November 20th, 2008 12:06 pm
Scanning the News: Tough Times Require Decisive Action
Though I get most of my in-depth commentary on business and technology from blogs, I augment that with mainstream news headlines and alerts. I often extract the implied sentiment of headlines to get a tone of the markets and the economy, and this becomes part of the prism through which I view news, events and my activities. Lately the headlines have been pretty grim
more from Ilene
November 19th, 2008 8:03pm
(no, no... that is not me!
Add a couple decades, dye the hair brown,
have a couple children and voila!
That's is me!)...
more from Goddess
By Andrew Wilkinson and Rebecca Darst
November 19th, 2008 3:46 pm
Today’s tickers: JPM, BBY, ACE, IRM, SHLD & CSCO
JPM – JP Morgan Chase & Co. – With the market in meltdown mode, investors are once again departing all shades of financial shares. There are new lows today at several major financial institutions including blue-blooded JP Morgan. The 52-week $28.87 low is a radical shift from the $50.50 52-week peak set three days into October. We’re not sure many financial companies can claim to have traded annual peaks and lows in such a short space of time, but this underscores the negative outlook for the economy and companies regardless of shade. Options on JPM are in play today with large buying of this week’s expiring 30 strike puts at 1.40 premium. Today’s investor interest at that strike is equal to the outstanding number of puts at the strike and shows h
more from Andrew
August 3rd, 2008 9:36 am
Have you ever seen literature from a fund posting attractive gains and comparing its performance to that of the benchmark S&P 500? Have you ever investigated how the figures listed were calculated? If not, you will definitely want to read on!
Let's take a fairly representative example. Fund Manager Joe Bull, for example, is very good at generating profits in bull markets. Let's say Joe Bull made 20% in each of the years 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. But Joe Bull does not have the toolset to survive bear markets and finds in 2008 that he is down 30%. What has Joe Bull's return been over 5 years?
It turns out, the answer to that questions depends greatly on what Joe Bull wants to report as his return! Why? Because little regulation exists to prevent Joe Bull from choosing any number of mathematical approaches to calculate his return!
For example, fund manager Joe could simply take the average of his returns over 5 years. This would be calculated as the sum of 2
more from Option Trades
August 18th, 2008 11:38 pm
Let's say you decide to deposit $100,000 into a brokerage account. You decide you will check your portfolio on a weekly basis. Now let's further assume that the first week has passed and you are about to log in to your account. But before you do, you are told that one of two things has happened in the past week.
[1] Your portfolio went up $10,000 and then dropped $10,000
[2] Your portfolio went up 10% and then dropped 10%.
So, the trivia question is: In case [1], what should you expect your account value to be and is that the same figure as in case [2]?
If you answered $100,000 in case [1], you would be absolutely correct! If you answered that this is the same as in case [2] you would be absolutely incorrect! Why? Well let's take a look at what happens when the portfolio rises 10% first; it goes from $100,000 to $110,000. But then we're told it drops 10%. 10% of $110,000 is $11,000 more from Option Sage
German
Spanish
French
Italian
Portuguese
Japanese
Korean
Russian
Chinese
Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...