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Jumped on the $GME bandwagon on Friday, 4 @ ~316. My 36 hours of day trading has already taught me that no matter how this plays out, I will never YOLO on a bubble ever again.
The principle seemed straightforward: hedge funds got lazy/greedy, over-shorted their positions, bet against a company that wasn't actually going under, and some astute monkies on reddit caught them and triggered a short squeeze. Even as someone who knows almost nothing about the stock market, the basic premise makes sense. But the devil's in the details, and hype is blinding.
First red flag was when I realized DeepFuckingValue did not bet on the short squeeze, he bet on undervalued stock price over a year ago. He has also trimmed his position such that no matter what happens in the squeeze, he walks away with 8 figures. So the people screaming "if he's still in, I'm still in!" and "look at those brass balls, if he can lose $5MM in a day then I can hold" are really living up to the dumb ape meme. He didn't lose $5MM yesterday, he lost $5MM in *unrealized gains*, there is a *huge* difference.
Second red flag was a common sense idea that hedge funds won't go down without a fight, and they have literally billions of dollars and decades of experience. You don't get that without learning how to game the system in complex, subtle ways. So even if they are still heavily shorted (which they might not even be anymore), and even if somehow WSB is holding some kind of meaningful leverage over them, that doesn't rule out the very real possibility they have a dozen ways out of this that people like me have no idea about.
But even in the off chance that somehow this turns around, and $GME does go "to the moon," that doesn't change the fact that it's bad long-term strategy to bet on bubbles and jump on bandwagons. They almost certainly fail, and if they don't, they only serve to inflate egos that will fall even harder on the next gamble. I'm still holding my shares but I don't expect to see my ~$1200 ever again. In the off chance I break even or see a profit here, I will count it as dumb luck and use it as seed money to learn how to invest in real long term gains.
Edit: holy shit RIP my inbox. No way I can read all that.
Want to clarify a few things. Not financial advice.
My position: I knew I was late to the party. I wanted to gamble. I knew what I was doing, and (mostly) why I did it. Hindsight showed me it was more based on emotion than I wanted to admit, but still, I'm not surprised by the outcome so far, and I'm totally OK with taking the L and calling it a lesson learned. I don't blame DFV, WSB, or anyone for my choices. I own them, even proudly, because I wanted to step out and take a calculated risk vs. sit on the sidelines out of fear of loss. I'm holding because I already bought my tickets to this ride, want to see this thing play out, and I'm fine with gambling the final $300 on the outside chance things turn around.
Your positions: brothers, sisters, nonbinary siblings: you are not your portfolio. whether up or down, your value is not based on how big or small an imaginary number is. you are a human being on the bleeding edge of 3.5 BILLION years of evolution, you have more actual success in your past and potential success in your future than you'll ever know. 12 years ago I was a penniless alcoholic literally stealing change from my grandpa to get loaded on 211 Steel Reserve. I hit my bottom, joined AA, and now I'm a network engineer, wife, kids, the whole lot. Anything is possible if you don't give up on yourself. But I know it's not that easy, we all need borrowed self-esteem before we can see the real value inside. So if this $GME gamble hit you hard, please reach out to someone. don't give up. Hell, this bubble isn't even over, it might even turn around! But either way, don't give up.
Edit2:
wow, never expected this to go this far. wrote it on my way out the door as a way to cope with the situation. read a ton of replies, probably missed most of them. thanks for all the love and hate and everything inbetween! A few more points:

• Agreed that RH deserves to be held accountable. No question they manipulated this.
• Agreed it's not over yet. the squeeze could happen. but if it does, my main personal takeaway from this experience will stand: I won't speculate on bubbles anymore. This is my position if I lose everything or make $100k.
• if you posted gains, that's awesome! so glad for you, I wish you the best!

Edit3 2/3/21:
Full disclosure, I closed my position this morning at a ~$900 realized loss.
My gut says the squeeze happened, short interest isn't what I thought it was on Friday, and the stock will return to actual value soon.

I gotta say, I see some good shit out there. I see new members trying to diversify their positions and learn about other stocks and other ways to make money. This is the path my fellow retards. I'm a nobody here, but I have good returns and some good insight. When I came to WSB, multiple people helped me figure out what the fuck I was doing, because I knew jack shit. I care more about my money than yours, but no retard should be left in the dark alone. So let me pass on a couple things. I can't prove shit to you, so read this or don't.
I mainly trade options (Calls and Puts), so that is what I will discuss
Generally the most insane gains will come from being in a specific stock and not an ETF or Index. While riskier, this is where you can hit the homeruns. So decide if you want to go for conservative gains or if you want those huge swings. While what I said is true, I am usually against putting everything into a single bet. Anything can go wrong at any time and no play is 100% guaranteed. The goal of this game is to stay alive. You will lose money on a play at some point, because it is inevitable. So never let yourself get wiped out, because you can always build yourself back up. This goes along with one of my other recommendations: always have SOME cash ready to go. You never know when there might be an incredible opportunity and you do not want to get caught with your ass hanging out.
Paper hands and diamond hands are just words. You ultimately decide when you want to sell or hold and how much profit you want to take. One of my favorite strategies is to say, buy an even number of options on a play, sell half at a modest level of gains (like enough to break even or gain a little bit) and then let the rest ride longer. Look guys, on many plays, you either paper hands at some point or diamond hands long enough to see your positions go red. Some people will bail at 40% gains and others might not take anything less than 500%. Just know that chasing endless profits ups the risk factor, so YOU decide when it's time. Having a target share price for the stock is also a good strategy.
Here's a couple psychological principles in investing. Studies have found that people tend to hold onto losing positions too long and sell winning positions too early. They let their losers lose and cut off their winners short. Apparently most people hate losing more than they like winning. Think about this before you sell. Stocks can often get hot and run multiple days in a row. Sometimes a stock will have one red day and then keep up going. This is why it's important to know WHY you got into a position. Trust your DD and stick to the plan. I had ideas for plays where they went red right away and I bailed... only to see them moon. "Diamond Hands" means that you don't dump your position instantly if it goes down. The hardest thing is knowing if you should cut losses or diamond hands. I'm a retard and we're in a bull market.. so often times the stock will eventually go up. Your call though.
The market makers and big boys want you to lose. They want your money. I'm not going to dive into the realm of possible illegal activities that they may use, but just point out some simpler tactics they will use. Big money often sees retail as "weak hands" aka Buy High and Sell Low. They know FOMO is strong when a stock is going up big and that fear takes over when a stock divebombs. We're in a bull market, which means stonks only go up. However, we still have negative days. Stocks sell off sometimes and things can look bad. Generally, the dip is not time to sell, but instead, time to buy. Case and point, we had a pretty big drilling 2 weeks ago. Do you know what the big money did? They bought the fuckin dip and snatched up everything for cheap. We've been mooning ever since.
Sometimes shit makes no sense. A company can have blowout earnings, exceed expectations, and the stock will tank. I was holding one stock a little while ago that reported a fantastic earnings and proceeded to drill to the core of the Earth that day. It was total bullshit and I knew it, I trusted my DD. So instead of panic selling, I added to my position. Sure enough, the stock began swinging upwards and hit an all-time high just 2 weeks later. This is why simply gambling can bite you in the ass. It's easy to get scared and sell when you doubt yourself because you picked a random thing to buy.
Option Expiration Dates matter. Buying a 1 week option is the cheapest and gives the biggest percentage of profits if it goes your way. However, it can often be a noob trap. One bad day or one piece of bad news can kill your entire position. Stocks trade sideways sometimes. Sometimes they don't do what you think they should do. And sometimes the whole fucking market shits itself for seemingly no reason. So give yourself TIME to work with. Time costs money and hurts profit margins. But it is better to consistently make 50% profit than to hit one play for 300% followed by 10 losers. Look, playing weekly stupidly OTM calls is fun as hell and is a huge rush when it hits. I do at least one or more every week. The key is not loading your entire portfolio into this shit. Remember, no tendies = no more fun.
Along the same lines, Strike Price matters. An OTM (Out of the Money) option means that the Strike Price is a bit of a ways from where the stock's price currently is. OTM options give huge profit margins the further you go out. I personally enjoy using them.. some people don't. But my advice is to balance risk with profit potential. If your call relies on a stock gaining 50% in 2 weeks.. then well, it's probably not gonna happen. ITM (In The Money) options means that your stock is already within the strike price. ITM is a more conservative play and sacrifices massive gains for lower risk.
https://www.optionsprofitcalculator.com/calculatolong-call.html - Use this to get an estimate of potential profits and how much of a move you need
Leaps are fuckin dope. A Leap is a call, but for a much longer period of time. I'm using the term loosely because we're degenerates and some people might consider anything more than 1 month a leap. Given that the market trends up over time, you might even make some money on a mediocre stock this way. A lot of people buy ITM leaps, but again, I'm a degenerate and go OTM a lot.
Implied Volatility (IV) - Extremely fucking important. IV is basically an estimation of how much a stock is predicted to move in either direction. High IV = Expensive Options. It's fucking weird to think, but you can make similar profits from a 2% move on a low IV stock as you can from a 5% move on a more volatile stock. Low IV is fantastic when buying an option on a stock that you think is about to moon. High IV is riskier, so you damn well better think the stock can make some big moves. Buying an option on a stock right before Earnings Report (ER) will be more expensive due to IV. Trying to play ER is usually for suckers, unless you have some really good DD about why a company might deliver a huge surprise. One of the textbook big boy moves is to pump a stock going into ER. The company will deliver great news and then dump hard. You may see people bitching about this very soon. Basically, big money knew ahead of time it would be good, so the stock got pumped and then they took profits.
Buy the rumor and sell the news. Events, press releases, and important dates that everyone knows about are another trap. You will get shit on. Ask someone about TESLA Battery Day. Positive rumors will send a stock soaring though.
Finally, get busy learning. Read about Options on Investopedia and any other things you do not understand. The big boys rely on us to not know what the fuck we're doing to take our money. Learn about the general market. Stocks are grouped into "Sectors" or categories. Start figuring out what they are and pay attention to where the money is going. I didn't even mention half of the shit that goes on in options, so that's on you. The first thing you need to do is to learn what the "Greeks" are. That will teach you how options function.
https://www.investopedia.com/trading/using-the-greeks-to-understand-options/
If anyone wants to talk or discuss, send me a message. I'm a degenerate with no life.
Oh and, if you follow someone's DD and lose money that's on you. I've come up with some genius shit, but I've also lost on some retarded calls. Nobody can pick you a guaranteed winner and hindsight is 20/20.
May the gains be with you

Close your eyes. It's Friday, the sun is peaking through the curtains and you're eating your Weetabix with no worries on your mind. You're content.
You sold your GME shares at small loss at the start of the week as you continued to watch the share price plummet due to market manipulation. You got out, you survived.
It's 9:28am, you're returning from the school run. Your BMW 1 series seats make you feel safe and important. Your house, although small, is affordable and the mortgage repayments don't put too much pressure on your paper wallet.
Your phone goes off as you enter the house. You sit on the sofa and turn on NBC as you open Whatsapp. You have 17 unread messages.
Your eyes pan up, the news anchor is shouting. You read the title at the bottom of the screen - 'The Short Squeeze Is Happening". Jim Cramer is crying. You quickly open your Whatsapp group chat and only see dollar signs being spammed by your friends. You open Yahoo Finance and see the share price at 600.87, it's still rising. Your heart skips a beat. You open I-phone calculator and work out that your 17 shares would now be worth just over 10,000 US dollars. You feel sick.
The share price is still rising. You receive a call from your best friend Mickey, he's crying too. He's telling you about how you were right and he'll be able to pay off his student loan soon. Also his wife is pregnant. You congratulate him with a fickle grin and fake laugh. You look back down at your phone, 828.16. 830.00, 838.26.
WallStreetBets has crashed due to the traffic.
You realise everything you stood for is coming true, but you paper handed too soon.
You ignored the threads, the experts. You ignored DeepFuckingValue.
You ignored your god given right to a better life for you and your wifes boyfriend.
You try to buy back in, but you have no money. You begin to laugh, and laugh. Despair and anguish turn into humour.
You pull the Glock from your $16 AliExpress safe and load it. You hold it to your head, you shiver.
You don't pull the trigger. Your paper hands can't do it, and never will be able to do anything of any meaningful value. You drop the gun and admit defeat.
As the camera pans out of your window and over your neighborhood, we see Wall St burning in flames in the distance. The transfer of wealth begins, fade to black.
EDIT: DON'T BE THAT GUY 💎💎💎💎💎💎

In Draft Kings, any idea why the coin toss bets for the big game would be different?
Coin Toss Outcome: Heads -103 & Tails -103
Coin Toss Winner: TB -106 & KC -106
For a $100 bet, thats a payout of $198 vs $195

I am American, but infinitely prefer the decimal style. All my friends who bet use American. What am I missing? I feel like decimal is just quick and easy math, but American you need to think about for a second. Maybe just because I don't use it? Anyway it's all good either way, I'm just trying to figure out why it is popular compared to decimals. Sorry if the topic has been beat to death or anything, did a quick search but didn't see anything recently.

Greeting Theta Gang boys and girls,
I hope you're well and not bankrupt after last week. I'm just now recovering mentally myself. I saw a few WSB converts and some newbies asking for tips, so here you go. V2 of my Options guide. I hope it helps.
​
I spent a huge amount of time learning about options and tried to distill my knowledge down into a helpful guide. This should especially be useful for newbies and growing options traders.
While I feel I’m a successful trader, I'm not a guru and my advice is not meant to be gospel, but this will hopefully be a good starting point, teach you a lot, and make you a better trader. I plan to keep typing up more info from my notebook, expanding this guide, and posting it every couple months.
Any feedback or additions are appreciated
Per requests, I added details of good and bad trades I made. Some painful lessons learned are now included. I also tried to organize this better as it got longer.
Here's what I tell options beginners:
I would strongly recommend buying a beginner's options book and read it cover to cover. That helped me a lot.
I like this beginner book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GWSXX8U/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_OxNDFb2GK9YW7
Helpful websites:

• Tasty Trade (TT) and Ally Invest have helpful articles and videos.
  • https://www.tastytrade.com/tt
  • https://www.youtube.com/c/tastytrade1/featured
• Ally training:
  • What is options trading? https://www.ally.com/do-it-right/investing/trading-options-for-beginners/?CP=EM2012111
  • Top 10 options mistakes: https://www.ally.com/do-it-right/investing/top-10-option-trading-mistakes/?CP=EM2012111
• 3 common option mistakes: https://us.etrade.com/knowledge/library/options/common-mistakes-options-traders-make
• Common options strategies: https://www.optionsbro.com/basic-options-strategies/
• Investopedia has tons of great investing info for stocks and options: https://www.investopedia.com/
• Kamikaze Cash Theta Gang Videos: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOweupE79XXiBaeH_xBpkUcYUsrAaKQen
• 20 rules of professional traders: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/active-trading/022715/20-rules-followed-professional-traders.asp

Don't trade until you understand:

• You can lose your entire contract value when buying.
• You can lose a lot of money when selling "naked", theoretically unlimited.
• How option expiration works.
• Theta (decay) and how it works. This is imperative since it's attrition when buying and a payout when selling. https://www.optionseducation.org/advancedconcepts/theta
• DTE: Days till expiration/expiry
• Options positions with respect to price:
  • ITM: In the money; strike is below stock value. Signif
  • ATM: At the money; strike is just at or above the stock value, often very highly traded. Can be very effective with moderate - long term expiry.
  • NTM: Near the money; strike is above the stock value, but fairly close. Slightly unofficial term.
  • OTM: Out of the money; price is at least a few strikes from the current stock price. I would say 10-30% over stock price.
  • Very OTM: Not a real definition, this is essentially a lottery ticket. Cheap, but almost certain to expire worthless unless there is explosive movement.
• Understand delta in general and how delta changes with ITM and OTM options.
• Understand all the greeks at a high level, as you get better understand them well. The greeks: https://www.optionsplaybook.com/options-introduction/option-greeks/
• IV, IV crush, and how IV affects pricing. In general, you want to sell when IV is high and buy when the IV is low. Increasing IV is good for held calls/puts. IV drop or crush is generally good for sellers.
• Selling options can be quite beneficial. Once you have a good general understanding, lookup thetagang . Kamikaze Cash has good youtube videos on most theta strategies (linked above). I personally believe selling options (especially cash secured) is much safer and can consistently make you profits. Θ Gang 4 life.
• FOMO and how to avoid chasing a dangerous trend. DO NOT CHASE FROM FOMO!
• What intrinsic and extrinsic value are. Know how they are affected by being exercised/assigned and how theta affects them.
• Understand that some of WSB recommendations are straight up high-risk gambling and factor in the information accordingly. Be careful with Meme stocks and the survivorship bias on YOLO plays. However, I love the sub and think it’s hilarious. It has a lot of valuable information / DD if you are comfortable with the “colorful” language. It’s also great if you like rocket ship emojis.

Basics / Mechanics

• Understand the 4 "main" option types. Buying or selling a call and buying or selling a put. Spreads and more complex multi-legged option strategies are based off these in some way (see below)
• You can sell calls with 100 shares of stock or if you own an underlying longer term option; see LEAPS and PMCCs later. Selling calls naked is incredibly risky and often requires Level 4 (very advanced) permissions and usually a lot of capital. I will literally never sell calls naked since I don't want to ruin my life and end up living in a dumpster eating saltine crackers.
• Puts can be sold/written cash covered (cash secured), which means you have the cash in your account to buy 100 shares. Your broker will put this money on hold until the trade is closed. Puts can be sold "naked" using Margin and Level 3 (with most brokers). Your broker will hold a percentage of cost of 100 shares (often 30-40%, 100% on meme stocks) allowing you to sell more puts. This increases your available capital/power as well as increasing risk.

General Tips and Ideas:

• Don't EVER leave (short) spreads open on expiration day, close them. (more details below)
• Start off trading very small. Slowly build up over weeks / months. You need to get accustomed to a fifty dollar swing a day, then a few hundred, then a few thousand. You need to ensure you don't get emotional (see below). I started trading options with 5k, then 25k, 50k, and later over 100k. I added my own funds over time and used my gains to build my account. Don’t go all in immediately, that’s dangerous and unwise.
• Especially as you build up the amount of money you have invested, keep it diversified among several stocks.
  • Don't go all in on one thing, ever. Be able to take a hit from one stock and not mortally wound your portfolio.
  • A company may be doing great, then there's a major product issue out of nowhere. If you are overexposed in one stock this can really hurt you.
  • I had to roll options I sold that were about to expire completely worthless because FDX's CEO changed and the stock took a hard dip.
• Don't trade emotionally. If you realize you are emotionally trading for vengeance, you should probably exit the trade and cool off for several days with that stock. Same if you get caught up in a wave of hysteria.
• Have a plan for every trade, ideally with entries / exits that are specific values, ranges, or a set condition. This helps remove emotions. This is super important for strong movements and high volatility (see later).
• Use an options profit calculator from your broker or an online one before entering a "new" trade, especially a complex multi legged trade: https://www.optionsprofitcalculator.com/
• “Rolling” an option: Closing your existing option and opening a similar one at different strike and/or expiration.
  • Rolling a call “Up” would be selling a call you own and buying a cheaper call at a higher strike.
  • Rolling a put “Down and out” closes your original one and buying or selling one at a lower strike at a longer expiry.
  • Better broker interfaces have a literal “Roll” button. I know E-trade does. You can manually do it by selecting relevant contract legs.
• If you have a losing trade, re-evaluate it. If your initial assumption is definitely incorrect, close it. Don't stay in losing trades forever and lose the entire value of the option over stubbornness. If you re-evaluate and you think your assumption was right, hold, potentially consider adding another cheaper option (or buy another call / put). Rolling out sold options can help here.
• Don't try to day trade, especially with options. It's statistically unlikely to be profitable. Day-trading with options introduces extra liquidity risks and is dangerous, especially with spreads.
• Try not to over-trade, you'll likely mis-time the market over time. When I get emotional I over trade, then lose additional money on wash sales. If you scale your entries into positions it should help alleviate your desire to exit positions when they turn badly against you. Whenever I buy calls I do it at larger increments after W almost made me loss my hair; luckily it eventually came back.
• NEVER enter a position on a stock you have no idea about, especially when you read about it online or heard about it from some rando.
• At market open options contracts are often volatile and inflated. Buying during this time can be more expensive. Options are usually cheaper mid-day, I read somewhere 2-3PM is cheapest. I’ve had success around 12-1PM EST after prices settle.
• Try wheeling on cheaper stocks once you get all fundamentals down.
• When selling puts if you are very bullish consider "doubling down"; note this is higher risk. Use the credit from your put sale to buy shares or a cheap call. This can be roughly inversed with puts, except I wouldn't ever recommend shorting shares.
• Learn from your mistakes. You can’t go back in time and beating yourself up (to a point) is useless. Make a physical &/or mental note of it so you don’t do it again. If you don’t learn from it, then beat yourself up so you won’t do it again.
• If you have friends that like to trade, I find it helpful to discuss strategies and planned plays. I talk openly with my close friends about my current holdings and planned trades, it helps keep me accountable. If I get a wide-eyed look, I might be doing something excessively risky or stupid. I’ve over-leveraged myself in calls twice and I knew I shouldn’t have done it both times. When I tell my friends what I did and I’m embarrassed, it exemplifies the face that I shouldn’t have done it in the first place. You will also get ideas for new strategies or plays from them. It’s good to stay versatile and use multiple strategies when appropriate. Beware of group think/echo chambers.
• I recommend NEVER telling someone what to buy/sell and when. I’ll tell people MY plays or what I like and why, but I will not encourage them to emulate what I do. Depending on the audience, I’ll tell them my exact positions along with my exit and entrance strategy. With closer friends I’ll offer my thoughts on their trades (if asked). If my friend is doing something really risky (one of my friends does some scary stuff) I may ask them if they want my advice, and provide it, especially if they overlooked a risk/event. I will not encourage someone to execute/enter a trade since it has a high potential for hurt feelings or animosity all around.
• Don’t fall in love with a stock. Just because something made you money before and you have high confidence in it doesn’t mean it will keep performing. I joke that FDX betrayed me when it started dipping and losing me money. I was over-confident of its bounce-back and sold too many puts too quickly. I’m in several losing trades because of it. However, I will keep good stocks in my rostetracking list or try different strategies or re-enter trades when they change their behavior.
• As you start to both buy and sell options and get more experience in general, you'll start seeing the two sides to every trade. You will likely start adjusting your strategies or trying new trades out because of this. Things will likely click one day. Most/all the greeks and options concepts will become almost second nature. For me this was when I could build an Iron Condor from scratch, which was a watershed moment involving a good understanding of many strategies.
• Understand Liquidity and volume.
  • Trading in low volume, low open interest contracts results in wide bid/ask spreads and difficulty having your contracts filled. Look at all the data for a contract, not just the strike and price.
  • Monthly Expiration dates typically have better liquidity.
  • Multi-legged trades (Common examples are 2-legged vertical spreads or 4-legged iron condors) have more difficulty being filled, especially on bad brokers like Robin Hood. Having very liquid options for all legs is extremely helpful in obtaining timely and well-priced fills, which maximize your potential profits.
• Time in market vs timing the market:
  • It is extremely difficult to time the market perfectly. If you wait for the perfect opportunity forever, history has proven you will miss out on gains. Keeping all your money out of the market has proven to be ineffective. Now if there is something serious happening with a stock/the market (like say a new pandemic), don’t go all in. I recommend entering incrementally at dips. If the stock has huge upside potential it may never go down, so it might make sense to partially enter at the current price.
  • IMIO selling puts is a great strategy to get into a stock you like, or at least make money off it. I think buying stock in lots of 100 is usually for suckers. Selling an ATM or ITM put (assuming the math works out) on a stock you were going to buy and hold is ALMOST free money.
  • I recommend keeping some cash available regardless. If you have a very large account or expect a downturn, hedging with indexes like QQQ, SPY, or VIX or calls/puts may be wise.
• Every trade can't be a winner. You will take some losses, you must get used to it. I don’t like having a realized loss of 1K or more on any trade. However, this will happen, especially with larger accounts.
  • As long as you win more often and beat the S&P that year I consider it okay. I’m kind of aggressive, so I consider 20%+ annually good. 30%+ annually is great. 40%+ and I’m dancing. After trading options I am almost baffled by my old belief that 5% annual returns (mostly from dividend ETFs) was “good”. That’s nothing to me now since I’m willing to take risks. Note: While lots of people danced in 2020, realize that’s an insane Bull Run year and is atypical.
  • Adhere to your own risk tolerance and never over-extend yourself, especially with margin use. Don’t make huge gambles leaving you uncomfortable. Only gamble with money you are willing to lose.
  • My personal strategy is to make safer gains for the year and then enter slightly riskier strategies using those gains. I can be slightly-moderately more aggressive and compound my gains. For me I often sell puts to make money, then when I see a big opportunity I’ll sell a put and buy an OTM or moderately ITM call.
• Understand it’s not safe to try and get rich overnight. However, once you hit big “steps” things may start to snowball. You can enter more positions and take more risks if you choose to.
  • For me this when I hit 50k, then 100k. I was able to balance low and moderate risk positions to more significantly grow my account. I’ll even do a high risk thing now and again because my gains can absorb it (assuming I have them).
  • I can’t wait to get to 250K, then 500K. I know it’ll take quite a long time, but I am confident I’ll eventually be able to have 500K and (hopefully) 1M in my non-401k trading account with gains and additions from my job. I can only imagine how “dangerous” I will be with that kind of capital.
• If you missed "the next big thing" like AAPL, TSLA, or the time machine I’m building in my basement. Don't get upset, learn from it. Adapt and become a better trader for next time.
  • Figure out why a company was so promising, before they mooned. Determine how you would have traded differently in hindsight. Apply those lessons to the next company you believe has long term growth prospects.
  • For me that's putting in 1-2.5k towards shares and/or buying LEAPS on it. Depending on my bullishness I may buy “cheap”, fairly far OTM calls. The far OTM options are sort of lottery tickets. If I'm right the (relatively) low cost will have explosive profits; if I'm wrong, they didn't cost that much so it's a calculated loss I’m willing to accept. For more serious bets I’ll buy ITM LEAPS to run PMCCs on. I also like to buy 1-2K in my 401k for very long-term plays.
• The stock market hates uncertainty, it seems to crave the status quo. A shakeup can potential tank a stock, even if it's nothing. With shares you can wait it out, but this can be problematic for options. If you see volatile/uncertain times ahead (politics, disease, manufacturing, earnings, etc.), you might want to reduce your overall portfolio risks or hedge.

Profit Retention / Loss Mitigation

• If selling options, it is a viable strategy to close early after a large gain with many DTE left until expiry. See TT videos / strategies on this.
• Don't hold options through earnings unless you literally want to gamble. I like playing on earnings run ups, but that can be risky.
• If you hold options through earnings, IV crush will happen immediately afterwards, devaluing the option. However, if the option is profitable enough, IV crush won’t matter, which will still make money for a call buyer. A sold put sufficiently far OTM will benefit from IV crush, even if the stock dips after slightly bad or lukewarm earnings.
• Don't throw good money after bad. Don't gamble on a recovery if your assumption appears to be wrong or the market is flat out tanking. If you are wrong and still believe in the company, wait twice as long as your original plan (wait for your 2nd entry point vs 1st) before adding to your position.
• Consider using stop losses to lock-in profits on rides up or sometimes use them to prevent losses. Note, stops can be easily triggered in volatile options. Now when I'm up a lot on calls (especially around earnings or large momentum run-ups) I always set stop losses. I have been burned too many times. In December 2020 I didn't set a SL on several thousand dollars of FDX calls I was already up on and I "lost" ~$5K of unrealized gains. If you're up big, don't get too greedy.
• A possible strategy if a stock is on a tear and you have multiple options open: Close some positions (I prefer to do this incrementally if the stock has momentum), but leave 1+ open in case the stock goes into outer space/the floor. Next, set a stop loss with a little buffer below its current movement / range so it doesn't get hit unless the stock falls hard. Finally, watch the stock closely and if it keeps rising, keep moving the stop loss up in little bits incrementally. This will let you keep more profits on a hot streak, but give some protection and secure more gains. It will also help eliminate FOMO if a stock exceeds your expectations.
• Have rules when to roll out, down & out, or up & out. I like TT’s roll at break even or at 1x loss and to always roll for a credit (or for me a very minor cost). Obviously these rules need some monitoring. Know your stocks, the news, and technicals so you don’t jump the gun.
  • If you roll early for a credit and you’re right, it’s not the end of the world. You’ll just need to hold longer, which will obviously tie up capital. Sometimes it’s better to tie up some money (especially if you aren’t paying interest) than eating a huge loss.
  • Rolling too late can be worse though. I currently have a very underwater FDX put I sold that is over 2x loss, rolling it does almost nothing unless you want to pay a debit or extend it extremely far out.
• On huge options gains, I strongly you recommend taking profits by rolling up/down or incrementally sell your contracts at several different prices (this is why having multiple contracts is nice).
  • Rolling up involves selling your initial call, then using a fraction of your proceeds to buy a cheaper, further OTM call with the same expiry; puts are inverse this. When rolling up I like to ensure the new option’s cost is 15-40% of my realized gains. I’ll buy a more or less expensive new optoin based on my convication to the stock and predicted movements. You can also roll up and out to get a further expiry and strike.
  • This is monumentally important if you are playing with incredibly high rising stocks or during a short squeeze.
  • Sad story time: I completely screwed up when I forgot to roll up, twice, during the GME gamma/short squeeze. I didn’t take my own advice; I didn’t have a real exit or transition plan and I got emotional. It all happened so fast and I was at work; the insanity of the run up and subsequent gamma squeeze caught me off guard. I should’ve clocked out and thought through the situation for 15-30 minutes to form an impromptu plan, then executed trade(s). My moderate risk tolerance coupled with my desire to take profits took over. When the stock partially cratered after a run up, I sold to retain gains. In the heat of the moment I thought the squeeze was squoze and it was going to plummet into the ground and I wasn’t being rational.
    • On 1x 4K call I would’ve made an additional 15-25K if I rolled up to a cheaper contract with some of my profits.
    • I know I missed out on significantly more with a 2nd call I had. Depending when I rolled it, it would likely have been an additional 25-50k in profits.
  • I talked about learning from your mistakes above. This mistake is branded into my brain due to the massive gains I missed out on by not rolling up. I’m furious with myself as I write this 1 week after the GME gamma squeeze, I’m a planner and I didn’t plan. If anything I own is significantly up ever again, I’m rolling up (or at least setting a stop loss). If necessary, I’ll roll up a trade multiple times to keep extracting profits.
  • Learn from my mistake so you don’t miss out on gains too. I strongly recommend rolling up when you are up big on a call / roll down when you are up big on a put. This enables you to take profits, stay in the game, and keep extracting more gains.
• If you trade a lot of options, talk to your broker about a discount. I was getting the standard $.50/contract with E-Trade, but I traded over 300 contracts a quarter and was able to get the fee reduced by over $.10 by just asking. I am now doing more spreads and condors, so once my volume gets very high, I’ll ask again.
• If you have a broker that isn’t great and you want to switch, leverage your current trading fees to the new broker. Tell them you’ll move over $### thousand if they beat your current options trading fee per contract.

Trade Planning & Position Management Tips

• As you gain experience, start monitoring what kind of Delta, OTM, DTE, etc. you are most profitable with. Use it in your future trades. You'll often see the tasty trade 30-45DTE .3 Delta strategy for selling.
• Before entering a trade, look at rough technicals like resistances and supports to consider your relevant strikes as well as entry/exit points. Look at upcoming earnings & dividend dates as well as stock/market news.
• Consider staggering strikes and expirations for safety and diversity; it’s nice to avoid assignment on 3 puts at once because you used the same strike for all 3.
• Incrementally enter positions on large rises/falls. One of my favor strategies is to buy dips after over reactions. By doing this slowly in large price "steps" it helps combat FOMO and helps you avoid getting slaughtered.
  • This will also help you avoid "chasing a falling knife". It also ties into having a plan.
  • I set alerts at several predetermined prices and I REALLY try not to enter new trades unless I hit my preset points. It makes me less emotional and usually more effective.
• Don't buy far expiration options with poor liquidity for shorter term plays. I bought 1x GME 1-year+ LEAPS call before the 2021 short squeeze. That was stupid, I should've bought 2-3x 60-120 day calls to have better liquidity. I also paper-handed it and missed out on my lambo.
• If selling options, consider rolling (for a credit) to avoid assignment when it makes sense / meets your plan. Rolling closer to expiration can be a valid strategy to get theta on your side. On the flip side, if the stock moons or plummets it could've been better to roll before it got crazy deep ITM. See rolling “rules” above.
• Covered Calls:
  • If a stock has a large movement range, I think it can be worthwhile to wait to open a CC after the last one is closed/expires. I have been more successful waiting for another opportunity vs. opening one immediately on the Monday after the second the last one expires.
  • Consider selling covered calls at all time highs/peaks. If you sell a CC and the stock dips significantly, and you think it’s temporary, you can buy to close your CC for a quick profit, then reopen it later.
  • If you own Meme stocks, selling covered calls runs the risk of missing out on large gains. On these stocks I typically only sell them further OTM than I normally would or not at all. If I do sell CC on a Meme stock I try to ensure I have 25-100 other shares that won’t be called away.

-Advanced Beginner-
Spreads

• Spreads (with 2 legs) are neat because they manipulate how delta and theta act. It caps your gains and losses, but you can profit with less stock movement. Try several spreads on a P/L calculator to see for yourself.
• Spreads usually require margin trading.
• Spreads allow you to define max losses (assuming you close before expiration day) and use less capital.
  • Experienced traders will open many spreads at identical/similar strikes to heavily profit off movement. Spreads can make you/lose you a lot of money if you are right.
  • For example. I could make a $200 premium off a $500 risk trade, max loss would be $300. This is much more effective capital utilization than a naked or cash secured put, however it does not have the same downside protection or “wheel” potential as a sold put. Higher risk, higher reward.
• Vertical Debit spreads: I think of these like mini calls/puts. I personally don’t use them unless calls are outrageously expensive or the break even is absurdly high, but there’s nothing wrong with them. A call debit spread will lower your breakeven and overall cost vs just a call. You can do clever things like making a positive theta call spread if you’re creative. I like doing this since I hate losing money to theta.
• Vertical Credit spreads:
  • Very good theta strategy to define downside/upside risks.
  • A put credit spread is bullish and allows you to bet on upward movement with less capital and defined losses.
  • A call credit spread is a bearish strategy that allows you to bet on downward movement. These are very cool since they allow you to sell calls without selling naked calls, which can ruin you financially. I see selling these as better than buying puts since it’s so much easier to be profitable; to be redundant, Θ rocks.
  • https://www.schwab.com/resource-centeinsights/content/reducing-risk-with-credit-spread-options-strategy-0
• I repeat this on purpose: Don't EVER leave short spreads open on expiration day, close them. If you don't close, they better be VERY far from the strike on a non-volatile stock. In after hours a stock can jump/dip below your strike and be exercised without the other leg to protect you. This can lead to massive, life ruining losses. This is not an exaggeration, google this and be scared. It happened to a fair number of people with TSLA. Video explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtVFj9nRRDo&t=315s
• Short Straddle:

Trading Mechanics, Taxes, Market Manipulation

• Learn about wash sale rules. They suck and are very easy to activate with options. This will eliminate your ability to write off losses. Over trading can easily cause wash sales. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/w/washsalerule.asp
• Short attacks:
  • Learn to recognize these sketchy attacks by hedges/firms. They manipulate the market, it’s been documented countless times. A common one is rapid short selling, which pushes the price down.
  • Short Ladder attacks:
    • https://www.google.com/amp/s/seekingalpha.com/amp/instablog/11442671-gerald-klein/3096735-anatomy-of-a-short-attack
    • Some people say short ladder attacks don't exist. I've seen some very strange stock nosedives off low volume, so I tend to think they do.
  • If you plan well enough and the market doesn’t give up on the stock you may be able to use it as a great opportunity to buy the dip.
• Cramer explains how he intentionally manipulated the market when he ran a hedge fund years ago. Multiple links to the video are below since this video gets pulled often, Cramer / The street never wanted this to go public.
  • Reuters article: https://www.reuters.com/article/cramer-interview-idUKN2036292620070320
  • httpss://youtu.be/r07Gg92YjOI
  • https://youtu.be/VMuEis3byY4
  • https://youtu.be/JEzsfPmh894
  • https://youtu.be/QFfjX8dW-QQ
  • Due to this video I don’t fully trust Cramer. His show can give you stock ideas to buy (or inverse), but you never know where his true loyalties lie.
• Plan for taxes if you are up big. You may need to over withhold or contribute to taxes quarterly depending on your situation. https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc306

-Intermediate / Advanced Strategies (work in progress)-
You’ll notice many of these strategies inverse one another.
Options Strategy Finder
This website is great for learning about new strategies, you’ll see many links to it below.
https://www.theoptionsguide.com/option-trading-strategies.aspx
Short Strangle / Straddle

• Both of these strategies profit from little price movement. I recommend using a P/L calculator to determine BE, profit, etc.
• A straddle sells (or buys) two options at the same expiry and strike.
• A strangle sells (or buys) two options at same expiry with different strikes.
• Both these strategies involved selling a Call and a Put for a credit. Straddle uses ATM legs, strangle uses OTM legs.
• Limited max profits and unlimited risk. Due to the unlimited risk, I am not a fan. However, many people like these a lot.
• https://www.theoptionsguide.com/short-strangle.aspx
• https://www.theoptionsguide.com/short-straddle.aspx

Iron Condor and Iron Butterflies

• These strategies profit from neutral or mostly neutral stock movement. They receive a credit to open and benefit from theta decay. If your stock is range bound, these may be a good choice.
• These are both 4 "legged" trades, so you will have 4 trading fees to enter or exit the trade. A lower cost or zero cost broker shines here. However, “bad” free brokers will give you poor fills, which may not be worth the discount.
• Condors and butterflies have "wings" which are your purchased puts and calls. The wider the wing the higher the max profit/risk. The condor body can be riskier and skinny with a narrow high profit range or wider for a much greater chance of success with lower payout.
• An iron condor is built by combining a put credit spread and a call credit spread with the same expiry.
• An iron condor can be thought of as a modified short strangle with limited risk, and therefore a bit less profit. I prefer defined limited risk.
• The butterfly is similar except instead of a plateau it has a sharp peak. My personal mental note is that a condor looks more like a strangle with wings, while a butterfly looks like a straddle with wings.
• Pay attention to earnings dates when you open these, I have forgotten to check before and it led to bad trades.
• https://www.theoptionsguide.com/iron-condor.aspx
• https://www.theoptionsguide.com/iron-butterfly.aspx

Long Condor (Debit Call Condor)

• The debit version of an Iron Condor. You expect the price to stay inside your defined range. This strategy profits from neutral or mostly neutral stock movement. I’ve never tried this, Iron Condors make more sense to me.
• Limited risk / limited reward.
• https://www.theoptionsguide.com/condor.aspx

Short Condor (Credit Call Condor)

• Inverse of an Iron Condor. You expect the price to go OUTSIDE your defined range. These are useful when you expect significant price movement. Credit to open.
• Limited risk / limited reward.
• Can be harder to set up. I want to try these, haven’t yet.
• https://www.theoptionsguide.com/short-condor.aspx

Reverse Iron Condor

• Inverse of an Iron Condor. You expect the price to go OUTSIDE your defined range. These are useful when you expect significant price movement. Debit to open.
• Limited risk / limited reward.
• https://www.theoptionsguide.com/reverse-iron-condor.aspx

LEAPs

• LEAP Options are options that are long term with many DTE, often over a year until expiration. LEAP calls are great for long term growth plays (downtrends with LEAP puts) or simply when you really like a company and can't afford 100 shares. LEAPs (or any "longer term" option) enables you to sell a PMCC or PMCP (below)

PMCC / PMCP

• PMCC or PMCP are poor man's covered call (or poor man's covered puts). They are diagonal options often used with purchased LEAPs. You sell a shorter DTE call/put with a further OTM strike than your purchased call/put. For PMCC/PMCPs it is often recommended to recoup your extrinsic value as soon as possible, some recommend with your first call CC or put sale, to ensure you are positive if the option is assigned early. These have a lot of moving parts and strategies. If you buy a barely ITM call/put and sell a nearby strike call/put you run the risk of the purchased option getting "blown by" on large stock movement and ending up with a very negative losing trade. Keeping your purchased LEAP deeper ITM should protect you. Check your initial PMCC using an options calculation to make sure you don't screw up.
• I'm currently tinkering with these myself. So far I like .7-.9 delta call LEAPS with 30-45 DTE calls on my CC. The goal is to hold the LEAP long term, potentially until expiration, and constantly sell calls/puts on it that expire worthless. Typically the call/put is rolled up and out or down and out if it's going to be assigned, unless you don't want your LEAP anymore.
• Some people look at these many sold CC or puts as profits, I look at them as lowering my cost basis until it's zero (or even negative). I have a page in my notebook I write each CC on my NIO LEAP (I Meme stock sometimes). I find it satisfying to slowly see the cost of the original option disappear. When I originally wrote this I had ~2 years left on it and it's 9-10% paid for; that doesn't even count the actual gains the LEAP has.
• TT states this is considered an IV play, which I partially agree with. You want to buy these during low IV times since an IV drop will hurt your LEAP value. I look at them more as a way to sell calls/puts on a high IV company with a lot of price movement and potential upside/downside.

Advanced Orders

• Guide to several order types: https://us.etrade.com/knowledge/events/webinars/order-types-from-basic-to-advanced-07162019
• One Triggers Other (OTO):
  • Good brokers will allow you to set these up, some will require a desktop to do it. This lets you link one action to another. In programming think of it like an if-then. You’ll tie a buy/sell to another buy/sell
  • Setting trailing stops on options is very chaotic since their price movement can be drastic due to volatility. I prefer to set my trailing stop to a stock.
  • What I like to do is set a trailing stop on a stock (or just link it to a stock price drop) and have it sell 1 share I own. Then it immediately executes a market order to sell my call. I’ve had good luck doing this with incredibly volatile plays were stop losses aren’t effective. I’ll often have an order saved and ready saved for when a strong run up starts. When my price alerts start blowing up my phone, I’ll immediately hit execute to turn it on.

​
Disclaimer:
I’m not a financial adviser, I'm actually an engineer. I’m not telling you to invest in a specific stock/option or even use a specific strategy. I’ve outlined and more extensively elaborated on what I personally like. You should test several strategies and find what works best for you.
I'm just a guy who trades (mainly options) part-time for financial gain and fun. I don't claim to be some investing savant.

I have dabbled in PFC over the years and I have always found this sub to be wonderful in terms of the level-headed advice and strong values that really make a long-term difference in people's financial well-being.
And so it's a bit jarring to see the WSB/GME jargon creep into the sub over the last few days (as it has everywhere) and I honestly feel somewhat of an obligation to address a few investment-related things:
One Loss Can Wipe Out a Lifetime of Gains
Investing has asymmetric outcomes. i.e. a 10% loss is not equivalent to a 10% gain. To recoup a 10% loss, you actually have to make an 11% gain. And the difference grows exponentially, so if you lose 90% of your investment, you will now need to return 900% just to get back to break even.
the riskier your bets, the more asymmetric the outcomes.
but its worse than that: you can go on an awesome run where all your big bets are paying huge ... then erase it all with one bad trade.
but its even worse that that: it is a statistical guarantee that, over enough trades, you WILL make a bad trade.
FOMO
Humans are social animals. And good thing b/c we learn from each other. We have special brain cells called mirror neurons that fire when we do something, or when we see someone else doing something. Its what makes my 8 month old son bang away on the laptop keyboard like he's a WWII typist. Monkey see, monkey do.
And that approach to life is so successful in some parts that we naturally assume that it will work well in others. u/deepfuckingvalue made $40MM on GME, maybe I can too!?!?!
But this is where our meat sacs can lead us astray again and the trappings of this approach are well documented. See the Madness of Crowds and the Great Crash of 1929 and Tilray and Volkswagen and AOL TimeWarner and Amazon (yes, amazon was down 95% from its peak in 2001), and on and on. Everyone rushes in b/c everyone's making money b/c everyone is rushing in until there's no one left to rush in and the whole thing collapses.
Whatever anxiety or fear you have need only be understood and accepted, not reacted to, and then regardless of how you feel you must revert to your core principals: what am I buying and why? Do i think the investment is undervalued, do i like the dividend, what is the RISK / REWARD, WHAT ARE MY FINANCIAL GOALS? DOES THIS INVESTMENT FIT WITH MY GOALS? WHO IS ENCOURAGING ME TO BUY THIS INVESTMENT AND WHY??????
There's BEING AGGRESSIVE, and then there's BEING DUMB
Don't get me wrong, I love some of the WSB culture around YOLO/diamond hands/etc. You cannot be successful without having the fortitude to take some risks, either with your investments or in your personal life.
And if you take well-calculated, well-researched risks (typically on things no one else will), you will see the rewards. u/deepfuckingvalue is a great example. He has been holding GME calls for two years and took nothing but shit from the wsb crowd for a bad trade and sharing his fact-based, well-grounded and researched reasons for doing so along the way. Aggressive - and brilliant.
Buying a stock for 100x what it was a month ago, with no understanding of the business b/c you heard about it on the evening news is probably dumb.
I don't mean to get preachy. If you are on this sub, you are on the right path. Stick with the principals you have learned here and good fortune will snowball your way. And I'm not giving financial advice here, but I beg caution of anyone thinking about diving in now with a major proportion of their wealth (Whatever it may be). It could be gone in a week.

I've never actually gambled before, but during the superbowl me and my friends said we would make a bet. I wanted to bet that the first score would be a safety, but my evil friends talked me out of it.

I genuinely hope this can help someone and if any of the Seasoned investors here would like to weigh in or add anything, or correct anything that I may not understand fully, please do so. I am definitely still learning everyday.
​
Common Stock Market Terms:
Stock: A stock (also known as equity) is a security that represents the ownership of a fraction of a corporation. This entitles the owner of the stock to a proportion of the corporation's assets and profits equal to how much stock they own.
Share: Units of equity ownership interest in a company that exist as a financial asset providing for an equal distribution in any residual profits, if any are declared, in the form of dividends.
Long Position: The purchase of shares with the expectation of the share price increasing.
Short Position: Refers to a trading technique in which an investor sells shares of a stock, usually shares that they do not own, with plans to buy it and return it later. Shorting is a strategy used when an investor anticipates the price of a security will decline.
Bid Price: Price that you can currently sell a share of stock.
Ask Price: Price that you can buy a share of stock.
Spread: The difference between the Bid Price and Ask Price.
Resistance: The imaginary trend line that the stock price typically struggles to break in both upward and downward trends. Typically when a stock breaks its support line, that line becomes the new resistance line.
Support: The imaginary trend line that the stock price tends to dip down to in both upward and downward trends. Typically when a stock breaks its resistance line, that line becomes the new support line.
Trend: The general direction, whether up or down, that a stock is going.
Types of Stocks:
Sectors:
Energy, Materials, Industrials, Consumer Discretion, Consumer Staples, Healthcare,
Big Pharma, Financials, Information & Technology, Telecommunication, Utilities, Realestate and Transportation.
Market Cap:
Mega (over $300bn), Large (over $10bn), Midsize ($2-10bn), Small ($300mil - $2bn),
Micro ($50-300mn), Nano (<$50mil), Penny Stocks (Share Price under $5)
Buying Stock:
When you buy a stock through a Broker it has to go through a pipeline, that pipeline is as follows:
You, the retail buyer, places an order shares of a stock through a broker (think of the broker as the retail storefront) -- the broker sends your order to an exchange (the exchange, like the NYSE, is kind-of like a wholesale warehouse) -- the exchange fills the order and sends it back to your broker - your broker gives you your shares of the stock
Profit/Returns:
You make a profit by selling the shares of your stock at a higher price than you bought them.
There are multiple ways to make a profit:
Buy Low, Sell high
Buy High and Sell Higher
Sell High, Buy Low (also known as a Short Position, Short Sale or Selling Short)
Dollar Amount:
You can calculate profits by the dollar amount. If you buy 10 shares of a stock at $100/share and sell those shares at $150, you have made a profit/return of $500.
Percentage:
You can also calculate returns by percentage. This lets you see the amount of growth based on the buy price. If you buy 10 shares of stock at $100/share and sell those shares at $150, you have made a return of 50% ($500 profit from $1000 investment is 50% of your investment in profit)
Types of Orders:
There are multiple different types of orders you can submit through your broker.
Market Order: This type of order typically happens instantly, during normal trading hours. If your broker allows you to submit market orders when the Market isn’t open, it will be filled once the market opens the next day. It is simply an order to buy/sell shares of stock at “Market Value'', or whatever the price of the share is when the exchange fills the order.
Pros: You know that you are getting the shares.
Cons: The price you see when you submit the order isn’t always the price the order gets filled at. This is also referred to as “Slippage”.
Limit Orders:
Limit Buy Order: This type of order is set to buy shares when your target buy price is hit. If a stock is trading at $100/Share and you want to buy at $90/Share, you would set a Limit Buy Order for x amount of shares at $90/share. Once the share price of the stock hits $90, or lower, your order would go through and the specified number of shares would be bought automatically. You can use this type of order if you believe the price of the stock will dip to your target price.
Limit Sell Order: Similar to a Limit Buy Order, this type of order is set to sell shares when the price hits your target sell price. If you own shares of a stock that is currently at $100/share and you want to sell those shares at $150/share, you would place a Limit Sell Order for $150, and once the price gets to $150/share, or more, your shares would automatically be sold.
Pros: You can decide the share price that you want to buy or sell at. This could give you more control over your profit margins.
Cons: The target price you set may never be hit, therefore the order may never go through. This is more of a con for Limit buy orders because it could cost you an opportunity to get into a stock before the price increases.
Stop Order:
Stop Buy Order: This type of order is similar to a Limit Buy Order, but kind-of the opposite. This type of order is set to buy a stock at a price higher than current market value. Let's say you think a stock is on an uptrend but you want to be sure, or confirm that hunch, you could set a Stop Buy Order for a price higher than the current market order. Once the price hits your target price, and confirms your hunch that it is indeed in an uptrend, the order would be transferred into a Market Order and filled at the Market Price at the time the order is filled.
Stop Sell Order(Also known as a Stop Loss Order): This type of order is also similar to, but opposite of, a Limit Sell Order. This type of order is set to sell a stock once it dips down to a specified target price. Let’s say you want to buy shares of a stock that you believe will be a good investment, but you want to limit your risk just in case it doesn’t work in your favor; you could set a Stop Loss order at the price that is lower than current Market Price, in which you are comfortable with the loss. If the stock dips down to that level, the order would be transferred into a Market Order and sell your shares at the Market Price at the time the order is filled.
Trailing Stop Loss Order: Similar to a normal Stop Loss Order, this allows you to set a Stop Sell Order at a specified(either dollar amount or percentage) amount below the current Market Price and it moves to maintain that specified margin as the stock goes up. This is a good way to protect profits and mitigate loss at the same. Let’s say you buy in at $100/share and only want to risk $10/share, you could set a Trailing Stop Loss at $10 under market value. If the stock price drops, it would work the same as the normal Stop Loss, however, this type of order makes it so if the price rises to $500 and then reverses, you can still keep some of the profits you made because instead of transferring to a market order at a fixed price of $90, and losing all of the profits you had accumulated, it would transfer to a market order at $490 therefore mitigating profit loss on a downward trend.
Pros: The pros of a Stop Buy Order are that you can enter the stock in an upward momentum. As long as you are correct about the trend of the stock, this could work well in your favor.
The pros of a Stop Loss Order is that it could give you the ability to mitigate losses if the stock turns bad.
Cons: there are a few cons here. The first con applies to both Stop Sell and Stop Buy Orders; and that is the fact that it transfers to a Market Order when the predetermined price is hit, making it subject to the same type of slippage that can occur with a Market Order. This means the order could fill at a higher(Stop Buy) or lower(Stop Sell) price than you anticipated. Another con of the Stop Buy Order is the fact that False Trends do occur. This could cause you to buy at a high price right before a reversal and have to take those losses. The same type of Con Exists with Stop Loss orders. If the stock is following a False Downward Trend and triggers a sell, and then the trend reverses, you could miss out on potential profits and may be forced to buy back in at a higher price than you bought originally. The same false trend con can be said about Trailing Stop Loss orders, except the Trailing Stop Loss Orders help to mitigate the loss of profit. At least you still made profit with the Trailing Stop Loss Order.
Short Sell Order: This type of order is available from certain Brokers. For example: If you have signed the Margin Agreement on Fidelity and therefore have the ability to trade on margin, they will allow you to Short Sell stocks. When you Short Sell a stock, you borrow the stock from your broker with the expectation that the price will go down. You then sell the stock at the price you set, or when the time frame that you agreed to is up. Let’s say a stock is trading at $100/Share and you believe that it is overvalued and will drop to $50/share within the next week. You could place a Short Sell order for $50/Share on a 1 week timeframe. You would sell those borrowed shares at $100/share and once the share price hits your target price of $50/share, or the timeframe is up, you would buy back those shares to return to your broker and keep the difference as profit.
Pros: The pros here are obvious. If you sell a borrowed stock at $100/share and buy it back at $50/share, you would get to keep $50/share as profit.
Cons: The cons here are big. If you are wrong and the stock skyrockets, you will still have to return those shares meaning you would have to buy the shares at a higher price than you sold, and eat that loss. If you sold a borrowed stock at $100/share on a one week time frame, and the price increased to $150/share by the end of the week, you would take a $50/share loss and have to pay the difference out of pocket. The amount the stock could increase is unlimited meaning you have the risk of unlimited losses.
Calculating Risk on a Trade:
You can calculate/assign a value to your risk by figuring out the Risk Multiple of your trade. The Risk Multiple is the ratio of Risk:Reward.
One way to change your risk multiple is through Stop Loss Orders.(see “Types Of Orders” section above)
Example of Identical Trade/Profit with Different Risk Multiples:
If you buy 10 shares of a company at $100/Share with no Stop Loss, and sell at $150/share you make a $500 profit or a 50% return. In this trade you risked $1000 to make $500, so your Risk Multiple is 2:1, meaning you risked $2 to make $1.
If you buy those same 10 shares at $100/share with a Stop Loss at $50, and then sell those shares at $150/share, you make the same $500 (or 50%) profit… but you only risked $500 in order to make $500. This means your Risk Multiple was a 1:1, meaning you risked $1 to make $1.
10 shares at $100/share and selling at $150/share with a Stop Loss at $75? Now your Risk Multiple is 1:2. You risked $1 to make $2.
Different Ways to Analyze Stocks:
Fundamental Analysis: What to Buy
Qualitative Fundamentals: These are things that can not be quantified, or put into numbers and charts. Things to look at in this category are things like technology disruptions or innovations, economic impacts(negative or positive), management issues or upgrades, economic moat (overall control or exclusivity in their economic sector, or lack thereof).
When looking for stocks to invest in, this type of analysis includes big, universal, forces and events that will affect entire sectors of the market. Thighs and trends that will affect industries for years to come.
For example, Self Driving Cars. This trend in technological advancement is being tested on a wide scale and hopes to be implemented in the coming years across a lot of different applications. A sector of the market that this could affect drastically would be Transportation, more specifically, trucking. You could look at the total business expenses that trucking companies have dedicated to drivers payroll. By eliminating drivers, there is more cash flow that could be transferred to profit instead of payroll. You could then find the trucking companies with the capital to be able to afford to invest in updating their fleet to these self driving trucks first and make the bet that these companies will implement this technology and see positive growth because of it. Or, you could invest directly into the companies that are looking to produce these self driving vehicles, or both.
Before dropping a huge amount of money into any one trend affected sector, make sure you don’t already have a large chunk of your portfolio invested in that sector already. Diversification is a good thing. You don’t want all your eggs in one basket, or large trend, in case it fails to realize the growth that is expected.
Quantitative Fundamentals: These are the things happening in the company that can be quantified, or put into numbers and charts. Things to look at in this category are assets/liabilities, revenue, cashflow, and financial ratios i.e. P/E, P/B, and P/CF (Price/Earnings, Price/Book Value, Price/Cash Flow). Things to look at specifically are Statements of Cash Flow, including Cash Flow of Operations, Cash Flow of Investments, and Cash Flow from Financing.
You can compare the Statements of Cash Flow to the Revenue Statements and Earnings and income reports to see how big the discrepancies are. This will give you an idea of financial acrobatics that the company might be playing to make their total revenue look higher than it is. Do these things show growth or decline? Could be a good indicator of where their stock is headed.
Technical Analysis: When to Buy or Sell
Trends:
Long term trends, mid term trends and short term trends are all things to look at when trying to decide when to buy into a stock. While stocks may go up and down on a daily, or even shorter, basis, they typically follow a broader, long term, trend. This isn’t to say that trends can’t reverse, because they definitely can and do. You can see what the general short term and long term trends are by using tools like moving averages. Long term SMAs to see long term trends and short term SMAs can show short term trends. Trends can be up trends, down trends or neutral trends.
Some tools to look at are Simple Moving Averages and Envelopes, and Exponential Moving Averages. These are referred to as Indicators on a stock Graph. There are MANY indicators that all do different things.
Areas of Value and Entry/Exit triggers:
These are pretty simple yet extremely complicated to study and understand. Learning how candlestick charts and patterns work is pretty important.
And AOV is basically the highest level in a down trend that could indicate a good sell point, or the lowest level in an uptrend that could indicate a buy point. When you look at whether the chart patterns are trending up or down and whether the stock price is in an AOV, you could determine whether you want to buy in or get out of the stock. This method could work for day trading, swing trading, and long term investing. Study candlestick patterns, and how to identify resistance and support levels in trends.
Core Satellite Approach to Investing:
This approach seems to be a good approach. The way this works is pretty simple.
60-75% of your investment budget goes into 2-5 funds that cover multiple asset classes and sectors. An example of this type of fund could be the FBTOX fund. This fund holds shares in a wide variety of blue chips in different sectors.
The other 25-40% would go into 10-20 individual stocks. Some of these can be stocks that pay dividends and some can be stocks that you have done your research on and believe they will grow. Some of them could be sectors or companies that you hold personal sentiment in and want to invest in. All of that is up to you.
Remember, overdiversification isn’t a great idea because eventually you are so diversified that your portfolio follows closely to the general market value. But having a diversified portfolio is extremely important so that if one sector declines, your whole portfolio doesn’t decline. Its all about balance.

Oh man, I think I’m having a little bit of a freak out and I need to type-vent. *caveat to add, this is def a vent, selfish and whiny internet therapy I guess you could say. Just needed to let it out.
It’s just snowballing. All of it. Planning (replanning) and then some more replanning. Life expenses, work stress, covid news burnout, taxes…
Caterer emailed last night to say they are closing their business--another covid business casualty. My heart hurts for these two really nice people.
We’ve already postponed from 07/18/20 (our 11th anniv) to 07/23/21 and 90% replanned after the first venue/catererental house backed out completely and wouldn’t allow us to reschedule.
We can find another caterer, I know. I just don’t WANT to. Why is this all so hard?
A particular suit that FH was saving up for is no longer carried by the shop he found it at. We can find another, its just disheartening.
Unplanned medical expenses popping up suddenly.
Bought two new tires ahead of “the storm of the year” in town and it turned out to be literally nothing, and a waste of $380 (ugh I know, tires are important, I just don’t want them to be important right now).
Turbotax is being dumb and not calculating our 1098 forms correctly (known issue related to a form fillable data miscalculation that is out of our control right now, but our return feels like its being held hostage and is heavily relied on unfortunately)
Grad school tuition is in limbo in the mysterious land of college billing. Just acknowledge I paid you weirdos and update my balance already geez.
Sleep..ha! what’s that? What a fond memory.
Scheduled this first dress fitting for mid-may, but at this point the dress doesn’t zip up anymore.
I run miles and miles, do a weightlifting split, meal prep, but to no avail. Stress and my body are not friends!
And then finally just various wedding fears. Will a Spotify wedding be boring? Who will keep the flow going? Who will announce things? Do we sort of lead the charge with no dj/emcee? Will everyone be bored with no dancing? How do we entertain them during cocktail hour? I bet they’ll all wish they weren’t there…etc, etc.
I can’t even get myself to buy the invitations because it feels so pointless. FH loves them, I love them. I want to hold them to make this feel like it will actually happen, but that’s not reality.
I’m an RN and full-time covid news, wearing the extra PPE (grateful to have it!), covid updates/discussion is leading to major burnout. I maxed out on vacation accrual and didn’t even know I wasn’t accruing anymore! Fighting with my employer to get the first vaccine dose took the last of my energy I think.
I think I need a break from Weddit. I keep seeing posts about “cutting down to 30 people” and “scaling back to 50 invites,” but we can’t even have that. Our entire guest list back from 2019 was only 30-ish, now locked in at 33 invites. We can’t even have a gathering at this point. I’m too scared to buy the invitations to just have to postpone again and notify everyone again. FH is better at taking a step back, but also thinks we can plan everything in 2 weeks. I’ve tried explaining, but its hard to impart the reality of the planning timeline when its hard enough to navigate even with some knowledge about it, ya know? His innocence about the planning process is somewhat endearing, but also unrealistic.
We skipped birthday celebrations and vacations for a decade to save for this fun day, and for what? No version of my childhood daydreaming thought it would take 12 years for us to get down the aisle!
Wooooosh, okay. Even falling back on my usual wellness choices aren’t working. I stared hardcore at my meditation stopwatch today silently yelling at it to countdown faster because I couldn’t clear my mind or be patient. Clearly I wasn’t meditating!
Okay. my shoulders are slowly relaxing down from my ears and I feel 5% less freaked out. Thank you for listening if you made it this far.
edit: clarifications
Edit #2: Currently having happy tears while sneaking peaks at all your wonderful messages. I havent tipped over into ugly crying yet but if you don’t stop being so nice I might get there!
Edit #3: good humans exist, and I can't thank you all enough. I wish I could be more eloquent. Thank you for sharing your kindness and advice while I was aboard the struggle bus today.

So then 87 coming out on schedule. I know I'm spoiling you today ;) Time to crank up the wholesomeness possibly beat the shit out of some random guy in the street and generally figuring out what the fuck to do next.
As per usual UnwaveringGrey and TwoFlower68 have done their level best to sanitize the chapter. If I managed to slip one past them do please report it to your nearest execution squad so it may be dealt with properly.
In other news, proper art is officially commissioned and likely due sometime later this month. I'm so excited! But without further ado let's get on with the story.
ko-fi For having a pretty picture commissioned.
Sapphire
Wiki Discord
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Chapter 87: Knight In Shining Armor
“Wait, she is your only healer?” Tom questioned.
“Yes, they are a rare breed, young man,” The lady replied very apologetically, almost bowing before him.
“No, don't do that,” Tom protested. “You people both suffered and survived, not to mention your son technically saved me and Jackalope. Hopefully, Unkai can lend a hand when he gets here then, ‘cause she is spent,” Tom glanced at the healer who was still sleeping up against the wall where she had been when he woke up.
The Lady looked like she was going to protest until he reached the last sentence. “You brought a healer with you? Out here?” The lady questioned, clearly not believing him entirely.
“We did, yes, in case we found wounded. And that we certainly did. I was just hoping we could have Jacky’s ears looked at, but I guess that will have to wait.”
“I’m sorry, but we don’t have anything else that can help I’m afraid.”
“I hate not knowing what’s going on,” Jackalope exclaimed, crossing her arms looking at the two of them with a distinctly unimpressed expression.
“I guess I’ll be miming to you for a bit longer. Actually no, I brought the note block. I will be just a second,” Tom replied walking jogging over to his backpack, the confused Jackalope following along.
“You got something that can fix ears in there?” she questioned hopefully. She was getting a bit better at keeping the volume down, though she was still rather loud. Then again, that was pretty standard all things considered.
Tom got out the block to begin noting things down for her. ‘We can't fix your ears, not yet at least. Other people need to be looked at first. Maybe when we get home.’
She did seem a little annoyed after reading that, sighing a bit and looking back up at him.
“So what now, we help clean this place up? Take up watch? Or just sit back and relax?”
“You two sit back for now. I won’t have you risking your lives for our skins and then cleaning up the mess as well,” the old granny replied, trying to speak up enough to be heard across the room. Tom certainly didn’t have a problem with that. He did not really feel like hard work right now.
Jacky was clearly sore and her breathing still wasn’t quite right, so he guessed she could use the rest as well. “Do you have a place we can stay, or… ?”
“Infirmary is full I’m afraid. We do have some rooms,” the old lady replied.
“Actually I think we have a big friend in need of a bit of company when he wakes up,” Tom replied, looking towards Jarix. “We will keep our stuff with us if shit hits the fan.”
“If it does what?”
“Right, uhm… goes south. If bad things start happening,” the lady looked at him more than a little confused, but she relented eventually.
“Yes, we don’t have many people left who could fight. I will bring you something to eat, for the blood loss. I don’t know if it will help for your kind but it couldn’t hurt.”
They made their way to Jarix, who was sleeping like a rock. Tom began taking off the very uncomfortable holsters and belts. He looked like a fucking joke right now. Goddamn Florida Man running around with guns and ammo in his damn underpants. He put down the equipment in nice little piles, rechecking that everything was loaded if he needed it.
He could hear Jackalope getting out of her armor behind him. That stuff wasn't the most comfortable to sleep in after all.
“You okay?” Jacky asked in a rather worried tone after a bit. “After yesterday you’re… you’re not quite the same.” Tom turned around to look at her. She was looking at him with an expression of genuine worry.
‘That obvious, huh?’ Tom thought to himself, shoulders sagging even more. He couldn’t even blame her for catching it. His head just wasn’t in it right now, whether that was because of the fighting, the screaming, the blood loss, bodies flying everywhere last night, the fact they weren’t quite out of the woods yet, or that the ones back home would soon be getting worried. They were supposed to be back tonight after all. He didn't even know what time it was apart from rather early. He was also still tired as fuck despite just getting up. There was just too much to worry about right now.
“Look at me, would you?” Jackalope demanded, a hint of hurt in her voice. Tom snapped up to look her in the eyes, feeling more than a little ashamed of that. “Just like Sapphire said, you worry about everything. You can’t not worry… Well right now, just try not to, okay? It’s gonna be fine.”
Tom did crack a little smile before looking back down at the floor. That was very far from guaranteed, there were still many things which could go wrong. What if this wasn’t the only raiding party? What if Bizmati Keep was a ruin? What if something had found the kids in the forest? What if Jackalope's ears couldn't be fixed? what if…
Jackalope grabbed him by the shoulder, turning him around to face away from her. Then she folded her arms and wings around him, lifted him off his feet, and backed up against Jarix's side. She sat down in the nook of the dragon’s armpit and snuggled up against the dragon while clutching Tom tightly.
“I’m never gonna have a cold night again,” she let out, sounding very content. “And you are in the safest place in the world. Here you're not allowed to worry about everything. You are in a locked-down keep, sleeping with a dragon and if that doesn't do it, Then I will, so relax… please dude.”
“That might be the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me,” Tom replied, not that she could hear it of course. “Well, except for saving my life a few times… you people do that a lot don’t you?.. What did I do to deserve you?” He tried to snuggle up a bit closer to her, even if that was hard to achieve in her current grip. Jarix’s slow steady breathing almost rocking them to sleep.
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“Now I just want to ask you some questions, nothing more, so don’t panic,” Maiko went as they turned the guy around. The guy looked scared shitless to Sapphire. He was a rather short spindly fellow as well, so looked really unintimidating right about now.
“And just in case you think running is smart. I’m possibly the fastest flyer you have met and I won’t be gentle with my prey,” Sapphire added, trying to look menacing and baring her teeth, while Maiko was clearly going for the more friendly approach. The guy just swallowed once, looking at the two of them.
“I was just told to find out what you’re doing, I swear nothing more.”
“So what did you learn?” Maiko asked, still sounding very friendly.
“You go to the inventor's place regularly, you are making something weird, you have been to the Hashaw’s place, and you are staying at the Sweet Dragon.”
“And who are you supposed to give all this lovely information?” Maiko continued.
“I was just paid by some woman, I didn’t know her, I swear. She just asked if I wanted to make a bit of easy money.”
Sapphire opened her mouth a bit, letting out a deep growl. The guy was fidgeting nervously at that as Dakota, Balethon, and Junior trooped up behind him.
“I’m guessing rather fine clothes and perhaps some rather nice jewelry?” Dakota asked, causing the guy to go stiff.
“I mean yeah… she did look rather rich.”
“How were you supposed to let her know?”
“I should meet her at the big plaza in front of the trading guild tomorrow after breakfast.”
“Right, well first off that’s not going to happen,” Dakota went from behind him. “Secondly, if we catch you following us again I’ll let Sapphire here demonstrate why she isn't even allowed to compete in archery competitions. Am I clear?” Her voice was cold and calculating, the guy nodding rapidly. “Out of curiosity, what did she pay you.”
“15 silver.” ‘Well, for tailing someone that was a rather good pay.’ The guy didn't exactly look well off either, so Sapphire could see him taking that offer without a second thought.
“Actually, I think I might have a better idea,” Sapphire Interruptet. “What would we like them to know?” Dakota looked to Sapphire, her face turning into an evil grin.
“What do you say, Maiko?”
“I mean, if this guy doesn’t want to go to jail for disturbing the peace and spying on military matters he might be useful.” Sapphire was pretty sure you could not go to jail for that. Nor was this military matter, in any capacity. “So what do you say, willing to lend the Royal Guard and a few people in high standing with the king a hand, or do I need to get some manacles?” Maiko questioned, looking down at the guy.
“Treworian at your service, sir,” The man responded, eyes wide as the situation he found himself in seemingly hit him like a battering ram.
“Come with us then. We have some things to discuss,” Dakota went, nodding to the others.
They took the guy back to the workshop where Tink was currently busy repairing the damage to the magnet.
“Back so soon?”
“Yeah, we found a nosey little bastard.”
“And you brought him here?” Tink questioned, clearly not happy with that.
“Yes, we did. Now Treworian, may I call you Trewor?” Dakota questioned, turning to the man.
“Yes ma’am, of course,” he responded, eagerly. ‘God damn he’s scared,’ Sapphire mused to herself. They weren’t gonna hurt the dude unless they had to, but it was probably best he didn’t know that.
“As you can see, we are making very dangerous new weapons here, under the authority of the king no less.” Tink looked ready to protest when Junior kicked him in the shin, shutting him up. “Have you heard of the attacks on the outlying keeps?”
Trewor nodded, looking around the room worriedly at all the strange bits and bobs.
“We are looking to put an end to that once and for all. Now the reason I’m showing you all this is because if you tell anyone that is treason, and you know what that means.” ‘Oh you evil genius,’ Sapphire thought to herself, doing a gesture of Trewor falling a very long way down, convincing sounds included. The guy went even paler than before.
“So what I want you to do, is tell the sweet lady who hired you that we are making some kind of invention as a present for the King himself and that it looks very expensive and very complicated. So you can’t possibly figure out what it is. But you did manage to sneak in while we were out and read a very official-looking document, stating who had hired us, and that the present is expected to be done in time for… Anyone know when there is some sort of big event coming up with the royal family?” Dakota questioned looking around.
“One of the princes is graduating from the academy this summer I think,” Maiko responded.
“That will do. A present for the prince in time for his graduation. Can you do that?”
“Sure can, don’t you worry. I ain’t no traitor”
“Very good. Now, remember, if you tell her the truth it’s a long way down okay?”
“A very long way indeed,” Sapphire added, with as much venom in her voice as she could manage. Trewor just nodded furiously.
“Good lad, now run along now, you have work to do,” Dakota continued, letting go of him. Trewor stormed out the door, Junior going over to close it after him.
They all stood there for a second before everyone except Tink broke out laughing.
“You’re all crazy” The inventor finally went in a disapproving tone, Which only caused Sapphire to laugh even harder.
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When Tom woke up again, he was greeted by a dragon's head lying on the ground in front of him, staring at him with a sly smile.
“Someone got comfortable?” Jarix questioned, sounding very pleased with himself.
“You're just jealous; no one is big enough to wrap you up like this,” Tom replied from his prison of safety. “What time is it?”
“Hmmph, no clue, it’s getting late though. They brought you something because you decided to spray blood everywhere. Oh and your clothes. The girl tried to apologize for not being able to get them properly clean. That took a bit of explaining.”
Tom chuckled at that. “I’m sure it did... Wait did they use you as a washing line?”
“It looked wet, so why not?” Jarix responded. Tom cracked a proper smile at that.
“The world's most expensive washing assistant.”
“Yeah… Not exactly the world’s best night fighter, that’s for sure,” Jarix let out with a sigh. “I have never had my ass whopped that hard before.”
“Hey! You don’t get to feel sorry about that. You killed all three of those big bastards. And no one seems to know what they were... I never thought I would need to tell you this but be a little proud of that.” Jarix did perk up a bit at that, not much though.
“I only got two, and the last one would have gotten me I think... But I did tell you, you would be great at getting things off my back, hey. Even if that was not quite how I intended it”
“Can’t argue with that. By the way, have your decades of training to become a perfect killing machine told you what they might be?”
“No, I got nothing. Definitely a foul thing. It must have been able to see me approach to land that hit.”
“Yeah, if it sees like a bat then that thing sees using sound.”
“Wait, what?” Jarix questioned. “Can't they just see well in the dark?”
“Nope, they use their ears. That was no ordinary bat though, that is for damn sure.”
“No it was not… I’ve been thinking. My father said the darklings had a ride they kept falling back to when they attacked him… Do you think we just found what it was?”
Tom had to think about that for a bit. “Fuck, it might be… Is that bad?”
“Yes. Very! That means they have a new way of traveling long distances. That’s never good.” Tom felt Jackalope begin to stir as Jarix talking jostled the two of them around a bit.
“No Tom, you’re not leaving yet, this is nice,” she let out still half asleep, squeezing Tom tighter.
“I think for the Time being we need not worry, we just killed three of them there can’t be more around or they would be everywhere”
Jarix looked rather curiously at their arrangement. “Shouldn’t we worry? This could be very bad, we can't just sit here”
“Not much to do except let the people who can do something about it know. We were supposed to scout not fight. So let’s just worry about that and the kids for now. Besides, you aren't going anywhere in a hurry, right?” Jarix looked rather ashamed as he craned his head to look at this own back, expression turning pained.
“No, I am not.”
“Well then, neither am I and neither is Jacky. Unkai is needed here. And we aren’t sending Zarko alone. Even if Jacky or Unkai could find their way back to the keep… Actually, Jacky is deaf so that would be kinda hard… And Unkai might not even know… Well, that settles it then, we aren’t going anywhere 'till you can fly again.”
“Maybe we could get some of these nice people to fly the message. We were sent by the king remember”
“I mean maybe… perhaps at some point. Are my clothes dry yet?”
“They don’t feel cold anymore, so I guess so.”
Tom squirmed a bit to try and get free but Jackalope simply squeezed tighter. Jarix suppressed a snicker. “Uhh, I guess that’s nice to know. Jacky, I know you’re awake… goddammit.” Tom tried, Jarix starting to giggle properly.
“She’s got you now.”
“Well if you didn't want me to leave I don’t think I could either,” Tom retorted looking up at the dragon. “All joking aside, you did fucking amazing out there. I’m just sorry I couldn’t nail that bastard on your back sooner.”
“That hurt like hell. Also, don’t tell her, but I think Jackalope shot me.”
“Jarix, how bad is lead for a dragon?” Tom questioned.
“Don’t tell me they need to dig it out?”
“I mean they don't need to, but it’s in there now. And it’s made from copper and lead.”
Jarix looked over all the wounds strewn over him. The dragonettes had done a good job of patching most of them up, though several of the bandages were leaking fresh blood.
“I think it’ll stay in. Their healer would be done for 10 times over, trying to fix that mess I guess. So much for looking like a million gold.” Jarix seemed genuinely distraught at that.
“Hey think of it this way. You’re the first dragon ever to be shot with a gun. Have you ever heard the expression ‘Knight in shining armor’ by the way?”
“Yeah, like some young prince who everyone wants.”
“Well, would you look at that, a metaphor that transcends worlds? It actually means a man who has yet to be tested. That is why his armor is shiny. He hasn’t seen battle yet.”
“Couldn’t he just get it fixed and polished?”
“Maybe, but his armor would still carry scars of battle and most will leave them undisturbed as marks of experience. Just like you will now. Congratulations. You’ve been tested and you sure as fuck weren’t found wanting, you magnificent bastard.”
“Does that mean I passed a lesson?” Jarix questioned, seemingly very excited all of a sudden.
“With flying colors. Pun intended, not that I doubted you could fight” Tom joked cracking a smile “There are more to go through. And remember chicks dig scars.”
“Why do I want to impress a young chicken?”
“I guess that one doesn’t translate. Girls, Jarix. Girls love scars… Well some of them at least.”
“Ahhh that makes more sense, my back is gonna look wicked in that case… eventually.”
“Just think of Baron. He looked badass, didn’t he?”
“Sure, but most of those are from epic battles in the history books. He’s so freaking cool. I was told stories about him and the other veterans growing up.”
“You don’t think this one is going in there?”
“It’s just some battle for a keep. That happens all the time.”
‘Well, that is a rather depressing thought…' Tom hadn’t gotten that impression from the others though. “I don’t think you’re right, didn’t you say you had no clue what those bat things were? The first one is always remembered. You might be the first to ever kill one and the first to win a battle against them. First are always remembered.”
Jarix seemed to ponder that for a second before he lit up. “You mean I’m gonna be going in the history books for this?” he replied with genuine excitement in his voice.
“Well it’s possible, don’t you think? Besides if that doesn’t cut it, being the first dragon to carry a gun should damn well do the trick. You didn't even think of that?”
“I just wanted to win... “
“Bravo. That’s how it’s done,” Tom was actually genuinely surprised by that and really rather happy. It was clear this mattered to Jarix. Tom guessed he had been used to big battles with colorful depictions of heroes and their deeds. “You need to win no matter what, because history is written by the victor. I’m willing to bet that most of those stories you have heard aren’t really true. War is always a shit show, but if you win you can claim it wasn’t.”
“That is rather depressing,” Jarix responded.
“You remember what I said a while ago? Glory is your reward for doing terrible deeds, not to mention going through hell, hopefully for a good cause. We did that yesterday. That was all for a good cause, and that can’t be taken from you. So again, congratulations, big blue hero.”
“Well at what point are the two little ‘heroes’ gonna move? I haven't moved a muscle for an hour fearing I might squash you.”
“You are gonna have to take that one up with Jackalope,” Tom replied. He didn’t really want to get up, he was perfectly comfortable here, even if he was wondering how Jackalope wasn’t uncomfortable he was literally sitting in her lap and had been for hours by now. He should probably eat whatever was in that bowl too. It didn’t look particularly appetizing though.
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“Why haven't we heard anything yet?” Balethon questioned, between bites of dinner.
“Don’t know, might have stayed a little at Deriva? I would. It’s not often we get to see them, and the Lady there is very kind,” Sapphire replied in a hopeful tone. She was not sure she believed that though.
“They have Jarix with them. He could outrun almost anything,” Maiko replied. “If it was bad news, we would have heard from them by now. Likely this morning actually.”
“Unless they were dumb enough to try and help,” Dakota added in, sounding worried.
“I mean, Zarko follows orders, Unkai would likely be too scared, they won’t listen to Jacky. So that puts it down to Tom and Jarix,” Sapphire replied, thinking that over for a second. “Would Tom risk it?”
“I have no idea. Nunuk said he sounded troubled at the notion of even leaving the keep. But dammit if he is one to look the other way,” Dakota answered again before looking to Maiko. “What about Jarix?”
“Oh, he would for sure, but isn’t that what Tom had been trying to teach him not to do? Besides, I think he would listen to Zarko on that front. That and he has orders to follow, from the king no less.” Maiko certainly didn’t seem worried.
“Tom won’t give a shit about those orders though,” Sapphire stated plainly, scoring a double take from Maiko. “But he might decide to play hero, and with Jacky along… And Jarix possibly looking for an excuse...” ‘Fuck they might actually do it,’ Sapphire concluded to herself as she looked around at the others. “What would we do if they tried to help?”
“Not much we can do. We’re stuck here for the time being,” Dakota replied, looking like she had already arrived at Sapphire’s conclusion.
“Well if they don’t return… We would be launching an investigative force,” Maiko replied, clearly not pleased with that notion. “If they engaged, though, there is a good chance they are licking their wounds. I wouldn’t be concerned yet. As I said, Jarix is damn near the fastest flyer around these days. If you don’t need to go too far.”
“So they saw a keep in trouble, lent a hand, then ran away to lick their wounds. Or, they went in, won the battle, and are celebrating merrily with the people they saved. Sounds good to me. As long as too many didn't get hurt,” Balethon added, mouth half full of food. “How long until you send someone to mop up what’s left?”
“Oh, I don’t know. A few days... Maybe a week,” Maiko replied dismissively.
“I say we worry about it then, hey? Besides, as you said, we can’t do anything about it,” Balethon continued, while still eating. “I think we need to be more concerned with the people who might just be trying to kill us.”
Sapphire didn't really like this. In most of the situations they talked about, people would likely get hurt and it might well be someone she cared about. Tom was a good friend, sure. But she had known Jackalope for many years; she might be her closest friend in fact, despite their rivalry. “They better be fine. I've been doing too much praying as of late, and it doesn't seem to be working. I think it’s about time it does”
“Isn’t that something to do with only praying when you need something?” Balethon questioned.
“Well what should I pray for then? That someone got hurt or worse?” Sapphire replied in a rather annoyed tone.
“I think you need to give thanks for what you got. Not done much praying though,” he responded.
“Okay so. Dear Lotek, thank you for our safe journey here. Would you please ask Ishan not to take my friend from me?”
“Don’t say things like that, Everyone is fine. I’m sure.” Dakota demanded, sounding like she needed to convince herself just as much as the others. “Besides, even if they did decide to help a keep, they have both Tom and a damn dragon of the Royal Guard. What exactly survives that?” She didn’t sound entirely convinced of that statement either though. Even if it was one hell of an argument.
“Sorry. I’m just worried, okay?” Sapphire apologized.
“Let’s just give a prayer for everyone to get home safe tonight, and then worry about the things we can do something about.” Maiko interjected, clearly trying to ease things a bit.
When they had made it to bed, Dakota had a chat with Nunuk about what had happened. Even if there wasn’t much to report beyond Trewor. Crucially though, no news from the keep. Everything was as it should be apart from no Jarix and crew.
“Do you think this Trewor guy gonna stab us in the back?” Sapphire questioned after giving Dakota a second to catch her breath after the experience.
“I think he is too scared to try and double-cross us. He wants to live. That was damn clever of Maiko, I damn near believed it myself.”
“Yeah, the guy has a knack for this kind of thing it seems. I’m starting to see why Hashaw sent him. Besides just not wanting him around. And it was brilliant about the weapons. Even if Trewor does betray us, the bitch is gonna be scared shitless anyway.”
“She sure is,” Dakota replied with an evil grin.
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So then. The girls in the big city are hitting back, Jacky is doing her best to help her stressed to shit boyfriend and Jarix might have gotten a childhood wish fulfilled. Did you enjoy the chapter if so do let me know down below. Alternatively, let me know just how badly I fucked up.
Until next time Have an awesome day.
ko-fi For having a pretty picture commissioned.
Sapphire
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For those of you who were here prior to GMExplosion you might remember Warren Buffett was accumulating shares in a company last quarter which he kept secret. The last time he has done this was in 2015. By my calculations of his historic fillings, he will be releasing his 13F on Monday (deadline is Tuesday, not sure how market closed affects it) and it should reveal the company.
I've kept my ears to the ground and while there were a lot of theories, the only rumour I've heard from a reputable source was Boeing (the source being @deitaone, which publishes Bloomerg terminal updates).
Now if you put 2 and 2 together, what do you get? A good opportunity for a yolo.
Positions:
15x BA 2/19 230c
20x BA 2/19 250c
15x BA 2/26 250c
Note for the new-comers: this is a highly risky play that will probably return a loss. Don't bet your house on it.

Happy 2nd anniversary, everyone! Now that we have our first global-first character in Melissa, AS Tiramisu has released on the JP version, and we're getting close to the final few banners that my last guide managed to cover, its time I come out of my winter hibernation to make another one of these.
I should mention that, while these guides were always inherently very opinionated, that might be even more the case this time, because the guides I used as a sort of second opinion to bounce my impressions off of have sadly yet to update past Mistrare. As such, my main sources this time are limited to the unofficial wiki as well as altema.
Also, like last time, I will omit the whole spiel on normal banners vs. AS banners, general summon behavior, etc. for the sake of keeping this guide short and concise. However, if you're new, and you wanna know what I'm talking about, here is a link to my 2.0 guide.
​
So, lets address how these ratings work.
The ratings work the same as always in that the banners are rated under the assumption that you're an F2P-player who has none of the featured units. They're also sorted in the expected chronological release order, but if the whole thing with Yipha has shown us anything, its that WFS can throw us a curve ball any time they want. Its also still true that, due to ever-increasing powercreep, modern review-culture does not apply here: Instead of a 7/10 being average like you often see with videogame or movie reviews, a 5/10 represents a banner of average quality in this guide. This is so that, with all these powerful new units, my ratings don't turn into nothing but 9.5 and 10/10s, which would make rating them in the first place pointless.
With all that out of the way, lets get to the actual ratings (aka from here, there be spoilers!):
EDIT: Thanks to u_sdw4527, it was brought to my attention that I have missed some banners. I have now added them at the end of the guide.
​

• The anniversary banner: 7.5/10 - We're starting off with the big one. Counting AS and NS forms as seperate, we're looking at 30 different 5 star units available, with no unfeatured 5 stars. However, there really aren't a lot of duds in here: Both forms of Isuka, AS Felmina, Hozuki, Toova and Mighty are very underwhelming nowadays (although even those, except Isuka, can be sidegraded to become at least decent, and at most incredibly strong) but every other character on this banner is at least okay, with some real powerhouses thrown into the mix as well. Its also worth noting that units that only have one 5 star version have their summon chance further increased (0.24%) compared to units with two seperate 5 star forms (0.13% per form), which works in the favor of the player because a lot of the units you'd want out of this banner like Mistrare, Victor or Myunfa only have one 5 star form and hence have their summon chance boosted further. It is however a VERY diluted banner due to the sheer number of units, and a lot of them are only decent, so its 'only' a 7.5.
• Melissa/Premaya: 8.5/10 - I don't claim to be some sort of all-knowing god when it comes to this game, so when a character comes out that is new for EVERYONE, the banner gets a little harder to rate, but I truly think that Melissa is amazing. Not like, best character in the game, but I'm thinking top 20, MAYBE top 15 material. The 1TAF her new zone allows is gimmicky, but what makes her amazing is her insane utility: You can put her on ANY team and she will boost your damage and AF generation in the first turn, meaning you don't need to worry about switching your fastest character with your zone setter to get the zone active as soon as possible. And if that weren't enough already, her capable of inflicting break every second turn means you can just adjust the speed of your team with equipment so your strongest damage dealer goes after Melissa (and you put said damage dealer after her during AF), which essentially gives a 50% damage increase to that damage dealer (as their damage is being doubled every second turn) for free. Couple that with the absurd Nephrite Boost, and she is most likely optimal on wind zone. All in all, I think she is crazy good, and the only reason why this banner isn't rated higher is because Premaya drags it down a fair bit, being a good but definitely not great unit.
• AS Rosetta: 8/10 - Nothing has changed for this banner since last time, but I'm giving it a slightly higher rating compared to last time because I think I undersold the relevance of AS Rosetta being the only magic zone setter in the game, and what getting her means for the viability of a lot of older staff wielding characters, in my last guide.
• AS Hozuki/Biaka/Shannon: 8/10 - Despite u_xPalox' feedback left on my last guide, this would have still been an 8.5, but after a lot of consideration, its not the fact that both Biaka and Shannon are wind that made me rate the banner slightly lower, its that AS Hozuki is an AS unit whose OG is terrible to the point of basically being useless. And since a boatload of amazing AS units have released on the JP version since my last guide that can hang with or even surpass AS Hozuki, it became less likely that you'd make her your AS-upgrade goal over any of the other AS units that have come out on JP by now with limited chant scripts and the difficulty of getting treatises, assuming you land the 1.2% chance of pulling her 4.5 star version.
• AS Ilulu: 5/10 - Now that Cress made slash zone an F2P zone, this banner has lost the slight rating boost that AS Ilulu being a slash zone setter gave it. As I said in the last guide, if you have a banner that features both one of the worst and one of the best characters in the game, you get a perfectly average banner.
• AS Ewan/AS Laclair: 9.5/10 - AS Laclair becomes a beast after her manifest (guaranteed pain, int debuff, stacking water res debuff, wolf seal doesn't get consumed in AF, and a damage multiplier of up to 1300%), and AS Ewan is frankly insane. Like, in my opinion, 'best unit in the game' insane. This man is a jack of all trades done right: Team-wide priority phys and type res buff (which is a godsend with how mobs in more recent content have started becoming borderline impossible to outspeed and kill before they do damage) which also reduces MP consumption, an attack that is either really solid or straight-up absurd in terms of damage (I'm not sure if 'critical damage +100%' means 100% extra to the multiplier, or if the damage is doubled if he crits, would love input from the comments on that one), and that attack changes its damage type depending on in what attack type zone he is, which makes him a viable pick in 5/8 possible zones (not counting Melissa's), similar to Cynthia, only that AS Ewan is the WAY better unit. What is holding the banner back from being a straight-up 10 are Ewans only decent and Laclairs slightly underwhelming NS forms.
• The weapon zone banner: 10/10 - I hope y'all didn't expect me to not give this a 10 just because we now have an F2P slash zone setter. The thing is, Cress lacking the usual end of turn buff leaves his slash zone significantly weaker compared to Radias' and AS Ilulu's, so if you can get your hands on one of them, they're still MILES better, even ignoring their individual skills. Anyways, for this banner, same thing applies that applied to the elemental zone banner back in the day: Only the 5 weapon zone setters and AS Ewan are featured, meaning the value of the banner drastically decreases with every featured unit you already have. Purely mathematically, you're better off summoning on this banner over a banner with normal rates if you have 2 or less of the featured units. I didn't include my calculations, but if you wanna see the numbers behind that statement, check out the zone banner rating in my last guide.
• Mirusha/AS Nagi: 9/10 - I personally like this banner a LOT. If earth wasn't already pretty damn stacked in terms of F2P units, I'd give this a 9.5, because Mirusha is definitely top 15 characters in the game material (I mean, a shadow character who can offset the negative effects of her lunatic skill with a damage reduction ability? HELLO?), and AS Nagi has arguably aged like fine wine.
• AS Hismena: 8.5/10 - NS has aged very well to the point that both I and the tier list agree she isn't that much worse than her AS, and the AS is REALLY good. I was very tempted to give this a 9, but its an 8.5 because the AS form has one big problem: If your goal is damage optimization, you're not gonna have a fun time using AS Hismenas skills during AF, as there is a LOT of annoying move-switching mid-AF required to get the most out of her. For that reason, I personally even prefer her NS.
• Radica AS: 5/10 - Its the fire version of AS Ilulus conundrum: Her zone is already covered by an F2P unit, and while the AS is one of the best units in the game, the NS is one of the worst.
• AS Miyu / AS Toova: 9.5/10 - Now thats what I call a banner. AS Miyu has arguably the best offensive team-wide buff in the entire game (even if its only the best for units with the miglance castle personality), while being a potentially insane damage dealer, getting up to a 1600% modifier at 8 distinctive buffs (keep in mind, boosts from equipment and grasta count as buffs) and 0 MP (again, keep in mind that, during AF, you can stay on that 0 MP and still use your skills), and AS Toova becomes arguably the offensively second strongest staff wielder in the game, all while still buffing staff wielders, debuffing power and int of all enemies, and buffing her own speed with her skills.
• Ywera/AS Anabel: 9/10 - Of all the crystal characters, Ywera is probably the most offensively potent, being able to even outdamage AS Miyu during lunatic, potentially even by a lot (this is another character where it says '+xx% critical damage', in this case 50%, and I'm not sure if thats just extra percent to the damage multiplier if she crits, or if it means the move deals 1.5 damage when it crits), all while still coming with a crit rate and crit damage buff rolled into one skill. And well, AS Anabel is AS Anabel: Pretty wack outside of AF, a very strong beatstick in AF.
• Dunarith AS: 8/10 - I will admit that I very well might be biased here, but I don't see the appeal in AS Dunarith enough to give his banner anything higher than an 8. Yes, he is a solid support for magic zone, and he can inflict permanent poison, but thats kinda it. His damage is lackluster since he consumes his Taufe stacks (which he needs to power up his strongest skill) when they're fully stacked, and half his support won't be THAT good even on a magic zone team since the staff wielder damage buff will stack with diminishing returns with the end of turn buff of AS Rosetta. And NS Dunarith, while certainly still good, is far from unique in his ability to provide team-wide guaranteed crits by now.
• ES Melina: 8/10 - As hyped as I am for ES Melina, I'm hyped to upgrade her NS to her ES manually, I'm not hyped about trying to pull her. In a vacuum, this banner is alright: NS Melina has aged considerably but is still totally usable, and ES Melina is another unit I'd consider top 15 in the game. But when compared to some of the banners that will release shortly before and shortly after this one, it just isn't worth your stones unless you already pulled something from Yweras banner and you still want another usable addition to your water zone team.
• AS Shigure: 6.5/10 - AS Shigure is really good, being a potentially insane damage dealer (though you have to make sure you can do 7 (or at least 6) seperate attacks in one turn the turn before you AF with him, and... hell if I know how to do that on a water or a slash zone team), and being the first unit whose VC is both an attacking and zone-setting VC (and the zone is set BEFORE the attack triggers, meaning you get both the extra damage and extra AF building on that VC attack), but NS Shigure is just... like, not Ilulu or Radica bad, but still pretty damn bad.
• AS Tiramisu: 9.5/10 - We've reached the final banner currently released on the JP version, and its another banger. I think the gospel of NS Tiramisu has been sung enough on this sub that you all know how good she is, but sadly, we don't fully know how good her AS is yet because she only just released, and at least I wasn't able to find concrete damage multipliers for her new skills. However, we do know what her abilities do, and they're... good if a little specific (as she seems to be made to specifically support earth pierce units, even if she does also work for general earth units to a lesser degree). Regardless of that though, the fact alone that she FINALLY is the second earth zone setter in the game makes this a must pull for any F2P player that doesn't have Myunfa, because of how many really strong F2P earth units there are. And if you're in that boat but you don't wanna spend too many stones on her: As soon as you pull even just the 4.5 star version, you can call it a day and then make her your AS-upgrade goal.

​
So, turns out I missed the new years banners that JP got. Last time JP got new years banners, we did eventually get them as well considerably later, but since we don't know when they'll come out for us, I'm gonna put their ratings down here at the bottom.
​

• Blunt banner (ES Melina, AS Ewan, Yipha, Myunfa, Felmina): 10+/10 - Yeah I'm guessing its no suprise to anyone that these banners are REALLY good. And we're starting off with the best of the bunch: Except for Myunfa, these are literally the best characters for a blunt zone team in the game, and while putting Myunfa on a blunt team is redundant since her and Yipha cover basically the same ground, Myunfa is still the best earth zone setter even now that AS Tiramisu is a thing. And not to mention, AS Ewan can be put on any weapon zone team, making this banner shine even more compared to the other weapon zone-specific banners that follow. This is basically a perfect banner. However (and this goes for all 4 of these banners), while they have an increased featured rate at 5%, 1% for each featured unit, if the last new years banners are anything to go by, these banners work the same as the general weapon zone banner that comes out with AS Ewan: No other 5 star units are available on the banner, meaning the value quickly drops off the more units you already have on the banner.
• Slash banner (AS Ilulu, AS Miyu, Victor, AS Renri, AS Tsukiha): 9/10 - As you can probably tell, the main reason why this is 'only' a 9 is because slash is already an F2P zone, and also because there are a boatload of good F2P slash units already. Also, having either AS Renri or AS Tsukiha kind of disincentivises you to go for the other, since they have the same attack type and element, while filling the exact same role of a decent damage dealer that also guarantees crits for the team, the main difference being that Renri leans towards damage more while Tsukiha is a bit more of a support unit. So, pulling one of them makes pulling the other one not THAT great. Still obviously a fantastic banner though.
• Pierce banner (AS Foran, Ywera, Yukino, AS Hismena, AS Ciel): 10/10 - My only gripe with this banner is that I personally don't like AS Hismena a whole lot, but that doesn't mean this isn't easily a 10/10. Matter of fact, if this banner had featured another zone setter alongside AS Foran, like what the blunt and magic banners did, or if they had switched out AS Hismena for someone like Mistrare or Mirusha, this would have been another 10+, its that close.
• Magic banner (AS Rosetta, AS Dunarith, AS Radica, AS Myrus, AS Mighty): 9.5/10 - Sadly, WFS felt the need to put AS Mighty on this banner. don't get me wrong, he isn't terrible, but he just can't compete with all the other units featured on these 4 banners. Couple that with the fact that I think AS Dunarith is WAY overhyped by the tier list, and this would have been another 9. What made it a 9.5 is AS Radica: Yes, her zone is already covered by an F2P unit, but she is LEAGUES better as a zone setter compared to AS Gariyu (or Hardy, for that matter), her end of turn buff providing healing and MP recovery instead of just buffing her own fire attack and no one elses like Gariyu does, AND she is the first and so far only unit in the game that can provide guaranteed crits to both physical attacks and to magic, and I'm willing to bet my bottom dollar that that makes her one of the most future-proof units in the game.