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Archive for March, 2009

Cara’s Commentary & Community Chat

Bill Cara at Cara’s Community discusses the manipulation of gold prices.

Cara’s Commentary & Community Chat

The discussion of the gold market inevitably comes down to whether or not the gold price is manipulated and by whom. GATA’s Bill Murphy has been an effective spokesperson for many people who are outraged that central bankers and the money center banks are motivated to suppress the price of gold, and they do it in a highly organized fashion. In the context of our need for free capital markets, I lend my voice to that argument as well. http://news.goldseek.com/GATA/1237997471.php

I believe that the money center banks and broker-dealers (Humungous Bank & Broker) work in combination with central banks and government in whatever way they can to ensure the risk-free trade. If it were in HB&B’s best interest to reverse the trade, ie, to inflate the price of gold via depressing the $USD, and that’s what central banks and govt wanted, that’s what HB&B would do. Their interest is to make a profit, and partnering with the US government and the Fed is a guaranteed winning move.

Yes, depending on the intentions of government, the price of gold has gone both ways in the past 100 years. In fact, during a severe deflation such as the 1930’s Great Depression, I believe that finance ministers, central bankers and HB&B did use gold as a policy instrument to end the economic woes of the time. The US government devalued the US Dollar and repriced gold from $20 to $35, but also seized people’s control over gold for about 35 years. After the people were allowed to trade gold freely in the late 1960’s, due to reflation needed to pay for Vietnam, the price of gold soared then too. During the high inflation 1970’s, the opposite was the case; the monetary authorities took actions intended to suppress the price.

So, there has always been a direct link between the $USD and gold. The common factor is the price rises when government needs it to rise, and it falls when it needs it to fall. HB&B is merely along for the ride.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the United_States_dollar

Because the US is in a severe financial crisis today, where the monetary authorities have now decided to reflate as they did in the early 1930’s and late 1960’s, I would not be surprised to see
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Wednesday – The Czech Is Bounced!

Now what?

We had a pretty good consolidation day yesterday as the levels I posted in the morning generally managed to hold.  We were looking for (and finished at) Dow 7,636 (7,660), S&P 805 (806), Nas 1,525 (1,516), NYSE 5,075 (5,064) and Russell 420 (416).  As we only really fell below our expected levels in a last-minute sell-off, I was willing to consider it a win and we went fairly bullish into the close, fully covering our long DIA puts with 3/31 $77 puts at $1.55, as it seemed like too much premium to turn down for a contract that will expire in just 4 trading sessions.

Our futures were, in fact, looking pretty good until the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic said: "Widening budget deficit and protectionist trade measures — such as the "Buy America" — all of these steps, these combinations and permanency is the way to hell.  We need to read the history books and the lessons of history and the biggest success of the (EU) is the refusal to go this way. Americans will need liquidity to finance all their measures and they will balance this with the sale of their bonds but this will undermine the stability of the global financial market," said Topolanek.

Why should we care what the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic (a country with 11M people and a GDP that is less ($170Bn) than AIG lost) of  has to say?  Well, because it’s his country’s TURN to be President of the EU!  That’s right, this is like us putting the Deputy Mayor of Miami (no offense to him) in charge for a year since he was, after all, appointed by a guy who was elected by over 5M people…  I’m not saying the Topalanek’s criticisms may not have some validity.  Certainly his timing certainly could have been better and we have to excuse him for being in a bad mood because, on just his country’s first day on the job at the EU, HIS OWN GOVERNMENT JUST COLLAPSED IN A NO-CONFIDENCE VOTE ON HIS LEADERSHIP.   Just keep this in mind as you see the markets react to his rantings (oh excuse me – I meant remarks).

I’m now declaring this a pattern, following China’s comments, that seems aimed at keeping the dollar from running away.  The problem on the international scene seems to be that, as other countries are trying to raise capital by selling their own bank notes –
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Dave’s Daily

Dave Fry at ETF Digest, March 24, 2009

And, it can change around the other way by the time you read this.

Yesterday we noted the market was short-term overbought at least measured by the McClellan Oscillator. We’ve also been noting how trusty this indicator has been at least in timing short-term moves. Additionally, the indicator with a reading over 100 in the most recent instances has led to very sharp declines in January and last fall.

Have things changed? Only the latest plans.

I’ve been reading Walter McDougall’s “In the Throes of Democracy” (a sequel to his Freedom Just Around the Corner, a New American History 1585-1828). I like to read these types of books and I must say McDougall is the best I’ve ever read. (There are characters I’ve never heard of and a potential movie script in every chapter.)

The point is during financial panics that occurred prior to the New Deal, none were resolved by government intervention especially using bailouts. During the Panic of 1837 most banks and businesses collapsed. So too did employment and the then burgeoning stock market. Folks were wiped-out but President Andrew Jackson did absolutely nothing. In fact, Jackson abhorred the US Bank. It took some time but enterprising investors reemerged and prosperity returned.

You might argue conditions are different in modern times and that’s true. But people are the same.

Volume was on the light side and breadth was negative on a profit-taking day.


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How Taxpayers Can Get Hosed Even When Private Investors Get Rich

Here’s one way in which private investors and banks can make money in the PPIP deals, while taxpayers lose.

How Taxpayers Can Get Hosed Even When Private Investors Get Richtimgeithner-closeup_tbi.jpg

Courtesy of John Carney at ClusterStock

Tim Geithner keeps saying that investors would share in the downside of any losses in assets purchased through the Public-Private Investment Partnerships.  But that’s just not true.  It’s entirely possible for the private investors to make money while taxpayers lose money.

The reason is that the asset purchases are financed with non-recourse loans, which effectively means that the private investors can just walk away from any money losing deals while keeping the upside from the winners. Basically, the government is enabling the equivalent of jingle mail. The private equity investors in the plan can treat money losing deals like homeowners underwater mortgages: default on the debt and hand the crappy loans back to the government.

A blogger named Nemo described the problem very nicely. Paul Krugman linked to his blog, and it seems to have crashed now due to the traffic. We’ll describe the argument of Nemo here.

  • Say a bank has 100 mortgage pools with a face value of  $100 each.  No one knows what these mortgage pools will actually be worth because we don’t know what the default rates will be and all the models we developed earlier have turned out to produce misinformation.  For simplicity’s sake, let’s assume that half are worth $100 and half are worth $0. On average, the pools are worth $50, and the true value of all 100 pools is $5000.
  • The FDIC provides 6:1 leverage to purchase each pool, and some investor takes them up on it, bidding $84 apiece.  Between the FDIC leverage and the Treasury matching funds, the private equity firm thus offers $8400 for all 100 pools. That’s $600 from Treasury, $600 from the investor and $7,200 from the FDIC.
  • Half of the pools wind up worthless. So the investor and the Treasury each lose half the money they invested, $300.  The FDIC lent $3,600 but because the loan is non-recourse, the investor doesn’t have to pay it back. Instead, it just hands the FDIC the worthless paper. 
  • The other half wind up worth $100, for a $16 profit each. The FDIC


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Pfizer options active in late trading

www.interactivebrokers.com

Today’s tickers: PFE, HPQ, EFA, C, AGN, VIX, LTD, XHB, SYK, IP & TGT

PFE Pfizer Inc. – Shares of the pharmaceutical company have declined slightly by less than 1% to stand at $13.93. Pfizer edged onto our ‘most active by options volume’ market scanner late in the afternoon after some interesting trades went through in the January 2011 contract. At the 15 strike one investor initiated a sold straddle by shedding 10,000 calls for a premium of 2.05 as well as 10,000 puts for 3.60 apiece. The gross premium enjoyed on the trade amounts to 5.65 and is retained in full if shares settle at $15 by expiration. This trader is expecting shares to remain mid-way between the 52-week low for Pfizer of $11.62 and the 52-week high at $20.32. In contrast, a bullish investor purchased 11,500 calls at the January 20 strike price for 80 cents per contract. This investor is hoping to see shares rally by 49% over the next 2 years to arrive at or above a breakeven share price of $20.80.

HPQ Hewlett-Packard Co. – Shares of the technology company have dipped slightly by less than 1% to $31.08. We observed a call-to-put ratio of about 3.0 which implies that call options traded three times for each put traded. However, the calls were nearly all sold. The November contract stood out with 8,400 calls sold at the 35 strike price for an average premium of 2.80. Another 11,000 calls were shed for 2.00 at the November 37.5 strike price. No open interest was previously recorded at either of these strikes, and therefore these calls were sold short by investors. Moving into the January 2010 contract, it appears that one individual sold 3,750 in-the-money calls at the 30 strike price for a premium of 5.50, while purchasing the same number of puts at the 32.5 strike for 5.80 apiece. This transaction leaves the trader with a net cost of 30 cents and a breakeven share price at which profits begin to amass on the downside at $32.20. Thus, the overall tapestry woven together by option trades depicted some species of large bear. One trade initiated in January ran counter to rest as one investor purchased 12,500 calls at the 32.5 strike price for a hefty premium of 4.35. Shares would need to rally by about 19% from the current price in order for the investor…
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(More) Misdirection By The Fed And Treasury

Karl Denninger calls it as he sees it – after doing such a bang up job enforcing existing laws, Geithner wants new powers. – Ilene

(More) Misdirection By The Fed And Treasury

Courtesy of Karl Denninger at The Market Ticker


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You Can’t Stay Wrong for Long in SKF

Corey Rosenbloom discusses trading the SKF trading vehicle.

You Can’t Stay Wrong for Long in SKF

Courtesy of Corey Rosenbloom at Afraid to Trade.com

A lot of newer traders are drawn to double (and triple) leveraged ETFs including the inverse side, but being on the wrong side of a trade can be financially devastating quicker than most traders imagine possible.  Let’s take a quick comparison of the recent moves in XLF (Financial SPDR ETF) and its double-leveraged inverse counterpart SKF.

XLF (Financial SPDR ETF):

The Financial ETF (XLF) has moved up over 60% from its March 9th bottom.  Look closely at the trend structure that preceded this move – we had a “Three Push” Reversal pattern (actually a ‘five push’ but there’s no such pattern, so maybe it’s best to call it a generic “multiple swing positive momentum divergence”) into the recent lows, which also formed a doji.  Odds certainly shifted at that point to favor a larger than normal counter-trend reaction, if not a pure trend reversal off that level.

Price managed to surge to break both the 20 and 50 day EMAs, and it now sits above both EMAs and – if it stays above these levels – a Cradle Trade will form which will be the impetus for an trend reversal.

What happened if you were ’short’ the XLF going into this rally?  Or more specifically, what happened if you were long the SKF, which is a double leveraged inverse fund (also called a “juiced” or “supercharged short” fund)?  Let’s hope that didn’t happen to you.  But let’s see the chart anyway, and learn why you have to be very precise and elegant in your trades in this high-risk, high-reward fund.

SKF (Double Leveraged Inverse Financials ETF):

Assume you just had the worst timing possible and bought near $260 and rode the move all the way down to $100.  That’s also a 60% loss, but in price movement terms, it was more devastating than perhaps most newer traders expected.  That represented a dollar per share loss of $160, meaning if you got long 100 shares (a $26,000 position), then your shares you bought near $260 are now worth $100, or your account shows $10,000 for a $16,000 ‘unrealized’ loss.

If you look closely, the SKF made a new low not seen since September 2008.  Logic would imply that, for the SKF


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Obama to Wall Street: xoxo

Some odds and ends from Stock Jockey — thoughts on the administration, market, selling into strength. – Ilene

Obama to Wall Street: xoxo

Courtesy of StockJockey at 1440 Wall Street

Was the rally all Geithner related? Of course not. The scary days of a few weeks ago, when sellers whacked health care equities left and right and panicked over everything else on their sheets, have been replaced by a new marketing/PR campaign, just in time to launch a thousand ships.

Well, you get the idea. Its all good now….

The Obama administration, after months of criticizing Wall Street, has been scrambling to woo top bankers and financiers to back its latest bailout plan.

In recent days, in spite of public furor over huge bonuses paid at American International Group Inc., the administration has concluded that it needs the private sector to play a central role in fixing the economy. So over the weekend, the White House worked to tone down its Wall Street bashing and to win support from top bankers for the bailout plan announced Monday, which will rely on public-private investments to soak up toxic assets.

But weeks of searing criticism by politicians and the public had left bankers leery of working with the government. After brainstorming about what to do about that problem, the White House resolved to try to take control of the debate, according to several administration officials. In weekend television appearances, President Barack Obama and other administration officials tempered their criticisms of the financial sector. WSJ

Meanwhile every idiot with a browser is looking for a resurgence of inflation, something I find unlikely given the trends in employment, or lack thereof. And with some strategists suggesting the Quantitative Easing measures by Bernanke are, give or take, roughly equivalent to a 100 basis point Fed Funds cut, we are far from out of the woods, sportsfans.

But if you are looking for longs based on the recent policy actions (despite the fact we are up maybe 18% from the lows) check this out:

Impact on stock market: overall, policy makers are likely to get ahead of the curve with an ever increasing set of policy announcements (QE by UK, US, Japan, Switzerland and we believe soon to be followed by Sweden and Canada), buying poorer quality assets (e.g. TALF) and more direct
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Testy Tuesday Morning

Wheee, that was great fun!

Well we certainly needed that but what was it?  I was really happy until 7,685 at 3:33 when I made a call to short the Dow as the run was looking kind of excessive.  That was 90 points too early but we went into the close 60% bearish, with no covers on our long DIA puts.  I would be thrilled to see us keep going but 7% in one day is not normal.

Of course, what also wasn’t normal was the forced sell-off on Friday, that took us down from a nice consolidation at around 7,450 and 7,775 is just a bit shy of a 5% move off that line, which would be 7,822.  That puts things in a bit better perspective and 2.5% over 7,450 is 7,636 so let’s watch that line and see if we can hold it this morning on a pullback (call it 7,650). 

Remember last week I went bullish at 7,400, looking for a breakup and we ended up 55% bearish on Friday as we had that disappointing loss of our levels in the afternoon.  That was easy to remedy yesterday as we quickly covered our long DIA puts right out of the box (a call that was so obvious I sent out the alert at 6:49 am) and those puts got spanked so badly that we were able buy them back cheap and roll up our longs and then sell a whole new set of puts (who also got spanked) mid-day.  So when I say we went naked on our long puts – they are much better puts than we half-covered with on Friday.  In that same alert we tried to to buy the RUT 398 futures but, sadly, they gapped away from us before we could get in and the Russell zoomed up to 430 – at $10 per tenth of a point per contract, that’s 420 ticks! 

In the morning post (and remember, you MUST register for a Free Sample Membership to keep getting these) I mentioned we had picked up FAS at $5 and sold the naked $5 puts for $1.20 on Friday.  FAS finished at $7.07 (up 41%) and the $5 puts finished at .65 (up 45%) so nice gains all around.  Of course we flipped on those now and are playing FAZ off these lows ($19.20 now) with a long spread as an entry we
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Phil's Favorites

Largest Central Banks Now Hold Over 15 Trillion in Fictitious Capital

Largest Central Banks Now Hold Over 15 Trillion in Fictitious Capital

Courtesy of Russ Winter of Winter Watch at Wall Street Examiner  

I could not help noticing that China’s imports from Japan fell 16.2pc in December. Imports from Taiwan fell 6.2pc.  The strong yen strikes again: Honda decides to build a high-performance hybrid Acura in Ohio – instead of its home nation of Japan. The firm’s continued shift in p...



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All About Trends

Mid-Day Update

Reminder: David is available to chat with Members, comments are found below each post.




To learn more, sign up for David's free newsletter and receive the free report from All About Trends - "How To Outperform 90% Of Wall Street With Just $500 A Week." Tell David PSW sent you. - Ilene...

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Zero Hedge

Debt Ceiling 101, Santelli Sounds Off

Courtesy of ZeroHedge. View original post here.

Submitted by Tyler Durden.

In an effort to reach the angry mob, CNBC's Rick Santelli goes all Sesame Street on the numbers behind the US Debt Ceiling Rise. Focusing for two minutes on what this practically means for every man, woman, child, and politician, the shouting Chicagoan points out that when the US breaches this new limit then the world's entire population will be on the hook for $2,346 each (and $52,409 per US person).

...

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Chart School

ECRI Recession Call: Growth Index Contraction Eases Further

Courtesy of Doug Short.

The Weekly Leading Index (WLI) growth indicator of the Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI) posted -6.5 in its latest reading, data through January 20. The latest public data point is a reduced contraction from last week's -7.6 (a slight downward revision from -7.5). This is the highest level (i.e., least negative) since early September. However, the underlying WLI declined fractionally from an adjusted 123.3 to 122.8 (see the third chart below).

Early last December Lakshman Achuthan, the Co-founder of ECRI, spoke with Tom Keene on Bloomberg Television's Surveillance Midday. You can watch the video on the ECRI website here, with bold heading Recession Update. The eight-minute video is well worth watching in its...



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Market Montage

Average Age of U.S. Vehicles Hits Record 10.8 Years

Submitted by Mark Hanna

Courtesy of MarketMontage. View original post here.

Some combination of better made cars, and less Americans able to pay new car prices has conspired to push up the average age of U.S. vehicles to a new record high.  Reflecting this sea change, one of the best investment g...



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Insider Scoop

Research in Motion Surging after Prem Watsa Stake

Courtesy of Benzinga.

Shares of battered tech company Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) are seeing much strength during Friday's trading session.

Fairfax Financial Holdings released a 13G filing with the SEC this morning, in which they disclosed a 5.12% stake in Research in Motion.

Currently, shares of Research in motion are up over 4% at $16.85. Over the last year, Research in Motion is down over 72%.

Research In Motion Limited is a designer, manufacturer and marketer of wireless solutions for the worldwide mobile communications market. RIM provides platforms and solutions for access to information, including e-mail, voice, instant messaging, short message service.

...

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Sabrient

Sabrient Risers - 1/27/2012

Top 5 RisersStockRatingAnalysisASBCBUYMany analysts are expecting higher than previously expected long term growth from Associated Bancorp, and its near-term earnings outlook is also improving.CZZSTRONGBUYThe recent earnings history for Cosan Ltd shows significant improvement while projected valuation continues to rise.STLDBUYProjected value continues to rise for Steel Dynamics while long term increases in earnings growth are also becoming more widely expected.PSESTRONGBUYAn increasingly attractive expected long term growth rate and a significantly higher projected valuation from just a fe...

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ETF Selector

Wall Street Party Hangover (SPY, DIA, QQQ, IWM, GLD)

Courtesy of John Nyaradi.

Major markets and major index ETFs corrected slightly today after the stock market’s euphoric party yesterday

Major markets suffered a slight hangover today, as the S&P 500 dropped .57%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped .18%, the NASDAQ dropped .46% and the Russell 2000 Index dropped .34%, after yesterday’s crazy Fed and Tech Sector induced Wall Street Party.  The NASDAQ, in particular, partied very hard, so hard in fact that the NASDAQ reached its 11 year record high.

The major market index ETFs were hungover too as the SPDR S&P 500 ETF lowered .51%, the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial ...



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Option Review

Big Prints In Deutsche Bank Put Options

 

Today’s tickers: DB, ATHN & LSI

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OpTrader

Swing trading portfolio - week of January 23rd, 2012

Reminder: OpTrader is available to chat with Members, comments are found below each post.

This post is for all our live virtual trade ideas and daily comments. Please click on "comments" below to follow our live discussion. All of our current  trades are listed in the spreadsheet below, with entry price (1/2 in and All in), and exit prices (1/3 out, 2/3 out, and All out).

We also indicate our stop, which is most of the time the "5 day moving average". All trades, unless indicated, are front-month ATM options. 

Please feel free to participate in the discussion and ask any questions you might have about this virtual portfolio, by clicking on the "comments" link right below.

To learn more about the swing trading virtual portfolio (strategy, performance, FAQ, etc.), please click here

Optrader 

...

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IRA Strategy/Income Trader

Weekend Virtual Portfolio Update 1/22/2012

Here is the virtual portfolio weekend update. Basically a recap of the positions and some notes about the trades. As usual, I'll post the previous week's P&L for comparison. Not the greatest of week in general! AA Money Only transaction last week as we bought back the AA Feb 9 puts on Tuesday for close to a 70% profit. The idea is to sell another set of put as soon as we get a chance. Previous week P&L - $400.00 We lost some ground this week, but we'll keep on selling premium! FAS Money We also lost some ground in this virtual portfolio, but we have sold plenty of premium for the coming week. A little correction would go a long way to help! On Wednesday we sold the FAS Feb 72 puts (already good for 50%), on Thursday we added the Jan4 78 calls and on Friday we had to roll the Jan 78 puts to the Jan 80 puts. We were hoping for these ones to expire worthless on Friday, but a late stick killed that hope. Previous week P&L - $4372.00...

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Stock World Weekly

Stock World Weekly: QE-cating

NEW: Elliott and Ilene are available to chat with Members regarding topics presented in SWW, comments are found below each post.

Here's the latest Stock World Weekly. We discuss the Fed's next move, and it's new policy for more QE-cating.  Brief review of Sabrient's trade ideas for 2012 (already doing well) and a few new buy-writes from Phil and Pharmboy. Enjoy! (Feedback appreciated - give some life to the comment section below.)

Click this link for this weekend's newsletter, and sign in or sign up.

...

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Pharmboy

Biotech Investing for 2012

Reminder: Pharmboy is available to chat with Members, comments are found below each post.

Finding new and exciting Biotech companies that target novel mechanisms is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.  Sure there are many companies working on cutting edge science, but investing in those companies to reap the rewards of their work is a very dangerous game.  More often than not, companies fail because the mechanism does not pan out, the compound(s) do not have pharmacokinetics (get into the body or last very long in the body), or an adverse event happens that knocks years off a development timeline.  In addition, the stock can be manipulated by market makers so investors don't know which way is up.  I approach investing in biotechs as a long term prospect.  I continue to like our current portfolio of biotech companies (join in chat for many of those plays), and we continually add/subtract shares and sell/buy options on ...



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