svosavvy's Comments

Where was this story 50% ago? Its cover showing a tombstone engraved "R.I.P. PC," Barron's says DELL and H-P (HPQ) will fade from view. Next up for trouble could be Microsoft (MSFT), seemingly cheap at 9X 2013 earnings, but which reported sales at its Windows unit off by a third Y/Y after backing out pre-sales for Windows 8. The world awaits the launch of Surface at midnight on Friday. More winners/losers here.

Sat, 20 Oct 2012 10:53:41 -0400

Barron's is sh*t always has been, I remember a couple years ago a cover they had "short these stocks" with a guy in his boxers. It was right in the middle of a rip your face off rally. Maybe he lost his shorts listening to them.

More from Goldman's oil call: With the Seaway pipeline ramping capacity by early 2013 to 400K b/d from the current 150K, Goldman expects the current $20+ spread between Brent and WTI crude to narrow to just $4 over the coming months. A chart of BNO vs. USO YTD. Is a reversal coming or is Goldman just stocking up on Brent?

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 09:58:22 -0400

come on Ray don't you know their doing g-ds work;)

The yen is on the move (as much as a currency that mostly flatlines can be) on headlines from the Kyodo news service suggesting the government is set to craft a new stimulus plan. This one is sure to work. The dollar +0.4% vs. the yen and buying ¥79.95. FXY -0.3%. Japan shares ETF: EWJ +1.3%.

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 11:49:30 -0400

if the yen can weaken meaningfully it will help the exporters, could be a turn in the tide of negative sentiment for the japan autos and heavy's

long HMC

Managing Interest Rate Risk In An Income-Oriented Investment Portfolio (Part 1)

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 15:37:04 -0400

long GIM thanks for the article. The recent lowering of yield was imo a responsible move by the custodians entrusted with running this instrument. Instead of relying on fiction to maintain the yield by robbing peter (the underlying value) to pay paul (the distribution) this is a positive in my book that grown ups are running the fund. No one should fool themselves if China sneezes you are going to feel the breeze in this one. That being said the risk fits my profile.

Will Pandora Become Netscape?

Tue, 11 Sep 2012 11:06:37 -0400

aapl should just buy them. Good grief they have enough cash.

Credit Suisse's Lack Of Capital Presents A Buying Opportunity

Sun, 17 Jun 2012 23:41:58 -0400

The SNB ought to give them a low cost loan instead of their buying euros if they are so worried. That aside, Q1 was a dud they won't do $2.66 this year. Dividend will reflect business performance and outcomes for the year. I would not get hyper revved up for a big dividend this year. Still I would expect them to pay something. This equity is screaming cheap here imo, that can be what an investor hangs their hat on this year as they muddle through. I don't know about you, but, I personally would be interested to see how much "hinterland" money they sop up from the hemorrhaging piigs banks. It would appear that the number one export from Italy to switzerland would be private wealth in the form of gold bars squirreled away in the nooks and crannies of cars crossing the border. Though you may see the property market cool off as it was a rough year for crazy dictators. Long CS with intention to add on further weakness long UBS 2014 leap calls. The action in UBS was real interesting, they went up right after their tongue lashing, bottom?

Jun. Reuters/UofM Consumer Sentiment: 74.1 vs. 77.5 expected and 79.3 prior.

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 10:08:51 -0400

no sh*t buckwheat, what do you think happens when you scare the hell out of people.

A slow-growing economy may be worrisome for stocks, says Martin Fridson, but it's great for junk bonds, as it provides enough for issuers to cover interest payments. Investors pulled $3B from high-yield mutual funds for the week ended May 23, the most in 9 months and a big change from the $36.6B poured into those same funds from January to April.

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 15:45:19 -0400

There is a Martin Fridson who wrote a book 'financial statement analysis'. If this is the same person my hats off to you it was a great book.

Hedge funds and P-E firms have accumulated almost €60B to acquire loans from European banks that are looking to consolidate their ops, a PWC survey shows. Investors, most of whom are from the U.S., are particularly interested in loans backed by commercial real estate.

Mon, 21 May 2012 13:01:30 -0400

imo good news for someone like a BX. See their purchasing (stealing) of eurohypo owned loans that are performing at good pricing a few weeks ago.

JPMorgan Is Near A Buy Point

Tue, 01 May 2012 10:52:55 -0400

get back on your meds zeus

How To Get Monthly Income By Writing Covered Calls In Your IRA

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 20:23:15 -0400

Sorry "invaders" is trademarked by me, right here right now! lol

JPMorgan Is Near A Buy Point

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 20:20:46 -0400

Was talking about the demographic being sold to here. Male female smarter don't care

How To Get Monthly Income By Writing Covered Calls In Your IRA

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 14:51:44 -0400

As a value/growth hybrid investor, the only thing I can really offer for options strategies are 1. ignore the noise (whoops sorry 1. never lose money:) 2. don't forget either of the rule #1's 3. think deeply about how you view your world and where the puck is headed, options allow you to follow your more wild fantasies without risking the kind of capital grounded in reality. 4. 99% of the time options are overpriced just like stocks this generally benefits the margin seller, remember that. 5. selling a covered call against a good stock is generally a bad call. Your stock has a good day and instead of being a happy shareholder you get blown out if you are comfortable with that (I am) then o.k.

Another place where where you can use options effectively in IRA's that is not spoken of much is asset allocation. You have very constraining contribution allocations in IRA's $5-6000/year. You can use long dated options as stock specific "futures" allocations, kinda like: I want a position in stock ABC because it is cheap now but can't allocate cash to it this year. Get the leap option as a way to get ABC's price action this year with the option to buy with next years money.

To be true to rule #1 don't lose money, you need to be extremely adept at this options game which is definitely not most IRA investors. Options in IRA's are for what I call "Invaders" part INVestor part trADERS a rare breed. Something as an aside that most IRA people don't know is if you exercise an option or have an option exercised on you it most likely will generate a commission at most brokerage houses something to bear in mind if you float out a batch and they are getting exercised by people at different times.

JPMorgan Is Near A Buy Point

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:39:12 -0400

JPM I initiated a position around thanksgiving time, check my stocktalks for proof. JPM is a heck of a bank, they do have many "good will" chips in their corner most notably Jamie Dimon, also the fact that going into the meltdown really it was mutually assured destruction no two ways about it. In that environment you have to ask yourself what makes one bank get a monster loan to buy another bank instead of joining them at the gallows. How do you disseminate this... I mean really. You want fundamentals here you go: PE<10 of last years earnings (pretty decent) price/sales at I believe 1.68 which for a bank under 2 is pretty reasonable really once we get back to an environment where banks actually conduct banking which is not a flashy 5. Still trades less than book I believe which it is still hard to judge book here imo the world is still pretty crazy for hard and fast asset values. Strong stock buyback strategy here is good at this valuation imo, dividend is only taking about 25% of earnings give or take, strong and sustainable imo. If you want some insurance my strategy has been buy the stock collect the nice dividend, then sell the 50$ leap call against your position. If your stock dips into mid/high 30's buy calls back keep stock pocket the option proceed and dividend, wait for it to come back to mid/low 40's sell the call again. If we get a european sh@tstorm and it get into the low 30's buy more stock. If it totally tanks being that it is a correlated proxy overall bend over and enjoy the ride:)

If you feel like you missed JPM when looking at a 9 month chart which is really how you should feel, then imo (NO CREDENTIALS WHATSOEVER!) look across the pond at BCS. You are going to find nearly the mirror image of JPM imo. Charismatic leader you got it in Bob(bestofbreed:) Diamond. Cheap fundamentals similar to JPM. Basically in the same businesses commercial banking, private client banking&investments, world presence aggressive opportunistic. From what a person can tell not as much rigor bloat on the balance sheet as their peers although I like JPM assets best. Just my 2 cents.

Also I think JPM is marketing to a very sharp customer demographic these days which I think is really smart. That customer I think is a mid 30's professional female wielding an ipad and looking at buying a new car that is one of these low priced with a high priced badge type. If you believe in the consumer retail barbell strategy as I do, then there is milk&honey at the bottom of that top barbell. Welcome to the new middle class my friends. Grab a slate, freedom, or ink card. Laugh at the dorky young male banker in their commercials making a fool of himself and realize the statement. Bankers are not scary they are dorky young males not as smart as us young females. Have a nice day.

There's a growing sense that "much more needs to be done" to restore confidence in Chesapeake (CHK -2%) than only letting the Founders Well Participation Program expire. Analysts say the board should separate the chairman and CEO positions or even fire the whole bunch, but "given the litany of historic indications and most recent indications, this board appears to be incapable of doing that."

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 10:54:10 -0400

ask why. :)

Honda (HMC) FQ4: Net profit +60% to ¥71.59B ($887M), operating profit +142% to ¥111.98B vs. consensus of ¥123.2B. Guidance: FY 2012/2013 op profit ¥620B vs. ¥231.36B and consensus of ¥645B; global car sales +38% to 4.3M units, motorbikes +10% to 16.6M. (PR)

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 09:32:33 -0400

HMC long and strong

Top 10 Corporate Bond ETFs

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 11:26:37 -0400

Thanks for the article, something I have been looking at is while we are in a ZIRP environ, investors have to be wary of where they are parking their cash. In many instances "hiding out in cash" for the average person with a retirement account equals staying in money market where the expense ratio is most likely overcoming the pittance of yield. This would mean instead of standing still they are actually going backward not even counting the current little inflation. This has led me to move up the risk curve with my "cash" for a while now. Been using the fund VFSTX short term investment grade as my home base for undeployed capital. I like your list and my general bias is to stay shorter on my maturities and bide my time in low yield land. I like VCSH for this purpose in brokerage accounts.

Vale Poised To Surprise Wall Street And Reward Investors In 2012

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 22:59:28 -0400

I agree with your thesis and thank you for the article. Long Vale leap calls jan'14 at the 25 & 30 strikes.

GE's 2012 Proxy: Pleasing Performance?

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 11:15:00 -0400

You really have to ask yourself why you would want to issue more shares in this environment for any reason. I think of it like this: we are awash in liquidity if you are big and can tap the debt markets which GE certainly is big. Interest rates on debt (Read bonds) are pitifully low. Share prices are historically low meaning basically you are selling low if you issue more shares here(mucho shareholder unfriendly). If you issue shares here imo you should get a nasty phone call from Buffett like the one Irene Rosenfels (KFT) got last year for selling the pizza business and issuing shares when she could have borrowed cheap money and bought cadbury outright. Imo if the board wants share compensation, why don't we give them out of the money options and plenty of them so they can be richly rewarded for achieving benchmarks, instead of paycheck mediocrity. There is a good reason why Buffett owns(ed) GE debt and warrants and not stock (same reason he owns BAC warrants and debt and not stock), because they will never go bankrupt the government will make sure of that so the debt is secure. Warrants will payoff like a lottery ticket if the mangement gets it right. By buying the shares you are rewarding the mangement and praying they will do the right thing which history may not be on their side. Yes I spelled management wrong on purpose. Long GE shares that are in the money picked up during the crisis, I don't know how long I will own them when Mr Immelt wants to pour water in my whisky.

5 Very Good Buys For Dividend Income

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:41:23 -0500

Completely agree. Sold my ECA that I have had for about 6 months down 20% I thought it was cheap back then, oh look cheaper now:) My ECA leap calls of late are up 46%. Play this one with options, it will be a good stock again someday. You may just get wiped out waiting for it though. Great company and I like Kitimat play but... Nearly 1 to 1 correlated with nat gas price, earning nil right now, bookable assets that fluctuate in value with the price of the commodity, financing dividend with debt. Don't fool yourself thinking this is a conservative dividend play. Nat gas will have a lot better visibility in a couple years and 2014 leap calls are cheap imo. Make your move before they announce next week in case they say something encouraging though I imagine it will be more of the same. These options will be your ticket to the show in a couple years, exercise them for stock or sell them outright for profit in a couple years. Or if it all ends badly then you've only lost a fraction of what you would have buying the stock. Nat gas needs demand, supply isn't going away. This demand could come from utilities, if you get a big regulatory hit in the coal industry you will get nat gas demand. This would also lead to increased nat gas infrastructure (jobs). Not trying to tick off the coal guys, but, this is a political layup you could see both sides coming together on it. The left gets to trash coal, and regulate. The right gets pipeline infrastructure, jobs, and a happy american petroleum institute. This very well could be the bottom for nat gas prices, but, you have to ask how long do we bottom for. These companies are starving everyday that we plumb the depths. Smartest player in this space imo is XOM they bought their ticket to the nat gas show and basically get the comfort of just hanging out and can ramp when it comes around. Dem's gut check time: what's worse mountaintop removal or fracking.

This Isn't Really Just A 'Trash' Rally

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:57:07 -0500

I agree with you on LUK so dip already so I can buy some. National beef acquisition=smart smart smart.

Profiting Off The Pembina, Provident Merger

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:13:24 -0500

Hawk: Have you looked into the Kitimat LNG terminal project. Given your take on the whole keystone deal it seems to fall in line with North American energy going to Asia. Korea-noc's buying lock, stock, and barrel of Harvest energy a couple years ago supports thesis as well.

Arch: Been employing the same strategy with PVX for years in my Roth as well. DRIP'ing along the way. Mostly because I'm lazy, I knew someone who held canroy's in a straight brokerage account and was like wandering around the mulberry bush figuring out what was profit and what was actually return of capital that and being a US holder to boot. I am glad the new entity will be listed on the NYSE. This is a good thing. You will see a deeper liquidity pool and new set of buyers who can't buy pinks like certain fund managers. Who knows with this merger being billed as the start of one of the largest canadian pipeline companies I think you could see people buying this in the future who have never heard of either of these guys. I love "pipeline" "energy infrastructure" equals to me steady profits with less volatility than E&P. Maybe some fund money that goes to kinder morgan or magellan will flow this way. That and maybe a CNBC pump down the line won't be bad either.

4 Dividend Stocks To Consider And 2 To Avoid

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 10:01:57 -0500

Agree on ECA. They are paying out that div with company fat it is higher than their current meager earnings. I think the nat gas price struggle will be quite fabian and long term this benefits ECA because they have a lot of fat to survive the winter. Companies without fat will starve in the nuclear winter that is nat gas prices. I have a small ECA stock position from when I thought they were cheap last year. Obviously they are cheaper now ha ha. I am considering playing ECA with really long dated options to the bull slant call buys put sales right now I can't throw big kid money at them too dangerous imo. Speculate with options on this one in my opinion. I would not be surprised to see a dividend cut. If it does I think you could see a whoosh with a lot of volume. After the toilet flushes I think you will get an opportunity.

Today In Commodities: Thanks For The Help, Benny

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 18:42:44 -0400

I disagree about Ben's performance today. Ben put forth the right tone IMO. Throwing his weight behind the yuan issue, giving jawbone support to the idea of further action, and calling it correct that the EU are a bunch of incompetents that have the ability to run the world off the train tracks. The EU really remind me of a failed marriage or better yet a couple that shacks up for the sex, but hits the road when the going gets tough. The husband monetists are upset because the wife got sick of their bullcrap and got a credit card behind their back and ran it up. You know my dad has a very succinct term for this conundrum, it is called "sh$t or get off the pot". Beside the fact that the US is so dynamic that you can try again if you fail, the other thing that makes us great is that we have a powerful marriage made up of 2 parties who have opposing viewpoints, but, know that the whole equals more than the sum of it's parts. Thus, despite disagreements my political counterpoint is my brother in the foxhole when times get tough. We have civil rights and civil wars under our belt we are an old hand at muddling through together. If we can maintain our civility when dealing politically we'll do well. That said, I am saddened of Mr. Christie's decision. I think he is selling himself short.

Silver Wheaton Meets a Lot of Buffett's Core Criteria

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 10:15:56 -0400

This article couldn't be further from the truth, but, thanks for the input. Buffett doesn't touch commodity companies with a ten foot pole. Buffett hates commodity companies with a passion, silver after all is a commodity. Every dog has its day and today is silver's. That said I am long some silver. Buffett hates commodity companies because commodity companies fight with each other for the lowest goods price to market. Buffett likes companies with strong intrinsic values that other companies cannot duplicate. Think sees candy or coke. SLW sells something that a thousand other producers can bring to market. Buffett also hates monster industrials that have huge depreciating costs (think big machinery that constantly needs to be replaced using operating earnings). Buffett likes toll bridges which are companies that deliver something no one else can duplicate therefore can control the pricing. I am not saying SLW is a bad company, let's just temper the Buffett references when we're talking commodity spec.

FHFA Friday: Potential Lawsuit Tanks Banks

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 11:01:17 -0400

QE3 Uh Oh, isn't that treasonous? Looks like McJobs Perry should head out dodge city and round up a posse;}

Why TIPS Are Likely to Be a Bad Bet

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 10:46:29 -0400

I completely agree with your thoughts OT, definitely a lousy themed investment. However, the only caveat I would offer is that the market determines the price of the TIP which makes it good in my opinion for some "less aggressive" speculation. In light of recent developments ie 20 minutes ago and the fact that many institutions and err "sovereign" entities are sold hook, line, and sinker on ratings agencies which have been a deeply ensconced part of our society post depression. Bearing that in my mind I would believe there are people who would love to buy gold, but, alas it doesn't come with a big 3 rating so tips are a bet in that direction that also satisfies the bureaucrats holding the leash as well. 912810qf8's 02/11-99.97 07/11-117.50+interest= >18% in <6mo. My 912810pz5's of a couple years ago are hanging in as well.

Tablet computers may be a fad and the iPad (AAPL) may have a dim future, Microsoft's (MSFT) chief of research and strategy tells an Australian audience, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. “I don’t know whether the big screen tablet pad category is going to remain with us or not,” Craig Mundie says.

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 10:01:44 -0400

msft should go into the buggy whip business, dead money and dead ideas personified.

Events in the Middle East and Japan could push oil to $200, warns Russian finance minister Alexei Kudrin. Japan will be importing significantly more oil, and Saudi Arabia's military intervention in Bahrain may provoke a response from Iran. "Much worse headlines can easily be imagined," says an RBS analyst.

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 10:25:00 -0400

I would take this headline with a grain of iodized salt.

Whitney Tilson: Why We Covered Our Netflix Short

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 13:49:57 -0500

Well put Mr. Tilson.

Classy and professional as always

thank you for the read.