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QUICK CHAT #36 -Start Friday 4/9/10 85 comments
Welcome to OG's Quick Chat Lounge... have a seat; someone will be with you shortly.
Alphabetized Stocks and Companies mentioned in Quick Chat #35:
AIG, ALICO, ALJ, AMBAC (ABK?), APWR
CPST, CQP
FDX
GE, GMO, WGMGF
IVAN
JASO, JPM
KMGB
LNG
MEE, MET
NGD
PAL
S
T, TSL
UPS
WATG, WNR
XRA
YGE
Link to Quick Chat #35
tinyurl.com/ydedffg
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This post has 85 comments:
Last Entry in Quick Chat #35
From: Jimp:
I believe some of you follow Znnmf. Any idea on why the pop today?
I haven't heard anything new.
Whats the deal with GWM?
I like TSL aswell.
This is going to be a banner year. Buy and hold is alive and well. Not as good as 2009 but I'll take it.
HardToLove
If these suppressing and likely fraudulent positions get overrun, gold and silver could potentialy skyrocket in short order, pun intended. If this does occur, now we'll know why.
treo.typepad.com/got_g...
========================
mls listings
" Canada is experiencing a full-blown revival of its housing bubble. The average single-family detached home in the Vancouver metro area is now fetching $1 million. Prices have climbed 23% in a year and now sit 3% higher than they were at the height of the previous bubble.
Toronto is looking nearly as ridiculous, but those are just the extremes of a nationwide phenomenon. The Royal LePage research firm says all key types of housing across Canada rose by an average 10% in the first quarter. Another firm, Variant Perception, says by any sensible metric, Canadian homes are overvalued by 20-30%."
As far as I'm concerned, Canada's natural resources will keep Canadian properties at a Premium for years. They are not overvalued, I doubt anyone knows what Fair value really is.
As the land is cleared of Bitumen, I would expect more stability. But I think in terms of the influx of foreign workers and their housing requirements in the years to come.
I think in terms of the Alaskan/California Mining towns in their early years.
Though, I'm in agreement, as far as Canada goes. They just put forth that mining tax. Brllliant move, as they have an incredible wealth of minerals and oils.
Is that tax a strategic move? You betcha. The population curve, plus all the brand new injected liquidity into the world, means all commodities are going to rocket over the next decade.
I think of Brazil/India's rainforests as examples.
The cleanup is the Real expense in Bitumen mining.
Uncle Sammy wants me the hell out of here!
If we have to run, he has relatives and another home to go to and a Foreign bank account as well.
You should have seen how the old passports looked like, these are much better.
mnt.to/a/3B38
also, a brief description of what is in MongoliaL
go.infomine.com/?re=13...
If you aren't in EGI, IVN, RPT should should stick a small toe in. :)
www.pagetutor.com/tril...
Kinda puts things in perspective.
(Reuters) - Euro zone finance ministers unanimously approved a detailed 30 billion euro ($40.5 billion) emergency aid mechanism for debt-plagued Greece on Sunday but stressed it had not requested that the plan be activated now.
In a rare weekend telephone conference, ministers from the 16 nations that share the single European currency backed a plan for Athens to borrow from euro zone governments and the IMF at well below current market rates if market funding dries up.
Greece would receive 30 billion euros in the first year from all euro zone countries in bilateral loans coordinated by the European Commission and paid via the European Central Bank, the head of the Eurogroup of finance ministers said.
"If the mechanism had to be activated, it would not be a violation of the no-bailout clause (in the European Union treaty) since the loans are repayable and contain no element of subsidy," Eurogroup chairman Jean-Claude Juncker told a news conference in Brussels after the meeting.
European Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said the euro zone loans would carry an interest rate of about 5 percent -- well below current market rates of over 7 percent.
The agreement was urgently awaited because Athens is due to auction short-term debt on Tuesday after investors last week sent Greek borrowing costs spiraling due to fears of a possible default and doubts over the EU safety net.
Skepticism over Greece's ability to manage its 300 billion euro ($401.2 billion) debt pile, more than its 240 billion euro annual economic output, grew last week when investors dumped Greek stocks and bonds and ratings agency Fitch downgraded Athens by two notches.
Fitch dropped Greece's credit rating to BBB-, the lowest investment grade just above junk, saying a deepening recession and rising debt service costs would make it even harder for Athens to meet its budget deficit reduction target.
Strong public opposition to any bailout for Greece in Germany, Europe's biggest economy and main paymaster, has fueled market doubts about the availability of any rescue, especially since the plan leaves Berlin a veto.
Germany, the Netherlands and Austria had argued that any emergency bilateral loans to Greece should be at current market rates, which rose above 7 percent last week, to avoid moral hazard by rewarding profligate countries.
The euro, which has been dragged down by concerns over Greece and possible contagion with other weak Mediterranean euro zone economies, rebounded slightly on news of Friday's technical agreement among deputy finance ministers and central bankers.
www.reuters.com/articl...
www.jackliftonreport.c.../
seekingalpha.com/insta...
Maybe as a Day Trading tool.....Everyone tries to "build a better Mousetrap".
The Old mousetrap is fine, add Point and Figure to the mix, maybe a Summation Index or an Oscilator...then pray a Politician doesn't trigger another '1987'. ( BTW, how Is the Oscillator doing, you said you were acting on it, did you?)
Another 7+ earthquake, expect more, the ripple effects from Chile are moving around the globe.
Silver anyone? Endeavor, EXK I believe.
A Barron's writer is calling for the end to Copper's rise. The last time she made a similar call, it went up another 40%...$4.50-5.00 copper if she is as wrong now.
Coal: Analysts at Citigroup upgraded Arch Coal Inc. (ACI) to buy from hold and Patriot Coal Corp. (PCX) to hold from sell after the firm's commodity team lifted its price forecast for bulk commodities including metallurgical coal. Citigroup said it remains cautious on thermal coal, but added the surge in metallurgical coal will benefit all producers in its coverage in varying degrees. The firm said it still prefers Alpha Natural Resources (ANR) and Peabody Energy (BTU) for metallurgical coal exposure.
What will the reaction be the day the market stiffs the Greek bonds?
Not pretty. The euro will drop again, and everyone will go back to looking into that black hole which yawns in the middle of Athens.
NOTHING has been solved. Its just a game of chicken with both sides revving their engines but with both feet planted desperately on the brakes.
www.bloomberg.com/apps...
And another one:www.bloomberg.com/apps...
Rutheneum, anyone?
Actually according to wikipedia, it is Ru, #44 A rare transition metal of the platinum group, associated with platinum ores and used in some platinum alloys.
(BPT) BP Prudhoe Bay, paying 13.8%, 4-13
(CMO) Capstead Mort., paying 17.1%, 6-29
(CQP) Cheniere Energy, paying 9.1%, 4-28 (Freya and I have been in this one for a while)
(FTR) Frontier Tel., paying 13.4%, 6-5
(NYMT) NY Mort. Trust, paying 13.8%, 6-30 (stodgy for a high div. stock, unlikely for the stock to appreciate much in value)
(OZM) Och-Ziff Capital, paying 13.0%, 5-16
(STON) Stonemor Partners, paying 11.2%, 5-3 (investors are literally dying to get into this Cemetary operator, but I see almost $2 upside short term on the stock price, and a good div. while I wait)
I figure to hold onto these for at least one more dividend cycle, MAYBE 2, though the new tax rules for 2011 mean I'll not be holding these long term. Relatively tight stops, all around...
NATUF is doing a hell of a lot better than GWM. Sprint is almost where I bought it, while EGI is now up 15%,
Look at TOO which I decided was better than HERO because of the payout.
I don't have a clue why ZNNMF is rising, Dead Cat Bounce?
Did (PSEC) drop their dividend?
It went Ex a cple of weeks ago.
I could make the flippers green, though...
Hmmm.
finance.yahoo.com/mark...
BTU up 4% at about 11am
Sold out of (ATPG) when it hit $19, though.
Should ICO benefit?
Here's an interesting coal opinion piece from last week:
Mine Disaster Is Not Only Problem Facing Coal Industry (ACI, ANR, BKH, CNX, JRCC, MEE, BTU, KOL, MSA, D, CGX)
Posted: April 7, 2010 at 2:30 pm
Print Email Subscribe Free Newsletter Follow us on Twitter 24/7 Wall St Real Time 500 The coal sector has been rocked in the past two weeks by deadly accidents at mines in China and the US. In China, 32 miners are still missing and 6 are dead, and in the US, 25 miners are dead and 4 more are missing in an explosion at a West Virginia coal mine. Our sympathy goes out to the families of the dead, and our hopes go to the families of those miners still trapped below ground.
The US coal sector has experienced its share of ups and downs recently, as the global economy fitfully recovers from the recent recession. In this article, we review how US coal company shares are doing and what may lie ahead for the rest of 2010. Companies in this review include Arch Coal, Inc. (NYSE: ACI), Alpha Natural Resources (NYSE: ANR), Black Hills (NYSE: BKH), Consol Energy (NYSE: CNX), James River Coal (NASDAQ: JRCC), Massey Energy (NYSE: MEE), and Peabody Energy (NYSE: BTU). We’ll also look at the Market Vectors Coal ETF (NYSE: KOL) and a few of its components that aren’t included among the other companies we’re reviewing. Mine Safety Appliances Co. (NYSE: MSA) even has some skin in the game.
Massey Energy shares have dropped nearly 16% in the two days since the explosion at its West Virginia mine. It’s 52-week trading range is $10.58-$54.80, and it’s trading has stabilized today at right around $46/share. The stock’s 200-day moving average is up about 15.5%, not including today’s drop of more than $2/share so far. Massey’s market cap is about $4.4 billion.
Massey had a lackluster 2009 fourth quarter, but the full-year results were better than 2008. The company projected flat shipments for 2010 but at slightly higher prices than previously estimated. Shipments in 2011 are expected to be about 8% better than 2010 and the average price per ton is also expected to rise. JP Morgan dropped its rating from ‘Overweight’ to ‘Neutral’ in early February, joining most other analysts’ ratings.
Following the disaster in West Virginia, Massey may not even be able to hold on to middling ratings. In its 2009 Form 10-K, the company noted that it does not carry business interruption insurance for the about 1.5 million tons of coal it will not be producing.
Arch Coal shares have jumped about 13% since the beginning of the year. The stock’s 52-week trading range is $12.52-$28.34, and its 200 day moving average is up more than 10%. Arch’s market cap is about $4.14 billion. The company’s shares are up today as traders expect Arch to get a share of Massey’s lost production.
Arch’s fourth quarter 2009 were much like Massey’s, with revenues off slightly and fully diluted EPS also down after excluding one-time items. For 2009, revenues were down more than $400 million and EPS down 89%. The company was looking ahead to economic recovery in 2010 and offered guidance on GAAP EPS in the range of $0.37-$0.86. Following the earnings release, two analysts raised ratings and two lowered them. Sounds about right.
Alpha Natural Resources, with a market cap of $6.52 billion, has been trading in a 52-week range of $15.95-$55.70. The wide span is mostly the result of the closing of its acquisition of Foundation Coal in July 2009. The shares set the 52-week high yesterday, again as a result of the explosion at the Massey mine. The 200-day moving average on the stock is up a bit more than 26%.
Alpha’s fourth quarter and full-year 2009 results were the best in the sector, and its outlook for 2010 was positive both for shipments of thermal and metallurgical coal. Goldman Sachs has Alpha listed on its ‘Conviction Buy List’, and that is probably where it deserves to be.
Peabody Energy is the largest of the US coal miners, with a market cap of $12.67 billion. It’s 52-week trading range is $23.56-$52.14 and the stock’s 200-day moving average is up 6.13%. Shares are trading up more than 2% today, due both to the Massey mine explosion and to the rejection of Peabody’s $3.3 billion bid for Australian coal miner Macarthur.
Fourth quarter 2009 revenues were off about 6.8% sequentially and nearly 18% from the same period in 2008. Shipments were down about 4% sequentially and 11.7% year-over-year. Peabody expects its Australian operations to ship 26-28 million tons of coal to Asian markets this year, up from 23.3 million tons in 2009. Prices are also expected to increase beginning the second quarter of 2010, when annual contracts come up for renewal. Peabody’s ratings lean toward the buy side, and that’s as it should be given its position in Australia.
Consol Energy is the second largest coal company in the US with a market cap of $10.03 billion. The company’s 52-week trading range is $24.01-$58, and its 200-day moving average is down 5.59%. Shares are down more than 1% today, not on any particular news, just general ennui about the company.
Consol issued more than 44 million new shares last week to help fund its acquisition of the Appalachian oil and gas assets of Dominion Resources (NYSE: D), which it will buy for $3.475 billion. The company also fell victim to a lawsuit by shareholders disgruntled at its $363 million offer to buy the assets of CNX Gas Corp. (NYSE: CXG) that Consol does not already own. The suit alleges that the price is too low. Consol has also issued two new debt offerings totalling $2.75 billion at 8% and 8.25% interest. New debt, a shareholder suit, and a share dilution keep the shares tamped down some.
KOL, the Market Vectors Coal ETF, has been trading in a 52-week range of $14.77-$41.55. It’s 200-day moving average is up 13.9%, and shares are trading down slightly today at around $39. The fund’s return on net asset value since the beginning of the year is 4.4%.
Three Chinese coal companies account for about 20% of KOL’s assets. China Coal Energy, China Shenhua Energy, and Yanzhou Coal Mining (YZC) make up 7.73%, 7.67%, and 4.87% respectively of the fund. The largest single holding is Alpha Natural Resources, at 8.28%. Massey Energy is not among the fund’s top 10 holdings.
Mine Safety Appliances Co. (NYSE: MSA) makes health and safety products such as gas masks and detection systems. The company’s 52-week trading range is $21.08-$29.60, and it is currently trading up less than 1% on the day, at $28.66. Shares gained about 5% on yesterday’s opening, but have since given most of that back. This may have been a ‘mining safety’ play before but it is diversified now.
The last mining disaster in the US occurred in 2007 at a coal mine in Utah that killed six miners and three rescue workers. Since 2000, 39 Americans have died in US mines. That is too many, to be sure, but in the same period a staggering total of 51,266 Chinese have been killed in coal mines. In many ways, the cost of coal is always too high.
PAUL AUSICK
ICO has a good quantity of metallurgical and steam coal reserves. I like their price too. It would not surprise me to see them acquired. Do you see a future acquisition as well? I own (ICO) as well as (ACI), (ANR), (BHP), and (BTU).
HardToLove
Took profits on (CTEL). Now near its stop order. May cycle down to $14.40, which would be my next buy@ point.
Has anyone got (DVN)? Good article here:
seekingalpha.com/artic...
Looks enticing, I like their thinking.
tinyurl.com/y6gd28y
Another intriguing stock is China Electric Motors (CELM), up 11.52% today. Self explanatory.
(WATG) continuing upward.
Enjoying ATPG today, up 4.82%.
New Gold up nicely, too, 2.56%.
Sprint up 3.96%
Get'n my mojo back!
finance.yahoo.com/news...
And while I eventually arrive at my own opinion, I like to understand how others view what I am looking at hoping to find a mix of favorable sentiment, growth and value. And this stock may have it as its PEG is way below the industry average.
Maya, CELM is up around 40% over the past week.
If anyone is interested, the new photos are at the top. There are some pretty good shots of some major bloopers!
Perhaps extend and pretend is more interesting than we thought.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
www.nypost.com/p/news/...
Just thinking out loud here, say I have a May buy contract on a 400 ounce bar, then a June sell order on the same 400 ounce bar. When both contracts are filled, would this then not be two contracts on the same 400 ounce bar? Of which by July I will no longer own.
What I want to know is how does the above example apply to the 100:1 leverage...when I can have two contracts out on the exact same 400 ounces?
Obviously, I need to learn more about this as this possible humongous fraud unfolds.
The scam is that 50 other people believe they own the same, or part of a 400 oz. bar of gold that, "I think I own." And all those believers are paying storage costs as I am, figuratively, of course, on my bar of gold.
As long as gold rises gently, I'm afraid nobody will care.
One common caution among the writers I follow is that the market is priced to perfection and should earnings disappoint is any systemically way it would be reason for great concern. Yesterday's report by Alcoa was spun into something it was not: a pretty good quarter. A top line miss of 7% is material and suggests weaker revenue growth. But this is only one data point.
Another interesting point made by Farmi Hamzei, who is generally bullish on the market up to 1250 on the S&P, is that there are some subtle disconnects taking place in the market. Since this was a public webinar he did not share what his proprietary indicators are showing, but he did point to % of stocks trading above their 200 day MA. While still very high, the % has been slowly declining as the market has moved higher, something less than desirable.
This morning Brett Steenbarger made a similar point by noting the CBOE put call ratio is very low and has not been this low since the market peak of 2000. He then goes on to say "meanwhile, we saw 301 new 52-week highs among NYSE common stocks, as reported by Decision Point, but that is down from levels reached last week. When bullish sentiment cannot translate into incremental market strength, that turns me cautious."
Lastly, some of the larger brokerage houses are cautioning that that the Fed cannot be on perma-hold indefinitely in the face of growing evidence of growing economic strength, however disjointed the growth might be. It's expected when the Fed tightens it will use the most nuanced language ever to minimize damage to the markets.
To the benefit of SA readers, I have quit calling market tops because of my miserable track record and continued unwillingness to appreciate the power of a liquidity driven equity surge. That said, there are some caution signs.
I'm keeping stops really tight now, particularly on stocks where I am well ahead and want to preserve gains.
finance.yahoo.com/news...
They agree with my thinking regards (AEM) and (AUY), and there's some good points about Gammon in there.
I just checked my screeners and they are choking with educational stocks; to confirm I went to TickerSpy and saw that around 25 of the 30 they track were up. Same over at IBD, 3 out of 9 stocks on the move were educational stocks.
I know Credit Suisse's upgrades helped today, but I wonder if the market sees the educational sector as a consumer discretionary on steroids?
Also, its a sector that once had the reputation of being recession-resistant. Those seeing a double dip in our future (2011 scares me, frankly) might look that way... But I don't see ANY sectors I consider proof against a real storm.
Lacking safe havens, all you can do is dig your fox hole a little deeper, and hunker down.
finance.yahoo.com/news...
finance.yahoo.com/news...
Stock is going berserk the last few days.
Europe I guess. Not registered for sale in the U.S.
Mexico maybe.
This is largely a rolling-over of their old notes, so I don't see this as a negative thing so long as all the dominoes fall on cue...
Though what they do with the left over cash is a question. If the insiders get it, I would worry.
My winner today was (KERX), up 11.9% on the day.
(FTR) surprised up 4.84% today. Big pop for a high yield cash cow.
Not a great day, but a solid performer, and one I'll take anyday.
seekingalpha.com/insta...
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The final Markit U.S. manufacturing purchasing managers index reached 54.0 in December... woo woo
Jan 2, 2013
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Good potential for a market whipsaw given the high for the cliff vote combined with unknowns of thePMI and ISM scheduled for this morning.
Jan 2, 2013
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Quadruple Witching occurs on Friday Dec 21.
Dec 17, 2012
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