Options Traders Bombard Research in Motion Ltd.
by Andrew Wilkinson - October 26th, 2010 4:04 pm
Today’s tickers: RIMM, CAH, AVNR, HRBN, ANF & ADBE
RIMM - Research in Motion Ltd. – Investors are crowding the options arena on the Blackberry maker today with shares in Research in Motion rising as much as 9.5% earlier this afternoon to an intraday high of $56.62. The price of the underlying stock climbed the most in more than 10 months after an analyst remarked that the company’s Playbook tablet computer could give rival Apple Inc.’s iPad a run for its money. Shares are currently up 6.2% to stand at $54.94 with 45 minutes remaining before the final bell. November contract call options are by far the most active. Volume generated in near-term out-of-the-money calls today trumps previously existing open interest levels in all cases. Investors are buying more of those OTM calls than selling, but we will have to wait to see how open interest levels shift tomorrow to determine what portion of today’s activity represents intraday moves as compared to positions held by investors overnight. Bullish traders are also selling put options at the November $52.5 and $55 strikes, which suggests they expect shares to stay afloat, at least through expiration next month. Optimistic options players also made their mark in longer-dated contracts. Some investors initiated bull call spreads, buying approximately 2,000 calls at the December $65 strike for an average premium of $0.79 each, and selling about the same number of calls at the higher December $75 strike for an average premium of $0.21 apiece. Call spreaders are poised to profit should RIMM’s shares jump 15.8% over today’s high of $56.62 and trade above the average breakeven price of $65.58 by December expiration. Maximum potential profits of $9.42 per contract are attainable if the Blackberry producer’s shares rally 32.5% in the next couple of months to trade above $75.00 by expiration day. The Canada-based firm’s shares last traded above $75.00 back in March of 2010. Investors exchanged more than 296,000 option contracts on Research in Motion before 3:30 p.m. in…
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BoomBustBlog Research Hits Another One Out the Park! Google up nearly 10% after hours, true blowout earnings unlike JPM
by ilene - October 14th, 2010 6:49 pm
BoomBustBlog Research Hits Another One Out the Park! Google up nearly 10% after hours, true blowout earnings unlike JPM
Courtesy of Reggie Middleton
Bloomberg reports: Google Profit Beats Estimates as Companies Boost Ad Spending; Shares Climb
Oct. 14 (Bloomberg) — Google Inc., owner of the world’s most popular search engine, said third-quarter profit increased as businesses spent more on advertising to attract online consumers. The shares jumped in after-hours trading.
Net income rose 32 percent to $2.17 billion, or $6.72 a share, from $1.64 billion, or $5.13, a year earlier, Google said on its website. Profit excluding some items was $7.64 a share, exceeding the $6.68 average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
Google is benefitting from increased spending on search- based ads as it pursues opportunities in mobile communications and display advertising. Online spending is expected to account for 15 percent of total U.S. advertising this year, up from 12 percent in 2008, according to EMarketer Inc. in New York.
“The underlying strength in the core search business basically means advertisers are spending healthily on search,” said Clayton Moran, an analyst at Benchmark Co. in Boca Raton, Florida, who recommends buying the shares. “They beat on the top line and also on the bottom line.”
Google, based in Mountain View, California, climbed as much as 9.6 percent in late trading to $592.82. It closed at $540.93 at 4 p.m. on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares have dropped 13 percent this year.
Excluding revenue passed on to partner sites, sales were $5.48 billion, topping analysts’ average estimate of $5.26 billion.
…
Display, Mobile
Google is seeking new revenue streams, including searches on mobile phones. Its Android software has surged in popularity among consumers, overtaking Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry to become the top smartphone operating system in the U.S. in the second quarter, according to research firm Gartner Inc.
Display advertising at Google is growing as its YouTube video-watching service attracts more marketers. The company said in May it had boosted the number of display advertisers 10-fold on YouTube.
“Our newer businesses — particularly display and mobile — continued to show significant momentum,” Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said in a…
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Freddie/Fannie Friday – Fat Forclosure Folios Forcasts Further Falls
by Phil - September 17th, 2010 7:56 am
![[FANREO]](http://sg.wsj.net/public/resources/images/MI-BF965_FANREO_NS_20100916200301.gif)
Our zombie GSE’s have now become the Nation’s biggest home sellers.
This could not come at a worse time as winter is always a poor time to sell homes, rates seem to have bottomed and there is no new stimulus (or new jobs, or immigration, or population growth) to spur demand. Yet, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae now own more than 191,000 homes (as of June 30th), which is double where they were last year and they are still taking back homes faster than they can sell them as we move into the peak (we hope!) of the foreclosure cycle.
Once they take homes back, Fannie and Freddie must not only cover the utility bills and property taxes, but they are also relying on thousands of real-estate agents and contractors to rehabilitate homes, mow lawns and clean pools. Fannie took a $13 billion charge during the second quarter just on carrying costs for its properties.
If demand remains weak, Fannie and Freddie could face pressure to take more aggressive steps to hold homes off the market. Fannie, for example, is testing an effort in Chicago where it will rent vacant foreclosures rather than list them for sale. Such a "lease-and-hold" approach could make sense in certain markets where "you believe the supply will take a long time to absorb, but there’s going to be an increase in employment going forward," says Douglas Duncan, chief economist at Fannie Mae.
In yesterday’s post, we discussed the death of the housing market and that brought about a discussion in Member Chat about my February article where I pointed out that the math of home ownership no longer works for many Americans (I also showed 3 different ways you can shave $100,000 in payments off a $200,000 home loan so I do suggest reading it if you haven’t already). Mark McHugh of The Daily Bail has a nice update today where he does the math and contends that "a look behind the numbers shows home ownership to be a poor investment." Barry Rhitholtz found a chart from Reality Bubble Monitor that matches with my contention yesterday (that the US has likely bottomed) but points out that our "boom" economies in Australia and Canada (and China is about the same) have bubbles that are still likely to pop:
As I said yesterday, home prices are all about affordability of mortgages and, should we get into a rising rate environment, we could…
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Motorola-Bull Cleans Up
by Andrew Wilkinson - September 16th, 2010 5:22 pm
Today’s tickers: MOT, RIMM, WMB, CAG, PFCB & SAI
MOT – Motorola, Inc. – Shares of the maker of the Droid smartphone fell in morning trading but recovered during the session to add as much as 3 pennies or 0.35% to arrive at an intraday-high of $8.39 this afternoon. Motorola appeared on our ‘most active by options volume’ market scanner today after one options player appears to have booked profits on a previously established bullish position. It looks like the investor originally purchased roughly 28,000 calls at the September $7.0 strike for an average premium of $0.70 each back on August 19, 2010, when MOT shares were trading at a volume-weighted average price of $7.55. The appreciation in the price of the underling since the calls were purchased lifted premium on the September $7.0 strike calls, allowing the trader to sell the contracts for $1.35 in premium apiece today. Net profits on the transaction amount to $0.65 per contract. Next, it looks like the bullish player re-opened, or rolled, the position to the higher October $8.0 strike where approximately 28,000 calls were picked up at an average premium of $0.10 a-pop. The investor starts to make money on the fresh batch of calls if Motorola’s shares surge 8.5% over the current price of $8.39 to surpass the effective breakeven price of $9.10 by expiration. We note that the investor may walk away with profits on the new long call position before October expiration if circumstances going forward lift the premium on those calls and the trader opts to sell the position at an advantageous price.
RIMM – Research in Motion Ltd. – Options on the Blackberry maker are a hot ticket item today ahead of the firm’s second-quarter earnings report scheduled for release after the closing bell this afternoon. Frenzied trading ensued right out of the gate this morning with investors heavily trafficking in September and October contract call and put options. Shares are currently up 1.1% at $46.02 as of 1:45 pm ET, but earlier rallied as much as 2.3% to reign in an intraday high of $46.58. The overall reading of options implied volatility on the stock increased 5.1% in the first half of the session to top out at 58.22%, but has come off to stand just 2.6% higher on the day at 56.82%. Although more than 1.7 call options changed hands for each single put on…
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Throw the Bums Out Thursday
by Phil - September 16th, 2010 8:11 am
There’s only one thing voters hate worse than Democrats:
That is, of course, Republicans. The latest NY Times/CBS News poll found that, while while voters rate the performance of Democrats negatively, they view Republicans as even worse with 63 percent disapproving of Democrats and 73 percent disapproving of Republicans. Still, the prevailing "they all suck" attitude is not good news for the Democrats as they have the most seats up for re-election and over 63% of the voters are pretty much determined to vote for "the other guy."
I would propose instead that we begin a national campaign to elect "None of the Above" as a write-in candidate. I don’t expect it to change much but it would force a lot of run-off elections and would send a real message to Washington that we are sick of the nonsense, that we are "as mad as Hell – and we’re not going to take it anymore." If you watch this video clip from 1976 (click picture) you’re realize how little progress we’ve made in 35 years of American politics. If only we’d taken Howard Beale’s Oscar-winning advice at the time and gotten off our sofas and actually said: "I’m a human being, goddammit! My life has value!" – maybe we could have done something about the Corporate Kleptocracy this nation has morphed into. Now, instead, we are once again asked to flip the switch for Republicans or Democrats and, if the candidates weren’t labeled, it would be very hard to tell most of them apart.
In many election cycles, voters readily acknowledge that they are dissatisfied with government or Congress in general, but they tend to have a stronger connection toward their own representative. That is not the case this year, with 55 percent of voters saying it is time for new leadership and only 34 percent saying their lawmaker deserves re-election. It is a historic high for a question asked in each midterm election year since 1990. Of course, the MSM plays a huge roll in this as 8 out of 10 Americans rate "the economy" negatively but, when asked about their own family’s financial situation, 6 of 10 say it is the same or improving. So 40% of the people feel their own situation is negative but 80% think it’s negative for everyone else. Gee, I wonder where they get that impression?
Voters do not perceive Republicans as having better ideas and…
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Six Autumn Outliers
by ilene - September 7th, 2010 5:04 pm
Six Autumn Outliers
Courtesy of Joshua M Brown, The Reformed Broker
So that there’s no confusion, these aren’t predictions or forecasts, they are Outliers. I define an outlier as an event that is unlikely but possible. I’m not betting the farm on this stuff, but I wouldn’t fall out of my chair if any of it happened between now and the end of the year.
Enough hedging, let’s go:
1. Silver Explodes: Gold’s flashier little brother has had a decent go of it of late. Silver prices just broke above the $19.50-ish level for only the third time since November 2009, and you know what they say about "the third time". The big boys are usually buying gold right around now to get ahead of holiday demand and the wedding season in India, meanwhile the yellow metal is within melting distance of its high. If the Slingshot Effect that silver prices experience during gold rallies takes hold, look out above. My outlier here is that silver becomes the must-have investment of the season.
2. GOP Takes the House: It is conventional wisdom that Republicans are going to gain some ground at the mid-term elections this November, but I’m going to go a step further and say that the Dems will lose more than 40 seats and along with them, control of the House. Larry Sabato, a political scientist from the U of Virginia, has been quoted as saying that they could also lose as many as 8 or 9 senate seats as well. This ain’t your Daddy’s Midterms, or maybe it is – there are shades of Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America tour-de-force against Bill Clinton halfway through his 1st term back in ’94. Peeps is pissed right now.
3. Google Buys Twitter: This would be a real outlier if only it didn’t make so much damn sense. What in the hell are they waiting for in Mountain View, CA? They tried to build their own Twittery-thing (Google Buzz, anyone?), it wasn’t terrible but people don’t need two microblogging platforms even if Google’s did have the advantage of being bundled with Gmail. This is a doable deal for Google financially and as incredible a phenomenon as Twitter is, it’s still not a business yet – just a phenomenon. The Googster ($GOOG) could monetize it on Day 4.
4. Ballmer is Audi 5000: He’ll…
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RIMM Bear-Butterfly Strategist Prepares for the Worst
by Andrew Wilkinson - August 31st, 2010 4:22 pm
Today’s tickers: RIMM, HRB, CAT, DF, XLE, SKS, OCR & NEM
RIMM – Research in Motion, Ltd. – Shares in BlackBerry maker, Research in Motion Ltd., took a severe beating today after a Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd. survey revealed more firms are choosing rival devices such as the iPhone, a sign the firm is relinquishing its share of the corporate market to its competitors. RIMM’s shares dropped 6.30% to an intraday- and new 52-week low of $42.72 in the final hour of trading. The price of the underlying stock, which reached a 13-month high of $88.08 on September 23, 2009, has since collapsed 51.5% lower to reach today’s value of $42.72. But, one options trader populating the longer-dated January 2011 contract today positioning for RIMM’s shares to nearly halve again by expiration. The investor initiated a bearish put butterfly spread, buying 1,100 puts at the January 2011 $27.5 strike for premium of $0.80 apiece, selling 2,200 puts at the January 2011 $22.5 strike for premium of $0.37 per contract, and buying 1,100 puts at the January 2011 $17.5 strike for premium of $0.18 each. The net cost of the spread amounts to $0.24 per contract. The investor stands prepared to accumulate profits if shares of the mobile device maker plummet 36.2% from the current price to breach the effective breakeven point at $27.26 by expiration day. Maximum potential profits of $4.76 per contract are safe inside the trader’s piggybank if the Canadian company’s shares collapse 47.3% lower to settle at $22.50 at expiration. The majority of options traders populated the near-term September contract where the September $40/$42.5/$45 strike puts were the most active.
HRB – H&R Block, Inc. – Bearish investors bombarded the provider of tax, banking, business and consulting services in afternoon trading after Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services lowered its rating outlook on the company to stable from positive. The downgrade weighed heavily on HRB’s shares, which fell as much as 6.20% to an intraday- and new 52-week low of $12.54. Shares are currently down 4.95% at $12.71 with one hour remaining before the closing bell. Given the new 52-week low of $12.54, HRB’s shares are down 21.5% since trading at $15.97 on August 2, 2010. The stock has lost a total of 46.15% of its value since January 21, 2010, when shares reached the current 52-week high of $23.29. Investors wary of continued bearish movement in…
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As I Have Anticipated, There is Absolutely No Fire in the Torch, Except for the One That’s Frying RIMM’s Share Price
by ilene - August 31st, 2010 8:37 am
As I Have Anticipated, There is Absolutely No Fire in the Torch, Except for the One That’s Frying RIMM’s Share Price
Courtesy of Reggie Middleton
So it has been a month and a week since turning bearish on Research in Motion, and after more than 100% gains in ATM options, a launch of the companies most pivotal product and the figurative obliteration of market share by competitors Apple and Android, Rethink Wireless reports:
After a burst of enthusiasm around RIM’s launch of its latest BlackBerry, the Torch, the firm’s shares have slid again, amid reports of disappointing initial performance. The Torch 9700, the first smartphone to run the company’s upgraded operating system, BlackBerry OS 6, is seen as RIM’s crucial device to fend off the rising attack on its market from Apple and Android.
But online retailer Amazon has already slashed the price of the device to $99, less than a week after the phone shipped in the US on August 12, with an AT&T exclusive. It will soon appear in some European markets with Vodafone. According to estimates from analysts at Stifel Nicolaus and RBC, as reported by The Wall Street Journal, the Torch has sold just 150,000 units since launch, compared to 1.7m iPhone 4s in the first three days of that handset’s availability (and despite ‘Antennagate’).…
But at launch, many analysts questioned whether it was enough to move ahead of Apple, HTC and other companies currently leading the field – or merely a catch-up device for a range that had fallen well behind the cutting edge.
In a new research note, analyst firm Gartner says it believes the Torch will appeal mainly to traditional BlackBerry users in the business world, and stop them defecting to other smartphones, but is unlikely to attract new users. It may fare better in Europe, where the BlackBerry has been making significant progress in the youth market, depending on carrier pricing and marketing.
Shares in RIM have fallen steadily since the launch of the Torch, dropping almost $5 per share since August 12. One analyst downgrading the firm was Scott Sutherland of Wedbush, who moved shares from outperform to neutral and wrote in a client note: “We continue to believe that RIM’s strategic positioning in the enterprise, alignment with carriers, new products, and international expansion will allow the company to participate in the solid…
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There Goes Those Fancy eBook Aspirations from Apple, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon: 100,000’s of FREE eBooks from the Public Library
by ilene - August 11th, 2010 2:49 pm
There Goes Those Fancy eBook Aspirations from Apple, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon: 100,000’s of FREE eBooks from the Public Library
Courtesy of Reggie Middleton, writing at Zero Hedge
Sometimes the best laid plans can be put out to pasture due to a lack of foresight in regards to the ever changing, liquid landscape known as the Internet. What fascinates me so much about the Web is that it is the great democratizer, it brings down the barriers to entry and allows for unfettered information flow. For instance, who would have thought that your local public library could lay low the massive aspirations media and retail titans such as Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Apple? Put simply, why would you buy an eReader from these vendors for several hundred dollars, then go ahead and spend more money buying the eBooks for said reader when you can simply download the books from your local public library’s website into the equipment you already have? Okay, I know why those Apple heads would do it – because they want to spend money on Apple products,,, the eBooks may look cooler with that shiny Apple logo-thingy indicating that you too have donated unnecessarily to the Steve Jobs’ enrichment fund, but how about the rest of the vendors???
As a matter of fact, you can kill several birds with one stone simply by buying one of the recent Android phones. Google is really on to something here, and the growth potential of Android is simply phenomenal. When those Android tablets get moving at Kmart for $100… Whoops, there goes that Amazon Digital eBook business model.
Attention Kmart shoppers: $149 Android tablet on aisle 5 : The Android OS isn’t just powering high end smartphones, it also runs barebones tablets sold at Kmart for the price of an iPod nano.
Think about this! Hundreds of thousands of titles freely and legally downloadable from your local public library to play on your $150 tablet with standard ports, HD video, the whole 9 yards, or maybe just on your cell phone. Android can scale pretty high in the capability department and reach rather low in the price category as well.
NY’ers, check this out from your NYC Public Libraries:
These books use DRM protection administered by Overdrive. Guess what platforms they won’t play on (okay, I’ll spoil it for you – the two front runners in the…
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Monday Market Momentum (or Lack Thereof!)
by Phil - August 9th, 2010 8:33 am
It’s all about the Nikkie and the Fed this week.
I mentioned last week that we had to assume there is a 1,000-point tether between the Dow and the Nikkie and, in general, we can usually count on that relationship holding and we had several day (overnight) trades on EWJ that went well using that logic. Today we should get a proper test of our connection as the two indexes are reaching their maximum gap once again with the Nikkei closing this morning at 9,572, 1,081-points below Friday’s Dow close at 10,653. Europe seems to think it’s the Nikkei that needs to catch up to the Dow as the EU markets jumped 1.5% this morning – pretty much gapping up at the open and holding it through 8am, so far – that will lead us to go back in on EWJ for a catch-up trade if our markets make a similar move (with our target levels as easy indicators of a "real" rally).
Maybe Europe is right as the Yen was jammed all the way up to 85.8 to the dollar in our 3am trade and only fell back to 85.55 before being turned back up. Both China indexes jumped 0.5% this morning as investors were happy with the Central Government’s decision to order 2,087 companies in 18 sectors to shut down obsolete plants in a decision aimed at streamlining industries that were polluting, energy-intensive and had excess capacity.
This kind of makes me laugh at the talking heads on TV, whos think they are being clever when they call GM "Government Motors" as any fool reading the papers can see what real government intervention looks like – and the investors in China LOVE IT! "This is very good news for the steel and cement sectors, as it will foster the development of these industries," said Chen Jinren at Huatai Securities.
Japan will close for a vacation next week and, of course, we have the FOMC rate decision tomorrow. While no one is expecting a rate change, EVERYONE is now expecting some form of quantitative easing to pump more money into the US economy and we moved on and ignored Meredith Whitney on Friday afternoon – on the same day that we ignored some terrible jobs news:
China is not just managing their economy, they are managing ours as they risk their own growth in order to pull up the slack we were beginning to see…
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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
(