***Official*** 2015 Stock Market Thread

[Corporate Thug]

my trading portfolio (100% small cap bio) is getting slaughtered.

 

[Charmonium]

my trading portfolio (100% small cap bio) is getting slaughtered.

No guts, no glory - or so I'm told. But holding all high beta stocks in this environment is going to require a few extra bottles of pepto.

 

[FelixDeCat]

SUNE puts paying off nicely.

 

[sm625]

214.00 SPY150918C00214000 0.98 -22.83%


Ill admit I was doing great this year and then made some big dumbassed option bets and got killed. But I hope you sold near term calls to fund your longer term purchase because I think the market is about to get its ass kicked.*

*Ironically I bought some QQQ 110.5s calls that expire tomorrow hoping for a quick pump-n-dump.

(good luck either way)

Laugh it up. While you're at it, laugh up the fact that I just reduced my cost basis to 85 cents after today's carnage. There is a reason I went longer duration than usual this time. Normally I would have jumped on aug 21 or aug 28 calls. In a few weeks I will post what my indicator has been outputting for the past week.

 

[FelixDeCat]

Laugh it up. While you're at it, laugh up the fact that I just reduced my cost basis to 85 cents after today's carnage. There is a reason I went longer duration than usual this time. Normally I would have jumped on aug 21 or aug 28 calls. In a few weeks I will post what my indicator has been outputting for the past week.

I laughed at both of us because we have both made and lost money on options. Its tough to trade them profitably, so the best thing you and I can do is hedge or bets and avoid the dreaded "zero".

When you said you "reduced your cost basis" I hope you meant that you sold shorter term calls against your longer holdings ("debit spread"), not buying more of what you already own.

Either way, good luck.

 

[Imp]

Oil (WTI) is down to the $43 range. Boo ya?

 

[jpiniero]

Still have doubts the Fed will raise rates, but the market is acting like it will. There's part of me that wants them to raise it immediately to .75 or 1 just to see the chaos it would bring in Wall Street.

 

[Imp]

Still have doubts the Fed will raise rates, but the market is acting like it will. There's part of me that wants them to raise it immediately to .75 or 1 just to see the chaos it would bring in Wall Street.

There is, apparently, a leaked schedule from the Fed. Popped up a few weeks ago. It supposedly goes to ~0.50% by the end of this year, won't hit 1% until next. The top out is supposedly only 3% to 4% around 2020.

The Bank of England -- or whatever the hell they call it -- is supposedly raising rates early next year too. Lulz, their housing bubble is supposedly one of the worst and their bank governor used to be Canada's -- up until two or three years ago.

Bank of Canada may actually drop rates before the year's out because the housing bubble would implode.

 

[Charmonium]

The fed has been preparing to drain liquidity and jack up rates since at least 2010 or so when they revealed their plan to use money market funds to do repos. AFAIK, that plan is still in place and they may yet use it.

Just because rates have been scraping the bottom for 5 years years now doesn't mean that they can't turn around - maybe not on a dime but more quickly than anyone, except maybe the fed, is prepared for.

The thing to watch is lending. Sooner or later banks are going to start to lend and they have about $2T at least in excess reserves to use for that purpose. With the economy either at or approaching full employment, commodity prices in the toilet and low rates, economic activity is poised to go through a period of rapid expansion. The only thing holding it back is tight assed lenders. Once that changes, things could get very hot very quickly.

Of course people have been predicting this for at least the past 5 years and we're still waiting for it. So maybe it will end up being a much more drawn out affair that takes another 5 years, but eventually it has to happen.

 

[jpiniero]

The thing to watch is lending. Sooner or later banks are going to start to lend and they have about $2T at least in excess reserves to use for that purpose. With the economy either at or approaching full employment, commodity prices in the toilet and low rates, economic activity is poised to go through a period of rapid expansion. The only thing holding it back is tight assed lenders. Once that changes, things could get very hot very quickly.

Companies already have access to cheap financing. They are using it to buy back their stock, not to expand businesses.

 

[bookem dano]

Have you guys heard of this one?

http://www.2for1index.com/

SPLITS or TOFR?

 

[Charmonium]

Have you guys heard of this one?

http://www.2for1index.com/

SPLITS or TOFR?

The second one has only been trading for about a year and the first for less than 2 years. Both seem to have outperformed the S&P and DOW but only SPLITS has done better than the NASDAQ composite and only be a little.

Stock splits used to be a big deal when it cost less to buy in lots of 100 shares. The lower share price would attract smaller investors. But that's not true any more.

One analyst seems to say that stock splits make more of a difference in a bull market, which is where we've been for the past 6 years, since they create the illusion of a bargain. But it doesn't change the valuation that analysts assign to a given company.

The most important question though is what are the management fees. If you can put say $10k into an index fund which charges a fee of a half percent or less, you're going to do better in the long run than investing in an actively managed fund that charges 2 or 3 percent.

 

[FelixDeCat]

SUNE puts paying off nicely.

Sold puts, bought calls.

 

[sm625]

lol look at that stupid fruity fruit stock soar. It is even outperforming the trade I chose to go with.

 

[brianmanahan]

this thread in a nutshell

 

[Imp]

USD went down today... something about Fed executive saying September rate rise isn't guaranteed.

 

[holden j caufield]

I have no idea what happened today. Every stock I've been watching is up 4% or more, it made no sense.

 

[brianmanahan]

I have no idea what happened today. Every stock I've been watching is up 4% or more, it made no sense.

you got the magic touch!

 

[holden j caufield]

problem was they were on my watch list, waiting for it to go lower to get in and everything popped. I'm a bit jealous at the moment.

 

[JEDI]

Parent company of cruise line releases 2nd offering of 20M shares but The total number of ordinary shares outstanding will not change as a result of the offering.

http://www.thestreet.com/story/1325...-public-offering-by-selling-shareholders.html

they priced the offering 4% lower than yesterday's close.

so if the # of outstanding shares doesn't change, then they're not diluting the stock?
thus should go back up 4% after they dump the 20M shares? BUY IT for a quick profit?

and if the parent company is just selling shares it owns, why sell it at a lower price instead of just dumping the 20M shares at market price?!?!

 

[Charmonium]

Parent company of cruise line releases 2nd offering of 20M shares but The total number of ordinary shares outstanding will not change as a result of the offering.

http://www.thestreet.com/story/1325...-public-offering-by-selling-shareholders.html

they priced the offering 4% lower than yesterday's close.

so if the # of outstanding shares doesn't change, then they're not diluting the stock?
thus should go back up 4% after they dump the 20M shares? BUY IT for a quick profit?

and if the parent company is just selling shares it owns, why sell it at a lower price instead of just dumping the 20M shares at market price?!?!

It's a "secondary offering". Normally this means the issuance of new shares by a company that is already public. But it can also mean selling of existing shares by major shareholders. In this case it seems to be the various institutions listed.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/secondaryoffering.asp

See #2 in the definition and especially, the explanation.

 

[JEDI]

It's a "secondary offering". Normally this means the issuance of new shares by a company that is already public. But it can also mean selling of existing shares by major shareholders. In this case it seems to be the various institutions listed.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/secondaryoffering.asp

See #2 in the definition and especially, the explanation.

thx.
so it's nothing more than selling shares they already own, albeit a LARGE block of shares?

so I guess the SEC is making them announce it and set an 'initial offering' price instead of them just dumping the shares at market price?

and back to my original question.
offering price is 4% below yesterday's close.
buy now and flip for a quick 4% gain?

 

[Charmonium]

thx.
so it's nothing more than selling shares they already own, albeit a LARGE block of shares?

so I guess the SEC is making them announce it and set an 'initial offering' price instead of them just dumping the shares at market price?

and back to my original question.
offering price is 4% below yesterday's close.
buy now and flip for a quick 4% gain?

IDK. My guess is that you're not going to be able to get the 4% discount unless you can get an allocation of shares. I'm not very familiar with how these sorts of offerings work or how similar they are to IPOs.

A quick look at their stats from google finance shows that their p/e is over 40. The other major cruise line are under 30. So compared to other industry leaders, it looks pricey. But then NCL has always been more upscale.

 

[Imp]

Umm... something about China devaluing their currency. Everything is back to where it was Friday?

Oil is in the $42 range though. Uh ohs. Actually, looks like commodities in general may be down due to China.

 

[Charmonium]

From what I've gathered, it seems like it was only a 2% reduction which they did by changing the peg. Current speculation seems to be that they will need to do a further 5% and that might come in the form of a straight up devaluation.

I think it's fascinating how intertwined economies are. Since China is largely export driven, devaluing the yuan helps to drive exports. This is the same thing Europe seems to be doing. And the main driver seems to be the strength of the dollar since as its value rises, the value of other currencies has to fall for their exports to remain competitive. Meanwhile, the drop in demand for commodities from China is causing havoc for commodity producing countries like Australia.

The last thing anyone seems to want right now is an increase in rates by the fed since that just increases the value of the dollar further. It's rise in value in recent months seems to stem largely from the widely held view that the fed will increase the fed funds rate in Sept.