[yayaba]

God damnit, i should have bought rim.to like i wanted to. After the split, they were at $68.. right now they're fetching at 88.18.

There's still a chance. They might go to 100.

I hopped onto Etrade when it fell like no other... it's up a nice 7% for me now.

[koam]

There's still a chance. They might go to 100. I hopped onto Etrade when it fell like no other... it's up a nice 7% for me now.

I'm not going to invest in them, even if they reach $100. My woman bought 50 shares at $68 when we both saw them there. She still hanging on to them.

I need some new stocks now, i'm kinda dry this week after making some cash earlier in the week. The only problem is that i won't be able to sell off anything till next monday since i won't have access to my account.

My damn NTDOY shares are beating up my account at the moment. I wonder i should jsut splurge out and buy some more to lower my book value.

[mrWalrus]

Bought my RIMM puts today:
5 Sept 80 @ 3.75

Let's see how this plays out.


I'm also holding:

DIA
10 Sept 133 @ 4.10

SPY
10 Sept 146 @ 4.50

IWM
5 Sept 80 @ 2.70

MRVL
80 Sept 20 @ .45

MRVL
10 Jan08 20 @ .90

[koam]

Bought my RIMM puts today: 5 Sept 80 @ 3.75

When did you buy those puts?

[mrWalrus]

This morning.

Also should be noted that all the above (except for MRVL) are Puts. This market is butting up against strong resistance here and as of now has yet to show any conviction to the upside.

I might be a little early to the party but I think we're going down. In fact if you look at the XLF (financials ETF) it looks to be breaking down.. most importantly BSC (Bear Stearns) one of the originators of this recent funk took a nasty little fall about an hour ago.


btw, MRVL Announces 2Q earnings tomorrow after the bell. I'm looking for good things. Although with the market the way it is I'm not expecting as big of a pop as I once did. in other words those Sept 20s might expire worthless.

[Takuan]

I wanted to buy TTWO at $12. I would've sold at ~14.50 for a tidy 20-something % return... oh well. I think it'll go down before it goes back up, and I'll probably snatch some when that happens.

[koam]

This morning. Also should be noted that all the above (except for MRVL) are Puts. This market is butting up against strong resistance here and as of now has yet to show any conviction to the upside. I might be a little early to the party but I think we're going down. In fact if you look at the XLF (financials ETF) it looks to be breaking down.. most importantly BSC (Bear Stearns) one of the originators of this recent funk took a nasty little fall about an hour ago. btw, MRVL Announces 2Q earnings tomorrow after the bell. I'm looking for good things. Although with the market the way it is I'm not expecting as big of a pop as I once did. in other words those Sept 20s might expire worthless.

What does a put at $3.75 mean? You think it will drop to $3.75?

[mrWalrus]

What does a put at $3.75 mean? You think it will drop to $3.75?

The $3.75 is the price I paid per share, per contract. Each contract represents 100 shares. So the cost was $375 per contract (not including commission).

Right now the contract has no intrinsic value because the stock price is still above the strike of $80. Which means that $3.75 is all time value which starts to erode quickly as the expiration date nears (options expire the 3rd Friday of each month).

So with these puts I have the right to sell 500 shares of RIMM at $80. So let's say the price drops to $70 on Sept 21st. I would sell my 500 shares for $40000 (500 * 80) and pocket the difference between that and the price they would be then or (500 * 70) $35000. So my profit would be (40000 - 35000) $5000.

As you can see there is quite a bit of leverage there to make big money. However there is also a substantial amount of risk involved. If by Sept 21st the stock has not dipped below my $80 strike I'm in deep and will have lost my entire investment minus whatever time value is left (which if the stock price is above $80 on the expiration date then there is no time value left).

Of course I don't have to wait until then to sell them.

In case my explanation wasn't good enough:
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/put.asp

[koam]

Oh, nm, I misread it, you'll lose money if it doesn't drop.

$3.75 per share seems like a lot. You'd need it to change $3.75 per share before you even start to profit off it. I hate commission charges.

[mrWalrus]

Oh, nm, I misread it, you'll lose money if it doesn't drop. $3.75 per share seems like a lot. You'd need it to change $3.75 per share before you even start to profit off it. I hate commission charges.

Oh I admit there is a pretty hefty premium on these puts but as long as there is some volatility in the stock the delta will remain intact and there will be a very nice time value on these puts.

If I were to wait until Sept 21st to sell these then the price would have to be below $76.25 before I would start to turn a profit. However I have no intention of doing that, I bought these for a swing trade.

I almost bought these puts yesterday but then I saw Goldman Sachs raised their price target to $95 a share (split adjusted of course) and the stock went up 5%. RIMM has been trading in a huge channel right now and while we've broken out of the top range we also have a couple gaps to fill down below (the lowest one being around $66-69).

If there's one constant in the market it's that gaps usually fill.

[koam]

Awesome, i'm completely in the green today. The two stocks that i had that were foul have recouped their losses. :) Goooo NTDOY.PK

[Tarazet]

I'm still waiting for JOB to turn a profit for me. It may be a while, but I'm willing to sit and wait. It's a small-cap employment agency that has been in business for a long time.

My mutual fund is in the green too, recouped all of the losses from late last week.

[lil smoke]

Today was (is, so far) a good day. I'm all green as well, and everything I had sold last week went back down. It almost seems like I know what I'm doing!

I bought SNE last week and I have long term faith... along with my faith in NTDOY.

[Cheesemeister]

Go, go, NTDOY! :D

[kiun]

Its all about TTWO, up ~20% since last week.

[RSTEIN]

Hey, I pick stocks for a living... anyone want advice about anything just PM me.

[Ketchup Boy]

Hey, I pick stocks for a living... anyone want advice about anything just PM me.

who do you work for?

[mrWalrus]

Remember when I said the DOW might see some heavy resistance come the 13400 level. Well we're there and the now the S&P 500 is showing a 'Momentum Discrepency Reversal Down' on the RSI (not to mention the HUGE amount of puts being bought today as well as all the DITM 'down in the money' calls that were bought earlier in the week.

As always good luck and be on your toes. I don't think all this green is going to last.

[RSTEIN]

who do you work for?

Sounds stupid, but I'd rather not say. It's not like a secret or anything, just rather not say.

[allegate]

So this seems to be a good place to ask: did anyone else get a "supplement to the offer to purchase for cash by home depot inc. of up to 250 million shares of its common stock purchase mrice no greater than $42.00 nor less than $37.00 per share" in the mail? I did and I'm having difficulties understanding what they want me to do. Am I selling my stock back to HD, or are they offering me more stock to buy? I'm a little confused.

I hated this part of my finance class so I don't remember jack.

[AstroLad]

Sounds stupid, but I'd rather not say. It's not like a secret or anything, just rather not say.

Spoiler tags.

[Tarazet]

So this seems to be a good place to ask: did anyone else get a "supplement to the offer to purchase for cash by home depot inc. of up to 250 million shares of its common stock purchase mrice no greater than $42.00 nor less than $37.00 per share" in the mail? I did and I'm having difficulties understanding what they want me to do. Am I selling my stock back to HD, or are they offering me more stock to buy? I'm a little confused. I hated this part of my finance class so I don't remember jack.

That's a buy-back. If you have stock and want to sell it to them at that price, go for it. It's a good deal right now since the current price is below $35.

[allegate]

ah. this stock is in my IRA so I don't know if it's even possible, frankly.

[xsarien]

Hey, I pick stocks for a living... anyone want advice about anything just PM me.

I believe this news.

[Tarazet]

ah. this stock is in my IRA so I don't know if it's even possible, frankly.

You can't sell stocks that are in your IRA? That must be a bummer when companies go out of business.

[allegate]

to give you an idea: I have stock in Delphi. 31 shares trading at 1.24 as of my last statement. I couldn't sell the shares when I heard what was happening to the company because it would have cost me more to sell them than I would have gained from the sale. :(

and I apparently only have 5 HD stock, so I wouldn't really make out if I did sell. :/

[Cheesemeister]

Sounds stupid, but I'd rather not say. It's not like a secret or anything, just rather not say.

Hey, I can't blame you. Privacy is important, especially on the Interweb. Just last week I accidentally posted a picture of a connection speed test that revealed my employer, and I didn't catch it for 45 minutes. :lol

[Tarazet]

to give you an idea: I have stock in Delphi. 31 shares trading at 1.24 as of my last statement. I couldn't sell the shares when I heard what was happening to the company because it would have cost me more to sell them than I would have gained from the sale. :( and I apparently only have 5 HD stock, so I wouldn't really make out if I did sell. :/

That sounds like a good argument for using mutual funds instead of stocks for IRAs.

[allegate]

SABRX / LEGG MASON FUNDS / PARTNERS EQUITY FUND CL O - 24.820 - 15.3700000 - 381.48

it's there, it's just not going very quickly. Also - I only recently became owner of my IRA as my mom ran it for me for the past 15 years. (she was under the assumption that as soon as I got it I would cash it out. apparently she was too insane to remember the penalties for early withdrawal.) Anyway, the stocks in the IRA are kind of hit and miss (YUM Brands next to ZORAN Corp for example) but I can't really do anything because my bank charges out the nose to sell any stocks and my quantities are mostly in the single digits.

I'm trying, though, to move it more towards that mutual fund.

[Tarazet]

SABRX / LEGG MASON FUNDS / PARTNERS EQUITY FUND CL O - 24.820 - 15.3700000 - 381.48 it's there, it's just not going very quickly. Also - I only recently became owner of my IRA as my mom ran it for me for the past 15 years. (she was under the assumption that as soon as I got it I would cash it out. apparently she was too insane to remember the penalties for early withdrawal.) Anyway, the stocks in the IRA are kind of hit and miss (YUM Brands next to ZORAN Corp for example) but I can't really do anything because my bank charges out the nose to sell any stocks and my quantities are mostly in the single digits. I'm trying, though, to move it more towards that mutual fund.

You can choose what you buy with new contributions, right?

[allegate]

I hope so. my situation for the past 3.5 years has been a strange one (the military is paying for me to go to school + a $750 stipend to live on + I'm 50% disabled also via the military and that gives me $850 a month and that covers my house payment so I've not been working while I go to school). Because of this, I've not been putting anything in the account really other than $50 here and $50 there. When I graduate in December, I'll have a real job and I can start approaching the maximum allowed again as I'll be making close to $45k a year.

so basically, right now IRA = :( but in a few months IRA = :)

[Tarazet]

It's good that at least you've had something earning money for you for the past 15 years. I'm starting completely from scratch with all my own money, and it hasn't been easy.

[gkryhewy]

[Tarazet]

Serious. I'm not looking forward to seeing the new price for my mutual fund, but hey, at least my small-cap made me $50 today.

[mrWalrus]

I'm thinking it's a little more like this. There's some nastiness out there in the financial sector and it might be a couple weeks before it's all squared away. Don't worry too much though because I still think we see new highs in all the indexes by the end of the year.

[gkryhewy]

I'm thinking it's a little more like this. There's some nastiness out there in the financial sector and it might be a couple weeks before it's all squared away. Don't worry too much though because I still think we see new highs in all the indexes by the end of the year.

Well, you seem to have been right about the 13,400 wall. So you're saying I should NOT liquidate all of my assets and buy gold coins and Halo 3 legendary editions? :D

[RSTEIN]

I believe this news.

Is there anything I can do to prove it to you without revealing my employer?

Edit: Actually a mod could just look at my email address, go to the website in my email, and find me on our personnel page (of course without revealing my secret identity to the world). :D

Edit 2: Actually why the fuck do I care?

[mrWalrus]

Well, you seem to have been right about the 13,400 wall. So you're saying I should NOT liquidate all of my assets and buy gold coins and Halo 3 legendary editions? :D

hah.. well. I wish I would have taken my own advice on that 13400. I jumped the gun a couple days before when I saw Hank Paulson come out on CNBC and basically say there's not going to be a rate cut. I thought for sure the market was going to see that, freak out, and drop then and there.

It would be hard for me to give you a suggestion on what to do with your money I don't know what your account looks like and I don't know what your goals are. I'm playing this thing with a very specific purpose in mind and i'm playing with a lot of risk.
I'm a game designer trying to start a studio

I think the market will be back up by October but, in the near term we're going to fall. Problem is I'm really not sure how hard. Not to call for doom but there are some pretty scary catalysts that could spark at any time.

- Citibank and bank of America we're given permission by the Federal Reserve to put 30% of their assets into their brokerage accounts last Friday. Prior limit was 10% which is something that was put in place to help events like 1929 from happening again.
http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/24/maga...ney_topstories

- Housing is BAD! Prices are falling, there is a 9.6 month supply for sale and the speed at which they are selling is getting worse.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/20477558

- A lot of people signed up for variable interest loans in the last couples years and those are getting set to change (I think most start early next year) and all of a sudden people are going to be paying a whole lot more than they thought they would for their houses. because the above they aren't going to be able to sell them very easy and they won't be able to re-finance either read: August 28, '07 The Market is What it is…
http://trade-guild.blogspot.com/

Credit is drying up partly because the amount of people foreclosing has doubled since last year. Places like Countrywide write their loans, package them, and sell them to financial institutions all over the world. These packages are rated and then sold off. Problem is they were taking subprime loans and packing them in with AAA+ rated loans. Think of it like a hot dog. Normally pure beef (AAA+) hot dogs are supposed to be 99.2% meat. Countrywide was doing something a little closer to 85-90% meat in these packages and still calling them 'pure beef'. Now you're seeing these institutions around the world losing money because of it. I'm telling you right now, Countrywide isn't long for this world. On a different note neither is Circuit City.. (Actually, I think the safest bet in the market right now is shorting CFC and CC to Zero.)

Then you have the devaluation of the dollar and really I could go on and on. Don't think it's all bad though because it's not. Stocks are still a pretty good value and consumers are still spending but, if this housing crisis starts eating into our ability to spend look out.

There's even some tinfoil hat crap out there like someone betting many billions that the S&P 500 (which is 20% banks) is going to tank hard. They've shorted a ton of WAY in the money calls. These will only make money if the market falls and with the amount 'they' have laid down odds are 'they' know something none of us do.

Saying all that. I'd be glad give you, or anyone else, specific advice based on what you're looking to do but for the right now I think you should just hold on to what you have, provided it's a solid company with strong growth moving forward.

[gkryhewy]

Saying all that. I'd be glad give you, or anyone else, specific advice based on what you're looking to do but for the right now I think you should just hold on to what you have, provided it's a solid company with strong growth moving forward.

Thanks. Based on all of that, why do you think the indexes will be pushing new highs at year's end? My portfolio is presently 50% cash, 25% aggressive contrarian mutual fund (JSVAX), and 25% NTDOY. I know I should diversify more, but I'm slightly in the red on both of my investments, so I'm reluctant to do any more in the current climate. My tendencies are conservative, and I'm seriously considering moving more of my assets to cash upon the next upswing, particularly some of the JSVAX.

On a related note, the extreme volatility of NTDOY on the Nikkei confuses me. The setup there basically requires a large minimum investment in the stock (something like 30-60k to my understanding), which would lend itself to institutional and large $$ investment rather than flighty individual investors like myself. Given this, why the tremendous daily volatility?

[xsarien]

Is there anything I can do to prove it to you without revealing my employer? Edit: Actually a mod could just look at my email address, go to the website in my email, and find me on our personnel page (of course without revealing my secret identity to the world). :D Edit 2: Actually why the fuck do I care?

I'm just, you know, saying.

Taking stock tips and more-than-general advice from Internet forums is generally on a lot of "bad idea" lists.

[Cloudy]

I have a stupid question about using Morningstar.com's portfolio. In my 401k plan, I have an SSga S&P500 Index fund shown wih no ticker.

The price is about $270 per units/share. How can I get this to load correctly in Morningstar as an index fund? I can only get the individual stock price and ticker which is like $24/share (SVSPX) and the ETF (SPY) which is like $140/share.

I know it's probably something I'm unclear about but I'm quite confused lol

[Tamanon]

I have a stupid question about using Morningstar.com's portfolio. In my 401k plan, I have an SSga S&P500 Index fund shown wih no ticker. The price is about $260 per units/share. How can I get this to load correctly in Morningstar as an index fund? I can only get the individual stock price and ticker which is like $24/share (SVSPX) and the ETF (SPY) which is like $140/share. I know it's probably something I'm unclear about but I'm quite confused lol

Unfortunately that's an institutional fund, so it's not publically traded. Thus, no ticker. The closest thing you can probably do is to take what the current total in the 401(k) is and divide it by however much the public fund trades for to ballpark it. They should have almost identical performance.

[Stele]

Bought my RIMM puts today: 5 Sept 80 @ 3.75 Let's see how this plays out.

So... how are those puts working out?

[Cloudy]

Is there a way to enter manually? Maybe I just didn't see it..

[koam]

So... how are those puts working out?

RIMM is doing great, fell a bit today but recovered mostly. MrWalrus cannot be happy.

AAPL at $143 :o

[elostyle]

If you squint really, really hard you can make "Courtsey of NTDOY" (or NTO.F, actually) out written on the side of it.

[yayaba]

My portfolio was boosted a good amount today, not a bad day at all.

[lil smoke]

LTTP But I bought a little bit of CROX, and it's starting off nicely. New clothing line was shown at Magic. I predict I can get some lunch money from them until next year, maybe even next holiday.

I also picked up KFT late. Lots of management changes and product growth. Worth a patient study.

TTWO is balancing some of my mistakes, so far as well.

[Ether_Snake]

Ha! I got some ATVI a while ago, just before they announced a record quarter, but then all markets went down. But now it's picking up.

And I got my TTWO last Friday, so I think I bought at the right time. Hopefully the worst is over:D

[koam]

mrwalrus must be hiding in a corner by now. Rim is doing fantastic with no signs of slowing down.

My portfolio is dying out now, i'm just selling off everything as i wait to change brokers where i'll be paying $46 less per 2 trades. :)