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[Gallbaro]

I wish I had access to some information, most certainly personal saving rates compared to the indexes.

So dead cat? or Bottom?

Anyway I sold a good portion of my DXD and went into DDM this morning, but I am gonna sell the DDM tomorrow.

 

[Deku Tree]

Anyone loading up on Citi at $1.18?

 

[Ovid]

Anyone loading up on Citi at $1.18?

Why? There is no absolutely no upside to that company.

 

[Ether_Snake]

What's going on with GE this morning? Down 15% or so, and Google doesn't seem to list any important news.

This probably from yesterday:

Credit Default Swaps on GE Capital Trade at Distressed Levels

The cost of insuring against a default by General Electric's financial-services unit jumped to distressed levels Monday on concern about a potential credit-rating downgrade, brokers said.

Credit-default swaps on GE Capital traded 11% upfront on Monday, according to broker Phoenix Partners Group.

When contracts on credit-default swaps trade upfront, it means investors seeking protection against a default must pay fees immediately. These contracts usually require only annual payments, but when concerns reach extreme levels, sellers of protection demand money upfront as well....

Monday marked the first time that GE Capital CDS traded upfront....

GE Capital CDS prices may be surging because debt of the unit was probably included in many collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs, according to Tim Backshall, chief credit strategist at Credit Derivatives Research.

CDOs are structured products that hold mortgage-backed securities, corporate debt and other fixed-income securities. GE Capital debt may have been included in these vehicles because it was AAA rated but paid relatively high interest rates during the credit boom earlier this decade, Backshall explained.

Now that GE Capital is in danger of a downgrade, the dealers who set up these CDOs may be hedging themselves by buying CDS protection on the unit's debt, he said

Put it in a Money Market Fund.

People will tell you that the problem is that not many people will be able to predict the rebound, just like very few accurately predicted either the downturn or the severity of it. And the few people who did predict the downturn will probably not be among the few people who accurately predict the upturn.

When things come back, they will come back fast and hard and if your not in the market you will miss a big part of the upside. On the other hand, if you are in the market you make keep getting wiped out for a long time... It's a gamble.

Or we will experience stagnation for a long time, nothing indicates that markets should go back up fast, it is more likely that the recession will "L-shape" as Roubini has been saying, but for how long who knows. Expecting markets to turn around sharply when they do is a bit foolish IMO, except for short-term rallies. Confidence isn't there, and people are more likely to selloff quickly.

But yeah if there was a time to continue to invest IMO it's now, long term.

 

[Deku Tree]

Why? There is no absolutely no upside to that company.

You are right, but I was curious.

Expecting markets to turn around sharply when they do is a bit foolish IMO, except for short-term rallies. Confidence isn't there, and people are more likely to selloff quickly.

I agree with what you are saying, but that wasn't my point.

My point was that when the next bull market comes (whenever that is), it is likely turn around sharply and go up very quickly (and before public sentiment has turned). I have read a lot historical evidence about this, although I don't have time to look for it. The first year of a bull market usually goes up by some large percentage (30% - 45%?), and historically a lot of that has happened in day long sprints here and there that are very hard to jump into if you are not in the market already and not a day trader. At least that's what I have read a lot of smart people saying...

In the near term what I am expecting is bear market suckers rallies. When the market went down 20% many people said, how much further can it go? It's time to buy. When the market went down 30% many people said, how much further can it go? It's time to buy. And people keep saying that... and the market has continued to go down.

If you bought into the market in 1931 (in the middle of the stock market being on it's way to going down 90%), how long term did you have to wait to make your money back? You had to wait a very long time. Not saying that's going to happen, just saying it's something to think about whether or not the risks are worth the potential rewards. Especially now that dividends are hard to come by. Historically half of the stock market return came from dividends, which used to be much higher...

 

[Ether_Snake]

Yeah I understand.

BTW ADBE up 10% on profit update. Damnit, I wanted to buy some with ADSK:|

EDIT: ATVI has been holding out strongly for over a week now. Share buybacks I presume?

 

[Tarazet]

With collapses of Citibank and GM imminent, I took a look at my portfolio to figure out what would be worth unloading. I can't really see anything. AMD is being propped up by a Middle Eastern sugar daddy, Ford may stumble in the wake of a GM failure but won't fold, the real estate fund is an income machine which will weather the downturn.. can't really find anything to sell. Maybe I should just double down.

 

[ALeperMessiah]

With collapses of Citibank and GM imminent, I took a look at my portfolio to figure out what would be worth unloading. I can't really see anything. AMD is being propped up by a Middle Eastern sugar daddy, Ford may stumble in the wake of a GM failure but won't fold, the real estate fund is an income machine which will weather the downturn.. can't really find anything to sell. Maybe I should just double down.

That's kind of where I'm at too, I'm out of everything I wanted to be out of. My remaining investments, a REIT, MO for the div yield, and two mutuals that are in decent shape, I'm happy with. I have some INTC which I'm not enamored with, and a bunch of SIRI, but not enough that it would be worth dumping now. I think I'll be standing pat for the forseeable future.

 

[tyguy20204]

Yeah, I'm at the point where I'm just going to wait it out, even though I'm not overly happy with some of my selections.

 

[bggrthnjsus]

i have never been more thankful that i don't have to sell any stocks to pay for school for awhile good god this blowssssss

 

[kIdMuScLe]

i have about $100 to play in the stock market and what's the best stock to buy right now? of course im gonna keep re-investing and try to create a good portfolio with cheap stocks. so a little help please?

 

[Gallbaro]

i have about $100 to play in the stock market and what's the best stock to buy right now? of course im gonna keep re-investing and try to create a good portfolio with cheap stocks. so a little help please?

A savings account

 

[alejob]

i have about $100 to play in the stock market and what's the best stock to buy right now? of course im gonna keep re-investing and try to create a good portfolio with cheap stocks. so a little help please?

LOL! If you ask me, if you can wait for this mess to end(probably a couple of years) and go for the home run you can buy bank stocks, one that is not in huge trouble. Maybe WellsFargo or Zions. Don't know, I'm willing to risk some of my money on Bank of America but NOT on Citigroup.

 

[Ether_Snake]

ATVI down only 0.3% today. It's been like that on all bay days recently, and has been hovering at $10.

Personally I have nothing I want to sell. It's too bad BHI has continued to drop further, but there's no reason for me to sell. I'd like to add to HON but I feel like I have better plays to make like buying some ADSK, but I'm still quite ware of them because I feel that anything that's close to a monopoly or really big is basically likely to be hit severely. The bigger they are the harder they fall and all that. Recessions are all about trimming.

STP has really been hit hard like all solars, and I don't see myself adding to it as it's very risky.

We'll see. The more we fall, the less I'm panicking because the closer we probably are to a bottom. But for how long we'll stay at that bottom who knows, for all we know we could go from 6000 to 8000, back and forth, for the next five years

 

[jamesinclair]

i have about $100 to play in the stock market and what's the best stock to buy right now? of course im gonna keep re-investing and try to create a good portfolio with cheap stocks. so a little help please?

100?

Dont bother.

The lowest fees right now are 4.50$. 9$ for a buy-sell.

Youre not going to make that up.

 

[Gallbaro]

I sold most of my BNI position today, with the intention of picking it up again latter. Despite it being one of the few stocks that increased in value for 2008, now it is just following the market regardless of what I think valuation should be.

 

[kathode]

Very very tempted to take out some GE shorts.

 

[Gallbaro]

Very very tempted to take out some GE shorts.

Its a bank that is not bankrupt yet.

 

[Tarazet]

i have about $100 to play in the stock market and what's the best stock to buy right now? of course im gonna keep re-investing and try to create a good portfolio with cheap stocks. so a little help please?

$100? Buy a bunch of lottery tickets. You'll help your schools and probably get a better rate of return.

 

[Gallbaro]

What the hell is with this last minute rally, it is friday, capital is suppose to be withdrawn when no one has a fing clue what is gonna happen. Does the market think this is a bottom?

 

[Tarazet]

What the hell is with this last minute rally, it is friday, capital is suppose to be withdrawn when no one has a fing clue what is gonna happen. Does the market think this is a bottom?

Short covering/dead cat bounce.

 

[ALeperMessiah]

Short covering/dead cat bounce.

Yeah probably people closing out all there shorts before the weekend. Still nice to see the Dow not lose anything. I'll take it.

 

[mckmas8808]

What the hell is with this last minute rally, it is friday, capital is suppose to be withdrawn when no one has a fing clue what is gonna happen. Does the market think this is a bottom?

Guys that's NOT what happened. What happened was a real Consumer Credit report that came out stating that the amount of lending has gone up by $1.8 Billion in January.

Check on CNN Business website to read the full story.

 

[Ovid]

March 6 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama on March 9 will reverse Bush administration restrictions on funding for research using embryonic stem cells, said two government officials with knowledge of the plan.

Obama plans to lift the funding ban in an 11 a.m. signing ceremony, said the officials, who spoke today on condition of anonymity. The development was reported earlier by ABC News and the Washington Post.

The change will free federally supported scientists to work with cells that had been forbidden by President George W. Bush’s 2001 order. Obama’s decision should accelerate medical discoveries by giving researchers access to at least 400 lab colonies created in the past eight years, said Jeanne Loring, director of the Scripps Research Institute’s Center for Regenerative Medicine, in La Jolla, California.

Bush in 2001 limited the research to pre-existing lines, saying more human embryos would need to be destroyed to create new cell colonies.

Lifting the restrictions will boost morale among scientists at the National Institutes of Health, the nation’s principal backer of biomedical research, and around the U.S., said Story Landis, head of the stem-cell task force at the Bethesda, Maryland-based agency, in an earlier telephone interview.

“The NIH has watched while states and other countries have taken a lead in supporting human embryonic stem-cell research,” she said. “The scientific community at NIH and outside is looking forward to this change with great enthusiasm, not only for the scientific opportunities it will open up but because it ends the politicization of a scientific question.”

Repairing Damaged Tissue

Embryonic stem cells have the potential to repair or replace damaged tissue or organs. Cells that contain mutations may reveal how illness develops and identify targets for prevention or treatment.

Opponents of the research consider embryos to be human life and research that destroys them to be immoral. They contend that stem cells from adult tissue and umbilical cord blood are available without harming embryos and already in clinical use, while treatments from embryonic cells are years off.

The NIH may increase funding for stem-cell research with an extra $10 billion it will get from the economic-stimulus package passed by Congress, Landis said.

Bush barred federally funded scientists from working on stem cells that were derived from human embryos after August 9, 2001. Although he said then that 60 stem cell lines would be eligible, many of them weren’t viable. Today 21 of those lines can be used in government-funded research.

Bush Vetoes

Congress twice voted to overturn the Bush restrictions and Bush vetoed both measures.

Once new guidelines are completed, researchers with existing federal grants will be able to modify their contracts, with NIH consent, to use stem cells that weren’t previously eligible, Landis said. Also, because about one-fourth of NIH grants expire every year, the agency will be able to increase the number of grants devoted to embryonic cells even if it doesn’t get a budget increase, she said.

The new guidelines will have to be published in the Federal Register and could be implemented after a public comment period that may be as short as 30 days, Landis said.

Two Main Types

Scientists recognize two principal kinds of stem cells. Embryonic stem cells, derived from days-old embryos, have the potential to form any of the roughly 210 cell types in the human body. Adult stem cells, found in the mature organs of living beings, have a more limited ability to form cells found in those organs.

Bush’s ban supplemented a 1995 law barring the use of federal funds for research that causes the destruction of embryos. That law, the Dickey-Wicker amendment, has been interpreted to allow federal support for research on embryonic cell lines that were created with private funds.

U.S. Representative Diana DeGette, Democrat from Colorado and the congressional co-sponsor of the bills twice vetoed by Bush that would have overturned his ban, said in November she would urge Obama to appoint a task force to review federal stem- cell policy and establish new ethics rules.

Eventually, DeGette said, she would like to alter the Dickey-Wicker amendment so that researchers would be able to make lines of stem cells from embryos that reflect the genetic and ethnic diversity of the world’s people.

Holy crap...STEM up 45% after hours...GERN up 31%. Again, on Feb 19th I told you GERN was oversold. Hope u guys took my advice.

 

[Ovid]

I am like 100% this year when it comes to stock predictions on GAF.
I love to brag

 

[Ether_Snake]

So did you take your own advices?

BTW: Next shoe to drop for U.S. job seekers: lower wages

Lower wages, in turn, could further erode the outlook for the U.S. economy by hurting consumers' spending power.

The government's February employment report showed 651,000 jobs eliminated outside the farm sector, while losses in the previous two months were revised upward. The unemployment rate jumped to 8.1 percent, highest since 1983.

Like I said before: the US and Chinese economy, as long as they are intertwined through a huge trade deficit, will average out in income and living standards (at least among the "middle classes" of both nations). Watch it happen.

 

[Ovid]

Hell yeah...the only stocks I'm holding right now are: SIRI, STEM, GERN, and CGT (will buy more soon).

 

[Ovid]

DIA is a buy when this economy starts to turn around. If you can time it when we eventually hit the bottom you will be rich. Keep an eye out on this ETF.

 

[ALeperMessiah]

Holy crap...STEM up 45% after hours...GERN up 31%. Again, on Feb 19th I told you GERN was oversold. Hope u guys took my advice.

Did you hold STEM before this bounce?? If so I'd take profits.

 

[Gallbaro]

Hell yeah...the only stocks I'm holding right now are: SIRI, STEM, GERN, and CGT (will buy more soon).

So you think there is more upside? Obviously not 45% again, but instead of seeling those gains for a quite nice profit.

 

[Ether_Snake]

Up 66% now.

What did you pay for STEM? It was over 2$ less than a month ago.

GERN is up 40% in AHs too.

EDIT: WTF, why was IMMR up 12% today?

 

[Ovid]

I bought back STEM when it was in the $2 range (after originally purchasing at $1.40 back in Jan.). My intention is to go long with STEM, GERN, and CGT. I will not be selling my positions with these stocks anytime soon.

 

[Ovid]

Did you hold STEM before this bounce?? If so I'd take profits.

U obviously have not been reading my posts since January. Like I said before, biotech is the game to play.

 

[Deku Tree]

What do you sages think is going to happen to HIG? Any chance it can go back above $10 this year?

 

[Synth_floyd]

Peter Schiff says in his latest video blow that the Dow may bottom out at about 4000 because that's where the bull market of the 90s started out.

 

[Relix]

Plausible, the 4000 bottom.

Goddammit @ me for not getting into STEM =(

 

[medrew]

Peter Schiff says in his latest video blow that the Dow may bottom out at about 4000 because that's where the bull market of the 90s started out.

Love a clip that someone put together of him on tv shows in 06 and 07. Especially since it shows how much of a fucking idiot Ben Stein is.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=39f_1227647247

 

[RSTEIN]

Too bad Peter Schiff's clients lost tons of money despite his macro call :lol

 

[AstroLad]

Too bad Peter Schiff's clients lost tons of money despite his macro call :lol

it is funny as hell though how dickish and indignant all the COMPLETELY WRONG people were. love finance jocks [have a finance bs so not hating]

 

[zou]

Too bad Peter Schiff's clients lost tons of money despite his macro call :lol

Hey, getting 1 out of 4 or so right isn't that bad, right? I mean sure, he was wrong on decoupling, wrong on the USD crashing, wrong on foreign equities and wrong on foreign commodities, but boy, did he nail the US equity crash.

Good thing he's got those Fox gigs, since his investment advice hasn't been paying off too well.

 

[AstroLad]

Hey, getting 1 out of 4 or so right isn't that bad, right? I mean sure, he was wrong on decoupling, wrong on the USD crashing, wrong on foreign equities and wrong on foreign commodities, but boy, did he nail the US equity crash.

still makes him 25% more right than 99% of those other geniuses.

 

[RSTEIN]

it is funny as hell though how dickish and indignant all the COMPLETELY WRONG people were. love finance jocks [have a finance bs so not hating]

Yeah, that's what I really don't get about finance/investment people (me being one of them).

 

[AstroLad]

Yeah, that's what I really don't get about finance/investment people (me being one of them).

i loved finance profs and courses but i HATED the students. why i had to pick up a completely unrelated degree as well to help me maintain my sanity.

 

[RSTEIN]

i loved finance profs and courses but i HATED the students. why i had to pick up a completely unrelated degree as well to help me maintain my sanity.

Yeah, most of them are pricks. Everyone should read Black Swan. Basically sums up why I hate investment people.

 

[gantz85]

Yeah, most of them are pricks. Everyone should read Black Swan. Basically sums up why I hate investment people.

Wait, because of what the author talks about or because whether the author of Black Swan is a motherfucking prick?

Because he does come off as EXTREMELY smug. The concept articulated inside is not a new invention but something more like a repackaging, like "Blue Ocean Strategy" but with half the punch.

I couldn't go on reading Black Swan after the first 100 pages.




And fuck I'm shit behind on my CFA :lol

 

[kathode]

Tax question for anyone who might know. I can't seem to wrap my head around it.

I bought a truckload of Visa at the IPO. I then sold out that truckload in seperate batches.

I'm not entirely sure how to calculate my profit/loss for each of the sales, given that I paid a commission on the purchase only once. Let me try and come up with a simple example.

I buy 100 shares of V at $50 for a total of $5005. Let's say that's $5000 for the stock and a $5 commission.

I sell 50 shares of at $60 V for $2995. $3k for the sale proceeds and minus $5 commission.

So what is my profit in that scenario? Excluding the puchase commission, I have a profit of $495. But I keep thinking I need to account for the purchase commission somehow.

 

[RSTEIN]

Tax question for anyone who might know. I can't seem to wrap my head around it.

I bought a truckload of Visa at the IPO. I then sold out that truckload in seperate batches.

I'm not entirely sure how to calculate my profit/loss for each of the sales, given that I paid a commission on the purchase only once. Let me try and come up with a simple example.

I buy 100 shares of V at $50 for a total of $5005. Let's say that's $5000 for the stock and a $5 commission.

I sell 50 shares of at $60 V for $2995. $3k for the sale proceeds and minus $5 commission.

So what is my profit in that scenario? Excluding the puchase commission, I have a profit of $495. But I keep thinking I need to account for the purchase commission somehow.

I don't know how it works in the States (I'm in Canada) but this is what I would do:

100 x $50 + $5 = $5,505
Average cost per unit: $50.05 ($5,505/100)

First sale:
50 x $60 - 5 = $2,995
Net sale price: $59.90 ($2,995/50)
Net gain: ($59.90 - $50.05) x 50 = $492.50

 

[Ovid]

Yeah, most of them are pricks. Everyone should read Black Swan. Basically sums up why I hate investment people.

Here is a link to the podcast from EconTalk.org featuring Nassim Nicholas Taleb. In it he talks about the Black Swan theory.

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2007/04/taleb_on_black.html

 

[Ovid]

I do not recommend financial stocks but I just wanted to let you guys know that JPM is oversold. The stock price should see a bit of a bump this week.

 

[Gallbaro]

DOW you are going the wrong way!