***Official*** 2013 Stock Market Thread

[IHateMyJob2004]

Alcoa (AA) is near 52 week lows. Jsut seems beaten down in general. Any thoughts?

 

[richardycc]

bought some Apple 8/23 465 calls. C'mon >$500!

 

[AUMM]

LOL - still ragging on me zimu?

I think you were beaten with a stick by a lot of ATOT members in the last thread. Everyone knows by now my investing method is unconventional. It is NOT a buy and hold, cruise and smooze strategy. There's a higher risk involved, and yes, there's time when it works against you. I had extremely profitable years which is why I gained a big following, and there are some years that were pretty bad (ex. 2011).

I still stalk here and then, but I've been busy traveling for work projects. If you think it's because of the six-figure loss from a couple years back, you are far off my friend.

Full disclosure, my active portfolio is below:

Wow congrats on the gain, now how about using some of that money to refund my "subscription" to your newsletter....paid you up front for 2 years

 

[Michael]

I have had my best year ever on the market. I have been saving for years, so the gain is quite large in absolute dollar terms. Hit a real windfall on one stock. Trying to work out a defensive strategy now to lock in my gains. The tax bill might be quite large on my big winner. 2/3 of the gain is still short-term. There is even a decent chance it might go higher.

I have had good years before (going into 20 years of investing now) but the amount I had invested was small during the last few bull markets. 2008 hit me pretty hard, but I had a cash windfall in 2011 and put a lot of it into the market in safer, dividend paying stocks and ETFs.

Will be spending most of this weekend working on a good, defensive strategy. I generally use covered calls, but when the market is still moving up that just gets your stock called away. Selling it all into cash does not make sense either.... Will be an interesting weekend of thinking.

Michael

 

[Kntx]

Alcoa (AA) is near 52 week lows. Jsut seems beaten down in general. Any thoughts?

I liked Aloca for a while. I thought of it as an economic recovery play. Economy is recovering. Aloca... not so much.

 

[KB]

Alcoa (AA) is near 52 week lows. Jsut seems beaten down in general. Any thoughts?

Aluminum prices are still low thanks to cheap chinese aluminum makers. Metals prices are likely to stay low as few countries are expanding right now. It may make a good long term play, but expect to hold long long term. Meanwhile there are better stocks out there.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

KB,

I was thinking that was the case. I'm going to read into Alcoa this weekend just to verify things.

There are no easy "value" investments out htere that I can find. If you know of any good investments for a value investor, let me know.

 

[mshan]

Competition vs. Oligopolies: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100907808 (news flow on tv suggests to me that market has turned it's focus to more growth oriented names since around time of Bernanke's May initial comments, and that numerous talking heads were already talking about rotation away from defensives even while broad market indexes were still holding up in I think early May)




A Disparate Consumer (aka the Haves and Have Nots...): http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?play=1&video=3000186536 (I believe Disney reports in August, and wouldn't surprise me if they say that they continued to jack up prices above price hikes they implemented last summer, and parks are still overflowing with visitors, and their core customer is spending more than ever, vs. say Walmart, who might say that their core customer is still stressed, has very little discretionary income and is cautious, but don't see as much people flooding into store at times of month when food stamp cards get recharged (IIRC, mulling about store until right after midnight when I think it was said food stamp cards get recharged), like they were observing a few years ago).

http://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpseea05.htm

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2...kforce-levels-are-history/UPI-36981371758288/

http://www.upi.com/Business_News/20...kforce-levels-are-history/UPI-36981371758288/





The Big Picture? (The End of Economic Stagnation):

- http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-...kes-sp500-target-1750-year-end-sees-2100-2015

- http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?play=1&video=3000144148

 

[PimpJuice]

Wow congrats on the gain, now how about using some of that money to refund my "subscription" to your newsletter....paid you up front for 2 years

ROFL, sounds like you got scammed by "TheFinanceStud"

 

[AUMM]

ROFL, sounds like you got scammed by "TheFinanceStud"

yeah, paid him $643.50 up front.

started with a decent newsletter with some good info... soon just became a short email...then nothing

e-mailed him about it and no response either....

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Read up on AA.

I'd consider buying it for $4 or $5 per share.

The big problem is that there is alot of production capacity in the world and alot of it is not being utilized. Even if world demand shot up 20%, I don't think the price of aluminum would go up. It would help AA's FCF but the thing is, withoput any real prospects for FCF growth there is nothing doing.

And reading up on Alcoa made me remember China and how screwed up it is. If China's economy implodes, the whole world will be in deep trouble. But that trouble would probably include the tanking of aluminum prices.

I'm about 20% cash right now. It would require something amazing for me to put that 20% into stock anywhere. I'm actually looking forward to being 50% cash but i need some of my stocks to run up before I exit them.

 

[Imp]

yeah, paid him $643.50 up front.

started with a decent newsletter with some good info... soon just became a short email...then nothing

e-mailed him about it and no response either....

Wow... you paid that much for that...

 

[Nerva]

Alcoa (AA) is near 52 week lows. Jsut seems beaten down in general. Any thoughts?

my ex-boss was the head analyst who used to cover AA at Morgan Stanley. i remember he used to tell me how bad the AA assets are, especially after they sold off all the good assets. unfortunately this is all the commentary i can remember re: AA. Remember though, just because it's at 52-week low, doesn't mean it's a cheap stock. Earnings have declined much more than the share price

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

my ex-boss was the head analyst who used to cover AA at Morgan Stanley. i remember he used to tell me how bad the AA assets are, especially after they sold off all the good assets. unfortunately this is all the commentary i can remember re: AA. Remember though, just because it's at 52-week low, doesn't mean it's a cheap stock. Earnings have declined much more than the share price

Thanks for the comments.

I am basically figuring it would be a good investment at $4-$5 per share. I'll have to look more into assets if it ever gets that low though.

 

[KB]

Thanks for the comments.

I am basically figuring it would be a good investment at $4-$5 per share. I'll have to look more into assets if it ever gets that low though.

Even at $4, AA would be at a PE of 40. At least their dividend would be 3% at that range, but it looks like they would not be able to raise it at all. I would wait till aluminum companies start going bankrupt and Alcoa is one of the last ones left. Then they may have better pricing pressure.



I have had trouble finding value too, so I am about 40% cash. My latest holdings have mostly been regional banks: LARK, NHTB, CZNC. My hope is that increasing interest rates on home loans, car loans, and home equity loans from growing home prices will result in more earnings growth. Plus they pay decent dividends > 3.5%, have low PEs, are acquiring other banks and are always an acquisition target themselves. The only problem is that they are small cap so they don't sell alot and can be volatile.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

KB,

Not a bad plan.

But Alcoa is generating Free Cash Flow which is all I really care about. Thing is, at current levels, it's fairly valued in FCF terms. If it gets to $4, it gives a 3% yield and is undervalued. That's how I roll.

I think I was reading that some aluminum makers are already clsoing up shop. I can not recall though if it was aluminum or some other busienss altogether that is seeing manufacturing getting shut down.

FBN currently has an $11 million market cap. Yes ... that's million. Quite hte fall from grace they have had. If it keeps falling, it might be a tempting stock to throw $100 at.

My current holdings (ignoring retirement accounts):
SD
RFP
BBRY
15%-20% cash

That's it.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

KB,

Go take a look at SD. The turnaround in that company (after canning the CEO) might be started.

 

[JTsyo]

Man FMCC took a hit today. At this point I'm going to ride to where ever it ends up.

 

[SSSnail]

The most ridiculous hit today was XCO, down -9.34% after earning miss of $0.01cent, 1 freaking penny. And that's 100% increased over the prior year same quarter.

 

[richardycc]

bought some LITB today, a B2C Amazon wannabe from China. The stuff they sell aren't that great, mostly clothing, wedding dresses, faucets, housewares, etc, all unknown Chinese brands. They did their IPO back in June at around $9-11/share, now is at almost $18/share. second quarter earnings coming out on 8/19, this will be their first quarterly results as a public company. One of the reasons I bought was because of their CEO. Impression background. He was Google China's chief strategist and quit there to co-found this company in 2008. I am still doing my own DD on the company, not much useful info out there....good luck to me.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Fun watching FBN tank. It now has a market cap of $9.5 million. Now it is seriously getting tempting to throw a few bucks at but I need to read more about it and be certain that a turnaround (admitadly doubtful) is coming.

Thought the same thing about PIR also and boy was I wrong. People that saw that turnaround coming are millinaires.

 

[Imp]

Damn. I am so lazy. Was going to score some POT after the cartel broke up and their stock crashed >20%... didn't bother to check and it's up over 6% already in the past few days.

 

[sm625]

long FAZ Sep 2013 28.000 put @ $1.00

This is a short on an inverse ETF so it means I'm long. I think the big move is coming this week but nonetheless am not dealing in august options that are expiring this week. If my last trade went as good as the previous ones, I no doubt would have jumped on the august puts.

 

[Hugo Drax]

LOL - still ragging on me zimu?

I think you were beaten with a stick by a lot of ATOT members in the last thread. Everyone knows by now my investing method is unconventional. It is NOT a buy and hold, cruise and smooze strategy. There's a higher risk involved, and yes, there's time when it works against you. I had extremely profitable years which is why I gained a big following, and there are some years that were pretty bad (ex. 2011).

I still stalk here and then, but I've been busy traveling for work projects. If you think it's because of the six-figure loss from a couple years back, you are far off my friend.

Full disclosure, my active portfolio is below:

The real trick is in the value, how much capital was put at risk to generate those returns YTD.

There is a big difference, between turning 2.5K into 5K and turning 250K into 500K in 1 year

 

[Imp]

Ah, BB is rallying on speculation... 25% in 3 days?

Tempted to go all in and make a ton in a week. On the other hand, I could lost a huge chunk with one leaked rumor.