24 Ways to Make High Returns from a Stock Market Crash

Today, the stock market, as measured by the Dow Jones Industrial Average, was down over 250 points. The Standard & Poor’s 500 was down almost 15 points, and the NASDAQ was down over five points. Walmart (WMT), a stock that has performed well over the past year, tanked by more than 10%today.

Is this a sign of things to come? If so, there are many ways to profit from a stock market crash without having to incur the unlimited risk or shorting stocks, and without having to buy puts with their own set of limitations.

Another way to play the short side of the stock market is to buy the triple leveraged bearish exchange traded funds. These ETFs provide triple the inverse return of indices. They are available for general market indices,  specific industries, and countries.

There are over two dozen triple leveraged bearish ETFs. They have significant volatility, and may have wide bid and asked spreads, and low volume. Plus, the losses can be quick and substantial. They ETFs are designed for short term trading, not long term holds.

Of course, the advantage of these trading vehicles is that they are a way of shorting various indexes without actually shorting an ETF, plus there is a limit on the downside.

One of the more actively traded triple bearish ETFs is the ProShares UltraPro Short Dow30 (SDOW). The average daily volume is 1.3  million shares and the ETF was up 3.16% for the day.

In terms of industries, you have such 3X bear ETFs as the Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bear 3X ETF (SOXS) and the Direxion Daily Energy Bear 3X ETF (ERY).

To access a free list of over two dozen of these investments, go to triple leveraged bearish ETFs.

6 Ways to Make Money in a Stock Market Crash

There are lots of ways to make money from a falling stock market, some speculative, and some not so risky. It’s great that these options are available, because small investors need a way to protect themselves, and even make money on the downside. Many traders and investors believe that the stock market has reached a peak. Here are several options to choose from.

1. Shorting Stocks

OK, let’s get this one over with first because it is one of the most speculative and risky ways of making money in a bear market. In simple terms, you make money when the stock goes down and you lose money when the stock goes up. What technically happens is that you borrow the shares and immediately sell them (this all is done electronically through your brokerage firm) and since you owe those shares, you eventually have to buy them back at some price, hopefully a lower price. The difference between your sale price and eventual purchase price is your profit.

Can you make a lot of money shorting stocks in a bear market? Yes. Is it speculative? Very. Can you lose a lot? Most definitely. This is why it is so risky. When you short a stock, the lowest point it can drop to is zero. Whereas, if the stock goes up, the amount it can increase is unlimited. Let’s say you short 100 shares of a stock at $20 a share. If you put up funds equal to 100% of the value of the shorted amount, and the stock drops to zero, you’ve made a 100% return. However, suppose the stock goes from 20 to 100, you end up losing 400% of your money with lots of margin calls along the way.

Have I shorted stocks? Yes. Have I made money from shorting? Yes. Have I lost a big chunk of my profits by closing out my short positions and going long, trying to predict the bottom? In the interest of full disclosure, yes. Several years ago, I made the second worse decision I could have made when shorting, and that is predicting the bottom of the market too soon. The worst decision would have been to hold on to my short positions after the market bottomed and started to make a quick rise. Often when the market bottoms at the end of a bear market, the rise is very sharp and fast, and can totally wipe out short position profits very quickly and then some.

Just before the big crash several years ago, shortly after I shorted a high priced stock selling for about $100 a share, the position went against me by 13 points. That’s a $1,300 loss for just one hundred shares in one day! I still had the short position after the market closed, and had the pleasure of trying to sleep at night, wondering if there was going to be a takeover the next morning or some other good news that would drive the price even higher, making my losses worse. Fortunately, the stock crashed along with the rest of the stock market and I ended up making a profit, but it was very stressful waiting for it to happen.

One way to hedge yourself is buy buying a call option on the stock you sorted, to protect yourself in the event the stock rises.

So in summery, do I think you should short stocks? Absolutely not. The risk is unbelievable. If you understand options real well, hedged short selling might be OK, as long as you are an experienced trader, and know what you’re doing.

2. Short (Bearish) ETFs

There is a type of Exchange Traded Fund called the Bearish ETF or Short ETF. What these ETFs do is provide a return opposite to the return of the index, sector, or industry that it is tracking.

For example, the Short Dow30 ProShares (DOG) provides a return that is the inverse of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. If the Dow goes down 2%, the DOG goes up 2%. The Short QQQ ProShares (PSQ) ETF gives a return that is the inverse of the NASDAQ 100 Index. If you are bearish on gold, you can buy the PowerShares DB Gold Short ETN (BGZ) ETF.

The nice thing about these short ETFs is that your losses are limited. Also, if you are long individual stocks that you don’t want to sell, these can be good for protecting your portfolio on the downside.

3. Leveraged Bearish ETFs

If you like volatility, you will love the leveraged bearish ETFs. What these ETFs do is provide double, and in some cases triple the inverse return of indices. One example is the UltraShort Telecommunications ProShares (TLL), the Rydex Inverse 2x S&P Select Sector Health (RHO), the UltraShort Consumer Services ProShares (SCC) and the Rydex Inverse 2x S&P Select Sector Tech (RTW).

In addition there are over a dozen triple leveraged bearish ETFs. Talk about price moves! The volatility of these things is unbelievable, and so are the wide bid and asked spreads that I’ve seen occasionally.

The advantage of these trading vehicles is that they are a way of shorting on margin, with a limit on the downside. The disadvantage is that the losses are quick and large, especially with the triple leverage short ETFs.

4. Bear Funds

It may be hard to believe, but there are actually a large number of bearish mutual funds for the long term bearish investors.

There are many bearish mutual funds, including the Grizzly Short Fund (GRZZX), the PIMCO StocksPlus TR Short Strategy Institutional Fund (PSTIX), and the ProFunds Bear Investors Fund (BRPIX). These funds have minimum investments ranging from $1,000 to $5,000,000.

I’m not sure why anyone would invest in these unless it is for some kind of a long term hedge.

5. Puts

A put is the option to put your stock to someone at a particular price within a certain period of time. In other words, if you own a stock that is trading at 22 and you buy a put at a dollar [puts and calls are priced on a per share basis, so a put at $1 would cost $100 for 100 shares] which gives you the right to put your stock to someone at $20 per share within three months, there are a couple of things that could happen. The stock could tank to $14 a share and you could put your stock at 20, or just resell the put for 6. You would be far better off than just doing nothing. And if the stock goes up or stays about the same, you are just out your $100 for the option. Puts can be useful for experienced traders.

6. Cash

There is one other way to make money in a bear market. Sell everything, and keep your money in cash, preferably a T-bill money market fund, that only owns T-bills. (Repos are supposed to be just as safe, but these days, I would look for the ones that just own the T-bills. I will cover repos in another article.) The advantages are that you can’t lose money and you can receive an income from the investment.

Hopefully, this post will provide you with some ideas to hedge your portfolio in the event the stock market does tank, and maybe even make money from the market drop.

Disclosure: Author didn't own any of the above at the time the article was written.

10 Ways to Survive an Upcoming Catastrophe Part 2

12 More Must Have Survival Products

If you missed the article last month that I wrote called 10 Ways to Survive an Upcoming Catastrophe, you should really check it out first.

When you see the news about Brexit, the election, the economy. the candidates, the toppy stock market, the terror attacks, and the shootings, you may be a little concerned. Which is why I wrote about products you may want to stock up on, in the event you have no electricity, natural gas, heat, Internet, or water.

Since I wrote that article, I have received many suggestions of additional survival items that you may want to consider. Here they are.

1. SurvivalSPARK Emergency Magnesium Fire Starter with Compass and Whistle
This is a cool tool The whistle and compass are added bonuses.

2. Cyalume SnapLight Red Light Sticks
These are great because they last for twelve hours.

3. Emergency Survival Mylar Thermal Reflective Cold Weather Shelter Tube Tent
I mentioned the mylar thermal blanket in my previous article. But to compliment that, you should get this mylar tent.

4. Safe-T-Proof Solar, Hand-Crank Emergency Radio, Flashlight, Beacon, Cell Phone Charger The fact that this runs off both solar and hand crank is a great feature. I don't have this yet but I've heard great things about it and I plan to make this my next survival product purchase.

5. Potable Aqua Water Purification Tablets
Have you ever had giardia? You don't ever want to get it, unless you enjoy spending a week in the bathroom. This will purify water, so you won't get it from spring or river water.

6. Build the Perfect Bug Out Bag
Do you think you may need to skip out quickly? Get a Bug Out bag, fully stocked. Keep it in your trunk.

BOOKS

7. 100 Deadly Skills: The SEAL Operative's Guide

8. Prepper's Long-Term Survival Guide

9. Bushcraft 101: A Field Guide to the Art of Wilderness Survival

FOOD

10. Mountain House Biscuits and Gravy

11. Mountain House, Raspberry Crumble

12. Mountain House Just In Case... Essential Bucket


Hopefully, you will get these survival items but won't need them. They should be considered cheap insurance.

Exclusive Interview with Ken Fisher, Billionaire Money Manager, about the Stock Market

The following fascinating interview was provided by Kenneth L. Fisher, head of the money management firm Fisher Investments, long time columnist for Forbes Magazine, billionaire, and author of numerous books. His latest book is Beat the Crowd: How You Can Out-Invest the Herd by Thinking Differently, which I highly recommend.

Ken Fisher

You may have seen him on TV commercials, or you may have spotted his magazine ads. If you are a reader of Forbes, you would definitely find his column. Fisher is on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans and Forbes world billionaires list. According to Investment Advisor magazine, he is one of the 30 most influential people in the investment advisory business over the last 30 years. Fisher is considered to be the largest wealth manager in the United States.

We cover a lot in this interview, including:

• Whether or not we are still in a bull market
• What it means to be a true contrarian
• What the professional forecasters are predicting for the stock market this year (and why they are probably wrong)
• Using the Leading Economics Index to predict the next few months
• The concept of "not in the next 30 months"
• Positive and negative "Elephants in the Room"
• Concerns about the future consequences of punishing good banks for bailing out bad banks
• Annuities, terrorism, climate change, debt, and much, much more.

Books by Ken Fisher

Here are some other books by Ken Fisher, which are worth checking out:

The Only Three Questions That Still Count: Investing By Knowing What Others Don't
(A great companion to the Beat the Crowd book.)

The Ten Roads to Riches: The Ways the Wealthy Got There (And How You Can Too!)
(This is actually my favorite book of his, maybe because it is so different from all the other finance books. It basically tells you ten ways, with all the steps, to get really rich, including "marrying a billionaire." Lot's of insight and lots of humor.)

Markets Never Forget (But People Do): How Your Memory Is Costing You Money and Why This Time Isn't Different

The Little Book of Market Myths: How to Profit by Avoiding the Investing Mistakes Everyone Else Makes

Debunkery: Learn It, Do It, and Profit from It-Seeing Through Wall Street's Money-Killing Myths

How to Smell a Rat: The Five Signs of Financial Fraud
(If you want to avoid getting ripped off, you really need to read this book.)

Other Books that Ken Fisher Recommends

In Chapter 8 of his Beat the Crowd book, he recommends several books for additional reading. Here are many of those books:

The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing

Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator

Contrarian Investment Strategies: The Psychological Edge

Where Are the Customers' Yachts?: or A Good Hard Look at Wall Street

That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Not Seen: The Unintended Consequences of Government Spending

How Capitalism Will Save Us: Why Free People and Free Markets Are the Best Answer in Today's Economy

Business Cycles

How to Lie with Statistics

A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960

Growth and Welfare in the American Past: A New Economic History
The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves

Senseless Panic: How Washington Failed America

The Interview

You will certainly enjoy all this great information that Ken Fisher provides.

To stream the interview, click:

HERE

You can download as an mp3 by right-clicking here and choosing "save as."

Let us know what you think about this interview by entering your comments in the comment section below.


All opinions are those of Ken Fisher, and do not represent the opinions of Stockerblog.com or the interviewer. Neither Stockerblog nor the interviewer nor the interviewee are rendering tax, legal, or investment advice in this interview.

5 Ways to Protect Yourself From a Stock Market Crash

Don't be the fish in a Bear Market

The first day of this year, 2016, the stock market tanked. As I write this on Wednesday, January 6, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 237 points.

If you are concerned about the stock market and you think we are heading into a bear market, there are certain ways to protect yourself on the downside.

Here is a list of five ways to trade which can provide some protection during a period of falling stocks.

Short Stocks 

1. You can short stocks. If you have never shorted a stock before, this is what happens in simple terms. You borrow stock, you sell the stock, and eventually you have to buy the stock back eventually to return the stock that was borrowed, hopefully at a much lower price. (You don't actually see all this happening; it all happens electronically.) The different between what you sale the stock for and the price you buy it back is your profit (or loss). Traders should be aware that this can be a very risky trade and the potential loss from selling short is infinite.

Buy Put Options 

2. You can buy put options to protect stocks that you currently own, or you can buy a put on a stock you believe is going to drop. A put is the right to sell a stock at a certain price within a set period of time.

Here is an example. A stock is trading at 50, you buy a put with a strike price of 49. The strike price is the price at which you can put the stock to someone. You pay 1 for the option. If the stock drops to 45, your one dollar option increases to at least 4 (the difference between the 49 and the 45). If the stock closes at 49 or higher, then the option expires worthless, so your loss is limited to the cost of the put.

Writing Covered Calls

3. Writing calls against your stocks is one way to help protect your portfolio on the downside. Maybe you don't want to sell out of you stock positions, but you want some way to help reduce the loss on the downside. You can write covered calls. There is the chance that your stock could get called away if the stock starts to rally, but it just means that you made money on the transaction.

An example would be if the stock sells at 50 and you write a call with a strike price of 51 for 1. If the stock remains at the same price at option expiration, you make 1 per share. If the stock goes up to 53, you will get called away at 51 making 1 on the stock plus you collect another 1 for the sold option, for a total profit of 2. If the stock drops to 47, you lose 3 on the stock but you make 1 on the sold call for a net loss on 2. Without the written call, your net loss would be 3 on the stock.

Bearish ETFs 

4. Bearish exchange traded funds, also known as Bearish ETFs are investments that have a goal of providing the daily inverse of a stock index. The bearish ETFs are very volatile investments that are designed for short term trading, and not as long term investments. They achieve their performance through the use of various financial instruments including futures contracts, options,  collars, swap agreements, short positions, and other derivatives.

Double and Triple Bearish ETFs 

5. Double and triple bearish ETFs can provide a 200% or 300% opposite return of a sector or market. Listed at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com are over a dozen commonly traded triple bearish ETFs which investors can use to get a 300% play.

An example is the Direxion Daily S&P 500 Bear 3X Shares ETF (SPXS). This ETF has the goal of making 300% of the inverse of the performance of the S&P 500. What that means is, if the S&P 500 drops 2% in one day, the ETF should go up in value by 6%. Alternatively, if the S&P 500 rises by 2%, the ETF should drop by 6%, which would be a significant loss.

Another one of the bear market protection tools is an ETF called the ProShares Trust UltraPro Short QQQ ETF (SQQQ). The goal of this fund is to replicate three times the inverse of the NASDAQ 100 index using various types of derivatives. An example of what that means is that if the stock market, in terms of the NASDAQ 100 drops by 1%, this ETF should rise by 3%.

This index includes such stocks at Amgen (AMGN), Apple (AAPL), Baidu (BIDU), Cisco (CSCO), eBay (EBAY), Facebook (FB), Google (GOOG), Intel (INTC), Microsoft (MSFT), Netflix (NFLX), Starbucks (SBUX), Tesla (TSLA), Whole Foods (WFM), and Yahoo (YHOO).

Investors can be more specific in terms of what sectors will drop, or will drop the most. If you think energy stocks will tank, you could buy the Daily Energy Bear 3X Shares ETF (ERY), which attempts to track 300% of the inverse of the Energy Select Sector Index. For financial services companies, an option is the Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares ETF (FAZ).

For those that are bearish on gold, a triple bearish gold ETF called the Daily Gold Miners Bear 3X Shares ETF (DUST) is available. The ETF's objective is to make 300% of the opposite of the NYSE Arca Gold Miners Index.

For a free list of the most commonly traded triple bearish ETFs which can be downloaded, go to WallStreetNewsNetwork.com.

Just remember that losses on the double and triple bearish can be substantial when the stock market rises.

One other option is to just ride out the market drops. Let's hope for a nice bull market for this year.

Disclosure: Author has various positions, including bullish, bearish, and neutral option positions, in DIS, AAPL, EBAY, YHOO, and TWTR.

By Stockerblog.com

Stock Market History Through Old Photos

Back in the old days, the stock market and the economy in general had a huge effect on the American public, even those who never invested in their life. Here is a selection of fascinating photographs, which captured the histroy and spirit of the times.

The Crash of 1929

This photo was taken shortly after the crash of 1929. Just one example of the desperation people experienced. 

Central Park

This is what Central Park looked like at the beginning of the depression in 1930. People set up shacks in the park since it was their only option of having a roof over their heads.

Making Clothes from Flour Sacks

During the Depression in the 1930's, women were making clothes out of flour sacks, so the flour companies started making the sacks with designs and flowers on them.

Disney (DIS)

Disney was popular even during the early 1930's portion of the Depression. This is a meeting of the Mickey Mouse Club.

Harley Davidson (HOG)

 Harley Davidson, the famous motorcycle company, started small, building its first products in this little building back in 1903.

Tesla (TSLA)

 Where did the name Tesla come from? Nikola Tesla, the famous electrical inventor. That is not Tesla above, but Mark Twain in Tesla's lab in 1894.

What a Fat Finger Is and What a Fraidy Finger Is

Much has appeared in the press lately about the fat finger error as the supposed cause the market crash last week, when the Dow dropped almost a thousand points. At the end of the day, the market was down 348, still a lot. So what is a Fat Finger, or Fat Finger Trade, or Fat Finger Error? Fat Fingers are major trading errors, and when I say major, I mean MAJOR.

There was a rumor going around that a trader was supposed to sell 10 million shares of Procter & Gamble (PG), but actually sold 10 billion shares. One version was that an B (for billion) was typed instead of an M. Another version was that the trader kept his fat finger on the zero key too long, adding an extra three zeros. This is somewhat unusual in that Procter only has 2.88 billion shares outstanding, and even if all the shares were shorted, the SEC is supposedly cracking down on naked shorting. Therefore, the trader's brokerage firm that handled the transaction should have had something in place to prevent selling more shares than were able to sell and shorting more shares than were available to borrow.

Generally, the average trader won't ever generate this type of trading error, as brokerage firms won't allow you to sell more shares than you currently own.

Of course, the drop created some outrageous activity, assuming they were not bad prints, such as the stock that dropped from $41 to 4 cents, and the stock that jumped from $29 to $100,000 a share.

My personal opinion is that the huge drop was caused by Fraidy Fingers, not Fat Fingers. Many Fraidy Finger investors were worried that Greece was going to collapse, the EU was going to be in major trouble, the collapse in Europe was going to move to the United States, etc, etc, Plus, investors and traders (the Fraidy Fingers) were watching the market drop 200 300, 400 points, and they didn't want to be the last ones out so they sold. The selling at the market kept hitting the bids, the bids started disappearing, and the market kept dropping until a few traders decided that were were great bargains around.

Now the government wants to investigate why the stock market dropped so much last Thursday, in spite of the fact that the market has practically recovered during the last couple days, all without circuit breakers. The cause of the market drop was supply and demand with a few Fraidy Fingers thrown in.

By Stockerblog.com

Stock Market Crash Audio

Here is a live audio that took place just before and during the thousand point drop in the market on Thursday. It gets exciting after about a minute or so into the video. Thought you would get a kick out of it. Check it out.