More Money Monday – Corporate America’s $2Tn Pile of Cash
by Phil - July 12th, 2010 7:22 am
$2,000,000,000,000 is a lot of cash.
That’s about how much America’s 500 largest NON-FINANCIAL companies have on their books. This is up about $500,000,000,000 from last year as 2010 has been very, very good for corporate profits, which are growing at a 36% pace this year and we’ll get a better insight into that this earnings season. Right now, our biggest problem is a lack of faith in the economy. As we noted last week, temp hiring is near records but real hiring is not there at all – companies are using what turnaround there is to save up for the next rainy day.
Sales are still weak but profit margins have expanded tremendously and Poor Sales is still listed as the single most important problem by 30% of the CEO’s surveyed, followed by Taxes (22%) and Regulations (13%). If poor sales to the consumer are the main problem, then what is the logic of laying off more workers and lobbying against more stimulus? As Brett Arends noted this weekend, we are hardly sliding into Socialism with Federal Spending at 25% of the economy this year vs. 23.5% under Reagan – and he didn’t have a $1Tn annual military budget (his was $200Bn and was considered out of control at the time) nor did he have a $400Bn annual interest payment on existing debt (Reagan pretty much invented modern debt – before him, we had the same debt since WWII).
Lack of consumer spending is the prime factor holding back the recovery at the moment and who can blame them. Unemployment has sidelined 22% (not a typo) of the men aged 25-65 in America. That does not count those who are working part-time or full-time at low-paying jobs – that is 18M men between 25 and 65 in the United States of America who have no jobs at all! And what does our government do about it? They cut off their unemployment benefits – as if there are 18M job openings and these guys are just lazy…
There were, in fact, 3.1M job openings in April and that was up 24% from last year so that means that "just" 14.9M American men of working age are structurally unemployed. Structural unemployment is joblessness caused not by lack of demand, but by changes in demand patterns or obsolescence of technology, and requiring retraining of workers and large investment in new capital…
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Thursday Already? This Week Is Flying By!
by Phil - July 8th, 2010 7:55 am
Woops – blink and you miss an opportunity in this market (see David Fry’s chart).
This is where we (fundamental analysts) have a great advantage over the TA crowd. We don’t need to wait for "confirmation" of some pattern to tell us when to buy. I tell members that waiting for TA signals is like going to a store and seeing your favorite jeans on sale for 30% off but then refusing to buy until you see other people buying them – by which time you often miss your chance as they sell out.
TA people don’t believe stocks have a "value" outside of what the "trend" says the value is. If I say: "Hey, you can buy C for $3.65" they don’t say "How much can I buy?" they say "which way is it heading?" If I say: "BAC is down to $13.50 and you know that includes MER for FREE!" they say "yeah but they are forming a right shoulder." I’m not a contrarian – really, I’m not. I just believe things have actual long-term values.
I told Members to run out and buy Toyotas on sale (cars, not the stock) when they had the big recall because it was a known issue so the new ones wouldn’t have problems and and meanwhile dealers were giving all kinds of crazy incentives. A Camry that was worth $30,000 on Monday is a good deal at $25,000 on Friday isn’t it? Should you stand at the dealership and say "Well, I like the Camry but the price is forming a right shoulder pattern and I can extrapolate that the price will be $15,000 if it breaks the trend-line from 1987." If you said that, people would think you were an idiot, right? Why should a stock be different?
On Monday I detailed my 9 Favorite Dow Plays (+WFR to make 10) and not only do we look for stocks that are already "on sale" but we have a coupon, in the form of our FABULOUS Buy/Write Strategy, to give ourselves an additional 20% discount off today’s low prices. How can people say no? Yet they do say no to net 50% discounts on Dow components and I do get frustrated as it’s obvious to me that it’s a barrage of media negativity that scares people and keeps them on the sidelines, just when a stock sale is reaching it’s peak discount.
We’ve been very fortunate to…
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Options Tacticians Target Pfizer, Inc.
by Andrew Wilkinson - July 2nd, 2010 4:45 pm
Today’s tickers: PFE, EWZ, BAC, JNPR, RHB, GENZ, MRVL & SKX
PFE – Pfizer, Inc. – Options strategists initiated diverse transactions on the global pharmaceutical company today with shares of the underlying stock slipping 0.75% lower to arrive at $14.12 in afternoon trading. One investor expecting Pfizer’s shares to remain range-bound through August expiration sold a straddle, while a pessimistic trader enacted a ratio put spread in the January 2011 contract. The short straddle took place at the August $15 strike where approximately 10,000 calls were sold for an average premium of $0.27 apiece, in conjunction with the sale of about 10,000 in-the-money puts for an average premium of $1.28 each. The straddle-seller pockets a gross premium of $1.55 per contract on the transaction, keeping the full amount of premium received if Pfizer’s shares settle at $15.00 at expiration. Shares must rally 6.2% in the next couple of months to reach $15.00 by expiration day in August. The short stance taken in both call and put options expose the responsible party to potentially devastating losses in the event that shares swing dramatically in either direction away from the $15.00 strike price. Losses accumulate for the straddler if PFE’s shares rally above the upper breakeven price of $16.55, or should shares slip beneath the lower breakeven point at $13.45 ahead of expiration. In longer-dated January 2010 options, a bearish trader wary of continued erosion in the price of Pfizer’s shares established a ratio put spread. The investor purchased 10,000 puts at the August $14 strike for a premium of $1.47 each, and sold 20,000 puts at the lower August $11 strike for a premium of $0.49 a-pop. Net premium paid for the transaction amounts to $0.49 per contract. The trader is poised to profit if shares of the pharmaceutical company decline 4.3% from the current price of $14.12 to breach the effective breakeven point on the spread at $13.51 by January 2011 expiration day. Maximum available profits of $2.51 per contract pad the investor’s wallet if Pfizer’s shares plummet 22.00% to settle at $11.00 at expiration.
EWZ – iShares MSCI Brazil Index ETF – Shares of the EWZ, an exchange-traded fund designed to provide investment results that correspond to the price and yield performance of publicly traded securities in the aggregate in the Brazilian market as measured by the MSCI Brazil Index, rallied 0.70% to $63.40 by 2:30 pm (ET). Despite…
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Which Way Wednesday – Pattern Recognition Special
by Phil - June 30th, 2010 8:27 am
Head and shoulders, knees and toes.
Sorry, I can’t think head and shoulders without adding the second part thanks to the darned Wiggles, which my kids were raised on – better than Barney, at least… The head and shoulders investors care about is the chart pattern (from the Chart Store) and, frankly, I could make a knees and toes case by extrapolating the left side of this disaster (which was actually a great bull run but would not be as much fun if we flip it).
TA is all about symmetry and pattern recognition, two things that are hard-wired into the pleasure center of the animal brain to help us develop cognitive skills early in life. Humans love finding patterns – it makes us happy. In this particular case, the fact that stocks go up and down and then get overbought and then get oversold as they correct to the mean has been cleverly identified by one primate (and I hope he gets a copyright fee) as a "head and shoulders" pattern and all the other media primates gather around the great obelisk and they howl and shriek at you every day and they cast their bones and make proclamatiotion as to what it foretells.
Unfortunately, Technical Analysis has so many devout followers that it often becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Even worse (and certainly more significant) than the head and shoulders pattern is the coincident "death cross" or "dark cross" that is being formed on our indexes (see yesterday’s post) as the 50-day moving average falls below the 200-day moving average, as indicated on this chart from Barry Ritholtz:
Mary Ann Bartels, Chief Bone-Caster at BAC, made the follwing prediction about the pattern she was seeing:
June 23, 2010 marked the 1-year anniversary of last June’s bullish Golden Cross of the 50-day moving average above the 200-day moving average. This Golden Cross signal preceded a 12-month return of 22.4% on the S&P 500. The average 12-month return for the 42 Golden Crosses that have occurred since 1928 is 9.6%. More importantly, the June 23, 2009 signal occurred during the NBER recession that began in December 2007 and Golden Crosses associated with recessions show a much stronger average 12-month return of 19.5%. The average 12-month return for the S&P 500 over the same period is 7.2%…
The bearish counterpart of the Golden Cross is called a Dark Cross. This signal
…
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Financial Regulation Friday – Finally!
by Phil - June 25th, 2010 8:22 am
Yipeee, financial regulation!
That’s all I’m going to say about it. I’m sure there will be thousands of places to read all about it all weekend. I’ll just say that it’s about freakin’ time SOMEBODY did SOMETHING to reign in the madness. Whether it’s a good bill or a bad bill doesn’t really matter as much as the concept that financial institutions NEED to be regulated. The rest we can get right over time. I consider this to be a huge market positive because the Financial sector has grown like a cancer on the markets since deregulation. When corporate profits totaled $4Tn in the 80s, the Financial sector made $400Bn – now that coprorate profits are $6Tn, the Financials make $2.5Tn – that’s 40% of all the money earned in corporate America and ALL of 2 decades worth of growth going to the Financials!
Not only that, but that $2.5Tn is AFTER bonuses and dividends that add another $2.5Tn to the total so out of $8.5Tn earned in corprorate America, 60% goes to one sector. That’s what a cancer does, it sucks resources away from the healty organs in the body and eventually grows big enough to kill it. America has gone from a country where investors make money by investing in companies that build things and sell things and create jobs to a country where investors gamble with "investing institutions" and, rather than put money into creating energy solutions, we trade 6Bn barrels of oil per month back and forth on the NYMEX in order to decide who will end up taking delivery of 25M barrels (0.4%) at the end of the month.
Why do they do it? The fees, the fees, the fees, the fees. Even the stock market has become a casino and not only do the financials make the fees but they build a culture that tells you to BUYBUYBUY and SELLSELLSELL every other day so they can rake and rake and rake those fees but that is not enough for them – they also have to insert themselves in as Market Makers where they make money on the spread every time you buy and sell but that is not enough and they then track your trading and write programs to analyze your trading patterns so they can bid against you – YOU, their CLIENT!
That’s still not enough so they game the…
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Advanced Pattern Recognition: Omega III Weekly Wrap-Up
by Phil - June 19th, 2010 6:46 am
What a fine and predictable week it was!
How can you not have fun when the market does exactly what you expect it to do every day? Why it’s almost as if we stole Goldman Sach’s evil playbook (and the Russell once again is at 666) so we too can make profits EVERY SINGLE TRADING DAY – just like they do! This is a real testament to my famous saying:
We don’t care IF the game is rigged, as long as we know HOW it is rigged so we can place our bets accordingly.
Remember it was last summer that Goldman’s secret trading program was stolen. At the time, Goldman Sachs asserted that: "There is a danger that somebody who knew how to use this program could use it to manipulate markets in unfair ways." I believe this was a misquote and what GS meant to say was that there was a danger someone ELSE could use it to manipulate the markets in unfair ways. Was it just a coincidence that the indictment of computer thief Sergey Aleynikov on Feb 11th coincided with the beginning of this year’s massive rally or was that the day GS regained sole control of their pet program?
Does this sound conspiratorial? Well perhaps then you haven’t read Tim Lavin’s "Monsters in the Markets," where he points out: "Algorithms now trigger 70 percent of all trades in U.S. equities. The speed and volume of everyday trading have propelled the market into a new and esoteric dimension, and rendered traders in the pits largely obsolete… At least a few high-frequency traders have learned to make a killing by detecting the more simplistic algo strategies deployed by basic pension funds and mutual funds, buying the next stock the funds plan to buy, and then selling it to them at a higher price. This may not be illegal, but it’s almost certainly unfair to the funds’ investors. “It is increasingly clear that there are quite a number of high-frequency bandits in the high- frequency-trading community who pump up volume statistics, front-run investor orders, increase transaction costs, and hurt real liquidity,” according to former NASDAQ vice-chairman David Weild."
We certainly know better than to trust our money to fund managers! Last Friday ("Pattern Recognition 101"), we determined that the TradeBots were following the rally pattern we now call Omega III and that meant we expected the day to finish…
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Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Call Options Fly Off The Shelves
by Andrew Wilkinson - June 11th, 2010 4:15 pm
Today’s tickers: MRVL, EFA, MSFT, PFE, BMY, BAC, GME, NFLX & PM
MRVL – Marvell Technology Group Ltd. – The semiconductor maker popped onto our ‘most active by options volume’ market scanner late in the session due to rampant call buying in the June and July contracts. Marvell’s shares are higher by 1.65% to $17.74 just before 3:30 pm (ET). Near-term optimistic individuals itching for continued appreciation in the price of the underlying stock purchased approximately 9,000 calls at the June $18 strike for an average premium of $0.33 apiece. Investors long the calls make money if Marvell’s shares rally at least 3.325% from the current price of $17.74 to exceed the average breakeven point to the upside at $18.33 by expiration day in one week. Buying interest spread to the July $18 strike where bullish players paid an average premium of $0.89 per contract to take ownership of some 5,100 call options. Traders holding these contracts accumulate profits as long as MRVL’s shares increase 6.5% to surpass the average breakeven price of $18.89 by July expiration.
EFA – iShares MSCI EAFE Index Fund – The implementation of a large-volume short strangle on the EFA, an exchange-traded fund designed to provide investment results that correspond to the price and yield performance of the MSCI EAFE Index – an index which includes stocks from Europe, Australasia and the Far East, indicates one options strategist expects shares of the underlying fund to remain range-bound through September expiration. Shares of the EFA are trading lower by 0.63% to stand at $48.53 with less than 45 minutes remaining before the closing bell. The investor responsible for the strangle sold 16,000 puts at the September $42 strike for an average premium of $1.54 apiece in combination with the sale of the same number of calls at the higher September $52 strike for an average premium of $1.15 each. Gross premium pocketed on the transaction amounts to $2.69 per contract. The strangle-seller keeps the full premium received as long as the fund’s share price trades within the boundaries of the strike prices described through expiration. The short stance assumed in both call and put options expose the responsible party to losses in the event that shares rally above the upper breakeven price of $54.69, or if shares trade beneath the lower breakeven point at $39.31 at expiration. We note that shares of the fund have not…
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Bank of America Bear Cleans Up
by Andrew Wilkinson - May 28th, 2010 5:41 pm
Today’s tickers: BAC, FXY, VALE, ATPG, CAT, EBAY, CSCO, KG, NE & AGN
BAC – Bank of America Corp. – Activity in out-of-the-money call options on Bank of America in the first half of the trading session appears to be the work of an investor taking profits on the closing purchase of a previously established bearish short call position. BAC’s shares surrendered 1.85% today to stand at $15.88 as of 2:45 pm (ET). It looks like the investor originally sold 20,500 calls at the November $24 strike for an average premium of $0.37 per contract back on April 28, 2010, when shares of the underlying stock were trading at a volume-weighted average price of $17.73 each. In the past four weeks since the initial sale of the calls, Bank of America’s shares declined 12.12% down to the current price of $15.88. The call seller was properly positioned to benefit from share price erosion, and today was able to buy back the same call options for just $0.10 apiece. Thus, the closing purchase of the calls yields net profits of $0.27 per contract to the responsible party.
FXY – CurrencyShares Japanese Yen Index Fund – A sizeable debit call spread enacted on the FXY, an exchange-traded fund designed to reflect the price of the Japanese Yen, indicates one options strategist is expecting shares of the underlying fund to rally sharply by expiration in January 2011. Shares of the fund are currently up 0.18% at $109.14 as of 1:52 pm (ET). The investor purchased 8,709 calls at the January 2011 $110 strike for a premium of $4.40 apiece, and sold the same number of calls at the higher January 2011 $125 strike for $1.00 in premium each. The net cost of the transaction amounts to $3.40 per contract, thus dictating a breakeven price – above which profits start to accumulate – of $113.40. Shares of the FXY must rally at least 3.90% from the current value of $109.14 before the responsible party starts to make money. Maximum potential profits of $11.60 per contract are available to the spread trader if shares jump 14.53% from the current value of the fund to $125.00 in the next eight months to expiration. It does not appear the fund’s share price has ever exceeded the current 52-week high of $115.40, attained back on November 30, 2009.
VALE – Vale S.A. – Shares of the world’s largest…
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Thrill-Ride Thursday – Wednesday Never Happened, Now What?
by Phil - May 27th, 2010 8:16 am
Poor CNBC! They are never going to get those chocolates…
I joked with Members during yesterday’s rally, after Fast Money’s bullish "Half-Time Report": "Uh oh – All the Fast Money people said buy - make sure you have your disaster hedges in place!" Indeed the market fell off a cliff almost the second they said it but we got out of our TZA calls (a little early) and did a little bottom fishing yesterday with our own buys on LYG ($3.13), Short EUO ($25.30), VZ ($27), FRO ($30.50), RIG ($58.50) and PFE ($15.10). Maybe I’m just a paranoid conspiracy theorist but I said to Members at the close:
That was a sad little show at the end wasn’t it? Nas was beaten with a stick into the close. AAPL $243, BIDU $67.46, AMZN $123… Ugly stuff. Not at all sure what they were trying to accomplish if not a flush…
Gap/RMM – Yes (we will gap) up. I just didn’t see why we would sell off like that. It seems that someone wanted to paint un ugly picture, maybe they didn’t get a good fill on Tuesday morning? Maybe not gap up tomorrow, maybe another drop and THEN we take off but I’m thinking a fund that wants to make numbers on Friday would want to flush us today and buy the SPX overnight and pump us up for a big finish so they can get back to cash on Friday and book it.
Isn’t it funny how that’s pretty much exactly what’s happening this morning? A huge gap up into the open that’s erasing the previous day’s losses when no one is trading – just like yesterday (when I get on my knees and pray - we won’t get fooled again). Fast Money got fooled out of their bullish 1:50 positions by 5pm as suddenly they relized the market is controlled by evil computer programs – not exactly news to us and no reason to shake us out of our well-hedged positions. We ignored rumors on China (and we always ignore Steve Ballmer) in chat and those seemed to be the major rumors moving the market lower yesterday.
Cramer kept the rumor mill grinding, saying: "The Chinese reportedly are debating whether or not to sell their European bonds, and that’s what killed our upward momentum." CNBC seems to have pulled the video so it’s hard to tell the tone but Cramer put up a list of a dozen stocks to buy but said to wait for…
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What Me Worry Thursday?
by Phil - May 13th, 2010 7:48 am
What a freakin’ recovery!
As I said on Monday: "It’s a paper tiger of a straw man we’re building for $1Tn but you HAVE to respect $1,000,000,000,000 – you just have to… Our 5% Rule series for the S&P over the 1,155 breakdown line is the very critical 1,170, followed by 1,185, 1,200 (critical), 1,215 and 1,230 and THEN we are on the way to recovery." Wow, that guy is AMAZING! Anyway, so here we are at 1,170, after two days of testing the 1,155 line as a bottom so now it’s onwards and upwards to 1,185 hopefully. I also said on Monday: "Below that, we’re not too impressed but it also won’t be very surprising if all $1Tn buys us these days is some moderate lift that isn’t strong enough to break our major technicals."
We have been casting a wide and bullish net since the crash, finally pulling some of our sideline cash for long plays on ABX, APPY, BAC, BIDU, BRK/B, BSX, C, CAT, DIA (3), DF, ERX, GOOG, LIZ, LVS, MEE, MON (3), RIG, T (2), TBT (2), TZA (shorting it), UNG and WFR. We’re hedging heavily, of course, but it feels good to have longs again after being in cash for a while. Our short-term bearish plays (mostly DIA and TZA) have been crushing us so far, which is good in a rally but yesterday was a bit much for us and we got a little more bearish but it looks like the G7 has adopted the "Better Red Than Dead" mantra as the World racks up astounding deficits to put off admitting that this little debt problem is not isolated to the PIIGS nations.
Nonetheless, the global markets are rallying in unison – even while the Pound ($1.47) and the Euro ($1.26) collapse and even the Yen jumped back up last night, falling off the very BS 93.63 to the dollar it hit at 3am to psych up the Nikkei exporters back down to 92.75 this morning. I noted weeks ago how the Yen knocked down for Japan’s open and then drifts lower into the US open virtually every night – it’s what currency traders call the "Goldman Trade" because you can bet it every single day and have a perfect quarter. Sure it’s blatant manipulation designed to fool an entire nation of investors but, what else is new – Fuggedaboutit…
So, a TRILLION Dollars down the rabbit hole in Europe – Fuggedaboutit! I pointed out to Members in yesterday’s…
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the Favorites backup site
(