ppl, but tat's a lot for my acc size.

So happy to change over broker now. Really glad with the new platform. Much more sophisticated and faster. Taking time to explore all the functions and features.

Thru IB, bought some Prudential options, PRU Jan 17.5 puts with YS @ $4/contract.

LVS 19 Nov

2008-11-19T08:39:00.001+08:00

LVS gapped down on 6 Nov and fell sharply after that. More bad news from them. LVS now trading bout the same level on the lowest of 28 Oct, bout $5.00. Decided to take some profits and sold LVS Dec 12.5 put option@ 7.4/contract (which i bought earlier on and from YS on 29 Oct @ 6.9). Made some good profit here. :)

New 24" Widescreen LCD monitor

2008-11-16T23:28:00.003+08:00

I got me self a new LCD monitor on 9 Nov at Low Yat Plaza. Went scouting around for a new LCD and found the cheapest was BenQ.

Got the 24" widescreen LCD for RM 935.00. It looks good. The main purpose i got this was for my trading. Get to see more quotes and etc on the screen compared to the 17" CRT. The charts looks good and easy to view on a widescreen too. :) Luv it... Might even get another one for wall mounting.

AIG

2008-11-16T13:08:00.004+08:00

Got this insurance policy statement from my old files. 10 years ago. look at the the statement of S&P rating on AAA rating.

10 years down the road, AIG is gone ! life is unpredictable !

LVS 12 Nov

2008-11-12T22:36:00.006+08:00

LVS has been thru some big see-saw ride over the past 10 days.

On 30 Oct, LVS was gapping up in early trade, continuing the rally on 29 Oct. I was telling YS i am still bearish on this stock. But at one point of time, the force of the rally was so strong, i kinda scare myself into buying a Nov 12.5 call option @2.98 as an insurance against my puts.

I sold Nov 7.5 puts @ 0.5 on 31 Oct, seeing that the rally was so strong and thought it might not come back down in the short term. Thought of recovering some of my losses in the bought puts by selling this.

The highest LVS touched was bout $16 on 3 Nov. At this point of time, my calls are making some money. LVS rally tapered off a bit and starts to drop on the 4 Nov. On the 6 Nov, it opens gap-down on news that LVS has financial problem with their bank loans. Closed out the 12.5 calls @0.57. A loss !!!
I sold some LVS Nov 2.5 Puts @0.25, I doubt LVS would touch this price in 14 days time. LVS closed at bout 7.80 on Nov 6.

LVS announced earning on 11 Nov that missed analyst estimate and came up with plans to save themself by halting some projects in US and Macao and planning to issues shares at $5.5.

LVS continue to drop till bout 5.25 now. My 7.5 Nov sold puts are limiting my gains now. I doubt it would expire worthless as LVS has announced to issue additional shares at $5.50.

My calls are down the dumps and my sold puts are increasing in premium. Dang..

LVS & SWN 29 Oct

2008-10-30T21:01:00.006+08:00

LVS LVS LVS..... seeing it rallying up. and i really meant rallying up ! skyrocketing should be the right word. The LVS Dec 12.5 put option premium is decreasing from 8.0 from the day before to bout 6.90. I decided to buy over the put option premium from Yat Sin and assumed his position. I am still bearish on LVS.

Was sitting at Cafe 2046 and looking at the price chart. Thru the few hours from opening, me and YS could not believe our eyes. LVS is inching up and confidently climbing. 30% - 40 % - 60 % - 80%. Wow we said how could this happen ! at one point it was up bout 115%. Crazy.

Well I am still bearish on it. Bought some Dec 7.5 puts together with Yat Sin when LVS was trading at bout $9.70. Bid-Ask for the Dec 7.5 put was at 2.0-2.0. Keyed in $2.1 and got it instantly.

Now on 30 Oct, 5 mins before market opens, LVS premarket price is bout $10.65. Read a news report on Bloomberg last nite that Singapore government is willing to assist LVS to complete the Singapore casino project.

OK lets see how this LVS trade goes... I am quite heavy on LVS put options now.

SWN came back up to close at $31 today. Managed to buy back my SWN Nov 22.5 put contract which i sold to open on 22 Oct @ 0.85, with a profit of $1.25 (60% profit) today.

HK Trip 28 Oct

2008-10-29T23:22:00.004+08:00

Stocks of Interactive Brokers and Optionxpress have been hitting new lows recently. I do not know the reason behind such moves, have not read any news on it either. Maybe it’s the general market that is dragging it down. What interest me is the increased daily declines in term of percentages recently. Checked out that IBKR is weaker than OXPS in the short tem. Bought some puts on IBKR 17.5 Dec at $1.80 / contract. Just checked that IBKR announce earning that beats analyst estimate on 23 Oct. But the market went down after that even though of the better earnings. Selling on good news maybe...

Traded over at Kok Onn’s house. Yat Sin called me and asked to closed out GM Dec 5 puts at $1.72. Which he is lucky cause GM rally up after that. Went back to hotel at 1am.

Woke up at 6am and switch on the TV to Bloomberg in the hotel room. Saw that the Dow rallied up to close nearly 11%, bout 890 points. Went back to sleep. Later in the day, I saw the prices of IBKR and knew the Put transaction would have gone thru. Open up my account and saw IBKR put option last traded at 1.15. Damn that is some lost in a night. I thought LVS would have come back up after the Dow huge gains, but after looking at the last done quote for LVS, I am convinced that LVS is indeed very weak.

HK Trip 27 Oct

2008-10-28T23:22:00.002+08:00

Went to the HK international lighting exhibition on Monday. Was quite disappointed with the quality of the fair. Nothing new to see and I guess the turnout of the quality exhibitors are less compared to the one in 2006. Economy is bad.

At 3pm, I text YS and told him that Hang Seng is down 15% with Nikkei down 10%. Market is in selling mode. Premarket data for European markets, FTSE, DAX, CAC are all down by 5%.

DJI was up most of the day but in the last 10mins of trading saw erases of gains and down by 200 points as well. LVS traded down on Monday

HK Trip 26 Oct

2008-10-28T23:21:00.001+08:00

Stayed at Harbour Plaza hotel near the Quarry Bay MTR. Had dinner with Kok Onn, his mom, Wan Yin and baby on Sunday nite. Went to this place like a tai chow place at North Point. Decent food. The egg yolk prawn is yummy. :)

Posting from HK

2008-10-26T17:53:00.008+08:00

I am sitting in the express train from the HK airport to downtown now as I blog this.

Was reading the book by Edwin Leferve, Reminiscense of A Stock Operator earlier in the airplane. The last important item I read before arrival at HK is that no one grow poor from taking profits in the market. But no one grow rich by not riding the profits and one grows poor by not cutting loss. Seems relevant to my position now in the market.

Last Friday was an eventful trading day in that the US stock market; DJI, Nasdaq & S&P500 limit down in their respective futures market before opening bell. Asia’s market tanked on Friday with Nikkei, Kospi and Hang Seng taking huge losses with lower earnings from Japanese manufacturer and grows of concern of recession (the usual concern nowdays). Back to the US markets, the limit of 6% premarket limit down on futures was hit and with DJI limit down at 550 points.

I called YS to inform him of the -550 premarket drop but myself not knowing it has hit limit down till he told me so at bout 8pm. For once, I am really excited looking forward to the opening bell. Not that I am happy that a lot of people out there will suffer and might financially die today, but I am trading here.

I was expecting opening at 550 down and maybe down till bout 800 points or so. Premarket prices pointed southwards for LVS, LEN bout 15% - 20%. So it MDR and SWN although not at those percentages.

I am glued to the screen for opening. What suprises me during opening was that in the first minute of opening, it did not open limit down. If my recollection of memory is right, it’s only about 200 points down in the first minute and range bound the whole day in the negative teritory only to close bout 300 points down. How could this happen when premarket is limit down but opens only slightly in the negative teritory?

OK back to business. LVS is down by 20+% , LEN is down at opening but back in the positive teritory after announcement of the increase in home sales only to drop into negative teritory into the later hours of the day. SWN is down to bout $27. MDR fell too much actually, way below my expectation. My sold MDR Nov 12.5 put is in risk of being ITM. Manage to close out partially LVS at $6.90/contract.

SWN 22 Oct 08

2008-10-22T08:14:00.000+08:00

SWN gapped down today from the close of $31 yesterday to bout $26.00 today. Looked a the charts and think that the $22.5 level is a good support, decided and acted to sold Nov 22.5 SWN puts @ $2.1.

SWN 20 Oct 08

2008-10-21T22:25:00.004+08:00

Shorted SWN NOV 30 Call and long the SWN JAN 2009 30 Call. Sold the short for $6.17 and bought the long at $8.42 for a net debit $2.25/contract. SWN was trading at bout 33.30 when the trade was done. Both of the short and long option are ITM.

Reason i did this trade was that i believe in the short term, like in within 10 days or so, SWN's price will drop to maybe $25.00 and hover around there. By that time i would have close out the OTM nov 30 call. Would have made some money sold options premium would fall more than the bought option premium. Purely a short term trade. Lets see how this works out now...

Expiring Options 17 Oct 08

2008-10-17T23:02:00.014+08:00

Today is October options expiration day. I have AIG oct 5 calls which i bought during the climax of the AIG story, right before the US govn announce to rescue it. Now it's expiring useless and i lost it all. Bought at the time when volatility was at the highest point. At a point in time, the Calls are in the money, but i am still losing half of the premium value mainly due to decrease in volatility.
Lesson learnt: Do not buy at the climax of crisis when volatility is at its extreme. Consider selling options and buying further month options with lower volatility. Or study carefully before entering into such trade at such time.

I also have sold BGC oct 20 put which at the moment is ITM. BGC trading at 18.70 now. Into the last 10 mins of trading, BGC was trading at bout 19.00. At a point of time, the highest it went up was 19.95. I would not want to be exercised / assigned on this ITM option and decided to roll it out to the next month, so i bought to close the BGC oct 20 put and sell to open BGC nov 20 put. NBBO for the spread was at 2.4-3.3. Keyed in for 3.10, later 2.90 and later 2.70 and still not transacted. Into the last 10 second of the trade, i finally gave up and key it as market order. Transacted for a credit of $2.52/contract. Phheewww...

FLO oct 35 call is a long gone story. lost all of that. FLO was a mistake in that i bought it in before earnings call and expecting the stock to gap up. Upon earnings announcement, FLO gapped down. I should have closed out the losing position earlier on rather than hoping it to regain back up again.
Lesson learnt: If the initial assumption is proven wrong with the position going against you, do not hesistate to close it out especially if the remaining time period is limited. Even though the gap might close back sometime later, rather not risk losing 100% of capital. Lose a little and come back later to fight again than being punch flat in the face !!

Had shorts in LVS oct 12.5 puts as well. LVS trading at 12.30 now. From my observation lately, LVS is techically very weak. Just hope that it close above 12.5 today so i do not get exercised or closed out. Well, at bout 12am, LVS was trading at bout $13.00 so that the 12.5 puts are now slightly OTM. Decided to buy back the sold LVS oct 12.5 puts in order to close the position. Would prefer not to risk it if LVS comes back down again below 12.50. bought the sold position back and profit 70%. after commisions. :-)

Sold MDR oct 20 Call is making some profits as i am quite sure it will expire worthless, MDR trading at 18.00 now. Made $246 per contract and with the MDR Nov 20 Call now at 1.75/contract, if i close the Nov call out on monday, i would make bout 15% for the whole MDR spread.

Short SWN oct 20 puts where SWN is trading at bout 29.00 now. Definately deeply OTM and gain back some there on the sold premium.

Basically all my sold options that expire OTM are just making enuf money to cover my losses in FLO and AIG. Well at least i don't lose much.

Equity Market Crumbles 11 Oct 08

2008-10-11T00:33:00.008+08:00

YS called me at 9.38pm. Told me Dow is down 650+ points. Hhmmm...

Checked on my positions. Looks good but those spreads are holding me back now with little losses as they have went way way beyond my expectations. Losing little down with those spreads of MDR & BGC but making with pure puts option orders on ADM and SWN. Just hope the sold spread leg expire worthless by next friday expiration.

Sitting down here at Winter Warmers @ curve at 12.30am with Chian Howe. Looking at the market. Had lunch with Y.Sin today and told him we are all fully invested in the market. How we wish we had more cash in the account now. He suggested to pump in more money. Hhmmm sound like a very very good idea. :) Ok told him to transfer the money to me by tomorrow and I will do a wire transfer over 1st thing on Monday. Hopefully we will have more funds in by next tuesday.

I expect the market to drop another day on monday before any consolidation into a sideway trading. Looking to close out some of the profitable puts which are expiring this month.

Reviewing what has happen for the past week on the global stock market, this is definately a financial crisis which will go down the history books. At least this is the 1st financial crisis i have seen so far. There is just too much fear out there. And fear breeds more fear.

Got back home at 2am and was glued to the screen again. At bout 3am, market was still down about 400+ points but was slowly inching up. In fact at one point, it was shooting up and gaining back some grounds. I have this list of stocks that i watch over and from being red in colour, most of them are changing to green. Market is reversing. It's the 8th day the markets are down. Might be a reversal. Looked at my portfolio and decided to take some profits off the table. Close out ADM Dec 20 puts and SWN Oct 22.5 puts for a decent profit. :-) Still maintaining the MDR and BGC spreads.

I am still maintaining my SWN Jan 09 22.5 put and 5 mins before closing, SWN was trading at bout 21.30. Took a gamble and sold the SWN Oct 20 put option for @1.60 / contract. If SWN does goes up and not touch 20 by next friday i will keep this money. DJI closed just 128 points down to 8451 today. This is a crazy week for stocks.

Equity Market Crumbles 10 Oct 08

2008-10-10T03:50:00.006+08:00

Tit ..tit... tit.. tit... and i was awaken by a SMS on my cell phone next to me. Look at the message and it's from Yat Sin. "Bro, u might need to wake up to see the market" was the message.

I knew something is terribly wrong for him to sms me at this time, 3.30am. my brains once again kicked into overdrive mode. Just slept at 2am but now i am feeling so fresh !

Looked at the market quotes, DJI was bout 350 points down... and down ... down down. The Dow is Down ! you would not believe the speed it falls as i am looking at my screen earlier. DJI closed 678 points, 7.3% down.

I am reviewing my positions now. I am 100% invested in this market. Pouring over the charts now... 4.30am. Looks like it will be another day of sleep deficit for me.

SWN is dropping today. Closed out my long SWN Oct 22.5 put for a 60% profit.

MDR & SWN 8 Oct 08

2008-10-09T23:01:00.007+08:00

Short sale ban ended on 8 Oct. Today, 9 oct, we are seeing colours on most financial stocks. of particular interest PRU, Prudential plunging bout 29% as of this moment. Might be another AIG??

Well i was pretty bearish on this market. Dow was down 5 days, taking out bout 1500 points or 14% off. Yat sin was saying the market is due for correction since it's 5 days of drop. yes i agree with him... partially...

My reason is that in this kind market condition, most of the crowd out there is not thinking logically. Herd psychology. I believe most of those out there are in fear. I personally expect a 8 or 9 days of continuous fall before we are due for a correction / rally.

Have some little bit of cash left in my acc after selling of HOV and ADM. Made 45% on ADM and 67% on HOV. I wanna take on more position. I feel greedy. Damn, this greed might either kill me or make me rich. LOL.

Did a Calender Put trade (also known as horizontal put spread as i recently learn) on 8 Oct 08, Bought MDR JAN 2009 15 Put for $3.34 & sold MDR OCT 15 Put for $1.14, debit spread of $2.20 per contract. Earlier on i sold MDR OCT 20 Call and bought MDR NOV 20 Call.

What am i doing both a call and put calender spread here..hhhmmm.. Ok so i expect MDR to be in between $15-20 range by Oct expiration, hopefully it would be nearer to below $20 by 17 oct cause i have a long position on MDR Nov 20 call. MDR trading at 18.50 now. Just did a trade calculation with all the MDR positions i have, at OCT expiration, max profit will be if MDR closed at just $20.

Did another trade with Southwestern Energy, bought SWN JAN 2009 22.5 Put for $4.40 and made a gamble with long position in SWN OCT 22.5 Put. Reason i did this trade was simple. Took me less than 5 mins to decide on this trade. SWN gap down and goes off the support at $27.00. SWN was trading at $23.50 at the time i bought the put options.

Looked at the daily charts today, 9 oct. Ooh my.... SWN closed slightly higher last night and it created a doji star at the bottom of charts. Forming a typical bottom support candlestick pattern. Little worrisome, SWN trading at $26 now.

VLO & BGC

2008-10-07T23:27:00.011+08:00

I wanna point a gun on my head and shoot myself. LOL. dang, i was wrong on my view of VLO that it would be well supported at USD 30 and would be back to the 35 level. Dang not that the stock did not go the way i want, but dang myself for taking it so lightly on a losing position. I do not blame the stock for not going my way, but i blame myself for once again not cutting a losing position and letting it run. Took the 0.55 debit spread on VLO earlier on but now i closed all the legs out at a loss of 0.30 ! more than 60%!

REMINDER LIN WEI !!! CUT LOSS EARLY !! MAX 30% of option premium !

Well at least my ADM and HOV is making some money.

OK did another trade on 6 Oct 08. sold the BGC OCT 2008 20 Put for $3.70 and bought the BGC FEB 2009 20 Put for $5.75 for a debit spread of $2.05 per contract. If i still remember the volatility of sold put was bout 60 points higher than the bought feb put. BGC has been going down the gutter for the past few days. Hopefully BGC closed above $20 in 10 days time for expiration and taking profit on the sold put position. I would still have time to sell the nov, dec and jan puts then if market condition and price allow me to for a high probability trade. Keep my fingers cross. :)

Meeting with Aaron, 7 Oct 08

2008-10-07T00:09:00.000+08:00

Went to meet up with my cousin, Aaron, who's back from UK for holidays. OMG... it has been ages since we last see each other! Maybe more than 10 years or so. Had dinner at Spring Gardens, @ KLCC with sis and Aaron. We talked a lot and all. So nice meeting up with him. We might be meeting up again next monday together with cousin Abigirl. Sweet..

Aaron if you are reading this, just wanna let you know i am so so glad we get to meet up :)

Techical Analysis of DJI - 3 Oct 08

2008-10-03T17:15:00.006+08:00

Only had 3 hours of sleep last nite and was having lunch today with a friend at Dome KLCC.
Came back and my mind was just too tired to go further without some nap.

Woke up after an hour of good nap and looked at the charts of DJI (Dow Jones Industrial). Went pouring back to 5 year charts of weekly DJI. Now wat i saw was suprising... the fact that week of 15-22 Sept registered the highest weekly volume ever in 5 years. The volume spike was so distintive and it also formed a Doji candlestick. I forgot what's the name of this Doji they called it, maybe it's called an "inverted hammer". A bullish reversal doji....

The lowest part of this doji was at 10459 and the candle formed for week 29Sept-4 oct is at a low of 10482. This level coincides with the support built at mid-2005 which formed the base for the DJI rally up to 14000 points, which terminated on Aug 2007. Constructed a Fibonacci Retracement from the support of mid-2005 to the highest point, with pretty good retracement levels at each downside support level. The final 78.6% retracement level coincides with support build from july to sept 08. Now this final retracement level was breached on week 29sept and to the 100% retracement.

Time period wise, it took 2 years to from mid-2005 till aug 2007 for the market to rally and 1 year for DJI to fall.

My simple conclusion without going into details of RSI, stochastic and MACD ... etc indicators...
we are now at a very critical support level. What happens in this few days or weeks will determine whether this will be a prolonged bearish market or a reversal.

My take is this, markets will drop further in view of the current global liquidity issues and financial firms meltdown. However, this is a time to becareful of a short term rally back to 11900 points in DJI.

Well like they say, look at the big picture and you will get a different view.

MDR 2 Oct 08

2008-10-03T04:03:00.008+08:00

Back in mid-august, i made some little muulah with McDermott (MDR). At one point i was up 200% with the put option as the price gap down on earnings. But it clawed its way back a week after the gap-down and i was afraid of losing the profits and closed out the transaction. Back then MDR was trading at bout $35.

I kept an eye on MDR knowing it's pretty weak. In fact the stock slowly but surely went down points to its weakness. I was tempted to buy Put options on it when it was trading at bout USD 27.00. Today it broke it's minor support at $25 and went down to bout $21. Looked at the options chains and decided and do a call spread instead.

Sold the MDR OCT 20 Call. @2.46 and bought MDR NOV 20 Call. @3.51.

The main reason i took the call spread was that volatility for current month was bout 125 and front month was at 105 with both options trading at about the same Delta, 0.63.
I told myself why not sell the higher volatility option, buy lower vol option of front month with more time to play around. Keyed in the trade at debit spread of 1.05. At the time i key in the order, spread on NBBO was 0.95/1.40. So wide ! Half an hour later or so, saw a msg popping up on my MSN from optionsxpress. Knew it was transacted then.

MDR closed at 21.40 today. Calculated that if it went all the way down following the previous downtrend and hits below 20, i was actually expecting it to hit $19 at the oct expiration. Sold Oct calls would expire worthless and i cash in USD 246 per contract. At tat time, about 35 days left in Nov 20 Call with stock price at $19, the MDR NOV 20 call would still have a time value of bout $1.80. Would close it out at that time and make a handsome profit of bout 400USD per contract. If and only if it closes below 20 by this month's expiration.

Valero 2 Oct 08

2008-10-03T03:19:00.006+08:00

DAMNIT, i am wrong on Valero!! Was on a Raya holiday for 2 days and did not really watch the market. Dang... should have put in a cut loss. Always told myself to cut loss on but now once again i FAILED TO CUT LOSS ! TNS ...........

VLO broke below critical 2 months support on 1 Oct 08. and it plunged nearly 11% today and i am now like a deer standing in front of the headlights ! Stunned and lost !

I closed out my sold 40 call at $0.04. But my 35 call is worth only $0.17 now. Lost more than half of my value of the $0.55 call spread. And i am still not doing anything to it.. Looked at the charts and decided that the breakdown might be a strong one as the volume is quite high. OK .. Do Or Die, Don't Ask Why... decided to buy a put, Oct 08 25 strike Put. VLO might drop in this week and i think they will pull back to 31 soon. Maybe just a temporary drop in prices. In fact crude drop a low of USD 94/barrel. crude's drop might be affecting VLO. Place in a buy put order at 50 seconds into closing at $1.67, where bid was 1.61-1.69. Nope it was not transacted.

Dang, I am lucky cause all my ADM Oct 20 & Dec 20 Puts are now in-the-money. ADM lost 11% today, closed at $18.72. Possibly because MOS misses earnings and possibility of lower ethanol prices, which drags ADM down too as they are in the same sector.

Dow Jones is down 315 points as of now, 30mins to closing. 4 mins to closing, DJI down 360 points..... basically erasing previous days gains.

Looked at my account value, hit a new high for this year. :) thanx to ADM and HOV too.

Gonna go out to b-day dinner tonite (3 oct 08), so i became smarter ... by placing a trailing stop loss on ADM for my OCt 20 ADM put option. Hopefully this will not be triggered. :)

Equity Market Crumbles 30 Sept 08

2008-10-01T13:21:00.004+08:00

Nah it did not tumble down as it did yesterday. In fact the market, DJI rallied up to bout 485 points.

Wat i wanna post here is a stupid mistake i made and hopefully after this, i would not be doing the same again. Thinking of the markets will do down again after the 777 points drop the day before, i keyed in orders to sell the put options i have on ADM, HOV at what i thought to be their respective support levels, ie at put options prices above existing prices if ADM and HOV continue to fall.

Well if the market prices goes down and the options are hit and sold off, i would have some handsome profit. But the fuking mistake i made was not to protect my profits, ie to limit the loss in Put option premium in case the stocks went up, which is what happened !! Back in my mind all i wanted was more profits and be greedy but did not really thought much to protection of profits and assets ! TNS ......TNS ....TNS ..... !!!

Well actually i did gave it a thought of putting a downside cap on the options, but it just flew by my brain control tower and that's all. WTF... back at 5am when i checked my accounts, basically all of the previous days profits are up in smoke and back to square 1.

Actually that is one of the problem with optionsxpress. I do not think they could actually place both upside and downside limit or trailing limit prices. Only could be placed on either side. Tried it once before and that's how i knew i couldn't do both side, unless i did not know how to fully utillise the features of protection on both side if there is one. Another reason to change broker ! Nope not that i am blaming my broker, just that i think the trading platform is not as powerful as some others out there. Need a platform that is made my market makers ! Yeh i m trying to come out with the min account financing over there... soon ...

Equity Market Crumbles !

2008-09-30T08:20:00.004+08:00

Woke up and saw the clock, 8am (30 Sept). Well wanna get just a little more sleep. Zzzzz... and not long after tat my cell phone rang. "Private Number"... ah i know it's Yat Sin, my trading partner. I knew something must be important for him to gimme a call this early. Took the call with a blurry mind and what i heard from him made me sprang out of bed so quickly and my mind was kicked into "Defcon 2" mode !

Dow Jones crumbles 777 points, or 7% ! Now from my recollection of memory, it's sometime now that the DJI was down by so much. Lately then max it went down was bout 4%. ah.. briefing.com confirms this. DJI has the biggest 1-day drop in history. together with the S&P as well. The white house has hit some snags in the bailout plan. that is why the market crumbles. If the bailout plan does not pass thru by this thursday when they will re-vote again, it is my believe equity markets worldwide will crumbles as liquidity in the credit market will be like the Sahara desert. Asian stock indexes will open sharply lower as well today. by the way, SEC short sale restriction will end on 1 oct, if it is not extended. I believe markets will be driven down once again on that day once the short sale ban ends. Equity are on such a downside pressure that many will just dump their shares or short it down.

I was little worried about my Valero, i knew in the back of my mind with this kind of market weakness, the debit 0.55 spread would have been transacted. Open up my account, and saw 2 messages. Yup it was done. Now i worry bout the calls declining in value. Check on it and saw the spread has widen up to 0.60. WTH.. guess the 0.55 spread was done near the $30 price and VLO closed at $30, that is why the spread was not down a lot, maybe volatility has bumped up the value. check the charts and VLO dropped till 28.5 intraday lowest before gaining back some ground.

Checked YS GM Dec 5 put. Yeh.. he is making money! GM closed at 8.5. lowest price so far. Looked at my total account value and i am smiling, :)

Valero 29 Sept 08

2008-09-30T00:20:00.002+08:00

VLO basically just tanked again today. Last trade i did the previous Friday, it was trading down at bout $33 before i closed it out. Now VLO is trading at USD 30.5. Drop bout 11% back to it's 2 month support line. Lowest closing for past 2 months was at 9 Sept at 30.51.

Generally the overall market are spooked with fear of another financial firm collapsing even though then US govn and other world's central banks are pumping in billions into the capital market in order to shore up liquidity and hopefully preventing a massive credit crunch. UK and germany earlier today just nationalise and bought into some troublesome mortgage lender and bank. Govn't buying off seriously troubled banks and trying to stave off an upcoming and major financial meltdown.

OK back to business on VLO. It's now back to trading at support level, just 2 trading days after hitting the resistance on 25 Sept. I am very tempted take this trade. In fact i had a keyed in order for buying Oct 08 35 call and selling oct 08 40 call, just waiting for me to send it over to the market. Selling the 40 call is definitely a good idea as it has a 99.5% confidence level of not hitting it. Forget the fat tail in the normal distribution for now... but buying a less than 18 days to go 35 call option... hmmppphh it's a speculation !!

What am i thinking and feeling here... a little fear that if these crisis continues, VLO might drop further and my calls will be worthless. Feeling a little greedy as i am putting in more contracts. But my other side of mind backed up with technical analysis says this is highly probable trade. Definately not feeling as confident as the trades i did last week. Maybe it's because the contract size is larger this time round...

OK latest price as of 12.52am, VLO at 30.83. NBBO spread 0.56 /0.63. All right... do or die, don't ask why !! lets trade this !! keyed in for debit spread of 0.55 at 12.59am, since the market is weak today and hoping to hit it soon. Ok time to sleep...

From Briefing.com. Now this is interesting... maybe we should start to look at Citibank.
"12:22 C Citigroup: S&P puts Citigroup 'AA-/A-1+' ratings on CreditWatch negative (20.25 +0.11) -Update"

Lost Opportunity in WB

2008-09-29T21:14:00.004+08:00

Back on Friday 26 Sept, i was contemplating whether to buy some puts on Wachovia Corp (WB). On Friday, WB sank about 25% on news that it would be another Washington Mutual. WB was in a trading range of 8-11 USD.

I was basically so knackered at 2am, i told myself, wat the heck, maybe it will go up a little on Monday and i will get those Puts then. Now, 10 mins before market opens on Monday, 29 Sept. premarket price for WB = 0.93 ! WTH ! It just collapse to its knees ! Arrghh......
Lost oppurtunity, but there are more coming. No worries :-)

The Feds and Treasury announced a 700B bailout plan in 3 tranches, 250B, 100B & 350B. Looks like all this are of little help to the market. DJI down near to 300 points, below support of 11000.

Effects of Vineger on Thinkpad

2008-09-29T00:33:00.002+08:00

Was at Cafe 2046 to have dinner with Kok Meng. The waitress who brought some food for KM accidentally spilled viniger on my Thinkpad ! OMG!! WTF!!! Grab the tissues and wipe em off. Took my time to dry it up. But my bottom 2 touchpad buttons ain't working... Dang. Maybe there's still liquid in em that blocks the electrical connection.

How To Win The Three Kings Card Game

2008-09-28T10:22:00.019+08:00

At this very moment i am writing this, i was only havin like 4 hours of sleep on a Sun. WTF. Not on a Sunday man... My biological clock rang and up i go, even though mentally i still feel a little tired.

The very reason for this late nite sleep, or early morning i shall call it, LOL, was tat we went up to have a good time in Genting. Myself, Chian Howe and Kok Meng. Yup we went up to "Speculate" and have a good time. Was having this little talk with our usual bunch of gang a few days earlier on the difference btw gambling and speculating. Nah I prefer to be called a speculator. Well, maybe cause the notion of gambler in the first place is pretty bad and ghastly. Well you guys and gals who have been up there will know the looks / "Face" of ppl when they are gambling.

Dang, i need some music.. Babyface sounds good now to soothe my tired brain.

Ok back to what i meant by speculating & gambling. My definition ...OK... anyone out there could and would wanna correct me ..
Gambling is when you are playing without the proper knowledge of odd / probabilities with you and hoping to win. Speculating is when you are playing with calculated odds and proper money management. And we are just doing that, speculating on the electronic roulette table (those where you place bets on a screen but the wheel spun by a croupier).

Did the maths...took out RM 200 each and sat there speculating. Nah we did not dip below RM 200 each. 1st rule of money management, lose and off we go. Constantly calculating the odds as it goes... Max was only making 100% return, but our target was 300% as we did a bias 1/3 sector bet. Went on for 2 hours and was not going anywhere. Bouncing btw the resistance and support all the time. Sien...

Oh then we saw this uncle, which we term him Sifu, cause he's such a big timer and we saw him a few time around. At least for us, he's a big timer. He came taking out like 1.2G and peppering the table. Whack it, in like 3 spins he did a 400% gain. We are saying, WTF, we are here for 2 hours and did 100%, he's doing 400% in less than 10mins!! TNS... The previous time CH said he has like 60G in his genting card. Sifu ! Oh well we left the table when we are breakeven... felt that maybe it's not our nite. Not going anywhere with the biasness.

We decided to go play Three Kings before we head home for the nite. We told ourself we wanna have a good time and some fun. For the uninitiated, Three Kings is where you play against the house, each person including the croupier is given 3 cards and the aim is to have a final total 1-digit card count higher then the house. eg. K34 = 7, A2K= 3, 346 =3, KQJ= Three Kings, Sure win ! You get what i mean.

When we got a place at the table, basically everyone was so quiet and looked so bored. My god... no one is having fun ! Down we 3 sat, and was chit chatting, talking cock ! LOL. Initially i believe those guys on the table and the croupier thought we are some wackos. Took of RM 100 each. There is this Indian guy next to me and a old couple next to him. We started putting some bets on some bad-odds bets like tie bets which pays 8-1 and Three Kings which pays 16-1. No one else bets on this except us. We 3 guys were talking, laughing, joking around. I believe the croupier initially don't like us for being so noisy. LOL. We were like the heart of the table. Playing small bets but having fun, enuf said.

I was betting on the 3 Kings 16-1 bet, trying my luck for a few times. Cards on table, called for a LCD TV.. opened 1st card and . Yeh, 1st card is a LCD ! Rub the 2nd card and called for Samsung.. bang up comes the samsung TV. LOL, i was so noisy that everyone was looking at me. Rub the final card on the table and pray (now this is called gambling !) and some of those guys helped to call for a plasma TV !! Open the final card and WHAM... 3 KINGS !! I was ecstatic, and so was everyone. 16-1 !! now that was actually the opener for everyone on the table to have fun. Like CH was saying, do kok play and have fun. LOL. Further nets on Tie won too !! Tie with Banker on a 9 ! Dang... sorry mates !

Cut the story short, everyone including the indian guy, old couple and croupier and some stranger was chit chatting and laughing all the way. They even placed bets with me on the 3Kings and Tie and won. Even the Pit Boss was smiling seeing us on the table. Like i say, when everyone starts having fun and the sour face goes away, money will come in naturally. And finally when everyone left the tables after the last game, those ppl had fun and i think they won some too. Wish everyone good nite and left, winning RM 50 from 3 Kings game, divided btw 3 of us. Cukup makan BKT la... But hey... trust me, we had a GOOD TIME !

Valero 26 Sept 08

2008-09-27T00:04:00.007+08:00

did the trade buy oct 31 call and sold oct 30 call for debit 0.15/contract on 25 Sept 08. VLO dropped today. basically most of the stocks out there are in the red. the Feds are in a middle of heated exchange with the Mccain's on the 700B bailout plan. the market is directionless but heading towards the downside, guess ppl out there are in fear and pricing the news in just in case the bailout plan fails.

Put in an order to closed the spread at 0.25/contract. NBBO was pricing it at 0.2-0.28, such a wide spread and i tot why not put something in the middle.
Waited ... was hanging out at Cafe 2046 with jong yang, kok meng and terence. Then in came this note from MSN Messenger that i've got a new email from optionxpress. Yeh... !! I was clapping my hands then..

Transaction closed out at 12am. 28% gain. monetery wise not much, but more of % wise. dang... this commission cost is killing me and eating into my margins. got to change brokerage...

oh dang... VLO tanked later not long after i closed it out, should have held it further. Greedy... hahaha.

Bailout plan

2008-09-26T22:07:00.003+08:00

Took a 3 hour time-out from work today. Sien... went for lunch with my trading partner, Yat Sin today. Ate some siew pai kuat and siew yok (BBQ pork) behind Menara Genesis. Good food! Kok Onn, my best friend brought me to this place years back. Then we went to KLCC to have a drink, Starbucks. Oh .. i went up to Godiva to get this milk chocolate in a tin, like those sweets you get in a tin, Eclipse i think it's called. Nice. Then there's this sales exec, Jessica, whom i got to know over there as well. :) Sweet girl.

Had this conversation with YS, telling him that those Senators are having some "full-throated conversation" over the USD 700B bailout plan for the market. checked with Briefing.com this morning, mentioning some close aide to McCain said that the plan was "cratered". I told myself and him, WTF.

lets face it, those smarty pants Wall Street investment bankers and traders just screwed up the financial market up with CDO, CDS. Screwed-up derivates. And now all of them are like half dead, if not in the grave yet and left the Feds who are gonna pick up the shit and the Americans are shouldering this up with their taxpayers money. well the entire world is gonna feel this financial meltdown as well soon. Wat a load of fun ! PUT LIVES !

Valero 25 Sept 08

2008-09-26T21:47:00.007+08:00

had this hunch that valero energy (VLO) would be coming back up from support of 30/31after hitting it bout a week ago or so. Valero had been caught in a band trading btw USD 31 - 35.5 for the past 2 months. at the point of hitting the support last 2 weeks ago.... for once i did not had the hesitation of doing this trade. bought Oct 35 Call on 9 Sept 08. waited waited... bang... VLO hit the upper resistance of the trading range. 35.5 yesterday, 25 Sept. Closed it out for about 73% profit. Was trying to trail the option spread price up to USD 2.35 but guess the option 's price has a tough time hitting it. Closed it out at $2.25.

I knew VLO would be coming down now after hitting the resistance. Hopefully.. Really. Did another trade in the half hour after that closed out trade. Bought OCT 31 put and sold Oct 30 put for a debit of 0.15/contract on 25 Sept 08.

Earlier, i had some losses on VLO option trades. I wanted revenge. I know i know.. revenge is bad in the market. A lost of emotional control is bad in the market. The markets tames everyone who has no control. Was just re-reading this book, The New Market Wizards, Conversation With America's Top Traders by Jack Schwager. They say you need to be emotionally detached from the market. Well guess i did not this time. I wanted to make back the losses i had with VLO. Well i just did tat last nite. Lucky me.

So we will see where the 30/31 puts brings me...

The Start of My Blog.

2008-09-26T21:38:00.001+08:00

Just felt like starting a blog. Dun ask me why all of a sudden i had this blogging urge. Had this thought of doing the blog for the past few days.

Initially wanted to do a trading diary to keep my trading activities, thoughts, feel etc... where i and the other ppl out there with the same interest could read and chip in, but now maybe i am gonna include more than my trading diary, something of my daily life too maybe... maybe.. yeh.. WTF. so the blog name LW Wat-Ever-Goes

duno how long this new found interest will last, we will see..