Another day at the casino, and the markets are trying to crawl higher despite the ugly reaction to a decent fundamental Google report. Google’s down 6% on the day and having a hard time stabilizing, despite my theory last night that we’d likely see it trade to flat today in reaction to that report. Google […]
Remember — it’s not the news that matte…
Remember — it’s not the news that matters, but the market’s reaction to the news that matters. Google reports… Topline at $6.54 billion is about 5% better than consensus. Bottomline at $8.08 per share is inline versus the $8.10 consensus. The media will call it a miss, but it would be a miss if […]
The only trigger I pulled today was putt…
The only trigger I pulled today was putting a down payment on some acreage here in my hometown of Ruidoso. No stock trades, which is no surprise given my wanting to get through earnings season before doing much more stock/option trading for now. Here comes Google. Buckle up!
I’m republishing this for the email subs…
I’m republishing this for the email subscribers so you can tell where Marcin’s comments stop and mine start (look for the =====) One of my Wall Street mentors wrote the following today: Robert Marcin The Hubris of The Bulls… 4/14/2011 10:37 AM EDT Not the equity bulls. They had their head chopped off in 2008-2009. […]
One of my Wall Street mentors wrote the …
One of my Wall Street mentors wrote the following today: Robert Marcin The Hubris of The Bulls… 4/14/2011 10:37 AM EDT Not the equity bulls. They had their head chopped off in 2008-2009. Even after a historic rally, they are subdued. I mean the commodity/precious metal bulls, currently the most arrogant group of investors on […]
I was asked yesterday to comment on the …
I was asked yesterday to comment on the budget and debt ceiling “crises” by a subscriber who wondered why I hadn’t been talking much about them and how they could affect our portfolio. After all, those two topics are typically dominating the business pages and business TV shows these days. The reason I’ve been mostly […]
Things are heating up for Lender Process…
Things are heating up for Lender Processing Services…here are a couple articles detailing how bad LPS is losing in the courts. First, from David Foster of Height Analytics: As background, this involves The Wilsons (homeowner), LPS, and OptionOne. Fidelity is part of LPS, Cash and Goebel represent LPS, Simmons and Boles represent OptionOne. The court […]
They say one of the things that separate…
They say one of the things that separates the great NFL quarterbacks from the the lesser ones is the amount of time the Peytons and Bradys put in watching film. They go back and watch the replays of their best and worst moves so they learn from experience. Great traders do the same. So, let’s […]
A little bit of lift this morning in the…
A little bit of lift this morning in the broader stock markets to counter yesterday’s deflating action. Quarterly earnings reports are indeed catalyzing some big moves. Oh, including Riverbed. Nice 15% pop after the company reported a better than expected quarter and guided higher for next. I bought more last week – hope you did […]
Whoa, it’s been a straight down day of a…
Whoa, it’s been a straight down day of action since the open and we’re finally stabilized here down about 1%. It could get be a wild day with another 1% intraday move either up or down before this day is over, given that we’ve been so flattish for so long. Easy does it but if […]
Once again it looks like we will muddle …
Once again it looks like we will muddle through the day as we have barely gotten to the tip of the earnings iceberg. Riverbed is down more than a buck fifty…sort of like a two-by-four across the forehead with your morning coffee. As you know, I am trying to be patient until we get past […]
Well, wasn’t that exciting? The DJIA fi…
Well, wasn’t that exciting? The DJIA finished up 1/100th of 1% higher by the close. And we came in for that action today! Sigh. Earnings start full blast tomorrow and by Thursday after the close we’ll have tech biggie Google reporting. I’m long a small common stock position in Google as we enter that report, […]
I nibbled on some…
I nibbled on some Adtran common stock. And I shorted a tiny bit of Cablevision. These two trades aren’t necessarily for earnings season or anything…they’re longer term positions that I just didn’t have on the sheets yet. Here’s my Adtran analysis: Adtran is an old name in the land of communications equipment with more than […]
Okay, as we start this week, I’m well-re…
Okay, as we start this week, I’m well-rested, prepared and ready to confront earnings season with a clear head and emotions checked. I’ll readily admit that I’m outright excited to see how our stocks react to earnings season. I do think some of the recently highlighted near-term earnings trades are technically set up nicely […]
Sloppy into the close is how it goes. I…
Sloppy into the close is how it goes. It’s the Friday contra hour and it’s a sloppy one, but the DJIA is still up more than 1% for the week. And we’re up 800 points from the bottom put in during the Japan crisis a few weeks ago. It’s been a very long week and […]
Flattish open as we crawl into earnings …
Flattish open as we crawl into earnings season starting next week when the fireworks should really start. The biggest question, as usual, is what fundamentals are priced into these markets? We see Corning this morning getting hit at the open for a couple percent and it’s now almost back to the levels it was before […]
Wow, it got ugly into the close. The sh…
Wow, it got ugly into the close. The shorts we’ve been scaling into save the daily profit and loss on the sheets, but we’re still down on the day. I got the follow question after my last post about Riverbed: Portfolio amount was great. Don’t know what low $30’s mean and next few months mean! […]
I threw a tiny bit of capital at some Ri…
I threw a tiny bit of capital at some Riverbed calls at strike prices in the low $30s that will expire over the next few months. Any capital put into such a trade needs to be able to be written off completely as there’s 100% downside if the stock falls from here and doesn’t […]
Had a long trip home, but I got a great…
Had a long trip home, but I got a great night’s sleep and have been cranking since early this morning. A well-rested trader is one who thinks more lucidly. Most of our positions are still less than half of what I want them to be, but I’m mostly continuing to work on the short side […]
The gentle steady rally action continues…
The gentle steady rally action continues its recent trend this morning. We’ve got a nice rally in Cisco again this morning. It was up 4% earlier. The question will be what happens the rest of the day – yesterday it faded and barely closed up on the day. Cisco’s CEO John Chambers sent a letter […]