Posts Tagged
‘EXC’
by Phil - December 28th, 2010 8:24 am
Looks like we picked the wrong week to short FCX!
Copper hit a new all-time high in Shanghai this morning (as the guy who owns 90% of London’s closed for the holiday exchange supplies sold it to himself for more money than he did yesterday) and gold is back at $1,400 in the futures and that should give us a better entry on FCX puts than we expected for round 2 but Paul Krugman has me worried now that maybe commodity prices are just high because the World hasn’t got enough of them to go around. Usually Paul and I agree but i think he may be discounting the effect of a 10% decline in the dollar a little too much – which is understandable as he is still arguing for more stimulus while I’m arguing that the way they are stimulating now is causing this problem and can not and should not be sustained.
Still, we have to be pragmatic. That’s why, this weekend, I posted our "Secret Santa Inflation Hedges for 2011" as a follow-on to the "Breakout Defense – 5,000% in 5 Trades or Less" ideas of the 11th and, in the week between the two, we had bullish bets on HMY, XLF, CAKE, TNA, IWM, CCJ, CHK, EXC, TNA, XLF, UNG, GLD, AAPL, GLW, TOT and AXP – which I had mentioned on the 19th in the weekend post "It’s Never too Early to Predict the Future." Just because I think there’s going to be a disaster doesn’t mean we can’t go with the flow while we wait, right?
We don’t have to like the market to buy it above our breakout lines but we do need to keep in mind that this is a very thin rally that is very likely nothing but window dressing aimed at dragging money off the sidelines so the IBanks who have been propping up the markets can, once again, stick the retail shareholders with the bag as they load up on puts (watch the VIX to confirm) and crash the markets once again. I’ve seen it happen in 1999, I saw it happen in 2008 and, both times, the rally lasted longer than seemed logical but the smart play was to hit and run – not to leave your money on the table but to participate in the upswings and then…
Tags: AAPL, AMZN, AXP, CAKE, Case Shiller, CCJ, CHK, CMG, DBC, EXC, FAS, FCX, GLD, GLW, HMY, IWM, MA, NFLX, PCLN, QQQQ, SKS, TNA, TOT, UNG, XLF
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by Phil - December 19th, 2010 7:57 am
Barron’s already has the 2011 Outlook on the Cover.
We were discussing the generally bullish in Member Chat and Barfinger said "So, Phil, what is your response to the bullish preview?" That was a great question because it made me think. Does he expect a "rebuttal"? I can understand that as I’ve been fairly bearish but let’s not confuse caution (I called for a cash out when the Dow hit 11,200 in early November, it peaked at 11,444 on the 5th and closed Friday at 11,491) with bearishness – it’s just that my now 45 days of running around saying "the sky is falling" while it stays in place does make me seem like a perma-bear.
The "October Overbought Eight" was my first bearish virtual portfolio since April 28th’s "Hedging for Disaster – 5 Plays that Make 500% if the Market Falls" (and it did, and they did). THAT was a bearish outlook! We are not that bearish here, otherwise it would have been the easiest thing in the World to re-up those plays for the new year. We expect a correction, but hopefully not the kind we had between May 4th and July 2nd, where the Dow dropped 1,600 points in just over 2 months. We are HOPING for a nice 20% pullback off the 15% gain from 9,800 to 11,270 back to the 11,000 line and holding that would make us very bullish going into next year.
That would be 1,180 on the S&P (the declining 200 dma) and just 5% down from Friday’s close – THAT’s how bearish I am! Where we are now is simply where the 5% Rule told us we’d be back on May 5th, where the chart pointed out that 1,240 is 20% off the upper, non-spike consolidation at 1,550 that marked the high for the S&P. 20% is the most powerful level in the 5% Rule and that’s why it’s been safer to wait and see how this line resolves than place long-term bets in either direction into the slow and volatile holidays.
Obviously, I am fairly convinced that Global "leaders" are making all sorts of policy mistakes handling the economy and I do believe it will all end in disaster but that does NOT mean I am market bearish.
Think if it this way: If you come across a…
Tags: AAPL, AXP, CAKE, CCJ, CHK, EXC, GLD, GLW, HMY, IWM, TNA, TOT, UNG, XLF
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by Phil - October 23rd, 2010 7:55 am
In uncertain markets, dividends can give you a critical investing edge.
As you can see from the chart on the left, just mindlessly investing in dividend-paying stocks can give you more than a 2:1 annual advantage in your investments.
Of course, here at PSW, we teach the art of selling options premiums – something that turns virtually any stock into a "dividend" payer. For example, MSFT is only a small, 2% dividend-payer but a fairly solid cash-machine of a stock that we don’t feel is likely to go bankrupt overnight so it makes for a nice safe staple in a long-term virtual portfolio. But MSFT is also a very poorly-run company that hasn’t grown in 20 years but we can make it a much more interesting stock by simply selling covered calls.
For example, in our August edition of Dividend Payers, we looked at MSFT for $24.23 and we sell the Sept $24 calls for .77. This lowered our effective basis to $23.46 and selling the call putus in no special danger – we simply agreed to sell MSFT for $24 on expiration day in September (the 17th).
The stock was called away from us, and we made a .54 profit or 2.3% of our net $23.46 cash investment in less than 30 days. That works out to a 26% annualized ROI and we had an opportunity (as we had expected) to buy the stock again and again at $24 on Oct 4th and 5th and sell the November $24 calls for .90 for a net $23.10 re-entry and ANOTHER 3.8% GAIN if we are called away at $24 or greater on Nov 19th. Doesn’t that beat waiting a whole quarter for your 1% dividend checks?
Of course, you can optimize all this with timing and we favor stocks that are on sale – this is just a very simple example of how our most basic options strategy can drastically boost your annual returns on any stock in your virtual portfolio.
Let’s say you don’t want to mess around with MSFT every month. You could have simply sold the 2012 $22.50s for $4.40 (also suggested in the August post), that dropped your net entry from $24.23 to $19.83 and getting called away at $22.50 would be a profit of 13.5% over 17 months PLUS you would be getting your…
Tags: BA, BMY, CTB, CVX, EXC, FHN, HCBK, HD, HRB, JAG, KFT, MCD, MRK, MSFT, MTB, NGG, PFE, PVR, T, VLO, VZ, XOM
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by Phil - June 6th, 2010 8:27 am
$10,500.
That is the per capita average GDP for the 6Bn ape-like creatures on this planet who have pockets and purses. Of the still hairy and pocketless apes, there are only about 1M left and they are mainly prisoners so we won’t be worrying about them but it would be nice to consider the plight of our ancestors once in a while… Anyway, so 6Bn of us fill in those last 3 images in the planetary labor pool with the vast majority of us STILL FARMING and, of course, a select group of us are still hunting and gathering and contributing very little to the GDP.
None of our problems are new – as noted in this 2005 cartoon:
The United States of America with it’s highly evolved population of shopoholics has a per capita GDP of $46,381 – VERY IMPRESSIVE but we rank 6th! Brunei does a little better than we do and Singapore is up at $50,523 (so let’s hear it for corporal punishment) and Norway (one of my top choices of countries to flee to when it all hits the fan) is at $52,561 but Luxembourgh ($78,395 – banking) and Qatar ($83,841 – oil) simply trounce us in earnings power per person. For those of you who like to think Capitalism is all about keeping score – they must be better than you because they make more money, right?
Below the US, per capita GDP drops off fairly quickly. Rounding out the top 10 are Switzerland ($43,007 – watches and more bankers), Hong Kong ($42,748 – don’t tell China!), Netherlands ($39,938 – legal drugs!), Ireland ($39,468 – free beer when on wellfare!) and Australia ($38,911 – beer comes in oil cans plus gigantic bouncing rats). 20th on the list is Germany at $34,212, Greece is 25th at $29,882 (but not for long), 30th is South Korea at $27,978, 40th is Slovakia at $21,245. Lithuania comes in at 50 with $16,542 (1 ahead of Russia) and it steadies out there with emerging market star Brazil in 75th place with $10,514 and, keep in mind – that is where you FINALLY get to the average leverl of economic activity for the world.
Another BRIC in the global wall is mighty China, with a per capita GDP of $6,567 for each of their 1.2Bn persons and India’s Billion people average out at less than half of that, at $2,941, ranking 128th and still ahead of 53…
Tags: AA, CAT, Cramer, DD, DIS, EXC, GDP, HD, HPQ, IBM, IMAX, INTC, JNJ, KFT, KO, MMM, MON, MRK, MSFT, NKE, PFE, PG, SNE, T, TASR, TRV, UTX, VZ, WMT
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by Option Review - June 30th, 2009 4:03 pm
Today’s tickers: ELN, NOK, WYE, ELX, GERN, VALE, NVDA & EXC
ELN – The neuroscience-based biotechnology company headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, jumped onto our ‘most active by options volume’ market scanner after a massive bearish reversal was initiated on the stock. Shares are currently lower by more than 5% to $6.59. It looks as though one trader sold 30,500 calls at the January 2010 10 strike price for 50 cents apiece in order to finance the purchase of 30,500 puts at the January 5.0 strike for 74 cents per contract. The net cost of getting long the protective put options amounts to 24 cents. We note that the existing open interest present at both strike prices exceeds the volume traded today. But, it does not appear that this trade represents an attempt to close a previously established position. – Elan Corporation PLC
NOK– The manufacturer of mobile devices has experienced a share price decline of more than 3% to stand at $14.55. We observed a number of bearish trades by investors active on the stock today amid a rating initiated as ‘underperform’ by analysts at BMO Capital Markets. Traders appear to be bracing for significant declines in the price of the underlying as the October 11 strike price saw more than 11,000 put options purchased for 32 cents apiece. Shares would need to plummet 27% from today’s price before profits begin to amass for put-holders at the breakeven point of $10.68. Additional evidence of bearish sentiment was seen at the January 2010 20 strike price where 5,400 calls were shed for 39 cents per contract. – Nokia Corporation
WYE– A sudden frenzy of bullish call activity on the pharmaceutical company was picked up by our scanners this afternoon amid a slight 0.5% decline in shares to $45.12. It appears that the investor or investors responsible for the call action expect Wyeth’s shares to move higher. Perhaps such sentiment stems from speculation regarding the proposed Pfizer-Wyeth merger, which will be put to a shareholder vote at Wyeth on July 20, 2009. In the nearer-term August contract, it looks as though a long call position was rolled to a higher strike price resulting in fresh buying of some 5,000 calls at the August 50 strike price for 15 cents apiece. The calls appear to have been rolled from the existing open interest at the lower August 45 strike where 5,000 lots look…
Tags: ELN, ELX, EXC, GERN, NOK, NVDA, VALE, WYE
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by Option Review - June 25th, 2009 5:25 pm
Today’s tickers: EXC, NRG, PALM, ANF, CAL, AMTD & PAYX
EXC – The company has been increasingly less successful in trying to persuade shareholders at NRG – NRG Energy– to tender their shares to the company in what has become an ugly battle. Shares in both companies are on the rise today at $51.08 (Exelon) and $23.70 (NRG). Two sizeable footprints were left for analysts to explore in options trading. Here’s what we think is happening. Perhaps the easier half of the trade is a nearby July 22.50/17.50 put spread on shares of NRG. An investor bought 50,000 higher strike puts at 72 cents and sold 25,000 puts at the 17.50 for a nickel per contract. The investor likely expects that management at NRG will be successful in convincing its investors that the Exelon deal isn’t a good fit. The CEO mailed his thoughts urging investors to remain loyal to his leadership. In the event that the takeover fades, as appears the case, this investor might benefit from some of the hot money hopping out of the stock. Exelon options were a little more convoluted. An investor appears to have bought 50,000 July calls at the 55 strike at 39 cents and taking a sizeable credit on the sale of the same amount of calls expiring in August at the 50 strike. He’s possibly thinking that the near-term prospects for the company in the event of a botched deal would buoy the shares. Thereafter some of the optimism might fade. – Exelon Corp.
PALM – Shares of the Pre-maker, which launched earlier in June, are stable at $13.96 ahead of earnings data after the closing bell on Thursday. The fact that sales of the Pre won’t materially impact the bottom-line earnings numbers means we may have to wait longer for further developments from the company. However, investors have been in a buying tizzy for stock in the company all year and have driven shares from $1.14 to $15.25 recently. The options market, however, has been forced to maintain a careful eye on developments given the depths to which the shares plummeted earlier this year and still attributes a relatively high reading of implied volatility of 90% on options on the stock. That makes hedging a little more expensive that it ought and heading into earnings today, one investor appears to have tried to do so by implementing a put…
Tags: AMTD, ANF, CAL, EXC, NRG, PALM, PAYX
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February 11th, 2012 6:46 pm
It's Well Past Time for Plan Z
Courtesy of The Automatic Earth
Mario Draghi captured the utter ineptitude of him and every other Eurocrat out there when he said the following at today’s press conference in response to a question about a Greek exit: “To have a Plan B means defeat already. I am confident that all the pieces of this will fall in the proper places.”
Most 5-year old children in pre-school have already been told not to believe that they can always win and that “winning isn’t everything”, but Draghi & Co. still refuse to consider the possibility of failure even as it is staring them in the face. What’s really disturbing is that the stakes here are obviously much, much higher than they are o...
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February 11th, 2012 5:35 pm
Courtesy of Doug Short.
Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.
It's interesting to watch some of the terms bandied about in headline news. For example, the LA Times headline reads S&P says student loan debt could be next financial bubble.
Next? Could Be?
What with the word "next"? Also what's with the words "could be"? Without a doubt student loans are in a bubble and have been for many years. The source of the problem, as it always is with financial bubbles, is cheap money, loans to nearly anyone, and in the case of student loans, no way to discharge the debt, even in bankruptcy.
From the article:
"Student-loan debt has ballooned and m...
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February 11th, 2012 5:11 pm
Courtesy of ZeroHedge. View original post here.
Submitted by ilene.
Treasury Market Panic Reversal Due To Little Known Forces Called Supply and Demand Courtesy of Lee Adler of the Wall Street Examiner
The Treasury market panic saw a bit of a reversal this...
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February 11th, 2012 12:00 am
Top 5 RisersStockRatingAnalysis
ICABUYThe projected value for Empresas ICA is still rising quickly even though past earnings have already improved significantly.
XBUYThe projected value for US Steel is still rising quickly even though past earnings have already improved significantly.
FEICBUYProjected value continues to rise for FEI while long term increases in earnings growth are also becoming more widely expected.
ASBCBUYMany analysts are expecting higher than previously expected long term growth from Associated Bancorp, and its near-term earnings outlook is also improving....
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February 10th, 2012 6:20 pm
Courtesy of Benzinga.
The following are the M&A deals, rumors and chatter circulating on Wall Street for Friday February 10, 2012:
Actuant Acquires Jeyco Pty
The Deal:
Actuant (NYSE: ATU) announced Friday that it has acquired Jeyco Pty Ltd (“Jeyco”). Headquartered near Perth, Australia, Jeyco designs and provides specialized mooring, rigging and towing systems and services to the offshore oil & gas industry in Australia and other international markets. Additionally, its highly engineered products are used in a variety of applications for other markets including cyclone mooring and marine, defense and mining tow systems. Jeyco generates annual revenues of approximately $20 million.
Actuant shares closed at $27.33 Friday, a loss of 0.18% on average volume.
...
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February 10th, 2012 4:14 pm
Submitted by Mark Hanna
Courtesy of MarketMontage. View original post here.
A little flurry of buying in the closing 5 minutes tacked on 2 S&P points and took the major indexes off the lows. Only the Russell 2000 finished with a greater than 1% loss (1.4%) as it has been relatively weak versus the senior indexes for the past few sessions. While today was the "worst day of the year" – it was quite a low bar as the previous biggest loss on the S&P 500 was -0.57%.
The S&P 500 held well above the 10 day moving average (didn't even really touch it) and did not even attempt to fill the gap from last Friday's employment report. The teflon market rolls on for now. Specul...
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February 10th, 2012 4:11 pm
Courtesy of John Nyaradi.
Greece was “saved” for less than 24 hours but now major ETFs around the world skid into the weekend on Greek fears
After wangling for a week or more, Greek took their new deal to the European Ministers meeting, only to have it promptly rejected and so as we go into the weekend, major global markets and ETFs have again hit the skids on Greece.
After two years of wangling, the European zone is demanding yet more and deeper cuts for Greece to qualify for the next round of bailout loans that will keep the country from going bankrupt on March 20th.
Major European and United States ETF responded negatively to the new developments:
SPDR Dow Jones Industrial ETF (NYSEARCA:...
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February 10th, 2012 1:40 pm
Reminder: David is available to chat with Members, comments are found below each post.
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February 10th, 2012 1:22 pm
Today’s tickers: TRLG, KR & IGT
...
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February 6th, 2012 9:02 am
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.
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February 5th, 2012 5:19 am
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, called "The Relentless Pursuit of Meaningless Metrics."
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January 30th, 2012 7:22 am
Here is a quick update of past trades and our current position.
AA Money
No trade this week as we wait for AA to settle. Phil remarked last week that AA seemed overvalued. In the meantime, it looks like we might have to roll our Feb 9 calls. Good thing we sold only 5 of them against our position.
Last week P&L - 310.00
We lost ground last week, but we still have 11 months to sell premium!
FAS Money
Very good week for FAS Money as we benefited from the large amount of premium sold the previous week. We covered most of the shorts in advance of the Fed speech, but sold another set of options on Wednesday after the speech - 2 FAS calls that expired worthless on Friday, 2 FAS put that we are still holding and 2 FAZ put that we bought back for a profit on Friday. A late stick comparable to last week's almost gave us problems at the end of the day though!
Last week P&L - $4277.00
IWM Money
A decent week in this virtual portfo...
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January 18th, 2012 1:09 am
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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About Phil:
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...
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