Posts Tagged
‘EXM’
by Option Review - January 31st, 2011 4:47 pm
Today’s tickers: MCK, SWY, EXM & CVLT
MCK - McKesson Corp. – Bulls are buying up call options on the drug and medical supplies distribution company today ahead of the firm’s third-quarter earnings report after the final bell. Shares in McKesson are currently up 0.50% to stand at $74.52 as of 12:25pm in New York. More than 5,800 calls have changed hands at the February $75 strike on paltry previously existing open interest of just 819 contracts at that strike. Investors taking bullish positions on McKesson ahead of earnings purchased more than 5,000 of the calls for an average premium of $1.45 per contract. Call buyers stand ready to make money should shares in the name rally another 2.6% to surpass the average breakeven price of $76.45 by February expiration. McKesson Corp.’s shares, which rallied up to $75.49 last week, have not traded this high since 1999. Options implied volatility on McKesson is up 13% at 26.23% in early afternoon trade ahead of earnings this evening.
SWY - Safeway Inc. – Activity in near-term put options on the food and drug retailer today suggests some investors expect shares in Safeway to rebound ahead of February expiration. Shares are up 1.25% at $20.77 just before 12:45pm in New York, but are down roughly 13.45% since November 5, 2010. Safeway will reveal its performance for the fourth quarter before the opening bell tolls on February 24, 2011. Bullish players appear to have sold the majority of the 18,500 puts that have changed hands at the February $20 strike on open interest of 1,595 contracts for an average premium of $0.20 each. Put sellers keep the full premium received on the sale as long as shares in Safeway exceed $20.00 through expiration day next month. More than 3,750 in-the-money put options changed hands at the higher February $23 strike on previously existing open interest of just 6 contracts. It looks like nearly 2,000 of the put options sold for an average premium of $2.57 a-pop. Investors selling the puts…

Tags: CVLT, EXM, MCK, SWY
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by Phil - September 23rd, 2009 8:22 am
We’re just waiting on the Fed today, as are the rest of the markets.
Yesterday’s volume was the lowest since Sept 11th but not as low as Monday, which was our lowest volume since the end of June, just before we had a 5% correction. June 26th and 29th were our last two consecutive ultra-low volume days but June 30th was much bigger (a down 100 day), July 1st was up again on low volume and then July 2nd was another big down day and we bottomed out on July 10th. That was the time that the media was telling us we were forming a "classic" head and shoulders pattern and were doomed to revisit the March lows. It was also the last time we enthusiastically bought stocks.
At the time of that weekly review (7/11), we had CAL at $10 (now $16.82), CBS at $5.97 (now $12.58), COST at $43.45 (now $58.58), CVX – who we just shorted – at $58.20 (now $72.60), DIS at $22.41 (now $28.38), EXM at $6.05 (now $7.32), RT at $7.12 (now $8.85), SNDK at $14.47 (now $22.91), SPY at $87.96 (now $107.27), SPWRA at $22.35 (now $32.63), SUN at $22.09 (now $27.75), V at $59.86 (now $74.41), VLO at $15.57 (now $20.50), WFR at $16.61 (now 19.09), X at $30.77 (now $50.45), XLF at $11.10 (now $15.35), XOM at $65.12 (now $69.85) and ZION at $11 (now $19). Of course our members had much better entries as we had been targeting our entries on all of those but anyone reading our weekend review on July 11th could have played along at home from those prices (we even spiked down at Monday’s open) and when I say we are now bearish – it is that we are bearishly protecting these ridiculous profits – the kind of profits you usually don’t get after 3 years, not 3 months!
Overall, the broader market is up 20% over that time so it can be argued that a monkey with a dart board could have made good picks at that time but, if you read that week’s notes – you’ll notice that this monkey was screaming for people to buy and was going against what pretty much EVERY other analyst was saying and I was confident enough to lay out my picks, my strategy and my fundamental arguments for everyone to see. It would have really sucked…

Tags: AIG, BXP, CAL, CBS, COST, CVX, DIA, DIS, EDZ, EXM, Fed Meeting, FSLR, MPEL, RT, SNDK, SPWRA, SPY, SRS, SUN, V, VLO, WFR, X, XLF, XOM, ZION
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by Phil - July 9th, 2009 7:24 am
Wheee, what a day yesterday!
Of course we hit it out of the ballpark with our ICE puts as that stock melted so fast it turned to vapors (or at least the calls did!). Fortunately, we had the puts and the Aug $95 puts I mentioned in the morning post, that we had taken at $6.20 on Tuesday, opened at $8.50 and ran up to $14.35 (up 131%) at the day’s end – all without a significant pullback to stop us out. Since we LOVE to go back to a well that’s paying off, we jumped on the Aug $90 puts for $3 as our first trade of the day at 9:39 and those finished the day at $7.35 (up 145%), not bad for our 3rd play on the same stock in 48 hours!
The best thing about having 100%+ put side winners in a downturn is it gives us free reign to speculate on the upside. Since we had a bottomish view of the downturn yesterday, we were able to use the cushion provided by the gains on ICE (as well as our longer-term DIA and USO short positions) to establish a bunch of speculative upside positions on stocks we thought were bottoming. The key to this strategy is position sizing and virtual portfolio management. If you invest, for example, $2,000 per position and are willing to take 20% losses as a stop-out, then having a 100% winner on ICE (and we had 3!) allows you to take 5 bullish position as the total risk on $10,000 is the $2,000 you gained on the bear side. We don’t just mindlessly flip-flop of course. In fact, it’s been more than a month since we picked up bullish positions for more than a quick trade and we’re not SURE these are going to work but, since we had the winning put plays, it’s a good place to make a stand – dipping our toes in the bullish waters once again.
I mentioned our brand-new $5,000 Virtual Portfolio yesterday and our first play was a net .71 spread on AA where we bought the $7.50 calls for $1.75 and sold the $9 calls for $1.04. On yesterday’s dip, we had the opportunity to take out the $9 calls for .70, which was a .35 profit and left us with the naked $7.50 calls at net $1.40, with a break-even at $8.90. We tried to sell them for…

Tags: AA, CBS, CME, COST, DIA, DIS, ERX, EXM, GS, HOV, ICE, manipulation, retail sales, RT, SPY, USO, VZ, X, YRCW
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by Phil - May 31st, 2009 8:29 am
What a wild week that was!
We got such a good sell-off last Friday that we went 1/2 covered into the weekend on our DIA puts (a little bearish) but we had already cleaned up on quick short plays on the Dow and USO and we were very much in cash but still making bullish plays at the time. I did a 3-part series on dividend-paying stocks over the weekend, elaborating on the 21 dividend payers we picked that Tuesday along with our $104,340 Virtual Portfolio (used to be $100,000) so we had no shortage of bullish ideas but it didn’t take us long this week to turn pretty bearish.
Last Friday morning (22nd), ahead of the holiday weekend, with the Dow at 8,323, I sent out an early alert to members saying: "I’d go long on the Dow here but frankly I’m just not in the mood today. Still full covered on long DIA puts and still in the DDMs but just hanging out and watching today since you can’t take the action seriously anyway." Our plays that day ran the gamut: We sold BAC July $10 puts for $1 (now .66), took a TBT spread that has been a wild ride but right back where we started and an ICE bull call spread ($90/$100, selling $90 puts $2.33, now .57) that is right on track. All that came before 11:33 on Friday, where I rightly called a top at 8,342. We made nice profits on DIA puts and took an EXM and T hedges that are doing well. One of our best plays on Friday was the USO $32 puts at .80 we took into the weekend, those cashed out Monday morning at $1.05 (up 44%) – those USO trades were followed through in detail in our Members Only post: "Stupid Options Tricks - The Salvage Play."
As I mentioned, we have been mainly in cash for over 2 weeks now so mainly we’re just taking small opportunities and having fun while we wait for the market to break one way or the other. One article I wrote over the holiday weekend was a timely update to "How To Vacation-Proof Your Virtual Portfolio," something anyone not in cash needs to take under strong advisement and DO NOT miss the very generous free video lesson from Sage’s Market Tamers that is on that post. Our…

Tags: CAT, DIA, Dividends, EXM, FAS, FAZ, GM, GOOG, GS, LYG, OIH, PGH, QQQQ, TBT, TNK, USO, UYG
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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.
To learn more about the swing trading virtual portfolio (strategy, performance, FAQ, etc.), please click here
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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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