Talking stocks, trading, and investing in general

[jbarwick]

CNBC has a description that says solar something or other.

 

[concealed]

Phew, up 52% premarket to 2.05 and I just sold my last little bit. Walked away down $700 more or less and got back about $12K so close call and I'm glad to be out. Hot damn. I'll still track this out of curiosity to see what happens anyway. Still no news of why any of this is happening. And I still don't know what the company does lol.

This story is hilarious. Thank you for posting. You probably would be better off playing high stakes blackjack at a casino though.

 

[Master-Classter]

I kept playing around a bit today early in the market and am now only down about $400-500 (was down about $8000 or more originally). Nearly there... Will play this for one more night (Friday) and see if I can walk away at least even.

I've read various descriptions of SPI and it's always something about solar energy market but nothing that actually explains what they do. I don't care all that much, I just want out at this point haaa.


Update: LULU which I was also overweight on (ironic?) just jumped 16% so that's good. I had bought the portion size I wanted and then at last report when it dropped I thought I'd catch a bounce so doubled down and then it never really recovered. I had actually trimmed some shares before the report thinking it was going to go down but I'm still at least past my breakeven now. I'll sell half now and keep the other half to see if it can get to 60-70 and then sell it there.

 

[venividivicibj]

I thought you were the one who was down on it?

 

[djblisk]

Anybody investing in VXX or TVIX as a hedge?

 

[stimulacra]

Hit a mini-milestone this week. Did a quick look and see that I'm up 17% over the last 12 months.

Very pleased but looking to optimize and pile on cash reserves for the remainder of 2017 to take advantage of any pullbacks. Anyone here recommend any good strategies that have worked for them? I'm setting all contributions and dividends to cash

Current allocation is 75% stocks, 20% bonds and 5% gold. Earlier this year bonds were closer to 25% but rebalanced more into midcap value. Thinking about reducing my exposure to emerging markets the more I read about it. Europe looks attractive as well.

 

[Master-Classter]

What do I know but if you're investing at a more macro sort of level then I'd say think about political instability hedges, ie gold and bonds, and within equities, if there's lower taxation coming then small caps, and higher interest rates then certain sectors like banking and insurance will benefit so you can grab industry level etf's for those.


Speaking of which, a discussion for you guys. So I was brainstorming about the above trying to think 2-3 years ahead. Do you agree/disagree about those potential changes and therefore the place to put money? As in I see higher interest rates so banks will do well, maybe some higher defaults but overall more money for insurance, and then lower tax rates should benefit small companies, and for the big guys there's the potential lowered tax for repatriation.... based on all that, here's my list of potential companies who could benefit:


Higher interest rates = Banks and Insurance
http://www.investopedia.com/article...ese-sectors-benefit-rising-interest-rates.asp
Bank names that would fit nicely into any portfolio as rates rise include Bank of America Corp. (BAC), which has a substantial presence throughout the U.S.; JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), with its robust operations in the U.S. and worldwide; Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), with widespread investment banking and wealth management services; and Citigroup Inc. (C), which boasts more than 200 million customer accounts and does business in more than 160 countries. Bank of America, among the hardest-hit in the recession, saw its charge-offs drop by 49% in the fourth quarter of 2013 year over year. All banks should benefit from falling charge-offs, better credit ratios and lower loan loss reserves.

On the broker front, companies like E*TRADE Financial Corp. (ETFC), Charles Schwab Corp. (SCHW), and TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. (AMTD), all hold promise during times of escalating rates for similar reasons. A healthy economy sees more investment activity.

Insurance stocks, especially, tend to flourish as rates rise. In fact, the relationship between interest rates and insurance companies is linear and straightforward, meaning the higher the rate, the greater the growth. These same insurance providers – companies such as The Allstate Corp. (ALL), AmTrust Financial Services, Inc. (AFSI), and The Travelers Companies, Inc. (TRV), don’t fare as well in low interest rate climates because their underlying bond investments yield weak returns. Insurers, which have steady cash flows, are compelled to hold lots of safe debt to back the insurance policies they write.

http://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/...benefit-from-rising-interest-rates/index.html
Bank of New York Mellon, Bank of America, Berkshire Hathaway, Capital One Financial, Charles Schwab, Goldman Sachs Group, Paychex, U.S. Bancorp

http://www.fool.ca/2017/03/15/where-to-invest-with-increasing-interest-rates/
Manulife Financial Corp. (TSX:MFC)(NYSE:MFC)
Great-West Lifeco Inc. (TSX:GWO)
Sun Life Financial Inc. (TSX:SLF)(NYSE:SLF)


Overseas repatriation:
Apple Inc $230 billion Dec. 31 Microsoft $116.3 billion Dec. 31 Cisco Systems Inc $60.6 billion Oct. 29 Alphabet Inc $52.2 billion Dec. 31 Oracle Corp $51.4 billion Aug. 31 General Electric Co $38.6 billion Dec. 31 Qualcomm Inc $27.9 billion Dec. 25 Pfizer Inc $14 billion Sept. 30 Intel Corp $13.6 billion Dec. 31 Amazon Inc $8.6 billion Dec. 31 United Technnologies Corp About $6 billion Caterpillar Inc $5 billion Sept. 30 Facebook Inc $5.10 billion Dec. 31 3M Co " $2 billion, Yahoo Inc $426 million Dec. 31


Lower corporate tax rates = small caps benefit
https://www.fool.com/investing/2016/07/02/best-small-cap-etfs.aspx
Russel 2000 (IWM) or Vanguard (VB – from 110 down to 100)
https://cabotwealth.com/daily/small-cap-stocks/5-reasons-bullish-small-caps-2017/
http://advisoranalyst.com/glablog/2017/01/18/is-small-cap-strength-sustainable.html

 

[jbarwick]

EM and EU have outperformed the S&P this year. There are still a lot of inflows into EU and EM ETFs though your choice in EM could be individual markets or broad based allocations. I do not have a specific EM fund but have allocated some to EU and am letting the outperformance run.

If you think about mean reversion, small caps have underperformed quite a bit this year. Also it seems the FANG stocks have accounted for a large portion of the gains on the year so you could pick other stocks and sectors and hope for their performance to increase in the future. I just keep putting money away and allocating to underperforming areas of my portfolio each month.

 

[venividivicibj]

I've been moving towards small cap/international lately. Up around 7% ytd

 

[MSchapiro]

Anybody investing in VXX or TVIX as a hedge?

It's an incredibly expensive hedge. Only going to pay off if your timing is perfect or there is a massive melt down.

EM and EU have outperformed the S&P this year. There are still a lot of inflows into EU and EM ETFs though your choice in EM could be individual markets or broad based allocations. I do not have a specific EM fund but have allocated some to EU and am letting the outperformance run.

If you think about mean reversion, small caps have underperformed quite a bit this year. Also it seems the FANG stocks have accounted for a large portion of the gains on the year so you could pick other stocks and sectors and hope for their performance to increase in the future. I just keep putting money away and allocating to underperforming areas of my portfolio each month.

I went heavily into EM and EU last year. Has been good to see some of the performance this year.

 

[Master-Classter]

Biotech seems to be down across the board....

BMY dropped nearly 5% and I'm adding. It's been moving more or less sideways for a while. Closer to 50 I'll add a good chunk and trim at 58-59. It seems stable enough to hold and all they need is something to come through the pipeline or a buyout and boom and I think one of those activist investor guys like Icah bought in a quarter or two ago.

EPZM - I followed it a couple of years ago and bought and sold around 9-10.50 last summer I think it was. Couldn't believe it recently ran up to 17(?). Seems to have pulled back to mid 13's now. If it hits mid 12's I'd throw a bit of $ at it to see what happens.

GILD - still scraping by there... not that I give recomendations, but seems to me this one is a fairly decent bet. Big company, has seen 90-110 a few times, looks like it's more or less bottomed out and will pay 3-4% dividend to hang in there with potential 20-30% upside potential at least. Plenty of negative sentiment already baked in IMO. Could still drop of course but I'm reading that the HIV sales decline is leveling off.

 

[Master-Classter]

Just watched this and thought it was worth sharing -

 

[stimulacra]

Just watched this and thought it was worth sharing -

Kevin O'Leary makes investing very sound very approachable which is good. Dividends are very easy to grasp conceptually… I think the fact that his mom squirreled away 1/3 of her salary and invested in “widows-and-orphan” stocks over a period of 30-40 years had more to do with anything than the intrinsic superiority of dividends over capital gains. Any reasonable asset allocation would have worked in her case with that savings rate and time horizon.

I enjoyed reading “Dividends Don't Lie” early on in this journey. The value of dividends are discussed endlessly on other forums and the general consensus is that, like stock splits, they're kind of an artifact of the past. Google, Amazon, Berkeshire Hathaway don't pay them and it hasn't really held them back.

When talking to family members just getting into investing, dividends is a useful concept for outlining shareholder value over time versus just pure price speculation.

From a marketing standpoint, I like how Kevin O'leary is able to take the story of his mom's investment savvy, and pitch his investment philosophy and now, O'shares ETF, on morning talk shows and cable tv. Not knocking his style, I think most investors aspire to be able to set up multi-generational foundations or legacy for their children and grand-children.

 

[jbarwick]

So BABA....hated early on and didn't get the love AMZN had but now it is up big YTD.

 

[stimulacra]

So BABA....hated early on and didn't get the love AMZN had but now it is up big YTD.

Help me understand how BABA corresponds to Alibaba Group… If I understand correctly China forbids foreign ownership of Chinese companies, and that BABA are actually shares of a shell corporation in the Cayman Islands. What are owners of BABA actually shareholders of? Shell companies typically are devoid of assets themselves.