Sold Feb puts on DDD for $4.40 on 1/9
Just bought to close for $1.60

1/18/2013 4:12:06 PM

IBM back over 200 After Hours: 204.55+8.47? (4.32%?)

1/22/2013 5:15:34 PM

AAPL Q2 estimates came in light. Stock down 5% after hours

1/23/2013 4:34:23 PM

Make that 10%.

NFLX up 30%.

1/23/2013 5:32:21 PM

Quote :

"[China] are going to have to do something to keep inflation down or else they are at risk of crushing the growth of their middle class. "

They did, they stopped approving construction contracts.

1/23/2013 11:36:35 PM

I am interested in DDD. Starting to look for a buying opportunity.

1/23/2013 11:45:05 PM

I write puts every month knowing that I'd be happy to have it put to me.

1/23/2013 11:49:53 PM

bloodbath

1/24/2013 9:46:47 AM

long front month calls on TNA from here until S&P 1525, maybe 1550... 80 strike worked out well, but 84 and 87 strikes have not caught a bid yet

1/24/2013 3:07:26 PM

also, i've been in and out of TNA and FAS all month..

1/27/2013 12:49:47 PM

Let's turn this thread into a discussion/prediction/research/idea thread as opposed to the "i did this 2 months ago look at me now" type of unproductive and unhelpful posts.

I'd like to see this thread make some people some money, so if I'm doin research that I feel may be helpful, ill post it here along with my reasoning and decision making process

Not meaning to call anyone out, just trying to up the content level of the thread

1/27/2013 7:52:20 PM

I like a short PETM position even after the beating it took today. Consider this:


- EBIT margins have nowhere to go but lower
- mgt departures: CEO and CFO walk
- online competition is heating up
- multiple is 8.3x EBITDA, 2x higher than comps

It could dip below $52-55

1/28/2013 9:37:52 PM

Any chance for the new blackberry releases to give RIMM a bump?

also, residential builders at or near 52 week highs almost across the board...Seems like the rally should be sustainable with the tight housing market.

1/29/2013 11:36:04 AM

I'm hoping. I bought a little way too high and keep holding someone just buys them.
How is the housing market these days?

1/29/2013 12:06:27 PM

everything i've heard about housing recently suggests there is more demand than supply, which is fueling the first sustained price increases in years...that and rent prices are high, which seems like a win/win for the builders. Home supply stores are also on multi year highs and increasing.

that being said, i'm still a bit hesitant to pull the trigger on any of them.

1/29/2013 12:48:36 PM

The prices in our area continued to drop about 10% from when we bought our house 3 years ago up until sometime last year. (though they had already dropped ~10% from their peak before we bought). Since they hit their low-point, the $/ft² has kept increasing in sold properties around us to the point where we could actually get more for the house today than when we bought. So we have definitely seen a noticeable increase.

Who knows how long this will be sustained for though.

[Edited on January 29, 2013 at 1:31 PM. Reason : ]

1/29/2013 1:30:14 PM

I just hope the value of mine starts going up. Five+ years of decline is no fun.

1/29/2013 1:30:51 PM

just bad timing for you :/. If we had bought 2 years earlier, we would have been in the same boat as you. If we waited another year we would have almost bought at the very bottom in our neighborhood. I was just lucky that we caught it kind of in the middle, but even then I felt like I was hitting ours as the bottom and I didn't. I just wish I was even more aggressive on the pricing but that's just hindsight knowing where it currently bottomed out at.

1/29/2013 1:36:07 PM

Bet you dinks got that tax credit too...

1/29/2013 1:40:16 PM

the first-time home-buyer? We did. Although with what we know now, and also because we got that $8000 tax credit, looking back I wish we would have bought an even older home closer to downtown and renovated it. But I'll save that for the homeowners' thread.

1/29/2013 1:47:23 PM

Ahaha, I see that the research in motion questions has already been asked.

[Edited on January 30, 2013 at 3:25 PM. Reason : sdfsd]

1/30/2013 3:23:34 PM

^and market is not impressed

[Edited on January 30, 2013 at 3:57 PM. Reason : .]

1/30/2013 3:56:44 PM

If anyone is looking for a high risk/high reward investment, TPCA is your company. Trading at 15.50 with Carl Icahn owning upwards of 70% of the company now. For those of you who know who Icahn is, you will know what this means.

1/30/2013 5:45:00 PM

i like NOK, i think the drop today is good time to buy

1/31/2013 4:33:22 PM

check out PGH & TZYM, both near their 52 week lows with tremendous upside potential

2/1/2013 12:18:23 AM

Not a bad time to pickup some downside protection guys. I'd probably do it through SPY puts to June. I was reading a research report by GS and Most of the institutional outflows have been to long only shops this month which has really artificially pumped up the stock market. Historically when this happens there is a gradual drawback of 8-10%

2/1/2013 12:37:32 PM

Yeah just looking at charts we can probably expect another pullback fairly soon will be waiting on that and hope to buy into some more things at that point. Ive been debating picking some AAPL up at this point but still worried it could get a little closer to 400 so Im hesitating.

2/1/2013 12:53:01 PM

i wouldnt touch AAPL right now. I'm so bearish just from a technical standpoint that I'd only start to consider buying at about 340-350

2/1/2013 2:33:06 PM

Why is that?

2/1/2013 2:40:29 PM

it is still very overbought, it has become a punching bag where negative news is now affecting the stock. similar to the way every news story from europe last spring affected global markets. AAPL 30, 90 and 180 day implied vol tells me that the market is having a difficult time figuring out where the downside support would be. In addition, being at one time the most popular hedge fund position, hedge fund managers will be under intense pressure to perform this quarter with them largely underperforming last year vs the SPX. There is more incentive for them to cut their losses or take their gains with AAPL and find more stable streams of income for their capital at risk

So my view is that while there is a possibility that AAPL can get shit straightened, the potential downside (and my view on the odds of a negative event) is not worth the risk with many better investment opportunites out there. I know a lot of people get very attached to the name AAPL because of all of the money that the stock made them and its seemingly meteoric rise from 2009-early 2012. When these things happen it can cause that gambler's high of clouding one's ability to see things for what they are and to know when to take their gains and leave the table.




[Edited on February 1, 2013 at 3:00 PM. Reason : c]

2/1/2013 2:55:47 PM

It's carrying so much negative momentum that it's unlikely to see any positive shift until there is a perceived bottom, right? It's current pricing has very little relation that I can see to it's fundamentals even though people talk about things like gross margin concerns and market share in the phone or tablet business.

[Edited on February 1, 2013 at 3:01 PM. Reason : fssfd]

2/1/2013 2:59:59 PM

yes, that is why i didnt even dive into the fundamental analysis

2/1/2013 3:01:25 PM

I just sold of a crap fund I've been meaning to ditch. Thinking about splitting the proceeds between MCD and CAT. Thoughts?

2/1/2013 3:08:23 PM

would these be IRA investments or disposable income investments

[Edited on February 1, 2013 at 3:18 PM. Reason : or short term/long term?]

2/1/2013 3:17:08 PM

disposable income, long term

2/1/2013 3:20:05 PM

MCD has long been the gem of the fast food industry with strong perforance vs peers and a Beta to the SPX of .66. If I were an investor looking at companies to buy and hold for the next 2-3 years, I think you can do ok with MCD. I have long term concerns about the industry and MCD in general with the growing health problems of the nation and growing competitive atmosphere of the sector. MCD does a great job with its product overseas its brand recognition is one of the top 5 in the world, but with the other looming issues in the industry, specifically tightening margins, I could see the bigs of the sector underperforming over the next 10 years vs the S&P500. This is not to say you still cant make some $ off of MCD as it is a stable, moderately low Beta position that won't hurt your portfolio


[Edited on February 1, 2013 at 3:44 PM. Reason : c]

[Edited on February 1, 2013 at 3:44 PM. Reason : c]

2/1/2013 3:29:10 PM

Thx. Any thoughts on CAT?

2/1/2013 3:31:43 PM

Ill be happy when I get a more sizeable IRA (Roth). 2012 was my first year of contribution and I didnt start till August. So far only 2025 has gone into it. While it is at 3260 now trying to find things to invest in long term becomes difficult the less money you have. Cant buy enough shares in a high dollar dividend paying stock to be worth it really. Trying to play something safe and high dollar wont likely yield enough growth long term to warrant the small share total. So right now I am left sitting in AMD hoping for a nice slow steady climb back up to 4-5 dollars. Gonna try to max that bitch out in 2013 if I can although wedding plans may ruin that plan.

[Edited on February 1, 2013 at 3:37 PM. Reason : Roth]

2/1/2013 3:36:52 PM

It's an IRA. Why play safe?

2/1/2013 3:38:42 PM

Because the money going into my IRA is retirment money that I dont want to actually lose. Up until this point my money has gone into my regular accont (my gambling account) with the assumption I may lose it all. At that time I was single and if that happened it didnt really matter. Now I have a fiance and a family and so well the money I put in I want to actually grow long term so I cant be putting it into a startup pharma company or random things like that hoping to hit the lottery haha.

2/1/2013 3:43:37 PM

the call with CAT is much more difficult. I am an admirer of the way their business is ran (besides the accounting fraud issue lol) and I really like Doug Oberhelman and the job he's done as CEO. When investing in CAT you really have to get yourself comfortable with global growth and investment in infrastructure. CAT depends on capital expenditures by mining, construction, etc. This is obviously the main driver for CAT, so outside of an idiosyncratic event relating to financing or something, the one factor I believe you have to watch is how Canada and Australia (countries who heavily depend on the mining industry) handle their own mini-bubbles. A lot of news and finance guys arent really paying attention to whats going on there. The aussie dollar being so strong is really eating into CAT's profits, but the issue I have with Australia is the fact that it's inflation is getting to the point where something may need to be done. Property values in Australia are 200% of what they were 15-20 years ago. You have a lot of money from China being funneled to buying property in Australia that is driving up the cost of land for actual residents. Go online and see what people are paying at restaurants in Sydney. It's insane. We've already see this happen in Vancouver, Canada. These are just things to watch if you invest in CAT as any negative momentum in either of these countries will affect their bottom line.

As you may have noticed, I am rather pragmatic when it comes to investing. You should consider yourself a risk manager when investing; look to acknowledge and limit downside when you can. It was the motto of one of the greatest hedge fund managers that ever lived, Paul Tudor Jones.

[Edited on February 1, 2013 at 3:44 PM. Reason : v]

2/1/2013 3:44:34 PM

^^ I'm not saying day trade in your IRA, but it seems a bit early to be focusing mainly on income producing funds.

^ Did the dividend for SNY go down?

[Edited on February 1, 2013 at 3:48 PM. Reason : ]

2/1/2013 3:45:02 PM

bloomberg is projecting a dividend of 2.78 EUR for the native (which is 1.90 USD for the ADR since 1 ADR = .5 SAN FP shares. SAN FP is Sanofi listed on the exchange in Paris)

This would be an increase of about 5%

[Edited on February 1, 2013 at 3:50 PM. Reason : c]

2/1/2013 3:50:20 PM

Yeah I get that, its more I'd like to produce some growth in order to help me move into those larger more expensive and less volatile stocks. It's like with AAPL. Sure I could buy a few shares of it but chances of it running up to 700 again anytiem soon isnt high. So I am trying to find a nice balance between stocks I can afford to buy a reasonable number of shares in that also has potential to grow and not go bankrupt on me.

2/1/2013 3:50:42 PM

if you are running a small amount, you are better off in investing in something that is a 1 Beta security or just go ahead and put it into SPYs

trying to market time or hit homeruns when you are first starting out is a good way start out on the wrong foot. Build it up a bit and then get involved in some research. Do not go out and buy a bunch of penny stocks or cheap stocks just because of the perceived upside. They are priced that way for a reason. Build it up to about 20k, keep investing in SPYs or general performance funds and then come back to it when you are ready

[Edited on February 1, 2013 at 3:56 PM. Reason : c]

2/1/2013 3:54:20 PM

Yeah, I'll never understand why some people are so concerned about the # of shares of a stock they have vs the valuation.

I'm a little confused. Google finance lists SNY as Div/yield as 1.69/3.42

2/1/2013 3:59:13 PM

the div yield is 3.42%, which is the most recent div paid over the current stock price

the ADR paid a gross of 1.689242 in 2012

[Edited on February 1, 2013 at 4:03 PM. Reason : c]

2/1/2013 4:01:19 PM

Yeah this isnt my first to investing. Granted I started investing and put most of my money in... you guessed it around middle of 2008. I got fucking raped in the crash and have never recovered in my regular account haha. When I finally did get some back I ventured into options and had great success then made the fatal mistake of breaking my rules as everyone knows is a bad call. Needless to say a few bad calls on things like FB wrecked it. At that point I decided I am done with the day to day trading it just isnt working for me and is way too stressful. If you cant do that as a full time job you cant keep up with it or at least I couldnt. I really need to just give it all to my fiance she does this for a living haha. She doesnt like dealing with peoples personal money that she knows though as well people get mad when you lose them money and it happens sometimes you cant help it.

2/1/2013 4:01:28 PM

Finally pulled the trigger

MCD Bought Processing 30 $95.20 $2,863.00

2/5/2013 12:15:49 PM

Bought FAS March 145 puts for $7.50 and 7.00 today. Hoping for big pullback still.

2/5/2013 1:01:32 PM