let's talk stocks!

[VikingKing]

I don't like to mess around with the market. I've got a SPIA (Single premium indexed annuity) and I'm REALLY conservative with my 401(k).

Slow and steady wins the pace.

When everybody was losing money in 2008, mine was protected, and I came out ahead.

That's what my dad an uncles did. They paid attention, and moved there money before all that sh!t happend. Mostly to government bonds, or somthing stable like that.

 

[Poonani Maker]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOS8QgAQO-k
With what's going on these days, I think that you can only trade with a 3-6 month time horizon, sometimes a year profit thesis..

You may get lucky day trading a couple of times, but one of these hedge funds is gonna eventually take you out! and no stop-loss, trailing stop, etc is gonna stop it from breaking you, it will blow right through it without selling or getting triggered and then you're fvcked. It's happened to me consecutively, in trades when I traded, like, as if, they Knew the exact trade I was making and triggered my stop way below almost immediately after...Someone is seeing my orders!

 

[Poonani Maker]

I have been in TBT the longest of any other trade in my account.

I am in 2 silver mines that are Really skyrocketing right now, back to Even after a long time down.

I'm in a pharmaceutical called MSTX, bought spur-of-the-moment 2 years ago based off if an expert trader I used to follow in a chat room. The Moment I bought that it went down down down for over a year, now it is back to even from when I bought it 10 seconds after he did. So I was stuck, now I am even, in all of these.

And lastly, I'm in a tech stock I chose 2 years ago, it's been All over the place, and I doubled down when it hit a very low level, and now it's above my first purchase, so, I'm up about 100% but I expect it to go up 400%. What pleases me is that it's NEW, you can talk about it with any banker you see cause they know about it, and I usually talk with bankers daily, and finally, it's got a lot of activity...shares thrown back and forth daily...and it's just above $5, which is the mark at which hedge funds usually take interest in a smallcap.

I'm not looking to make millions, I'm looking to break even from the last 3-4 years of heavy losses (which I consider to be a Learning experience, like School, you know, you go to class to learn, and you pay tuition of 20 grand or more, 50, 100 even, so what I lost was maybe a fraction of that, and this "schooling" was way better than ANY fvckin college course had to offer because it's in your FACE and Your hard-earned money that's being thrown about, unlike college which most of the time is your parents' money, and at the whims of Teachers and stupid as5 tests, nothing substantial like REAL-WORLD opposition! nothing to gain traction, your rubber hits the road when you're battling others in the markets, whether real (like antiques, physical assets, real estate) or financial (stock and bonds etc).

 

[Vice]

I am in 2 silver mines that are Really skyrocketing right now, back to Even after a long time down.

Yeah, I made a nice chunk of change on Friday with silver. What mines are you in, if you don't mind me asking?

Looking forward to buying another piece of real estate after I exit my position. Just raised rent on my rental property by $100 per month. Starting to love having passive money trickle in, it beats the hell out of having to get a part time job like the rest of my peers in college. I have very low overhead and I'm loving being able to do what I want.

 

[LiveFreeX]

here's no cheap land in the vancouver/lowermainland. A 3bdrm townhouse is 450,000 average. Housing is ridiculas. There is new rules in British columbia about purchasing homes too. Can't amortize for more than 25 years now and no more zero down. On top of the you have to have a minimum of 25% down now. At the current rate of property value increasing the average person can't keep up with the rising costs of housing. The home I currently live in (renting) I get a screaming deal and won't give it up til I have to. (900 per month for a 5bdrm that should be over 2k rent a month) my landlord told me her last appraisal and its 725k. Property values go up like 50k a year which means you gotta save 25k a year just to keep up with inflation. Sucks.

I doubt the canadian housing will take a hit like usa did. I just can't see it. They have set it up in such a way to protect it and I can't save my money fast enough to afford to stop renting here. If I moved farther north I could afford but work is hard to come by for my field.

Also China has been buying up property and leaving it empty all over vancouver. Almost like some sort of realestate hostile takeover. *shrugs*
_

was just going to say, you can blame China for Canada's housing bubble. If you've been paying attention to immigration laws, they just stopped the millionaires being allowed to buy their passports into Canada for this very reason. I can't wait till it pops.

 

[synergy1]

Does anyone know anything about corporate "turnarounds"? The most relevant example I can think of is JC Penny who has been losing net income for at least the last 2/3 years straight. They tried Hiring a new CEO but their strategy has been for nothing, and the stock price has been hammered down to about 5 dollars ( up to 7 on friday which would have given a daring speculator a 25% return in a day). Given the negative earnings per share for the past few years, there is no "margin of Safety" to the stock meaning that its intrinsic value is lower than what it is selling for based on the most recent reports. However, given the ups/downs the retail industry experiences...and if you were confident that JC Penny could turn a net profit, their stock value is severely under priced with a large Margin of Safety. That being said , I don't know anything about retail or the predictability of earnings for a company like this.

Downsides:

- Low earnings to debt. The company is not conservatively financed. It has a lot of long term debt and not much cash ( and marketable securities) on hand as of 2013.
- Commodity market - retail is cost competitive, and investors wildly respond to earnings reports for these types of companies.
- It may never turn around

Pros:

- JC penny has been around for a long time, and when the economy was good, they made money.
- If they manage to string together several quarters of making money and even if they trade at a reasonable price to earnings ( say 15), the price will skyrocket.
- Even if they manage to earn 1 dollar per share, the company will be valued at 14 dollars ( which is twice what its selling for now). Lets say they get to 2008 levels, the value would be 36 dollars. Assuming a best case scenario at the economy is back to 2006 levels, and the value is up to 66 dollars. With a price to earnings ratio of anywhere from 6-20, do the math.

In conclusion, a turnaround could net an investor a good amount of money in only a few short years. However, retail is unpredictable, as is the economy which would both be deciding factors in where this company is going from here on out. What similarities does JCP have to another turnaround story like Pier 1 imports - a company who's stock price went from 0.11 cents in 2009 to 20 dollars in 2014. A 10,000 dollar investment in Pier 1 in 2009 would make you a millionaire today, of course before long term Cap gains is applied

Don't take this as investment advice as much as it is rumination about situations that are out there. My personal opinion so far is that JCP is not a fundamentally sound company, and I have no long position therein. But, maybe a little "gambling" money just to see where it goes could be fun!

 

[Poonani Maker]

Yeah, I made a nice chunk of change on Friday with silver. What mines are you in, if you don't mind me asking?

Looking forward to buying another piece of real estate after I exit my position. Just raised rent on my rental property by $100 per month. Starting to love having passive money trickle in, it beats the hell out of having to get a part time job like the rest of my peers in college. I have very low overhead and I'm loving being able to do what I want.

i'm in Fortuna Silver Mines (FSM), and another AUNFF These both have high betas...one of the parameters I used in my scans back then to only include stock that are very volatile for short-term swings at the time, should have taken the profits in both of those back then but I got greedy.

But...ones back then that I took profits in that I should have been greedy with are XIN, MWA (especially - I SAW this one as solid, but I sold for a measly 20% gain holding over only 2 weeks), and a pharmaceutical I was in at $1.20 --- sold for a nice 20% gain at the time, but Now....it's $6

 

[Bible_Belt]

An elderly relative bought me a JCP gift card years ago. I still have it, because I can never find anything at the store I want, even as a gift. I can't even find anything I would want to give as a gift to someone else.

JCP is a store for old people, and their demographic is dying off. Unless they drastically re-invent themselves, the company's days are numbered. The only hope I see for the stock is JCP getting bought out, but that probably won't happen if they have so much debt, especially at the current share price. .50/share seems more realistic than $5/share.

 

[synergy1]

An elderly relative bought me a JCP gift card years ago. I still have it, because I can never find anything at the store I want, even as a gift. I can't even find anything I would want to give as a gift to someone else.

JCP is a store for old people, and their demographic is dying off. Unless they drastically re-invent themselves, the company's days are numbered. The only hope I see for the stock is JCP getting bought out, but that probably won't happen if they have so much debt, especially at the current share price. .50/share seems more realistic than $5/share.

50 cent(s) doesn't even provide a margin of safety given their most recent earnings. And it'll be interesting to see if they can adapt or die out like Circuit city did. Best buy is on the way out now as well - one could argue that the entire business model is dying out.

Will have to wait and see. The purpose of my last post was to incite more ideas that propose buying JCP. There are better companies out there now with better long term prospects at attractive prices..

 

[AAAgent]

in @ JCP - 6.10
+30%

in @ NUGT - 51
-6%

in @ ATVI - 19.65
0%


I would be in nflx and tsla just because of the hype and they're products/companies i believe in but just too high for my bankroll now. I owned nflx back when it was 150, and 206 and made decent profits off of it.

 

[Epimanes]

I'm taking a gamble with WPCS right now. Buying on the bitcoin fear. Anyone else following the mt gox bitcoin issues?

Edit: you guys should have jumped on the fmcc bandwagon. Went from 2.75 to 4.90 and currently in a pullback at 4.60. Got a few bucks from that one.

 

[synergy1]

in @ JCP - 6.10
+30%

in @ NUGT - 51
-6%

in @ ATVI - 19.65
0%


I would be in nflx and tsla just because of the hype and they're products/companies i believe in but just too high for my bankroll now. I owned nflx back when it was 150, and 206 and made decent profits off of it.

ATVI has made my list back in October and I researched it a little bit - It has excellent return on invested capital and is selling relatively cheaply. If I had to guess, I'd say its selling cheaply due to investors fear about its prospective growth as ATVI (The owners of Blizzard entertainment and the world of warcraft series) is running out of steam. World of warcraft was a cash cow for ATVI, but the game has been in a slow decline for the past few years. Wallstreet values it as such.

But, if they manage to keep producing good or new products, expect this cheap valuation to provide a decent upside. To that end I cannot speak, but ATVI certainly warrants some due diligence for sure. Hope you make some money on your purchases!

Disclosure: I have no position in ATVI.

 

[AAAgent]

I have played all of blizzards games, a few of activisions (for those of you who don't know ATVI is both companies merged together called ActivisionBlizzard).

Starcraft 2 basically started e-sports. very widely popular still but not sure how much money it generates.

Diablo 3 was crippled by it's horrible item system/auction house which is supposedly fixed after 2 years of patching and the new expansion coming out in April. I'm buying the expansion of the regular game. This should bring alot of people back as it was extremely popular back when i was younger (diablo 2).

hearthstone - Warcraft version of Magic the Gathering online. turn based magic card game based off characters from war craft. Free to play and still in Beta. Free to play games are becoming extremely popular and i see this gaining traction when it's released.

Heroes of the storm - Blizzards version of Dota/League of Legends (number 1 e-sport online). blizzard is known to make the games with the best graphics, interfaces, and game experience so i see this doing well against LOL & Dota 2.

WoW- still brings in some money but i'm not investing based off this cash cow. I don't play this game anymore as it's too time consuming.

This is not including much fo activision and COD.

based off of Starcraft 2's final expansion that's still waiting to be released in a year or two, Hearthstone to be released this year, Diablo 3 expansion to be released next month and bring back many disgruntled players, and Heroes of the Storm, i see blizzard doing well. not to mentioning they're no longer owned by that french company and still are cash positive.

 

[AAAgent]

@jcp ^$9.27
^50%

 

[synergy1]

@jcp ^$9.27
^50%

I am still not sold on the turnaround, which of course would unveil itself over the years and if successful would still provide a great return investing even now.

I will admit it would be nice to have gotten 50% since last week, but can't jump in now as I am not convinced of anything now just like last week. But to your point, if you bought in last week, congrats on the return!

 

[AAAgent]

I am still not sold on the turnaround, which of course would unveil itself over the years and if successful would still provide a great return investing even now.

I will admit it would be nice to have gotten 50% since last week, but can't jump in now as I am not convinced of anything now just like last week. But to your point, if you bought in last week, congrats on the return!

I didn't buy JCP because i believe it would turn around. I bought JCP because i believe it was undervalued at $6 a share. I took a gamble and it paid off. sold most of my position and made a few hundred on top of my principal. I'm riding the rest for a bit.

ATVI will hold for atleast 6 months as i believe the next year will be great for blizzard. Hopefully Activision doesn't screw ATVI too much.
edit: Hearthstone launched early and was unexpectedly launched last night....ATVI up 2%.


NUGT - just a gamble. boom or bust type of thing. I made 100% off gold last year and am hoping for a decent profit again.
edit: just sold at $54.7 all of my position.

TSLA - just got in tsla (@ 238 ^2%atm) for a meager few shares. Even with the whole Jersey thing, i like this company and the hype. Dealerships are probably funneling money to Christy to make it tougher on TSLA but with Christy's crew already being investigated and i believe he will be somehow tied to this, TSLA should be alright. Even if they have to sell through dealerships in Jersey, demand will still be there.

 

[synergy1]

I'd consider Blizzard/ Activision one of those "stalwart" companies that has been around for some time, and established itself as such. Think Walmart, IBM, and the like. While a downside is possible with any industry and market corrections, in general your principal capital will be preserved in the long run, but one won't see the same appreciation as a younger, less followed company. I.E don't expect any home runs like you could have with GTAT ( GT advanced technologies). Both of which made Joel Greenbalat's list - its likely the smaller company that will be able to grow in new areas which will catch wall streets attention and grow significantly. in GTAT's case, it recently struck a half a billion dollar deal with Apple which in turn skyrocketed the stock from 4 dollars per share in march 2013 to its present value of approximately 16 dollars per share ( and still has a margin of safety given its earnings). To put it succinctly, both ATVI and GTAT in this case had comparable returns on invested capital ( both very high) and earnings yield ( both were cheap). GTAT in this case has won out because much of its growth was undiscovered as of only 12 months ago, while ATVI is well covered.

A few of my potions right now include unpopular industries ITT schools ( ESI), and a cigarette company (LO), and Herbalife ( the stock thats being investigated by Will Ackman) - all of which have solid 10 year histories but are driven down in price by circumstances. While its not prudent to judge on the short term for these cases - a few of my investments since last year are already up 30%, while some are down. However much of my choices were not based on the circumstances on the company and this could prove to be not the best way to have investigated the companies at hand. Likely I'll be exiting my 20-30% positions and putting money into some special situations and asset plays from here on out...specifically spinoffs, or turnarounds if any exist.

 

[AAAgent]

I'd consider Blizzard/ Activision one of those "stalwart" companies that has been around for some time, and established itself as such. Think Walmart, IBM, and the like. While a downside is possible with any industry and market corrections, in general your principal capital will be preserved in the long run, but one won't see the same appreciation as a younger, less followed company. I.E don't expect any home runs like you could have with GTAT ( GT advanced technologies). Both of which made Joel Greenbalat's list - its likely the smaller company that will be able to grow in new areas which will catch wall streets attention and grow significantly. in GTAT's case, it recently struck a half a billion dollar deal with Apple which in turn skyrocketed the stock from 4 dollars per share in march 2013 to its present value of approximately 16 dollars per share ( and still has a margin of safety given its earnings). To put it succinctly, both ATVI and GTAT in this case had comparable returns on invested capital ( both very high) and earnings yield ( both were cheap). GTAT in this case has won out because much of its growth was undiscovered as of only 12 months ago, while ATVI is well covered.

A few of my potions right now include unpopular industries ITT schools ( ESI), and a cigarette company (LO), and Herbalife ( the stock thats being investigated by Will Ackman) - all of which have solid 10 year histories but are driven down in price by circumstances. While its not prudent to judge on the short term for these cases - a few of my investments since last year are already up 30%, while some are down. However much of my choices were not based on the circumstances on the company and this could prove to be not the best way to have investigated the companies at hand. Likely I'll be exiting my 20-30% positions and putting money into some special situations and asset plays from here on out...specifically spinoffs, or turnarounds if any exist.

That's a pure speculative play and the majority of people that make these plays normally lose their money. It's like investing in penny stocks or pharma companies that are on the edge of getting their drug FDA approved. Buying a company hoping that it gets bought out and you get double your money or more is pretty stupid. If this were a great idea, everyone would be millionaires. Sadly no one has a crystal ball and we're not all millionaires yet.

NUGT is already risky enough for me. I pulled the trigger early assuming Russia was going to back off. They didn't and Gold kept going higher with China fears. I could have made an additional $5 a share if i just held on 2 more hours .

On top of what you said about ATVI, it was just upgraded and has continued to hit 52wk highs this past week. I believe this year will be a good year for ATVI. not your typical lackluster $1-3 swing. It's already up $4 from the beginning of the year and i see it going up to 25-26.

----

Anyone else willing to disclose their positions?

 

[Poonani Maker]

Does anyone use stockcharts.com? If so, what scans do you use? The parameters you set..to bring back a handful of stocks..as you can't look at ALL stocks, it's impossible

You have to pay a subscription, if you run scans.

 

[Bible_Belt]

52-week highs are my favorite scan. Then throw out the low volume stocks and start looking at charts. It's not that you immediately buy everything that hits the 52 wk high, but those are the stocks to watch. A good entry point is after they back off the high a little and consolidate sideways.

End of day scans should be free. Scottrade used to give away their real-time scanner for free. Other web sites I have used for scanning include yahoo finance and cbs marketwatch.

If you trade enough, at some point you will find that paying for a data feed and better software is worth your time. Metastock is complex, but popular. I used to use Realtick. E-signal was another popular data feed. Sometimes it is worth it to open an account at a particular brokerage just to use their software.