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Posts Tagged ‘SRZ’

Options Investors Flock to Sallie Mae

www.interactivebrokers.com

Today’s tickers: SLM, LYB, SRZ & AUY

SLM - SLM Corp. – A barrage of bullish options traders targeted the student loan provider today perhaps on news SLM Corp. will continue to downsize and increase the number of company-wide layoffs to 2,500 by the end of next year. Shares in Sallie Mae rallied as much as 3.4% today to touch an intraday high of $12.28, with shares currently trading 2.35% high on the day at $12.16 just before 12:30 pm. Plain-vanilla call buyers expecting bullish movement in the price of the underlying shares to continue picked up 1,500 in-the-money calls at the December $12 strike for an average premium of $0.36 each. Call buying spread to the higher December $13 strike where more than 4,700 call options were purchased for an average premium of $0.14 a-pop. Investors holding the December $13 strike contracts are prepared to make money should SLM Corp.’s shares surge 8.05% over the current price of $12.16 to exceed the average breakeven point at $13.14 by expiration day this month. Bulls also targeted longer-dated put and call options to gain upside exposure on the stock. It looks like one strategist sold 10,000 puts at the January 2011 $11 strike for a premium of $0.22 each, in order to purchase the same number of April 2011 $15 strike calls at a premium of $0.22 apiece. The investor responsible for the transaction seems to be predicting a sharp recovery in SLM Corp. shares by April of next year. Shares in Sallie Mae would need to rally at least 23.35% for the trader to start to make money above the effective breakeven share price of $15.00. The sale of January 2011 $11 strike puts indicates the investor expects shares will exceed that price level through expiration day. But, also suggests the trader is willing to have 1,000,000 shares of the underlying stock put to him at $11.00 apiece should the puts land in-the-money ahead of January expiration. The sharp rise in demand for…
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Weekly Wrap-Up – 10,000 or Bust!

I think I was right on the money last week when I said:

The bar for corporate earnings is still set at very easy to beat levels yet, like this limbo-playing child, when they announce their beats of very low expectations we’re going to get all excited and tell them how great they are doing.  The problem is, these are not kids who we hope may grow up one day to be President or CEOs of major companies. these ARE CEOs of major companies and they are being paid top salaries for top performance and we, the stock purchasing public, are paying top dollar for what should be SPECTACULAR performance, not beating 75% off last year’s earnings by a penny! 

In that post, I rattled off a list of stocks that seemed overpriced to me: AMZN, BIDU, AM, PALM, NFLX, PCLN, URBN, UHS, CERN, CREE, GMCR, CY, SWM, TRLG, BKE and you would have had a fabulous week just shorting those stocks as only NFLX, URBN and CREE stayed positive.  Now most newsletter writers would quit right there and make a giant ad saying they were 12 for 15 on the week but, as our members know, THAT’S NO BIG DEAL AT PSW!  I’m just going to remind members that they can refer friends to FREE advice like that in our trial newsletter and earn 20% or more off their subscriptions for doing it. 

Picking stocks is easy but a few percent here and a few percent there isn’t much fun is it?  On that list, the two we attacked were AMZN and BIDU, both of which ran (in our opinion) way too high AND had very liquid and very overpriced call options that we could sell to collect premiums.  AMZN is a staple short in our $100K Virtual Portfolio and we had set up BIDU the week before, selling Oct $420 calls for $8.30 and the Oct $430 calls for $7,20.  While both went higher on Monday, the fact that we had a plan for managing the trade kept us from panicking and, thankfully, Monday was the only day those positions gave us trouble and both finished the week worthless (100% profit for us). 

Adjusting our positions kept us busy this week as we STILL have a slightly bearish bias and I apologize for that but, as I said in Friday’s post: Every time I try to get a little more bullish, they pull me
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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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Market Montage

And Still Not a Single 1% Down Day in 2012

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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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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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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