Don't Get Suckered By This Popular High-Yield Investment [View article]
Mortgage REIT players face lots of risk but they some seem pretty well positioned and more nimble than other players in the markets they participate in. I've only seen the guys from NLY and they sure seemed to know what the are doing.
My sense is that they could be adversely effected by some moves in the market but they would be able to buffer the impact and then take advantage of the shift. It's their expertise that gives them more security than it might look like at first glance.
I'm not long or short any of these but would consider them for income-based portfolios, especially if they took a big hit due to a "sudden spike in interest rates" or some such thing.
I think it works for people and when things go right it's probably great. The issue I'm raising is that they are seem to be handling the exceptions to the rule poorly.
I'd be surprised if the company was directly involved, at least at a senior level. But you never can be sure if some lower-level staff person thought that a scheme to get 5000 reviews online might be a "great idea!"
There's something that isn't authentic about the review/site noted here. It could also be a kind of perverted side effect of the $15 bounty for new users. I didn't go through all the links to see if many were actually the ones used to drive referral fees.
But even then it doesn't make total sense because if you wanted to do that your affiliate link would be more effective in a place with fewer reviews, like the other one shown in the note.
You could also do this in a way that doesn't explicitly tell people what to write but still pay them a small payment for each one. Then the people just decide to write something nice and provide high rating because they are figure that's what's wanted.
Let me put it to you this way, there are 265 reviews on that site for PayPal and there are 5,167 reviews for XOOM on that site. Does that make sense to you? I'll ignore the fact that PayPal gets a review of 1.4 stars. The point is the number of reviews is skewed far in the opposite direction in terms of the number of people using the service.
Like I said, very fishy and I bet not natural authentic content.
Intel: An Ample Reward Awaits The Patient Investor [View article]
I think intel is interesting here. I bought a little with a very long term view and sold some out of the money calls against it. The dividend and calls provide pretty good yield.
It's been a rough decade for INTC and management seems fairly out of touch. That said they are still Intel and may yet make some progress in other processors to win back a little market share in growth areas like mobile computing. So there's some potential improvement in the business and you can get paid pretty well to wait for it.
PetroLogistics: Let The Dividends Come [View article]
You really nailed this one!
"our estimate is that we will have a 65- to 70-cent dividend announced on Wednesday, after the market close"
And these guys print 67c. It doesn't get better than that.
I've owned PDH off and on since the IPO and had it in the portfolio when I read your article. I hoped you would be right but and it turned out very well.
This one is still kind of under the radar although the bankers follow it. They have plenty of runway to get it right. But it's a tough business so they want to make as few mistakes as possible and when they do - fix them fast!
That's my point. People post to a site like reviewcentre.com because they can and they get a little money to post there. Happens with many online review sites. Some crackdowns are occurring but you can still get it done.
2 Software Companies And A Semiconductor With Recent Intensive Insider Selling [View article]
Insiders at EOPN are probably happy they had those selling plans in place. With the stock down from $20 to $12 I wonder if any insiders will buy.
BTW the competition for EOPN isn't really SAP or ORCL given those are both huge broad line software companies - it's more like SPS Commerce (SPSC) which has performed better since they did their IPO a couple years back.
Put Safe Haven BreitBurn Energy Partners On Your Buy List [View article]
Another interesting one. This one isn't in our IPO universe since we picked up with the "post crash" names in 2009. Energy has been great and you can see that in the nice chart of dividend growth and like all uptrends the company sees it continuing with their planned "5% annual increase." That's true until it's not and if energy prices fall then hedging will be done at lower contract values. Not a disaster but I can't help but wonder what the stock price would be if those distributions stopped going up or (gasp) even went down. Not that this or any of the other MLP energy names are bad stocks. I just think there is more risk there than people generally acknowledge.
Xoom IPO Still Offers Long-Term Appreciation [View article]
Please note that since this article was posted we have had some negative experiences with XOOM and may or may not publish an update.
However for now we ARE CONCERNED with how XOOM is deriving their growth and how sustainable it is. Ultimately this company is an acquisition for someone bigger but as a standalone company they may not have the stones to provide the customer experience needed for a financial services business.
5 Reasons To Travel With Tumi After Secondary Offering [View article]
It's a quality company and their growth and profitability are much better than average. At nearly 4x sales and 18x EBITDA the shares are not at a bargain price but at $22 they are probably a decent long-term investment.
Their stuff sells at a pretty high price but it's worth it to many in terms of quality and to an increasing degree style.
Options premiums are pretty good so you can limit your risk and generate some income with this name.
I'm finding it hard to believe how silly this is. Hey last tuesday the market was up and then wednesday it was down. So this tuesday I'm going long in the morning then selling it all and going short at the close so I can cover them wednesday and take the rest of the year off.
Fusion-io: No Longer A High Flier, But Is The Long-Term Story Intact? [View article]
Don't Get Suckered By This Popular High-Yield Investment [View article]
My sense is that they could be adversely effected by some moves in the market but they would be able to buffer the impact and then take advantage of the shift. It's their expertise that gives them more security than it might look like at first glance.
I'm not long or short any of these but would consider them for income-based portfolios, especially if they took a big hit due to a "sudden spike in interest rates" or some such thing.
Xoom's Operational Worries Nix Our Enthusiasm [View article]
Tesla's Q1 Earnings, An Epic April Fools Prank [View article]
Xoom's Operational Worries Nix Our Enthusiasm [View article]
Xoom's Operational Worries Nix Our Enthusiasm [View article]
But even then it doesn't make total sense because if you wanted to do that your affiliate link would be more effective in a place with fewer reviews, like the other one shown in the note.
You could also do this in a way that doesn't explicitly tell people what to write but still pay them a small payment for each one. Then the people just decide to write something nice and provide high rating because they are figure that's what's wanted.
Let me put it to you this way, there are 265 reviews on that site for PayPal and there are 5,167 reviews for XOOM on that site. Does that make sense to you? I'll ignore the fact that PayPal gets a review of 1.4 stars. The point is the number of reviews is skewed far in the opposite direction in terms of the number of people using the service.
Like I said, very fishy and I bet not natural authentic content.
Intel: An Ample Reward Awaits The Patient Investor [View article]
It's been a rough decade for INTC and management seems fairly out of touch. That said they are still Intel and may yet make some progress in other processors to win back a little market share in growth areas like mobile computing. So there's some potential improvement in the business and you can get paid pretty well to wait for it.
PetroLogistics: Let The Dividends Come [View article]
"our estimate is that we will have a 65- to 70-cent dividend announced on Wednesday, after the market close"
And these guys print 67c. It doesn't get better than that.
I've owned PDH off and on since the IPO and had it in the portfolio when I read your article. I hoped you would be right but and it turned out very well.
Xoom's Operational Worries Nix Our Enthusiasm [View article]
Xoom's Operational Worries Nix Our Enthusiasm [View article]
2 Software Companies And A Semiconductor With Recent Intensive Insider Selling [View article]
BTW the competition for EOPN isn't really SAP or ORCL given those are both huge broad line software companies - it's more like SPS Commerce (SPSC) which has performed better since they did their IPO a couple years back.
Put Safe Haven BreitBurn Energy Partners On Your Buy List [View article]
Xoom IPO Still Offers Long-Term Appreciation [View article]
However for now we ARE CONCERNED with how XOOM is deriving their growth and how sustainable it is. Ultimately this company is an acquisition for someone bigger but as a standalone company they may not have the stones to provide the customer experience needed for a financial services business.
5 Reasons To Travel With Tumi After Secondary Offering [View article]
Their stuff sells at a pretty high price but it's worth it to many in terms of quality and to an increasing degree style.
Options premiums are pretty good so you can limit your risk and generate some income with this name.
Is The Party Coming To An End? [View article]
It's so simple!