***Official*** 2012 Stock Market Thread

[Arachnotronic]

Think I'll wait for the Dec 21st dip to buy ...

Gonna wait a year?

 

[KB]

Think I'll wait for the Dec 21st dip to buy ...

Haha. I know its sarcasm, but its makes me wonder how many people are going to take their money out for Dec 21st. I mean if the world will end, what good would pulling your money out do. Maybe if you planned to give it to charity for your rewards in the afterlife.

 

[Imp]

Think I'll wait for the Dec 21st dip to buy ...

Is there a Euro summit Jan 21, Greece bond thing, US debt ceiling problem, or something else?

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

WOW. I totally effed up and misplayed this one. Major rally and I checked out completely last week. More specifically, my single holding (SU) is up 5% since Friday and I sold 2% below Friday's close. Just "lost" two weeks worth of pay. Shit.

On a totally unrelated note, my work PC is running a full system virus scan on a morning... I have no work to do, huh?

I sold MAS in the high $9s last week. Today it broke $11. Super pissed. Hoping to buy it back for under $9.

Today I sold off my WFC holding. Hoping to buy back on a dip. Would suck if it never dips again though.

 

[JS80]

Regarding Ford, what are the "other current assets" of $70 billion?

If those are actual short term assets, I think Ford is indeed grossly undervalued.

How on Earth are they reducing that long term debt? They are reducing it which is a good thing. The thing is, it is nearing reasonable levels.

$40B market cap with over $10B in FCF?

Interesting.

How abut options? The Jan 2014s 10 strikes are only $2.50!

Highly leveraged so enterprise value is more appropriate to compare to FCF. $115b company generating $10b FCF. 8.6x EBITDA. It's fully valued.

The $70b is in "LT investments" not sure what you are looking at to see it in OCA.

 

[JTsyo]

Is there a Euro summit Jan 21, Greece bond thing, US debt ceiling problem, or something else?

nah, just a bit of fun about the world ending on Dec 21st this year.

 

[Imp]

I sold MAS in the high $9s last week. Today it broke $11. Super pissed. Hoping to buy it back for under $9.

Today I sold off my WFC holding. Hoping to buy back on a dip. Would suck if it never dips again though.

Painful to see my stock rise 6% today without me, but I've been through this before: sitting something out, then getting restless and buying high, then losing a LOT of money.

I've got my money (literally) on it coming back to earth (hell) within 2 weeks. Euro summit next week, IIRC, and market is in no condition to support a 3+ week long rally.

nah, just a bit of fun about the world ending on Dec 21st this year.

Thought that was last year... Oh well, can't even get guns legally here, so I'll just pray for Jesus to save me.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Imp,

I'd be upset to see WFC run up. I think it is a $50 stock trading at under $30. USG has the same price/value disparity. Atleast I still own USG....

Did dollar cost average on ABH today though. Atleast there is some good news.

Just upset about MAS right now. On a dip, I might kiss LEE goodbye which does not fluctuate with the markets at all.

But ya, I've been through this all before. It only takes the Dow to drop 3-4% for a buying opportunity to occur.

The other good news is that I have not had this much money in a very long time.

 

[JEDI]

Is there a Euro summit Jan 21, Greece bond thing, US debt ceiling problem, or something else?

this:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2216428

 

[manly]

Regarding Ford, what are the "other current assets" of $70 billion?

If those are actual short term assets, I think Ford is indeed grossly undervalued.

How on Earth are they reducing that long term debt? They are reducing it which is a good thing. The thing is, it is nearing reasonable levels.

$40B market cap with over $10B in FCF?

Interesting.

How abut options? The Jan 2014s 10 strikes are only $2.50!

When I looked at Ford in the fall, I believe the auto operation was essentially debt-free or about to be. (Hope I'm not mistaken.) Their LT debt is in their finance arm, and I'm sure their pension is still underfunded. Unfortunately they have tiny market share in China and European operations are a drag. If F dips back to the fall lows, I'll probably open a position.

 

[paperfist]

Are any of those sites that pick stocks for you any good?

I remember looking at some typical sites which do that like the motley fool and never really seeing any big gains from their picks over a year. Are there better sites then these, perhaps subscription based?

 

[Imp]

I'd be upset to see WFC run up. I think it is a $50 stock trading at under $30. USG has the same price/value disparity. Atleast I still own USG....

WFC is bucking the trend with the few big banks (i.e. JPM, BAC, C, et al) and trading within a pretty tight range. From my observations, volatility for WFC is half that of the other 3 (i.e. if the other 3 drop 20%, WFC drops only 10%).

Still, it's a bank, and the Euro thing is hitting financials across the board. There's no way WFC will break out to >$30 when the others can't even make it back to their post-September highs.

 

[manly]

Amateurs frothing at the mouth again.

 

[Pliablemoose]

Amateurs frothing at the mouth again.

I have a $10 bet on the top before earnings, I'm saying $440, my doctor is saying $430.

You're thinking they won't beat?

 

[manly]

I have a $10 bet on the top before earnings, I'm saying $440, my doctor is saying $430.

You're thinking they won't beat?

Considering they hit $420 last time during a market sell-off, your doctor most likely lost that bet.

Apple will probably beat their guidance, but I'm not certain they low-balled like they have done for the past umpteen quarters. $37B is a massive number and the bloggers are adding $6B on top of it. To put the difference into perspective, I believe $6B is about the size of Apple's quarterly Mac business in total.

Even if you adjust for the 14 weeks vs a standard 13 in a calendar quarter, $34.36B is a lot higher than their best-ever $28+ B quarter.

Andy Zaky's main argument is that Apple has always low-balled by 15% so they just did it again by a similar percentage. Well he was unapologetically wrong last time. Is it possible that Tim Cook decided to give more accurate guidance now that Steve's not the elephant in the room? To be fair, the bloggers were consistently good until just the last quarter.

Just doing some rough math to see how you'd even get to $43B revenue, not only would they need to sell over 30M iPhones, but you'd have to see record-breaking iPad AND Mac sales as well. (Everything else such as iTunes is in effect a rounding error.) The 4S launch is a huge tailwind but the Kindle Fire is a head wind that perhaps took away $1B in iPad sales. I'd be pleasantly surprised (but not shocked) if they hit $40B in quarterly revenue.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Are any of those sites that pick stocks for you any good?

I remember looking at some typical sites which do that like the motley fool and never really seeing any big gains from their picks over a year. Are there better sites then these, perhaps subscription based?

I work for gurufocus.com as a side gig and have nothing but good things to say about it. Part of my pay is a free membership. It's value is seeing when people like Prem Watsa buy something and reverse engineering it. Prem has made me some good money.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

WFC is bucking the trend with the few big banks (i.e. JPM, BAC, C, et al) and trading within a pretty tight range. From my observations, volatility for WFC is half that of the other 3 (i.e. if the other 3 drop 20%, WFC drops only 10%).

Still, it's a bank, and the Euro thing is hitting financials across the board. There's no way WFC will break out to >$30 when the others can't even make it back to their post-September highs.

I don't equate WFC with BAC and C. Maybe JPM ... sort of.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

How often does Apple beat the street? The last company that I remember doing that was Enron.

 

[Pliablemoose]

How often does Apple beat the street? The last company that I remember doing that was Enron.

Sigh...

 

[cirrrocco]

up 10% on TIVO. they settled wih AT&T yesterday and expecting about 215 millions in fund infusion. There could be decent money to be made tomorrow if you are quick.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/03/BU0G1MKAHD.DTL

As soon as I sell tmw, I am gonna stock up on AAPL. earnings are on 21'ts. or maybe play MSFT and make some easy cash.

 

[The-Noid]

Amateurs frothing at the mouth again.

Didn't we have this debate last quarter as well?

The bloggers are all pro-AAPL trolls. Like I said last quarter the growth at redline will plateau at some point and the sell-side will have a better grip on where numbers come in. The reason the bloggosphere was right more than the sell side was that they were so often overly optimistic.

 

[manly]

How often does Apple beat the street? The last company that I remember doing that was Enron.

really? Because Apple's business is opaque and they fake all their profits?

Didn't we have this debate last quarter as well?

The bloggers are all pro-AAPL trolls. Like I said last quarter the growth at redline will plateau at some point and the sell-side will have a better grip on where numbers come in. The reason the bloggosphere was right more than the sell side was that they were so often overly optimistic.

Wasn't much of a debate, you made your valid points and they subsequently missed WS estimates. I'm certainly not insane like some bloggers to think growth won't taper off. Note when I say bloggers are frothing at the mouth, that's not at all complimentary.

 

[Pliablemoose]

Considering they hit $420 last time during a market sell-off, your doctor most likely lost that bet.

Apple will probably beat their guidance, but I'm not certain they low-balled like they have done for the past umpteen quarters. $37B is a massive number and the bloggers are adding $6B on top of it. To put the difference into perspective, I believe $6B is about the size of Apple's quarterly Mac business in total.

Even if you adjust for the 14 weeks vs a standard 13 in a calendar quarter, $34.36B is a lot higher than their best-ever $28+ B quarter.

Andy Zaky's main argument is that Apple has always low-balled by 15% so they just did it again by a similar percentage. Well he was unapologetically wrong last time. Is it possible that Tim Cook decided to give more accurate guidance now that Steve's not the elephant in the room? To be fair, the bloggers were consistently good until just the last quarter.

Just doing some rough math to see how you'd even get to $43B revenue, not only would they need to sell over 30M iPhones, but you'd have to see record-breaking iPad AND Mac sales as well. (Everything else such as iTunes is in effect a rounding error.) The 4S launch is a huge tailwind but the Kindle Fire is a head wind that perhaps took away $1B in iPad sales. I'd be pleasantly surprised (but not shocked) if they hit $40B in quarterly revenue.

I suspect Mr Cook has been responsible for Apple's guidance etc for some time, I've noticed Apple is masterful at ramping up stock prices before earnings, with announcements, etc timed almost to perfection. There's not a lot out there about Tim, but what I do read suggests he has a near psychic ability to read the industry & the reactions to changing a given variable.

IMHO, Jobs was amazing at what he did, but he recognized talent when he saw it, and Tim is/has been the guy behind Apple's financial success for some time. That's just my opinion, and I'm sure many would disagree with it, bet I read everything I can lay my hands on about Apple (haven't read the book, I don't think there were any great revelations in it).

Apple has been a great stock to ride up prior to earnings, as GS has been many times too, and I think Google is another that has a great ramp up prior to earnings.

Namaste.

 

[Imp]

Goldman Sachs + Lululemon... Pump & dump?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/glob...hs-takes-a-shine-to-lululemon/article2291567/

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

really? Because Apple's business is opaque and they fake all their profits?

It was actually a serious question. If they have beaten the street every quarter for years on end, there is a concern worth investigating. Not saying it is Enron. Saying it is something to investigate as an investor.