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Posts Tagged ‘LLTC’

Which Way Wednesday: Through the Roof or Smashed into a Thousand Pieces?

 

GRANDPA JOE: But this roof is made of glass. It’ll shatter into a thousand pieces. We’ll be cut to ribbons!

WILLY WONKA: Probably

Is today going to be the day?  After pressing against our breakout levels for a week, today do we should finally have the gas to get over the top or will our Must Hold levels keep acting like a solid barrier?  Oddly enough, I was asking the same question on August 30th, when I asked if we were "Breaking Higher or Dressing Windows?"   My comment from that morning works for today as well:  

No way to slow down.  That line from Tull’s "Locamotive Breath" keeps playing in my head as I look at these rumor-driven markets and contemplate that we MUST keep going higher – or we will fall.  On the whole, that’s not generally a winning long-term investing premise BUT – it does so happen to be the entire principal on which space travel is based so let’s not discount it entirely.   

Willy Wonka understood stock market physics, there had to be enough power to get through that overhead resistance or it was going to be a very painful test of the top (like the one we had in August).  Since our July dip, we’ve come back for another try at our Must Hold lines 4 times but the volume has been substantially lower than it was in July, leading us to believe it is only TradeBots, and not Oompa Loompas, who are buying this market. 

Can TradeBots alone give
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Options Players Flock to Wynn Resorts

www.interactivebrokers.com

 Today’s tickers: WYNN, AVL, LLTC & GM

WYNN - Wynn Resorts, Ltd. – Options traders are placing bullish bets on the casino resort operator this morning with shares in Wynn Resorts surging 6.6% to an intraday- and more than three-year high of $135.59. Shares in the Las Vegas, NV-based company, which operates Wynn Macau in China, rallied sharply after casino revenue in Macau jumped 48% over the previous year, topping $2.5 billion in March. Options investors flocked to Wynn Resorts, as well as other casino resort operators with ties to Macau, right out of the gate this morning. Near-term bulls are dominating activity in Wynn’s options in the first half of the session, exchanging roughly 2.8 calls on the stock for each single put option. April contract calls are most active just before 12:00pm in New York, with overall options volume nearing 29,000 contracts against total open interest on WYNN of 140,493 contracts. Some bullish players picked up in-the-money call options, buying more than 1,100 calls at the April $130 strike for an average premium of $4.99 each, and purchasing some 1,400 call options at the April $135 strike at an average premium of $2.31 apiece. Near-term optimism spread to the higher April $140 strike where another 1,375 calls were scooped up for an average premium of $0.99 a-pop. Investors long the April $140 strike calls make money in the event that the casino operator’s shares rally another 4.0% over today’s high of $135.59 to surpass the average breakeven price of $140.99 by April expiration day. Finally, more than 1,800 call options changed hands up at the April $145 strike on open interest of just 256 contracts in the first half of the session. It looks like the vast majority of these calls were purchased at an average premium of $0.48 each. Call buyers at this strike profit in the event that WYNN’s shares jump 7.3% to exceed $145.58 at expiration. Wynn Resorts, Ltd. is scheduled to report first-quarter earnings after the closing bell on April 28, 2011, well past the expiration on April contract options.…
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Brazil ETF Investor Employs Covered Call Strategy Through December

www.interactivebrokers.com

Today’s tickers: EWZ, XLF, RVSN, MHK, COST, AKAM, & LLTC

EWZ – iShares MSCI Brazil Index ETF – Shares of the Brazil exchange-traded fund edged 0.5% lower to $72.55, perhaps inspiring the put spread we observed in the November contract. It appears one investor purchased 3,000 puts at the November 71 strike for 2.70 apiece, and simultaneously sold 3,000 puts at the lower November 65 strike for 1.00 each. The net cost of the put spread amounts to 1.70 per contract, thus yielding downside protection beneath the breakeven point at $69.30 through expiration next month. Longer-term activity seen in the December contract looks to be a covered call. It seems 25,000 calls were sold at the December 90 strike for an average premium of 13 pennies each. The investor responsible for the trade probably purchased an equivalent number of shares of the underlying stock at the time the calls were sold today. If this is the case, the investor reduced the cost of buying the shares to approximately $72.18 apiece by selling the call options. The short call position serves as an effective exit strategy for the investor if the fund trades above $90.00 by expiration. Shares of the ETF must rally 24% from the current price for the investor to have the underlying shares called away. If this occurs by expiration, the trader will enjoy the 24% gains on the rally in the stock, and walk away with no outstanding position in the fund.

XLF – Financial Select Sector SPDR – Fresh options activity in the March 2010 contract on the financials exchange-traded fund looks like a bearish risk reversal using deep in-the-money put options. Shares of the XLF have slipped 1.5% during the trading session to $15.13. It appears 5,500 calls were sold short at the March 19 strike for a premium of 30 pennies apiece to partially offset the cost of buying 5,500 puts at the same strike for 4.30 each. The net cost of the reversal amounts to 4.00 per contract. The breakeven point on the trade resides at $15.00. Thus, if the investor holds a long position in the underlying fund, downside protection is provided by the puts if shares slip more than 13 cents from the current price to breach the breakeven price of $15.00 by expiration next year.

RVSN – RADVision Ltd. – Telecommunications equipment designer and developer, RadVision, experienced a 1.75%…
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Market Montage

Whitney Houston Dead at 48

Submitted by Mark Hanna

Courtesy of MarketMontage. View original post here.

Damn.  Two (MJ and Whitney) of the big 4 of the 80s gone – Madonna and Prince remain.  Probably the most well known Star Spangled Banner ever…

Disclosure Notice

Any securities mentioned on this page are not held by the author in his personal portfolio. Securities mentioned may or may not be held by the author in the mutual fund he manages, the Paladin Long Short Fund (PALFX). For a list of the aforementioned fund's holdings at the end of the prior quarter, visit the Paladin Funds website at http://www.paladinfunds.com/holdings/blog

...

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Zero Hedge

Europe: "The Flaw"

Courtesy of ZeroHedge. View original post here.

Submitted by Tyler Durden.

We have posted various extracts from this piece from Credit Suisse previously. We will post from it again, because, to loosely paraphrase Lewis Black, it bears reposting... especially in the context of the latest and greatest Greek "bailout" (of Europe's bankers), which incidentally, will achieve nothing and merely bring the country one step closer to a military coup and/or civil war.

The flaw

The market is essentially proceeding on the assumption, as we see it, that banks’ capital requirements can be met organically, through earnings and deleveraging. We ...



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Phil's Favorites

It's Well Past Time for Plan Z

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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Chart School

The Student Loan Debt Bomb

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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Sabrient

Sabrient Risers - 2/11/2012

Top 5 RisersStockRatingAnalysisICABUYThe 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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Insider Scoop

Benzinga's M&A Chatter for Friday February 10, 2012

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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ETF Selector

ETFs Skid On Greece (VGK, EWG, FXE, DIA, SPY)

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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All About Trends

Mid-Day Update

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

Click here for the full report.




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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Option Review

True Religion Falls Apart At The Seams After Earnings

 

Today’s tickers: TRLG, KR & IGT

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OpTrader

Swing trading portfolio - week of February 6th, 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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Stock World Weekly

Stock World Weekly: The Relentless Pursuit of Meaningless Metrics

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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IRA Strategy/Income Trader

Weekend Virtual Portfolio Update 1/30/2012

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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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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