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[Ether_Snake]

Yeah but everything was up today? That's all I'm saying

You did make good picks before.

 

[RSTEIN]

Dude, I called JPM stock rising this week on Sunday night. I'm just trying to help u guys make money that's all. I could stop giving my opinion on stock picks if you want me too (even though I have yet to make a wrong prediction in 2009).

1) I don't know one person that wasn't expecting a rally. The market entered into a period where it was severely oversold (I'm not sure how you define oversold, you have yet to state that). I define an oversold security as one having an RSI <30 (as a quick test). On March 3rd, 170 stocks in the SP500 had an RSI below 30. That's basically unheard of. Lots of stocks were up huge today.

2) We appreciate the discussion but you don't have to constantly remind us of what a genius you are. We're here to share ideas, that's all.

3)

By far, the most emotional battle a speculator must deal with is tips. It was the main reason I moved uptown to Fifth Avenue, to get out of the reach of everyone who was trying to help me by giving me “sure things.” Beware of all “inside information” and “tips.”

Why waste my time listening to half-truths, shadowy statements, inaccurate projections, and just plain bold-faced lies when I could simply look at the behaviour of a stock. The story was clear in the action of the stock. The truth was in the tape for anyone and everyone to see.

 

[tyguy20204]

Sigh, I wish I had a ton of disposable income laying around that I could put into the stock market and retrieve once we've recovered. There are so many good deals, especially for dividend-yields, and I don't have any more money.

Why can't they give us ridiculous margin percentages like the old days =(

 

[RumblingRosco]

AHR was actually down today, despite the markets overall way up including financials. I know their next quarterly report is going to be grim, but come on now, throw me a friggin' bone here. :lol Waiting for next financials before I worry about buying more, but that should be around the 16th or so of this month. I'm really not sure what else to look into at this point, running out of ways to diversify I guess, due to my limited knowledge of remaining sectors.

 

[Cloudy]

Does anyone here buy treasury ETFs as opposed to buying direct?

 

[RSTEIN]

So far today:

Sold my XLE
Short NKE
Short XLP (added)
Buy WMT
Buy MA
Buy BIG July 20 Puts

Think I'm going to go play Street Fighter... STILL WAITING FOR THE GODDAMN BROKEN STEEL!

 

[Tarazet]

Does anyone here buy treasury ETFs as opposed to buying direct?

I don't know about ETFs, but I have a mutual fund FEDBX which is invested in federal debt.

 

[kathode]

Think I'm going to go play Street Fighter... STILL WAITING FOR THE GODDAMN BROKEN STEEL!

lolz. The Pitt in two weeks!

I'm likely going to spend some time this weekend researching and then look into taking some positions early next week. Hooray for liquidity

 

[Ovid]

If management e-mails actually “communicated” anything they would be banned. Risks of a leak means workers are subjected to anodyne words on how valued they are or that their company is uniquely positioned to cope with the challenges ahead. On Tuesday, however, a short memo from chief executive Vikram Pandit to staff at Citigroup set the entire US banking sector alight. Having dropped below a dollar last week, Citi’s share price rallied 35 per cent. What did the memo say? Three nuggets in particular seemed to dazzle investors. First that Citi was profitable in January and February and the quarter was looking the rosiest since the third quarter of 2007. Apparently, Citi made $19bn in revenues in the first two months of the year. Second, Mr Pandit calmed fears that depositors as well as clients were fleeing in their droves. Finally, the memo stressed Citi’s strong capital position.

But investors should not lose their heads. The headline-grabbing revenue number, of course, does not include costs or writedowns. Besides, Citi exceeded $20bn in adjusted revenues for eight quarters up until the end of September. Even in the nightmare final quarter of last year, revenues excluding writedowns were still a respectable $13.4bn. So Citi having a bumper top line is nothing to get excited about. That “profitable” remains unquantified gives no comfort as to what extent writedowns have eaten into that haul. That is the problem. In volatile markets, flow businesses such as foreign exchange or cash equities will always do well. And all banks are benefiting from short-rates being close to zero. But provided the global economy keeps deteriorating, and house prices sink lower, balance sheets may fail even harsh stress-tests. It remains a brave investor who believes that this time bank revenues can overwhelm the writedown bogeymen.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/1997b610-0d7d-11de-8914-0000779fd2ac.html

:lol

 

[xero273]

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/1997b610-0d7d-11de-8914-0000779fd2ac.html

:lol

So basically that means when Citi reports financials in April, it could be a loss?

 

[Ovid]

I know I'm expecting C to post a loss.

 

[Ether_Snake]

So far today:

Sold my XLE
Short NKE
Short XLP (added)
Buy WMT
Buy MA
Buy BIG July 20 Puts

Think I'm going to go play Street Fighter... STILL WAITING FOR THE GODDAMN BROKEN STEEL!

Wait why are you shorting XLP?

EDIT: Why would anyone believe the past two months were better for Citi than near the end of the bubble's peak?

 

[Ether_Snake]

.

 

[RSTEIN]

Wait why are you shorting XLP?

It's the only industry group to NOT break out during the last two days. I'm going to ride it until it tells me otherwise. Unfortunately the MACD is starting to bottom and the RSI is rebounding from oversold conditions. That's not good for me. If it breaks through $20 I'll get stopped out. I also own a lot of P&G calls, so it's kind of a hedge to that.

 

[Cloudy]

I don't know about ETFs, but I have a mutual fund FEDBX which is invested in federal debt.

I'm asking because short term treasury ETFs have a lower expense ratio than my brokers MMA (wtf). With interest rates so low, I was thinking of dabbling in that with my sideline money.

Someone tell me why that's a bad idea lol

 

[Tarazet]

I'm asking because short term treasury ETFs have a lower expense ratio than my brokers MMA (wtf). With interest rates so low, I was thinking of dabbling in that with my sideline money.

Someone tell me why that's a bad idea lol

Well yeah, ETF's are unmanaged, that's why they have lower expenses.

 

[Ether_Snake]

ATVI down 5% right now, on no news (other than the jobless claims report).

 

[RSTEIN]

ATVI down 5% right now, on no news (other than the jobless claims report).

Wow, almost 9 million shares.

http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/sto...ntial.html?cm_ven=YAHOO&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA

Kelly Brian G, Director Sold 2,000,000 shares.

 

[RSTEIN]

I'm going to start a small position in ATVI (~$1k) at current levels with a $9.50 stop. If it breaks through that I'm out.

Edit: nope, about to break $9.50

My XLP short is not going so well today but it's bittersweet. My KFT calls are up 20%, so I find myself hoping I get stopped out of XLP :lol

Edit: bounced above $9.50, entering, with $9.50 stop.

 

[Ether_Snake]

Yeah it's due to insider selling.

edit: GE up 11%. TTWO up 11%.

 

[RumblingRosco]

A big article on ATVI and its founder appeared in Forbes recently. I have it sitting next to me, but haven't read it yet. Personally, I'm getting uneasy about it and thinking of getting out soon. Something doesn't feel right to me, is all.

COOL, on the other hand, just posted some solid numbers for revenue and profit. Just got their 2008 annual report in the mail and was flipping through it. Some things you guys may find interesting...

Our sales to Game Stop, Wal-Mart, and Best Buy accounted for approximately 17%, 13% and 13%, respectively, of our net revenue for the fiscal year 2008.

So, 57% of their revenue is accounted for from other stores, which seems like quite a lot to me; I always imagined the three listed would account for well over 50%.

Approximately 46% of our net revenues in 2008 and 37% of our revenues in 2007 were generated from games based on the Cooking Mama franchise...

I'm not too happy with one franchise accounting for nearly half of all revenue, especially considering Majesco doesn't own the rights to Cooking Mama, although they have further licensing allowing them to publish more games for the franchise into 2009 and 2010. They need some other source, that's quite a large amount of risk there if that one franchise ever dries up or if they don't keep continued use of the IP.

In other news, WMI still looks nice to me, especially with a decent dividend on there.

 

[mckmas8808]

So basically that means when Citi reports financials in April, it could be a loss?

Yes EVERY FREAKING BODY knew this. The initial reports even said that. It was always if you take out writedowns.

Either way it shows that their revenues are going up big time when compared to 2008. That's why the stock went up 38% on Tuesday.

Wait why are you shorting XLP?

EDIT: Why would anyone believe the past two months were better for Citi than near the end of the bubble's peak?

Because it is so far.

 

[Ovid]

So it looks like we will end today's session in the green. I think we will end the week on a positive note.

 

[RumblingRosco]

So it looks like we will end today's session in the green. I think we will end the week on a positive note.

Seems highly likely, assuming today ends around the level it is currently at... we'd have to have one of the worst days in history tomorrow to wipe out all of this week's gains. On that note, I'm expecting tomorrow to be slightly down, assuming today doesn't see a big drop off right at the end.

 

[RSTEIN]

Thank you Ether for pointing out ATVI.

I noticed that it had reached its support level of $9.50 and bought some. I scaled into the position over the day and sold out near 4:00, made ~3%.

I sold my MA today for a similar ~3% gain. Sold my UTX calls, netting 12%. I also sold my AVY calls for a loss of 88%.

I added to my NKE short and my XLP short. I bought some more BIG puts. We've had a good three days and wanted a bit of protection for tomorrow. Who knows what will happen!

 

[Ether_Snake]

Soka: I'm not really worried about ATVI because of Blizzard, and because ERTS's efforts to correct their position, while providing us with some good games, hasn't translated into great sales. Basically they are now a great publisher of quality titles, but no longer a "big publisher" of big sellers.

If it wasn't for Blizzard, I wouldn't have much confidence in ATVI over the long term because of the way they have handled Guitar Hero recently.

ERTS' Dante will tank, it looks bad and it was a very stupid move considering GoW III is coming. I don't know what they'll do with Mirror's Edge but that game except maybe re-release it with more content (low price, DLC included, or some such). Dead Space Wii is probably really cheap to make since it's on-rail so I'm thinking it will make its money back. Army of Two 40th Day might do Ok, but the first one came at a time when there was sort of a drought, especially of shooting games. I'm not sure people will pay $60 for the sequel. EDIT: Also I just read that EA's LotR deal is over soon, and Warner Brothers will get the license rights back soon. Two Hobbit movies are in the works.

ATVI has some racing game coming from Bizarre studio (PGR devs which they bought), we'll see how that one goes. But overall I don't see anything to worry thanks to Blizzard and also ERTS' position.

Ubisoft will more than definitly come up from its current lows in the future with AC2, SC5, and maybe Avatar. They lack some good online game with a fee though, but I guess everyone except Blizzard does

TTWO's Badland will more than likely tank as it disappeared from the radar, or come back as a nice surprise (doubtful, but it had some interesting aspects to it that could allow it to make its place for the FPS crowd). Bioshock 2 should do ok, especially with co-op. GTA DLC x 2 is probably good for them, although maybe people will be too busy to care next fall.

Is there any big FPS coming out this fall?

EDIT: ADBE has gone from 16.80 to 19.80 this week. Blargh.

 

[kathode]

I also sold my AVY calls for a loss of 88%.

Yikes! Did you type that right?

 

[alejob]

How come I don't see more comments on the huge potential of investing in banks? "Long" term you easily end up making up to 5X on some of them. Don't know about Citi but everything else looks good to me.

How about the potential of the market hitting its low earlier this week? I just moved my 401K to more aggressive funds, looks to me like tomorrow will bring another jump. I'm putting in the last few bucks I'm willing to invest in the morning.

Even if it goes downhill from here, if you are willing to wait a couple of years before you sell you will do OK. I should've bought Wells Fargo a couple of days ago, it's still a really good buy(way better than Activision :lol). I'm even thinking I should have taken a shot at Citi at $1.

Spoiler

Now watch everything go down the toilet tomorrow

 

[bathala]

I'm new to stocks. What is a good online stock trade website (scottrade, Ameritrade, etc?)?

Is it good to invest on banks right now while they are cheap? or any other suggestion? bonds?

 

[bigsnack]

Well I wouldn't say that all banks are a sure thing right now, but the media is starting to point it that way this week. BofA released a report this afternoon, showing strong profits for the first two months of '09 (similar to Citibank's report at the beginning of this week). Although it may be short lived, I think we will see another solid gain for the financial sector tomorrow. If the big banks survive, we are living through one of the biggest stock bargains in history, the trick is picking the right bank that isn't going to fold...

Another news story after trading ended today was Citi saying that they will not need additional money from the government, and they were reassuring that they will stay privatized. True or not, we are going to see that affect the stock's price in the morning.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/29665534

 

[RSTEIN]

Yikes! Did you type that right?

Yup Purchased right in the middle on February... couldn't find a floor. Thankfully out of my 28 transactions this year it's my only loss and was a small position. Only lost $1k.

 

[Ovid]

BEIJING — The Chinese premier Wen Jiabao expressed concern on Friday about the safety of China’s $1 trillion investment in American government debt, the world’s largest such holding, and urged the Obama administration to provide assurances that its investment would keep its value in the face of a global financial crisis.

Speaking at a news conference at the end of the Chinese parliament’s annual session, Mr. Wen said he was “worried” about China’s holdings of Treasury bonds and other debt, and that China was watching United States economic developments closely.

“President Obama and his new government have adopted a series of measures to deal with the financial crisis. We have expectations as to the effects of these measures,” Mr. Wen said. “We have lent a huge amount of money to the U.S. Of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I am definitely a little worried.”

He called on the United States to “maintain its good credit, to honor its promises and to guarantee the safety of China’s assets.”

Mr. Wen raised the concerns at a session in which he touted China’s comparatively healthy economy and said that his government would take whatever steps were needed to end the country’s economic slump. He also predicted that the world economy would improve in 2010.

The confident performance underscored the growing financial and geopolitical importance of China, one of the few countries to retain massive spending power despite slowing growth.

China has the world’s largest reserves of foreign exchange, estimated at $2 trillion, the product of years of double-digit growth.

Economists say half of that money has been invested in United States Treasury notes and other government-backed debt. Some has also been deployed in major investment projects intended to prop up flagging growth at home.

The bulk of China’s investment in the United States consists of bonds issued by the Treasury and government-sponsored enterprises and purchased by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, which is part of the People’s Bank of China.

But some of China’s most controversial investments on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, judging by comments in Internet chat rooms, have been the purchases of shares in American financial institutions in 2007 by the China Investment Corporation, the country’s sovereign wealth fund, which was bankrolled nearly two years ago with $200 billion from its foreign reserves.

The China Investment Corporation’s most-publicized deal came in June 2007, when it spent $3 billion on shares of the Blackstone Group, a big private-equity fund, paying $29.605 a share. The stock closed on Thursday at $6.10, for a loss of 80 percent, or $2.4 billion of the initial investment.

During her visit to China last month, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton publicly assured Beijing that its American holdings remained a reliable investment. On Friday, Mr. Wen neither detailed his concerns about their safety nor said what sorts of new assurances he expected the United States to deliver.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/14/business/worldbusiness/14china.html?hp

Uh-oh

 

[Tarazet]

Yikes! Did you type that right?

Options are really, really hit or miss. I had C calls a couple months back which I lost everything on. I let them expire worthless at a penny.. 100% loss, plus commission.

 

[bathala]

thanks bigsnack. I'm thinking of BoA

so wat traders do u guys use? Online?

 

[kathode]

Options are really, really hit or miss. I had C calls a couple months back which I lost everything on. I let them expire worthless at a penny.. 100% loss, plus commission.

Oh believe me, I've lost >$5k overnight if you read back in this thread. I was just curious because he casually mentioned it and thought he might just have typed the 8 twice by mistake.

 

[RSTEIN]

Options are really, really hit or miss. I had C calls a couple months back which I lost everything on. I let them expire worthless at a penny.. 100% loss, plus commission.

kathode knows that

Options aren't hit or miss. Only your strategy is hit or miss. I have a very, very simple strategy for trading options. Here are all my options trades YTD.

As you can see, all of them are positive except for one. AVY was purchased right in the middle of February. If you were long anything in Feb you were killed.

Funny story: The week before the crash in October, I put $30k into calls. I went on vacation to Chicago. Upon my return they were worthless. Of course I knew this while in Chicago. Hard to have a vacation when you know you're losing that kind of money. Ah well, lesson learned.

 

[RumblingRosco]

AHR up 70%.:lol

EDIT: 80%. And COOL above $1.00. All my penny stocks are rising from the grave!

 

[Ether_Snake]

How I hope to see 20% gains on my holdings one day

 

[SephCast]

So I've been out of the market for about a year now. I was getting a little bit bored and bought 20 shares of Citigroup just for kicks. Any other stocks that are in the low 1-3 dollar range that can make a good comeback in a couple years?

 

[Ether_Snake]

Other financial institutions, GM, Ford, etc. Troubled businesses

GM up 20%+ right now, so I wouldn't buy it now.

AHR up 70%.:lol

EDIT: 80%.

Now at 35%. What did you buy at?

 

[ALeperMessiah]

So I've been out of the market for about a year now. I was getting a little bit bored and bought 20 shares of Citigroup just for kicks. Any other stocks that are in the low 1-3 dollar range that can make a good comeback in a couple years?

take a flyer on SIRI. .20 a share :lol :lol

Spoiler

I bought at .46

 

[Ovid]

March 13 (Bloomberg) -- SanDisk Corp., the biggest maker of flash-memory cards for digital cameras, rose as much as 13 percent on renewed speculation that Samsung Electronics Co. or Toshiba Corp. may make a bid.

One of those companies might be planning to make a new offer for SanDisk, the EE Times reported today. Samsung withdrew a hostile bid last year. Toshiba, SanDisk’s partner in a Japanese flash-manufacturing operation, said in December that it had no intention to buy the company.

SanDisk reported losses of more than $2 billion last year as an industry glut sent chip prices plummeting. Consumers also have cut back on purchases of electronics as they cope with the recession, eating into sales. SanDisk’s cards provide storage in a range of devices, including cameras and mobile phones.

SanDisk, based in Milpitas, California, rose $1.04 to $10.99 at 1:45 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares, up 3.6 percent this year before today, climbed as high as $11.27 earlier in the session.

The company doesn’t comment on rumors or speculation, said SanDisk spokesman Mike Wong. Chris Goodhart, a Samsung spokeswoman in San Jose, California, also declined to comment.

Samsung, the world’s second-largest chipmaker, dropped its $5.85 billion takeover offer for SanDisk in October. The company said it withdrew the $26-a-share cash bid because talks failed to make “meaningful progress” over six months.

Missing Estimates

SanDisk forecast first-quarter sales of at most $575 million last month, missing the $631.9 million estimated by analysts in a Bloomberg survey. SanDisk also said it may try to raise as much as $500 million in a stock offering -- a sign of desperation, Lazard Capital Markets analyst Daniel Amir said at the time. The company’s shares plunged 71 percent last year.

SanDisk also is selling Toshiba more than 20 percent of the production capacity in their joint venture, a bid to boost cash and reduce equipment-lease obligations. Toshiba, Japan’s largest chipmaker, forecast a record annual loss for this year.

While SanDisk leads the flash-card market, Samsung is the biggest maker of the memory chips used inside the devices. Toshiba is the second-largest maker of those kinds of semiconductors.

Intel Corp., the world’s largest chipmaker overall, also competes in the market. It runs a flash-manufacturing business jointly with Micron Technology Inc.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aIqbheEZvsOM&refer=home

Here we go again. I got burned by this stock last year. I'm still holding a few shares though because I knew buyout talks would start again before Summer '09.

 

[RumblingRosco]

Other financial institutions, GM, Ford, etc. Troubled businesses

GM up 20%+ right now, so I wouldn't buy it now.




Now at 35%. What did you buy at?

Oh, about $6.00. :lol :lol

On the bright side, my family invested between 0.40 and 0.90 or so, and I'll likely buy more the day following their earnings. We already know their earnings are going to be very nasty, I have a feeling they'll be nastier than expected and cause a small sell-off. Of course, at this point I'm just gambling, just as possible they'll have better than expected losses and the stock will jump up.

 

[Meier]

I was so tempted to open an account and buy Citi when it was a dollar. Really bummed I didn't, but I finally went through with it and opened a Scottrade account. There is apparently a waiting period after a money transfer of 3 days to buy stocks under $4 which sucks -- I'm hoping if I go deposit some money in person that I can buy some shares of stocks that are under that value.

Anyway, what're everyone's thoughts on its ceiling? I am not intending on becoming a day trader or anything... I expect to sit on this for some time.

 

[Ether_Snake]

This week I am either buying ADBE, or adding to CGT, HON, or STP.

 

[Ovid]

This week I am either buying ADBE, or adding to CGT, HON, or STP.

Why didn't u buy CGT on 3/6 or 3/9 when it was in the $4 range? Those were the days to buy.

 

[Ether_Snake]

Why didn't u buy CGT on 3/6 or 3/9 when it was in the $4 range? Those were the days to buy.

No money

I need to add to CGT, HON, or STP because I haven't in a while. My CGT shares are like $10 a share.

 

[Ether_Snake]

UBI up 6.5%

ATVI down 3.2%

 

[Tarazet]

AMD has recovered from the doldrums and is now wavering around the strike price of those Jan 2011 calls I have.. 2.50. I think this will work out nicely.

 

[Meier]

Dang, C is up over $2 per share. I am so bummed I didn't go ahead with my plan... well, I opened a Scottrade account this weekend and now have the capability to trade but they have a limit on what you can buy with money transferred from a checking account initially. This sucks.