Friday Follies: Come And See The Show [View article]
That's why you need to vote Democrat Mr. Ed! Notice Obama has SHRUNK government by 1% since he took office while, Reagan, for example, in his first term, GREW it by 12%.
If you stop drinking the Kool Aid they pass out at your tea party meetings and get some actual facts, you would learn that the Reps talk a very good game but play a completely different one once you elect them while the Dems do exactly what they say they will do - make Government smarter instead of bigger.
The problem is that tends to make the Government smart enough to stand up to Corporate bullies and criminals and that's something the Reps just will not stand for. That's why they shrink regulators while handing out tax breaks to polluters and why they fund endless wars and declare unwinnable wars on drugs and wars on terror (can you really defeat terror?) but then defund the war on poverty.
See - it sounds completely ridiculous just to say it out loud but THAT'S THE POLICY!
Friday Follies: Come And See The Show [View article]
If I start a company and give myself 1M shares and pay a .50 dividend per share - in what way has that income already been taxed?
If I work for a company and I am granted 1M shares that pay a .50 dividend - in what way has that income already been taxed?
If I start a company and get investors to put money in and eventually sell the company and take $100M out - all as capital gains - where have I already been taxed?
That's one of the great right-wing propaganda fantasies - rich people have tax planners and we MAKE the situations where we're only taxed 15%. If you were in the top 1% you'd know it so either you're misleading others or you're being misled.
If you make loopholes in the system, then people who can afford to will simply arrange their affairs to take advantage of them - that should be pretty obvious to anyone. The poor schlubs who work for a living and have to collect salaries - they are the sucker who pay "income" taxes.
I favor more of a VAT in lieu of income taxes - a tax on all goods and services produced in this country. Then you don't have to pay income taxes at all - just a 20% surcharge (less than most pay in taxes) on whatever you buy with a $25,000 annual exemption. Even if all 140M working people took the full 25% deduction - that would exempt just $3.5Tn of our $16Tn GDP leaving the government with $2.5Tn in collections (more than they get now) plus uncap SS and Medicare and that's another $1Tn for $3.5Tn and all the Government has to do is keep spending under $2.5Tn and we pay off our debt in 15 years.
Well, that was a tough first day in office - can't wait for tomorrow!
Friday Follies: Come And See The Show [View article]
Sometimes I think life is just a rodeo, The trick is to ride and make it to the bell. But there is a place, sweet as you will ever know, In music and love, and things you never tell. If I had my way, I'd shuffle off to Buffalo; Sit by the lake, and watch the world go by.
Friday Follies: Come And See The Show [View article]
The Congressional document from the joint committee on taxation has been debunked over and over - it's from the Republican Congress and makes a lot of assumptions to water down the figures.
The study is right here, with every possible number backing it up but, by all means, go by a 2-page statement with no data whatsoever. http://bit.ly/I0KOf6
Again, this is simple logic and, frankly, if the people in the top 1%, who make $1Tn a year in income, only end up paying $4.7Bn (0.47%) more under the proposal - then by all means scrap it and find another way to tax them 5% and raise $50Bn PER YEAR!
If enacted, the rule change would result in $36.7 billion per year in additional tax revenue, according to a January 2012 analysis by the Tax Foundation, a pro-business think tank.[12] An alternative study released that same month by the Citizens for Tax Justice, a liberal think tank which favors the change, stated that the change would add $50 billion per year in tax revenue.[7]
You've got to be some sort of insanely lob-sided Conservative to, on the one hand believe that the top 1% pay 50% of all taxes and then to also believe that raising the average rate from 20% to 30% would only increase taxes by $4.7Bn a year.
It's this kind of blind, dogmatic faith in whatever crap is spewed out by right-wing lobbyists and their pet media outlets that makes it impossible to have intelligent conversations in this country.
Monday Morning's Miraculous Movement Masks Momentum [View article]
OK Nick, last two freebies and, fortunately for you, both of these questions were asked during Member Chat today so here's my answers to each:
10:23 AM:
CHK down 6.66%!
Chesapeake Energy (CHK) fell about 6% in early trading afterReuters published a story indicating that CEO Aubrey McClendon has been taking out loans to finance stakes in Chesapeake’s wells and then using those same stakes as collateral for more loans.
The arrangement hasn’t been reported to Chesapeake shareholders, although the company and the CEO argue that they don’t need to be because they are personal investments. McClendon has the right to take stakes up to 2.5% in Chesapeake’s wells.
That said, experts interviewed by Reuters say that the deals could raise conflicts of interest that compromise McClendon’s duty to shareholders.
Nothing I'd bail over. Reminds me of Lampbert crashing SHLD ahead of his buy-back. It's shades of potential impropriety that can be "cleared up" and allow McClendon to come out smelling like a rose once he's upped his stake in the company by a sufficient percentage.
So, I do like selling the CHK May $18 puts for $1.30 and buying the May $15/18 bull call spread for $2 for net .70 on the $3 spread that's $2.65 in the money. Let's do 3 of those in the $25KP.
======================...
2:58 pm:
CHK/Craig – I think it will pass but it may take some time. I do suspect it's a game to chase all the retailers out of the stock so the company can buy back or maybe do some sweetheart sell-out at a price shareholders would never have agreed to otherwise.
======================...
9:54 am:
GNW/Ink – I like them long-term but insurance companies are essentially CONSERVATIVE bond investors and bond returns suck unless you want to invest in the PIIGs. They bottomed out at $1.75 in 2009 and I'd hang back and hope for another liquidity crunch (two words that don't seem right together) and then we can go hog wild on the sector. If the markets recover, and they get back over $7.50 – I'll like them then too but not as much as I would LOVE them at $2 or less.
======================...
As to the IPO - sure, it was priced in, now it is being priced out. Also note the REASON the IPO is off - GNW suffered a huge set-back on loans they made in Australian real-estate. That's not a good, conservative use of funds - that's more like exactly the kind of nonsense that tanked insurance companies in 2008.
Tempting Tuesday: Baa, Baa To The Sheeple [View article]
If you look top left you'll see 1,707 published articles in date order that you can review.
If I had to guess, I'd say there must be at least 3,000 specific trade ideas - certainly a pretty good sample over the years.
We make plenty of bad bets but we generally work them out - it's one of the skills we teach people. The real "trick" is not to play all bull or all bear - we trade a range and, at the bottom of a range we get more bullish and, at the top of a range, we get more bearish and then we try to cash out our positions when they are ahead.
Monday Morning's Miraculous Movement Masks Momentum [View article]
TEO/Nick - Wasn't one of my picks but they are a good, solid company with a nice dividend (6.6%), although that dividend is erratic and has only been paid for the past 2 years (always check Yahoo Finance or some other dividend site to verify the quality of the dividends you see: http://yhoo.it/HLBcQD ).
What's going on with them at the moment is Cramer is badmouthing Argentina in retaliation for the YPF takeover. That situation has NOTHING to do with TEO BUT it is possible that the same logic (rules to keep capital in the country) could be used to restrict TEO dividend payments.
Overall, I'd be wary of betting Argentina in the first place as Spain (if they go down) will take a lot of Latin America with them as there are so many interconnected loans.
As with any stock in this environment, you should look at how far they crashed in 2009 and make sure you have a plan for what you would do if it happens again.
If you are not comfortable doubling down at $8 and having 2,000 shares with an average around $13 and waiting for the market to come back over time (and I would be loving these guys at $8, even if Argentina is rioting) - I would not look at these guys as a keeper if they can't hold the line at $14 because there is little support below there.
The worst thing about high-dividend stocks is they tend to have crappy options. In general, I'd rather sell options for income than rely on a dividend.
Monday Morning's Miraculous Movement Masks Momentum [View article]
Thanks TS but I don't want people to trade with me - we teach people how to trade on their own, including explaining things like Game Theory and applying sound portfolio management techniques to the randomness of it all. As we like to say at PSW - "Hope is NOT a strategy!"
Monday Morning's Miraculous Movement Masks Momentum [View article]
Thanks Clinger!
Frankly it's a slow day. 8-)
I did want to take the opportunity to come on and chat with some SA readers for a change but this guy was the only one commenting.
I'm used to a couple of hundred comments a day in Member Chat and today it's like watching paint dry with just 82 comments as we cashed out our AAPL Portfolio last week and our other active portfolios are all just waiting for this silly run-up to run out of gas.
Most days I don't even have time to read over here.
Monday Morning's Miraculous Movement Masks Momentum [View article]
We don't have one. We have various virtual portfolios that we track - not a single P&L. We regularly review our trades and their performance but we're an educational site and are not selling some "system" or promoting our trades - they are incidental to our goal of simply teaching people to be better traders.
As I said before - go back to the beginning of the year - there's over 100 posts for you to choose from and find 3 trades that were wrong. That should be easy for you as you claim they were all wrong - or is that what you've been trying to do for the past hour since I asked?
Also, I'm still waiting for that one thing you said that was right - anytime, ever - anything at all? Surely it must have happened. As you say - even a broken clock...
Monday Morning's Miraculous Movement Masks Momentum [View article]
By the way, the reason I have time to read SA during the day today is that our Members are sitting back and watching today's move from very good positions as we took profits on yesterday's dips and are waiting for our chances to re-short today - as mentioned in the above post.
PCLN is already at $719 so we're thrilled with our exit yesterday and hoping to get back into the same July $560 shorts - now $9.50. At $7.50 they begin to get interesting again.
Of course this is what we do all day in Member Chat - what you read in these posts is only my morning outlook for our Members - during the day, we do this stuff live.
Today's morning Alert to Members was:
$105 oil – Wow! That's very impressive on weak data but Spain's 3-month bond auction didn't collapse and the bulls think that means it's safe to go back in the water. I hope I don't have to explain to everyone here how people in Spain who are cashing out of the Spanish market as it collapses who aren't allowed to move more than $2,500 in cash are FORCED to buy short-term bonds so it's completely meaningless.
The Dollar is testing 79.60 and our futures are up about 0.7%. Aside from the obvious lines on the Big Chart, we still want to see 3 of 5 of those 50% bounce lines hold up at: Dow 13,000, S&P 1,395, Nas 3,075, NYSE 8,050 and RUT 815 - The S&P and Nas are too far so it's up to the other 3 but they'd need a 2% up day to get there so not very likely.
**********************...
We also went long on BTU, FCX and TNA this morning but since then have added short plays on the stocks/ETFs we intended to go short on as we think 13,100 was a good top and now we're looking for RUT 815 to fail so we can short them and of course we're all over $105 oil!
Looking at the morning post and thinking that's all we do is a big mistake. There are over 500 top-notch traders in our chat room sharing ideas and finding market discrepancies we can all take advantage of. A day like today is quiet because we're properly positions and just watching and waiting for the next turn signal.
Every once in a while I don't mind commenting over here in the hopes that I might help some people but the negative comments generally outweigh the positive and people like Alpha turn this into the Yahoo message boards - at least there you can filter for only people who make decently rated comments.
So, if you want quality conversation - give PSW a try. A Voyeur Membership is just $149 a month and you get to read (with a delay) our Basic Chat Room conversations.
Monday Morning's Miraculous Movement Masks Momentum [View article]
Do you have touretts or is there some actual place that you found these? Do you mean our short-term positions from today's disclaimer? What does that have to do with the beginning of the year and what kind of instant-gratification time-frame do you have for a trade if you can't look past the post you're in?
Sorry but now that I've looked up some of your other "quality" comments, I realize I mistook you for someone worth having a conversation with.
Monday Morning's Miraculous Movement Masks Momentum [View article]
Hey wait a minute - aren't you the same guy who told people not to listen to me on April 3rd, when I warned that the Quarter would not be as good as people thought and that the market would likely be turning down? Was that you??? The same guy and you're still stuck on this?
Friday Follies: Come And See The Show [View article]
http://bit.ly/JdBQeA
If you stop drinking the Kool Aid they pass out at your tea party meetings and get some actual facts, you would learn that the Reps talk a very good game but play a completely different one once you elect them while the Dems do exactly what they say they will do - make Government smarter instead of bigger.
The problem is that tends to make the Government smart enough to stand up to Corporate bullies and criminals and that's something the Reps just will not stand for. That's why they shrink regulators while handing out tax breaks to polluters and why they fund endless wars and declare unwinnable wars on drugs and wars on terror (can you really defeat terror?) but then defund the war on poverty.
See - it sounds completely ridiculous just to say it out loud but THAT'S THE POLICY!
Friday Follies: Come And See The Show [View article]
If I work for a company and I am granted 1M shares that pay a .50 dividend - in what way has that income already been taxed?
If I start a company and get investors to put money in and eventually sell the company and take $100M out - all as capital gains - where have I already been taxed?
That's one of the great right-wing propaganda fantasies - rich people have tax planners and we MAKE the situations where we're only taxed 15%. If you were in the top 1% you'd know it so either you're misleading others or you're being misled.
If you make loopholes in the system, then people who can afford to will simply arrange their affairs to take advantage of them - that should be pretty obvious to anyone. The poor schlubs who work for a living and have to collect salaries - they are the sucker who pay "income" taxes.
I favor more of a VAT in lieu of income taxes - a tax on all goods and services produced in this country. Then you don't have to pay income taxes at all - just a 20% surcharge (less than most pay in taxes) on whatever you buy with a $25,000 annual exemption. Even if all 140M working people took the full 25% deduction - that would exempt just $3.5Tn of our $16Tn GDP leaving the government with $2.5Tn in collections (more than they get now) plus uncap SS and Medicare and that's another $1Tn for $3.5Tn and all the Government has to do is keep spending under $2.5Tn and we pay off our debt in 15 years.
Well, that was a tough first day in office - can't wait for tomorrow!
Friday Follies: Come And See The Show [View article]
The trick is to ride and make it to the bell.
But there is a place, sweet as you will ever know,
In music and love, and things you never tell.
If I had my way, I'd shuffle off to Buffalo;
Sit by the lake, and watch the world go by.
Friday Follies: Come And See The Show [View article]
The study is right here, with every possible number backing it up but, by all means, go by a 2-page statement with no data whatsoever. http://bit.ly/I0KOf6
Again, this is simple logic and, frankly, if the people in the top 1%, who make $1Tn a year in income, only end up paying $4.7Bn (0.47%) more under the proposal - then by all means scrap it and find another way to tax them 5% and raise $50Bn PER YEAR!
http://nyti.ms/HYpRis
Friday Follies: Come And See The Show [View article]
Possible effects
If enacted, the rule change would result in $36.7 billion per year in additional tax revenue, according to a January 2012 analysis by the Tax Foundation, a pro-business think tank.[12] An alternative study released that same month by the Citizens for Tax Justice, a liberal think tank which favors the change, stated that the change would add $50 billion per year in tax revenue.[7]
You've got to be some sort of insanely lob-sided Conservative to, on the one hand believe that the top 1% pay 50% of all taxes and then to also believe that raising the average rate from 20% to 30% would only increase taxes by $4.7Bn a year.
It's this kind of blind, dogmatic faith in whatever crap is spewed out by right-wing lobbyists and their pet media outlets that makes it impossible to have intelligent conversations in this country.
Can't people do basic math?
Monday Morning's Miraculous Movement Masks Momentum [View article]
10:23 AM:
CHK down 6.66%!
Chesapeake Energy (CHK) fell about 6% in early trading afterReuters published a story indicating that CEO Aubrey McClendon has been taking out loans to finance stakes in Chesapeake’s wells and then using those same stakes as collateral for more loans.
The arrangement hasn’t been reported to Chesapeake shareholders, although the company and the CEO argue that they don’t need to be because they are personal investments. McClendon has the right to take stakes up to 2.5% in Chesapeake’s wells.
That said, experts interviewed by Reuters say that the deals could raise conflicts of interest that compromise McClendon’s duty to shareholders.
Nothing I'd bail over. Reminds me of Lampbert crashing SHLD ahead of his buy-back. It's shades of potential impropriety that can be "cleared up" and allow McClendon to come out smelling like a rose once he's upped his stake in the company by a sufficient percentage.
So, I do like selling the CHK May $18 puts for $1.30 and buying the May $15/18 bull call spread for $2 for net .70 on the $3 spread that's $2.65 in the money. Let's do 3 of those in the $25KP.
======================...
2:58 pm:
CHK/Craig – I think it will pass but it may take some time. I do suspect it's a game to chase all the retailers out of the stock so the company can buy back or maybe do some sweetheart sell-out at a price shareholders would never have agreed to otherwise.
======================...
9:54 am:
GNW/Ink – I like them long-term but insurance companies are essentially CONSERVATIVE bond investors and bond returns suck unless you want to invest in the PIIGs. They bottomed out at $1.75 in 2009 and I'd hang back and hope for another liquidity crunch (two words that don't seem right together) and then we can go hog wild on the sector. If the markets recover, and they get back over $7.50 – I'll like them then too but not as much as I would LOVE them at $2 or less.
======================...
As to the IPO - sure, it was priced in, now it is being priced out. Also note the REASON the IPO is off - GNW suffered a huge set-back on loans they made in Australian real-estate. That's not a good, conservative use of funds - that's more like exactly the kind of nonsense that tanked insurance companies in 2008.
Tempting Tuesday: Baa, Baa To The Sheeple [View article]
If I had to guess, I'd say there must be at least 3,000 specific trade ideas - certainly a pretty good sample over the years.
We make plenty of bad bets but we generally work them out - it's one of the skills we teach people. The real "trick" is not to play all bull or all bear - we trade a range and, at the bottom of a range we get more bullish and, at the top of a range, we get more bearish and then we try to cash out our positions when they are ahead.
I know it's a radical concept.
Monday Morning's Miraculous Movement Masks Momentum [View article]
What's going on with them at the moment is Cramer is badmouthing Argentina in retaliation for the YPF takeover. That situation has NOTHING to do with TEO BUT it is possible that the same logic (rules to keep capital in the country) could be used to restrict TEO dividend payments.
Overall, I'd be wary of betting Argentina in the first place as Spain (if they go down) will take a lot of Latin America with them as there are so many interconnected loans.
As with any stock in this environment, you should look at how far they crashed in 2009 and make sure you have a plan for what you would do if it happens again.
If you are not comfortable doubling down at $8 and having 2,000 shares with an average around $13 and waiting for the market to come back over time (and I would be loving these guys at $8, even if Argentina is rioting) - I would not look at these guys as a keeper if they can't hold the line at $14 because there is little support below there.
The worst thing about high-dividend stocks is they tend to have crappy options. In general, I'd rather sell options for income than rely on a dividend.
Monday Morning's Miraculous Movement Masks Momentum [View article]
Monday Morning's Miraculous Movement Masks Momentum [View article]
Frankly it's a slow day. 8-)
I did want to take the opportunity to come on and chat with some SA readers for a change but this guy was the only one commenting.
I'm used to a couple of hundred comments a day in Member Chat and today it's like watching paint dry with just 82 comments as we cashed out our AAPL Portfolio last week and our other active portfolios are all just waiting for this silly run-up to run out of gas.
Most days I don't even have time to read over here.
Monday Morning's Miraculous Movement Masks Momentum [View article]
Monday Morning's Miraculous Movement Masks Momentum [View article]
As I said before - go back to the beginning of the year - there's over 100 posts for you to choose from and find 3 trades that were wrong. That should be easy for you as you claim they were all wrong - or is that what you've been trying to do for the past hour since I asked?
Also, I'm still waiting for that one thing you said that was right - anytime, ever - anything at all? Surely it must have happened. As you say - even a broken clock...
;)
Monday Morning's Miraculous Movement Masks Momentum [View article]
PCLN is already at $719 so we're thrilled with our exit yesterday and hoping to get back into the same July $560 shorts - now $9.50. At $7.50 they begin to get interesting again.
Of course this is what we do all day in Member Chat - what you read in these posts is only my morning outlook for our Members - during the day, we do this stuff live.
Today's morning Alert to Members was:
$105 oil – Wow! That's very impressive on weak data but Spain's 3-month bond auction didn't collapse and the bulls think that means it's safe to go back in the water. I hope I don't have to explain to everyone here how people in Spain who are cashing out of the Spanish market as it collapses who aren't allowed to move more than $2,500 in cash are FORCED to buy short-term bonds so it's completely meaningless.
The Dollar is testing 79.60 and our futures are up about 0.7%. Aside from the obvious lines on the Big Chart, we still want to see 3 of 5 of those 50% bounce lines hold up at: Dow 13,000, S&P 1,395, Nas 3,075, NYSE 8,050 and RUT 815 - The S&P and Nas are too far so it's up to the other 3 but they'd need a 2% up day to get there so not very likely.
**********************...
We also went long on BTU, FCX and TNA this morning but since then have added short plays on the stocks/ETFs we intended to go short on as we think 13,100 was a good top and now we're looking for RUT 815 to fail so we can short them and of course we're all over $105 oil!
Looking at the morning post and thinking that's all we do is a big mistake. There are over 500 top-notch traders in our chat room sharing ideas and finding market discrepancies we can all take advantage of. A day like today is quiet because we're properly positions and just watching and waiting for the next turn signal.
Every once in a while I don't mind commenting over here in the hopes that I might help some people but the negative comments generally outweigh the positive and people like Alpha turn this into the Yahoo message boards - at least there you can filter for only people who make decently rated comments.
So, if you want quality conversation - give PSW a try. A Voyeur Membership is just $149 a month and you get to read (with a delay) our Basic Chat Room conversations.
Monday Morning's Miraculous Movement Masks Momentum [View article]
Sorry but now that I've looked up some of your other "quality" comments, I realize I mistook you for someone worth having a conversation with.
Monday Morning's Miraculous Movement Masks Momentum [View article]
ROFL!!!!