Archive for 'Contributors'
Finance Week Ahead: Earnings Season Kicks Off | The Exchange – Yahoo! Finance
Posted on 07. Apr, 2013 by Harvey Sax.
Finance Week Ahead: Earnings Season Kicks Off
By Rebecca Stropoli | The Exchange – Fri, Apr 5, 2013 8:39 PM EDT
What a difference a few days makes: On Tuesday the S&P 500 was a mere three points away from busting past its all-time intraday high, set in 2007. Now the index has closed its worst weekly performance so far this year, with a highly disappointing March jobs report putting a damper on investor sentiment on Friday. While Wall Street pared much of its early losses by market close (as Breakout’s Matt Nesto had predicted here), all three major indices still ended in the red for the week.
But now it’s on to next week, when corporate earnings will be in keen focus yet again as Alcoa gets things moving on Monday after the bell.
via Finance Week Ahead: Earnings Season Kicks Off | The Exchange – Yahoo! Finance.
Justin Timberlake Made a Fortune Giving His Album Away – Businessweek
Posted on 02. Apr, 2013 by Bloomberg.
Justin Timberlake Made a Fortune Giving His Album AwayBy Claire Suddath on March 29,
via Justin Timberlake Made a Fortune Giving His Album Away – Businessweek.
U.S. Moves F-22 Jets to South Korea – WSJ.com
Posted on 31. Mar, 2013 by Wall Street Journal.
U.S. Ups Its Show of Force in Korea
By JULIAN E. BARNES
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
The U.S. sent F-22 fighters like this one to South Korea for exercises.
The U.S. flew F-22 stealth fighter jets to South Korea Sunday for joint exercises, a further demonstration of advanced military capabilities meant to deter provocations from Pyongyang.
The deployment comes amid an intensifying back-and-forth between Pyongyang and Washington, with North Korea issuing ever-more-pointed threats and the U.S. responding with its own tough language and displays of sophisticated hardware.
Stockman Warns of Crash Of Fed-Fueled Bubble Economy – Bloomberg
Posted on 31. Mar, 2013 by Bloomberg.
Stockman Warns of Crash Of Fed-Fueled Bubble Economy
By Richard Rubin – Mar 31, 2013 2:42 PM MT
The U.S. economy, fueled by “phony money” from the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing policies, is headed for an inevitable crash, likely “within a few years,” warned David Stockman, who was budget director for President Ronald Reagan.
In an essay published today in the New York Times (NYT), Stockman wrote that Fed policies in the aftermath of the financial crisis have flooded stock markets with cash even while the “Main Street economy” remains weak. The combination, he wrote, has caused an “unsustainable bubble.”
via Stockman Warns of Crash Of Fed-Fueled Bubble Economy – Bloomberg.
Non-correlated returns
Posted on 13. Mar, 2013 by Harvey Sax.
As the market creeps higher and higher, the chances of sharp pullbacks increase. At this time, I’m looking for non-correlated returns. Risk arbitrage is one place where you may find them. Take this excellent analysis from David Merkel author of the The Aleph Blog » Blog Archive » On Merger Arbitrage.
”
- Merger arbitrage is a lot like credit analysis. Analyze why the deal might not go through. Your upside is capped, but your downside is unlimited.
- Only work with binding commitments. Do not speculate on “letters of intent.”
- Do not speculate on mergers that the media cooks up.
- Merger arbitrage is an “over-fished” area of the market. The regular gains from it have been competed down to low yields.”
While I don’t disagree with the gist of it, I would note that lately there have been some deals with very little downside and some outside returns. The Clearwire deal was trading below Sprint’s offer so any competing offer or sweetening of the deal would greatly enhance returns. As it was there was little chance Sprint could not complete the deal and there was still risk premium to earn.
The Dell deal looks like it have very limited downside and potential for some surprise upside now that Icahn has amassed a large position. It seems unlikely that Michael Dell and Silverlake will abandon their offer and that Icahn will relent without extracting his pound of flesh. Icahn urges Dell to pursue a leveraged recapitalization and pay a $9 special dividend if the bid to go private is voted down by shareholders. Added to what Icahn calls the ‘stub’ value of $13.81 per share price proposed in the go-private bid, the special dividend would offer a value of $22.81 per share, ‘representing a 67 percent premium’ to the share price offered in the buyback.
The Aleph Blog » Blog Archive » Wall Street Hates You
Posted on 03. Feb, 2013 by David Merkel.
Wall Street Hates YouI have a saying, “Don’t buy what someone wants to sell you. Buy what you have researched.”And so I would tell everyone: don’t give brokers discretion over you accounts, and don’t let them convince you to buy unusual bonds, or obscure securities of any sort. By unusual bonds, I mean structured notes, and eminent men like Joshua Brown and Larry Swedroe encourage the same thing: Don’t buy them.
Reading the Markets: Bulkowski, Visual Guide to Chart Patterns
Posted on 30. Dec, 2012 by Brenda Jubin.
Bulkowski, Visual Guide to Chart Patterns
In general, the Bloomberg visual guides are a conceptual stretch, but Thomas N. Bulkowski’s Visual Guide to Chart Patterns (Wiley/Bloomberg, 2013) is an obvious exception. Charts are by definition visual.
Bulkowski’s books on chart patterns and their statistical characteristics are classics. So why yet another book? First, the Bloomberg visual guides are in color. Second, Bulkowski has updated his statistics through 2011, so we can see how trading off of chart patterns might have performed over a more extended period of time.
via Reading the Markets: Bulkowski, Visual Guide to Chart Patterns.
Pension Pulse: The End Is Here?
Posted on 30. Dec, 2012 by Pension Pulse.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2012
The End Is Here?
Noah Barkin of Reuters reports, Euro doomsayers adjust predictions after 2012 apocalypse averted:
Back in May, as the euro zone veered deeper into crisis, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman penned one of his gloomiest columns about the single currency, a piece in the New York Times entitled “Apocalypse Fairly Soon”.
“Suddenly, it has become easy to see how the euro — that grand, flawed experiment in monetary union without political union — could come apart at the seams,” Krugman wrote. “We’re not talking about a distant prospect, either. Things could fall apart with stunning speed, in a matter of months, not years.”
Krugman was far from being alone in predicting imminent doom for the euro in 2012. Billionaire investor George Soros told a conference in Italy in early June that Germany had a mere three-month window to avert European disaster.
Obama OK on Marijuana | Live Trading News
Posted on 15. Dec, 2012 by Live Trading News.
Recently, a friend and advisor to me who is a medical professional asked me if I had looked into any of the publicly traded marijuana opportunities. I hadn’t but am starting to do that now.
US President Obama says federal authorities should not target recreational marijuana use in 2 Western states that voted to make it legal, given limited government resources and growing public acceptance of the controlled substance.
Mr. Obama’s first comments on the issue come weeks after Washington State and Colorado voters supported legalizing cannabis last month in ballot measures that stand in direct opposition of federal law.
The Aleph Blog » Blog Archive » How Warren Buffett is Different from Most Investors, Part 1
Posted on 28. Aug, 2012 by David Merkel.
How Warren Buffett is Different from Most Investors, Part 1There was an academic article published recently on the investing of Warren Buffett. Afterward, I thought I saw a few articles reflecting on it, but here is the only one I see now: There’s Warren Buffett — and then there’s the rest of us.Buffett is different, because he grew as an investor and as a businessman, and usually made the right moves over a 50+ year career. When you don’t have a lot of assets, and few people are doing value investing, you can do amazing things with special situations, and being an activist investor. In 1967, Buffett had control of a textile company named Berkshire Hathaway, when he used the resources of the company to purchase some smallish P&C insurance companies, National Indemnity and National Fire and Marine Insurance.
via The Aleph Blog » Blog Archive » How Warren Buffett is Different from Most Investors, Part 1.
Businomics Blog: Longevity: How Long Youll Live and What Will Kill You
Posted on 19. Aug, 2012 by Bill Conerly.
Longevity: How Long You’ll Live and What Will Kill You
Fortune Magazine published this great chart. You can read the commentary, but like all great charts, this one speaks for itself.
via Businomics Blog: Longevity: How Long Youll Live and What Will Kill You.
Shayne Heffernan Says It’s Time to Sell | Live Trading News
Posted on 19. Aug, 2012 by Live Trading News.
Economist Shayne Heffernan has identified the state of the European Economy, rising debt in the USA and a Global rise in unemployment as a reason to re-evaluate portfolio holdings and in many cases, it is time to sell. While many are trying to talk the market up, the reality is the economy has not seen improvement significant enough to reflect the growth seen on the US markets.
As Warren Buffett has said, “be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.”
via Shayne Heffernan Says It’s Time to Sell | Live Trading News.
Tracking Top Funds Activity: Q2 2012
Posted on 19. Aug, 2012 by Pension Pulse.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 18, 2012
Tracking Top Funds Activity: Q2 2012
Earlier this week, wrote a comment on setting your sights on Soroswhere I briefly discussed what some top hedge funds bought and sold in Q2 2012. Will dedicate this weekend to take an in-depth look at how top funds positioned themselves during the second quarter.
Before I proceed, please remember the three sacred rules of 13-F filings:
- Never buy or sell any stock based solely on 13-F filings.
- Never buy or sell any stock based solely on 13-F filings.
- Never buy or sell any stock based solely on 13-F filings.
Got it? Good because if you don’t adhere to these rules you will suffer enormous losses chasing the latest fad that some “guru” is supposedly buying. And yes, I am thinking of the Facebook (FB) IPO flop.
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