mymeohmoneyblog

I've bought some Pfizer calls just incase we get an obama rally. I've also got some Yamana gold calls just in case people decide to start buying it. The two positions might be contradictory, notwithstanding the overall deleveraging. My pfe should retain a decent amount of residual value giving me time to sell it if need be, while the auy is a bit more of a gamble, but the price looked decent.

I've spent an hour or two trying to upload Dow graphs for you, but once again i still get the Internal Error 500 Whoops! message from Movable Type. Its so frustrating and disappointing that this stuff doesn't work

We've been in a trading range with the indices. If they begin to break their lows it will begin to look increasingly like we have a chance of entering a bear market. If you break down the Dow into roughly 20-25 year periods it hasnt really fallen below its trendline unless you go back to '29. It's arguable that in this great american century we havent really had a classical bear market since the depression, notwithstanding all that stuff about arbitrary 20% falloffs, comparisons (e.g. elliot wave) to other asset values, months of descending charts, etc.

If I recall, i think it must of been about 2001/2002, i was looking at the dow chart and thinking then that about 6500-6700 would have been an appropriate and healthful pullback level. I remember feeling a bit disappointed at the time when the indices started to move back up before hitting those numbers, prematurely in my opinion. (i also remember being somewhat suprised during that general time that oil &/or defense stocks had such belated reactions to the plane hijackings that crashed into the buildings in 2001, like months and years belated). Its still a mystery to me why oil took two years to react to those events, and ive never seen if anyone else has ever tried to analyze that.

I can maintain some rather obtuse opinions from time to time. A common point i like to make is that i've never lived through a recession (see above also re: bear market theory). I'm not sure exactly what purpose is served in feeling this way, especially given by all accounts that we have had recessions, 90 (?), 00 (?),... etc. Well i do live in the midwest, perhaps coloring my views somewhat, and just recently it was reported that Iowa's unemployment rate fell to 4.2%. In my county of some 150k plus i havent heard of a single foreclosure nor layoff, everyone goes to work, goes to school, etc. As far as i can tell, the reagan revolution has been going strong for 25+ years.

Well asides from making potentially inflammatory or purposefully ignorant remarks, let me just say that i have no idea which way the market will go. However, i think the potential for an obama rally should be considered. Regardless of party affiliation the stark contrast between obama and bush speaking styles, attention to details, attention to.... anything, could have significant effects on a market seeking confidence (not bravado). Then again, the destruction of wealth may just have longer lasting effects.

On a longer time-frame dow-chart the correction to-date has negated 10-returns leading to a sideways trend analysis. Longer term trending values might still put the dow lower than where it is now, excluding paradigm shifts, productivity assesment, information premiums, regulatory structures, and other assorted valuation modifications. Were the dow to fall below trend, as it last did from 29-33, say e.g. around the 7k mark +/-, and become a bear market, and thenfall an equidistant value below trend as it had gone above trend, well, it wouldnt be pretty, (nor possible - dow minus?). ... lol??

Oh b.t.w. can anyone explain the fundametals behind the markedly increased dow-slope beginning exactly @ jan '95? Are we still undoing irrational exuberance?

What's left to be done for this market. Our 2 nearest calaysts are one last interest rate cut, and then the election. The last rally was all of 2 days. The next rally may last a little longer. Perhaps will get a minor W shaped double-rally formation before breaking the lows.

Why hasnt anyone talked at all about reimplimenting the uptick rule. Regardless of the potential veracity of the purported 'test' studies that were done on eliminating the rule, it seems the prudent and confidential thing to do would be to reverse the since-it-wasn't-broke-didn't-have-to-fix-it inauspiscious decsion made awhile back. Like no one wouldn't couldn't mind the little extra added boost of assurance these days? Just wondering. Jeez, someone cover the bases, please.

I'm not of the short-by rights camp. Of course it adds liquidity. But it is and has always been an artificial construction. One that of course needs regulation. Has anyone ever suggested a finite, maximum borrowed-short limit, say 1/3rd the shares/market-cap? First In, Last Out, Who Cares. I think maybe we could use a few thousand investigators prosecuting failures-to-deliver next year. Caveat Brokers. (and Funds...)

Hey why are individuals allowed to mark-to-model their 30 year mortgages but not banks? Seems like if we're able to budget our spending and saving according to the limits imposed upon us by our 20 and 30 year mortgages that banks should at least be allowed to mark-to-market/model (semantics) based upon something longer than the immediacy of a 3-month 10-Q. How about 30 month modeling/marking or some longer form of averaging?

The 'safest' investment these days may be in currencies, as long as you pick the right one(s) and or baskets. With everything deflating, that held in pairs can't but retain some form of absolute value. Unfortunately most no-one has currency accounts, myself included. I suppose if you live in a big city you could go to a big bank and literally buy some yen for the next couple weeks/months or even some aussie dollars for a short term bounce. I put aside a trip to uk/france this fall because of the outrageous fares, so i'm kinda looking forward to some lower fares/euros/pounds next year. Comparatively of course the dollar is the place to be, but i suspect the yen will retest and probably break last fridays 90 level, and maybe there are some good 3rd world currencies out there to sell right now (sorry). Well i'm just rambling now and not connecting the dots too well and correcting to many keyboard errors gonna sleep now nighty night. zzzzzzzzzzzzz.....

Comments: View Comments |  Tuesday October 28, 2008  |  Stocks: AUY, PFE,

If you're considering taking a chance on FRE or FNM, consider the preferreds. This isn't a suggestion; just an idea. The FNM preferreds as listed on msn have all already rebounded nicely from being sold off OVER 79% several days ago. Here's the list and their closing prices a couple days ago when i first took an interest in them, since which they've all moved up several double-digits:
fnm-s 2.91
fnm-m 3.35
fnm-h 3.45
fnm-q 2.04
fnm-f 3.02
fnm-p 1.75
fnm-i 3.4
fnm-t 2.6
fnm-g 3.25
fnm-l 3.35

A few of these i liked more than others based on devaluations, dividend rates, and the trading volume.

It looked to me then like most of these had sold off more than 79% and were preparing for a rebound, which has occured recently. I'm not sure if they've recovered that statistical margin yet that would equal a pre-conservatorship price appx. 5x higher (just do the math) but i think their closer now.
I'd spent an hour or two digging and backreading through a deluge of commentary about the bailout and wasnt really able to find the information i was looking for (arguably poor search methodology on my part). Obviously these preferreds were included in the devaluation, and of course there dividends were cut indefinitely, but i was trying to find out when the new federal super/senior preferreds get listed, if at all, and more of the specifics on the fed infusion. Also i couldn't find share counts or market caps for each of these stocks on MSN, so i couldn't really get a good sense of the future risk.
Maybe these still have a day or two left of short-term recovery on them, but longer term, if you've considered FNM or FRE, you might want to consider these instead.
By buying these instead you're most likely aligning yourself more with special interests who may be able to tug some sleeves than with the commons. Also, if you're going to consier the commons, why not go with the preferreds which at least have a chance of reinstating dividends in the distant future. I suppose precedence would dictate that any future (and likely) fed infusions would equally devalue the commons and preferreds again, but at some point the devalution would become farcical, if it has'nt already, meaning there is slightly more reason for the feds to wipeout the commons but preserve the subordinate preferreds to save some sense of decency.

P.S. For all of the preferreds for which i looked at the yearly charts it appeared as though they had just been created this year, so in theory that increases the likelyhood, imo., that the feds would let these recent institutional buyers salvage something, long-term. but that's an overstatement of course, considering they've just been demolished. Also, i believe the fed comments on the bailout suggested that the treasury would try to work with any large institutions who've suffered losses as a result of the devaluation, and perhaps one way of doing so is to implicitly assure these recently created subordinates survive.

Comments: View Comments |  Saturday September 13, 2008  |  Stocks: fre fnm,

hey, just loggin' in to make my blog quota. thought i'd log into marketocracy today to sell my appl, and maybe my goog. Noticed i didn't have either in my slo-account. Hmm, thought i'd bought some back at 120 and 500. maybe i did and already sold them a month or two ago. i don't remember now. :( Oh well.

Aapl buck a quarter earnings. 4 bucks a year. price ~160. forty years to cover. Ipod sales - saturated. Iphone - prices gotta come down. Mac sales - nice thin laptops. Need to market like all get out, artsy people still want the mac and the rest? focus is back to the mac. itunes - who wants to pay a buck a song? online shows n' stuff. blahblahblah take my imaginary gain for now...

Sold my Packeteer while i was at it. PKTR. It grew to 9%, now it's in cash. Bought out so bye bye. Bandwith management co.

Been workin' beacoup de temps. Classes. Market malaise this summer, like most summers? Oil break sometime this year? Fed cut what, .25? Dollar bottom this summer, after last rate cut and in the middle of the summer slowdown? Got my eye on housing/regionals/eths.

Tried to buy the t-35's yesterday morning for the lag rise on earnings, missed out on 20%, left me frustrated yesturday. Glad i never bought them sbux leaps yet. Is crox a good 12month value here? Who doesn't think T will be well over 40 a year from now? Think gss is/was flirting with 3 again, not a bad entry. Are refiners and eths in the same boat? Are eths cuttin' in to refiners margins? or too small to matter...

Hope you all took advantage of dvw. It's not often you come across a 90d t-bill paying 100% annualized returns. Lost out on about 4/5 of my april ops... T 40's, Sbux 19's, hal 37.5 puts (tried to trade it just as it went momemtum - darn, and this was one of my best personal bullcall theories for the year back at the new year, almost bought the 40call instead...), broke even on the cc (circuit city) 5's (missed selling on the monday morning spike while at work...!), but all in all broke even with a good play on the mgpi 7.5. Looking to do some eth calls or semi-calls or housing calls or financial calls over the next few months. My current most viewed watchlist, the usual suspects.... housing:hov, tol, ryl, bzh, phm, chci; financials: etfc, sov, cfc, mer (puts), etc. for plays and lots of others just for market pulse; eths: avr, vse, peix, mgpi, synm, rtk, for plays and ande, adm for market pulse. (i should probably find a way to watch commodities, corn/oil prices, and eth market prices, margins etc. if'm really going to be serious about this. the premise is, at least in theory, that high an' risin' pump prices this summer would make eth more attractive to blenders, and somehow co's like vse are still making profits with corn at 6pb, suprising some people ); gotta run.

Wanna know what we do here in iowa when the weather gets nice? morels.com, iowa board. sell for 25bucks a pound fresh. mmmmm, mmmmmm, delish. if anyone could ever find out how these mysterious little truffles of the midwest are grown they could make a mint. mahalo mes amis.

Comments: View Comments |  Thursday April 24, 2008

miscellaneous blog, sun.mar30
it's my birthday, and i'll cry if i wan't to...
what a wonderful march, my top 2 favorite in months (w/ october)
went to Moab, Utah for spring break for a week of hiking, camping, mountain biking, rafting, etc.
missed all the fun volatility that week
achieved my one objective for that week, i.e., didn't read a single thing the entire time! yeah!
Tried to post some great pictures from the trip, but nothing uploads. Had same problem last fall trying to upload charts/data. sitesearched moveabletype again for help on uploads/charts/data/pictures etc. and no good documentary help really. tried to upload like 10 different times ten different ways, uploading, cut and paste, destinations, etc. nothing works, i give up, not gonna waste any more time.
Here's the upload file site where you click 'upload' and it should work but it does'nt:

MOVEABLETYPE ENTERPRISE
mymeohmoneyblog: Upload File
To upload a file to your server, click on the browse button to locate the file on your hard drive.
File: C:/Documents and Setting BROWSE
Set Upload Path (Optional)
Cancel Upload

And then i get this time out message:

INVESTORPLACEBLOGS.com
Error: 500 Internal Error
Whoops!

I'm done with it, sorry. Why should i waste my time? Anyways...

It was a good week off, though i almost did'nt go, as i was afraid i would miss all the volatility, and it looks like i did. BSC got clobbered and chewed up, and then the market went up like 8% or something? and commodities pulled back. and the fed did some sort of .25 sneak-cut before a .75 fuller cut? didnt see too much news explaining that... what's the point? is the fed trying to micromanage? tsk-tsk.
i averaged in to some .uqqor puts on tuesday around 40c, averaged out thurs/fri around 50c, these are quarterly based tech-index ops that expire mon.the31st.

my review of dow jones news week-ahead news shows some econ reports spread out over this upcoming week, mostly more present data, i.e. march data. M-march PMI, down?, Dallas mnfctrn survey, down?; T-auto sales, down?, ISM mnfctrng, down?, feb cnstrctn, down?; W-feb fact. orders, down?, MON ea's, up?, RIMM/BBY ea's ?, MU-ea's pm, down?; TH-non-mnfctrng ISM, down?; and F-JOBS, Jobs, jobs..............
Overall it looks like we should have some neg news this week, but with my layoff i'm a little out of touch with expectations... . So i'm treading carefully. Also i'm back to work 9-5 for the next few weeks so no mark-to-minute updates for me, just finding the nearest comp at lunchtime...
Tentative prognosis, downtrend mon, downtrend tues, minirally tues into wed (mon leadership and commodities till expected oil release), renewed down thurs etc.. fear of jobs #'s?
i might look to put the market sometime this week, but again, not sure about expectaions. p.s. i'm long ethanol again, but that's a fuller post.

Couple weeks ago i bought my first shorts/ultrashorts/etf's for the slo. Nice to get my feet wet, but feels sort of anticlamatic, though they did help my beat the market this past week.

My own personal thoughts on MOT? What have they been doing staying in products/consumer-goods all this time? They could have been the largest company in the world by this time. Honestly. Sometimes it pays to stick to what you do best, but sometimes you've got to seize the day. As a chicago suburbanite, familiar with MOT headquarters, and a student of history, and somewhat familiar with MOT's grand history in war/radio/wireless etc., i've kinda had that sensation somewhere in my head the last ten years or so like why are'nt THEY the one's capitalizing on wireless? lame, lame, lame. And they ignored my inquiry too boot 3 years ago about alinging with them for new business too. No symathy, but sad, sad, sad...

No opinion on LDK. or on solar. Except to say, and perhaps express some ignorance, that i can't understand why solar is supposed to be so expensive. It's made from sand right? Glass, semiconductors, all this stuff is dirt cheap, right, so y the 'shortage' in polysilicon? i'm not gonna dig into this industry. Something ain't right. I love science, and i could take the time, and if i did it'd probably just annoy me somehow... frustrated with progress. It'd be neat to see some of these photovoltaic companies upend the system.

Comments: View Comments |  Sunday March 30, 2008  |  Stocks: ldk, mon, mot,

hey folks, goog's back around 500.

Should they fight back?

If Microsoft wants to cut into goog's search market, maybe it's time for goog to take the mantle of cutting into microsoft's OS/office markets.

This is really what Msft is worried about anyways, is'nt it? that Goog get's too big? It's not really just about 'search' or ad-revenue, per se.

Goog has ventured into phone ops, their possibly venturing into bandwith, they've already begun teaming with JAVA to crosspromote Java's free OSware/software. Could Goog be the one to finally push msft off the block? Are MSFT's day's numbered?

Could Goog form a consortion with PC makers, memory makers, ops developers and server-co's to transform the PC market and reduce msft to a niche/supporting market?

I should appreciate msft for its historical contributions to worldwide computing and the information revolution. And certainly maintaining millions and millions of lines of code for the end-user is no easy task. And they are american right, a symbol of american ingenuity and strength. And i support profit motive and copyright and patent-law etc. etc.

But i'm mainly a utilitarian. And altruistic. And i've also always believed that the most important thing, knowledge, which can separate the have's from the have-nots, should be freely disseminated. Msft mints gamillions of cd-copies of its software for hundreds of bucks a piece. Don't you think it's maybe time that little piece of plastic, or whatever a compact-disk is made of, should be free? or maybe $19.99? Reducing msft from 97% worldwide monoply to under 40% is a long time coming, and reducing their 'intellectual capital' fees for reprinting the exact same cd gabillions of times from hundreds of dollars a piece to a jackson is a long time coming too.

I don't know if Goog would actually consider buying JAVA, as it would dilute the reason people want the stock, from being an embedded-entangled middle-man transaction-cost skimmer with one core business to a multibusiness halfbased commoditizer. But it's an interesting thought. Goog also has been expanding its server farms, and Java also could help to fit that bill. Perhaps with it's ~200 bil expected market cap Goog should just go all out and scoop up JAVA(15bil mkt cap), MU(5bil cap), or SNDK(6bil cap), Acer, AMD(3.5bil cap), or Ubuntu etc. etc. and put together its own Google Pc with all the trimmings.

EXTRA EXTRA: post-script: i've decided to include a satire i was working on for the slo back in late oct back when goog was at 700, but didnt post, as perhaps i felt i was being a little too presumptious... :)

Original Date - Oct./Nov 2007:

The 800 dollar gorilla?

GOOG Insider trading transactions, insider planned sales - MSN Money

Sorry, drank too much of last years' frozen egg-nog earlier, woke up heavy-hearted...

Comments: View Comments |  Saturday February 9, 2008  |  Stocks: AMD, GOOG, JAVA, MSFT, MU, SNDK, YHOO,