***Official*** 2012 Stock Market Thread

[SunnyD]

It's good to see that you see the housing market. You're also aware that the unemployment level in housing related sectors was as high as 30% when unemployment was 10%. I doubt that unemployment levels have improved to 8% in housing related sectors at this time. Once housing inventories are fixed, alot of those people will be employed again and unemplyoment will fix itself. What is sad is that politicians will try to take this ineveitable outcome and claim it as their own doing.

I am finally seeing evidence of construction in my area (CT). There is even a cleared forest near my house that I suspect a small development is going into. Still not like it was 6 years ago though. I doubt we''l ever see such insanity (stupidity) again.

I'm not so sure. They're building houses like crazy around here (I'm not talking about my subdivision, I'm talking in this area in general - Huntsville, AL), and I'm not sure why. There's already a very healthy inventory of houses available on the market - new and existing.

In fact, I had reason to drive up to the other side of town a couple weeks ago, and near my daughter's school I was surprised to see a very large area that had been cleared out and being prepped for a subdivision (laying down sewers, etc), considering there's probably about a dozen other existing subdivisions around the area with space to grow and plenty of houses in the area on the market. Sadly, I know that's not the only new subdivision in that general neighborhood that will be going up in the near future.

It is a bit troubling to me, wondering where all of this money is coming from or expected to be coming from. When you look at a planned subdivision that will be on the neighborhood of 500 or so new homes in the 200-300k range with all the inventory that's on the market right now, something isn't adding up.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

well, good developers should be able to predict when housing will recover.

Maybe this is a sign from the people that know more about housing than anyone else?

 

[mshan]

(SunnyD): Was your area overbuilt (speculative housing builds?) during bubble years?

I think lots of areas were never overbuilt like some parts of California or Florida, Phoenix, Atlanta, or Las Vegas, though home prices may have jumped somewhat because people assumed housing bubble was uniform across country.

If you are in an area where existing home sale sellers are still not realistic about what their homes are really worth (i. e. bought in during bubble years, not a decade or more before that, and are still hopelessly underwater), then new home builder can probably offer competitive pricing, and if they have an in house lending arm, might be able to offer a mortgage to someone who can't get a mortgage from another bank or mortgage lender.

This graph is deceptive because it probably assumes you bought in at absolute bottom of market before rally (http://www.tradingmarkets.com/stocks/commentary/amazing-october-1578670.html), but seems like they have gone from pricing in double dip recession in U. S. / Armageddon in Europe to what appears to be durable housing recovery in U. S. and what appears to be tail risks (Europe, China, Fiscal Cliff; wild card is always war with Iran and huge spike in oil) that can be removed / resolved / at least sufficiently contained going forward:

 

[lothar]

OCZ is literally a nightmare. We have been waiting for RIM's death while touting OCZ as it continues dropping further than anyone could possibly expect. Except for Hugo Drax who somehow knew it would reach $2.

I honestly do not understand how OCZ dropped from a $750 million + valuation down to a current $135 million. Is anyone able to explain how or why this happened?

Not sure why anyone will pick OCZ over RIMM.
I'm pretty sure Hugo Drax wasn't the only one negative on OCZ...I know I was and some people said "fundamentals don't matter" when it comes to picking stocks..."It's going to be a $10-15 stock at the end of the year", etc...
When my posts were getting people upset, I simply didn't want to disturb the herd. Hugo Drax has the balls to be aggressive, not care what other people here think about him, and question people "At what price did you buy OCZ/AMD/XXXXX" to call them out...I don't have much time for things like that any longer, but reading Hugo Drax's posts here certainly had me smirking on the inside.

RIMM has positive FCF. OCZ has never generated positive FCF in it's entire history.

1.) No history of positive FCF. And it's getting worse every year.
2.) Massive shareholder dilution. Share outstanding has increased from 21.3 million to 67.3 million.
3.) Negative interest coverage...Earnings cannot cover their interest expense.
4.) They will forever be at the mercy of the NAND manufacturers. OCZ doesn't know how to make their own NAND, unlike Micron and Samsung.
5.) Poor quality control. Their SSD has the worst failure rate in the industry, look it up.

OCZ...A RIMM, it is not.

 

[lothar]

Oh, looks liek OCZ is working on turning things around:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/916...-a-new-ceo-who-gets-it-is-a-turnaround-likely

Not sure if serious...

 

[sm625]

OCZ isnt even worth 135 million. They are a zero. At this point anyone potentially buying their products has heard enough horror stories to be swayed against it. OCZ has so badly tarnished the reputation of SSDs that companies wont even buy SSDs.... It doesnt even matter anymore even if Vertex 4 turns out to be the most reliable SSD ever made, they're still a zero. Done. Kaput.

 

[hiromizu]

what you guys think about CALM?

 

[KB]

what you guys think about CALM?

CALM looks pretty good.

Low P/E
decent dividend ~3% that has grown
growing revenue
reducing debt

I would have thought higher corn prices would cut into their profits, but it sounds like they have passed the higher costs on to customers.

I would buy this company myself if they weren't so close to their all-time high.

This is one thing that you also need to think about: "Cal-Maine is unusual among U.S. companies in that it pays variable dividends. Lately, that has been a positive for the company, with strong earnings leading to bigger payouts. But if the good times end, then shareholders will suffer the double-hit of dividend reductions as well as possible share-price declines."

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/10/03/has-cal-maine-foods-become-the-perfect-stock/

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

JNJ finally broke $70!

 

[JTsyo]

Seems the Verismo isn't a big hit. GMCR is rising (~9% for the day), not sure if it's all due to this news. Though it did drop a lot when Verismo was announced.

 

[KB]

Seems the Verismo isn't a big hit. GMCR is rising (~9% for the day), not sure if it's all due to this news. Though it did drop a lot when Verismo was announced.

Verismo pods don't look like they are K-cup compatible so no wonder it hasn't caught on. No one wants to be stuck with a non-standard cup and be raped on price. This is the same reason the Keurig Vue system is no where near as popular as K-cups, which are now patent free and anyone can make them. I won't be buying GMCR when Safeway , Kroger, Nestle, Sara Lee, Starbucks and anyone else can make cheaper k-cups.

 

[KB]

Is anyone who was sitting on the sidelines getting back in? Just when I think I am ahead of the markets and see a coming downtrend, it fools me and the market continues rallying.

The market is near 5 year highs but there are still some deals out there. Some of the banks, small and large are doing well and are pretty cheap. PNC and WFC both fell quite a bit but are doing well. Tech is still down and may have more to go, but could see a rebound near Christmas time from device sales.

 

[JTsyo]

Verismo pods don't look like they are K-cup compatible so no wonder it hasn't caught on. No one wants to be stuck with a non-standard cup and be raped on price. This is the same reason the Keurig Vue system is no where near as popular as K-cups, which are now patent free and anyone can make them. I won't be buying GMCR when Safeway , Kroger, Nestle, Sara Lee, Starbucks and anyone else can make cheaper k-cups.

Big news was Kraft foods is testing out K-cups without licensing from Green Mountain. If they are successful I imagine others would follow suit.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Big news was Kraft foods is testing out K-cups without licensing from Green Mountain. If they are successful I imagine others would follow suit.

Green Mountain has all sorts of pantents expiring. Are you sure the one for the K-cup form factor isn't expired? If not, are you sure that kraft is not licensing it?

Green Mountain is basi9cally facing a patent cliff. I think some of their K-cup related patents already started expiring. Suffice it to say, not many people will have to pay $100 for a brewer in a few years and lower cost cups will appear.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Is anyone who was sitting on the sidelines getting back in? Just when I think I am ahead of the markets and see a coming downtrend, it fools me and the market continues rallying.

The market is near 5 year highs but there are still some deals out there. Some of the banks, small and large are doing well and are pretty cheap. PNC and WFC both fell quite a bit but are doing well. Tech is still down and may have more to go, but could see a rebound near Christmas time from device sales.

I'm not rushing to buy. I am worried that I am going to miss the housing rebound though. I think the stocks in that sector that I do follow are fairly priced though.

Anyway, I'm something like 33% cash right now. Hold a bunch of undervalued stocks (I should revisit that notion) and a wild card (RIMM).

 

[JTsyo]

Green Mountain has all sorts of pantents expiring. Are you sure the one for the K-cup form factor isn't expired? If not, are you sure that kraft is not licensing it?

Green Mountain is basi9cally facing a patent cliff. I think some of their K-cup related patents already started expiring. Suffice it to say, not many people will have to pay $100 for a brewer in a few years and lower cost cups will appear.

Yup, they expired in Sept. That's why Kraft is bring out their own K-cup.

 

[Imp]

Is anyone who was sitting on the sidelines getting back in? Just when I think I am ahead of the markets and see a coming downtrend, it fools me and the market continues rallying.

The market is near 5 year highs but there are still some deals out there. Some of the banks, small and large are doing well and are pretty cheap. PNC and WFC both fell quite a bit but are doing well. Tech is still down and may have more to go, but could see a rebound near Christmas time from device sales.

Only "value" I see may be Citigroup among the big banks. And by "value", I mean it once hit $45 ($4.50 before unsplit) during shittier times.

Otherwise, still sitting on a mound of cash.

The Canadian housing crash may finally be a'coming: 15% year over year sales decline in houses last month and at least 10% the month before, years of inventory, condos still being built at every corner, etc.

 

[SunnyD]

Pretty sure we're going to see a good bit of movement on Clearwire today.

 

[JTsyo]

Poor Google had their slip out early. Stock was stopped in trading.

 

[jessieqwert]

big drop for AMD

 

[Imp]

Meh on GOOG. They're doing fine and still well above where they were during the summer when they hovered arund $600 a few times.

Getting tired of sitting on sidelines...

 

[FelixDeCat]

Hellooooooo bear market!

 

[JTsyo]

big drop for AMD

Did they release earnings or is this the pre-earnings drop?

 

[thing1thing2]

Did they release earnings or is this the pre-earnings drop?

Any thoughts of putting some money into AMD for hopes that it becomes an acquisition target?

 

[KB]

Any thoughts of putting some money into AMD for hopes that it becomes an acquisition target?

Looks like they dropped because of analyst downgrades. AMD is cheap so they could be bought easily, but who wants to buy them? Most chip designers/manufacturers are using ARM chips which AMD isn't known for. Intel would be the only buyer, but I don't see that happening as they are already a near monoply on x86 chips and own most of the patents too.