Greetings! How did the markets fare today? Lets start with the international markets.
The Asian markets produced a mixture of results. Although all three major indecies opened higher, but only one was able close with a gain. The Nikkei closed at 7,457.93 for a loss of -3.29 points, a -0.04% move. The Hang Seng closed at 12,894.94 for a loss of -110.14 points, a -0.85% move. And that leaves us with the Straits Times which closed at 1,617.44 for a fractional gain of +0.65 points, a +0.04% move.
In the European markets all three major indecies had bull days. The FTSE closed at 3,915.64 for a gain of +66.66 points, a +1.73% move. The DAX closed at 3,942.62 for a gain of +96.41, a +2.51% move. And the CAC closed at 2,744.84 for a gain of +47.92, a move of +1.78%.
The Dow closed at 7,182.08 for a loss of -88.81 points, a -1.22% move. The NASDAQ closed at 1,391.47 for a loss of -33.96 points, a -2.38% move. The S&P closed at 752.83 for a loss of -12.07 points, a -1.58% move.
Initially the three major U.S. indecies opened with a bullish warcry swallowing up the losses of the previous day in the first couple hours. This was on the rumors that the government aid deal with Citigroup may come out this week; also the news that the government continues to support private banking and not nationalization.
Shortly afterwards news that President Obama unveiled details about his 10-year budgeting plan surfaced. Following that news, it appears the bears went to market and cashed out, erasing all the progress that the market had made. Additional news that new home sales fell to a record low in January did not help the situation.
The media would have you believe what was heard in President Obama's speech caused the market to go down. But one could also argue that his speech made it go up, because during his speech the Dow rose back to an earlier intraday high. What did cause the market to go down was the realization that the budget cuts to all of those private health programs that were not working for the good of the citizens cause all investors to pull out of several of them. Chances are that as soon as understanding about which private health insurance companies were not waistful becomes apparent, those will start to go up while the rest will reform so that they will be viable to government subsidies.
I still find surprising that despite the assumptions about the bank stress test and the list of weak banks increasing didn't cause those sectors to decline. Four of the leading industries on Yahoo's Industry Center were banks. Sadly though the worries about the health care sector was over powering.
But there is some good knows. For the week, so far, the Dow is only down half of what it down at the end of last week and there is only one market day left. This investor thinks that profits taken today will start to funnel into other sectors, probably healthcare and education as those were the sectors talked about by President Obama.
My portfolio as it stands today:
AMD - My position on Advanced Micro Devices closed today down at 2.09.
F - My position on Ford Motors closed today down at 1.98.
FPL - Florida Power & Light continued to decline today breaking and holding below the support level that I was counting on for it to return to the up side. I will allow it to expire and not resubmit another one until I see evidence that a positive move is in the works. For that reason I shall be leaving it out of my posts until further notice.
HRP JZ - My 2.50Oct09 call on HRPT Property Trust (HRP) closed unchanged at 1.50
NLH JZ - My 2.50Oct09 call on Libery Media (LINTA) closed unchanged at 1.55
There are also two other positions that I had prior to opening this blog that I wish to include and will be commenting on.
AMD DG - I have a 3.00Apr09 call on AMD which closed down at 0.10
NG - I have a position on NovaGold which I added to today. Reasons? It's price has changed direction to the upside, and it has reached and bounced off of my indicators that it has been oversold and momentum has shifted. There is, however, a recent ceiling at about $4, so there may not be much room for it to go up, unless it breaks through. That is okay since the goal with this stock is to sell OTM calls against it so I am just increasing my stake for future use. NovaGold closed up at 2.93, but slightly under where I added to my position.
My day wasn't good but not that bad. I shall be looking for other opportunites and will be posting if I see something.
That is my opinion, you can take it or leave it.
Disclaimer: I am not a stock broker; I am not a financial advisor; I am not recommending to you what to buy or sell. I am just an opinionated investor. If you decide to follow in my footsteps you are taking risk. It is inevitable that I may be wrong. So if you are going to follow in my footsteps that is your own personal decision. I am not responsible for any loss that you may, and probably will, incur regardless of my opinion.
Showing posts with label Yahoo Finance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yahoo Finance. Show all posts
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
How do you figure that?
The following link is a video article on Yahoo! Finance where Aaron Task interviews Jon Najarian, President of OptionMonster.com.
Four Simple Steps to Resolve the Financial Crisis and Boost the Stock Market
In the above video article, Jon Najarian outlines three of his steps he thinks will boost the Stock Market and Aaron Task adds a forth one to the list. My opinion? A complete joke, except for maybe one.
1) Cut taxes by 10% across the board for corporations and individuals alike?
Ha! This is a good one! With such a budget deficit, how in the world is government suppose to function? Print more money? Devalue the US currency even more? And how exactly does that encourage other countries to buy our debt? It doesn't.
Cutting taxes is not the answer as so many want to preach. I understand that we want to get people to spend more, but that isn't the reason why they are holding on to the money they do have. It is the lack of job security.
How about this? Rewrite the tax rules. Supply scale able tax deductions for companies that higher US citizens and resident aliens. And add a temporary tax to anyone that imports any new people or outsources any new jobs out of the country, retroactive to January 1, 2009. Notice the concession there, I am not without compromise or compassion to grandfathering in people.
2) Raise the FDIC insurance limit to $1 million per account?
This is another joke. Jon mentions that the average American had his money spread across several accounts and with the financial situation pulled their money out. What numbers is he looking at. The average American barely has a $10,000 in their checking account much less $100,000 in any one account. The only ones that have remotely near that much in there account is the upper-middle class and the upper class. These account for less than a 25% of America.
The average American doesn't understand what FDIC insurance is or even trust it. That is why so many people lined up at banks to pull their money out and stuff it into there mattresses. Raising the FDIC insurance limit would only encourage a small amount of people to put their money back in banks if any at all.
3) Suspend mark-to-market accounting?
Good try! This seems like a good thing for the bank but it is a lousy thing for the tax payer. The banks screwed up. They should have to accept the debt they incurred. But a compromise can be reached. The bad bank idea isn't really that bad of an idea. It just needs a very rigid foundation.
My opinion is that the US government, after federally mandating a temporary moratorium on all foreclosures in process, should buy all of the bad real estate assets that the banks have at market value or the remaining principle value, whichever is least. And then supply a tax deduction to the banks for accepting their losses.
Then assign the government in which the real estate asset resides to auction it off. The capital from the auction then becomes assigned to the education and infrastructure budgets. See how cash can flow?
After all that is done, any remaining home mortgages on primary homes must be allowed to be refinanced at a fixed rate for the remaining principle regardless of the payment status of the borrower. Why not let up to date borrowers better their terms? And if the mortgage is backwards, any back ended interest is a loss to the bank. Another lump the banks should have to accept. But again, another tax deduction to the banks for accepting the loss.
Secondary homes? Well who needs one should be able to afford it. If you have one and can't afford it, you lose. Banks, put them on the auction block regularly until they are sold. Hire a rehabilitation professional to get them in selling condition. Nothing extravagant, just clean and presentable.
As far as regulations go, make it mandatory that the mortgage applicant be screened against the payment to be expected on the first month of the 6th year to determine if they can afford the mortgage instrument. That should prevent 5-1 ARMs from being sold to the majority of incapable borrowers. That mandatory tax records for the past two years.
If, after all this, some individuals still can not afford to stay in their homes, they probably shouldn't have been in them anyway. Those then also get seized by the US government for market value and distributed to the local government to auction off and the funds funneled into the education and infrastructure budgets.
4) Reinstate the uptick rule?
Now, since I don't short stocks or commodities directly, I didn't have a clue what this was. So I looked it up. Thank you Wikipedia. The uptick rule is a rule that pretty much states that a short trade has to be made at the next 'tick' higher than the last executed long sale or at market value if the last long sale was higher than it's previous long sale. At least that is how I understand it.
Well, Aaron Task came up with this one and he might have something here. If you think about it, without the uptick rule, shorters can do trades without restriction. And since the market can have unlimited gains but only a finite loss, resistance against profiting on loss is actually a good thing. It would help slow but definitely not stop the market decline. The financial sector needs to stabilize, people with a job need to feel secure, those that are looking for a job need to find one, and those with businesses need to be able to hire more from within the country. The only way to accomplish all of this is to uproot the problem in the financial sector, and provide the needed incentives to get credit and cash flowing correctly.
So, in conclusion, Jon Najarian is either a confused individual or someone with his own agenda. Considering he is president of OptionMonster.com, I lean towards the latter. But...
That is my opinion, you can take it or leave it.
Disclaimer: I am not a stock broker; I am not a financial advisor; I am not recommending to you what to buy or sell. I am just an opinionated investor. If you decide to follow in my footsteps you are taking risk. It is inevitable that I may be wrong. So if you are going to follow in my footsteps that is your own personal decision. I am not responsible for any loss that you may, and probably will, incur regardless of my opinion.
Four Simple Steps to Resolve the Financial Crisis and Boost the Stock Market
In the above video article, Jon Najarian outlines three of his steps he thinks will boost the Stock Market and Aaron Task adds a forth one to the list. My opinion? A complete joke, except for maybe one.
1) Cut taxes by 10% across the board for corporations and individuals alike?
Ha! This is a good one! With such a budget deficit, how in the world is government suppose to function? Print more money? Devalue the US currency even more? And how exactly does that encourage other countries to buy our debt? It doesn't.
Cutting taxes is not the answer as so many want to preach. I understand that we want to get people to spend more, but that isn't the reason why they are holding on to the money they do have. It is the lack of job security.
How about this? Rewrite the tax rules. Supply scale able tax deductions for companies that higher US citizens and resident aliens. And add a temporary tax to anyone that imports any new people or outsources any new jobs out of the country, retroactive to January 1, 2009. Notice the concession there, I am not without compromise or compassion to grandfathering in people.
2) Raise the FDIC insurance limit to $1 million per account?
This is another joke. Jon mentions that the average American had his money spread across several accounts and with the financial situation pulled their money out. What numbers is he looking at. The average American barely has a $10,000 in their checking account much less $100,000 in any one account. The only ones that have remotely near that much in there account is the upper-middle class and the upper class. These account for less than a 25% of America.
The average American doesn't understand what FDIC insurance is or even trust it. That is why so many people lined up at banks to pull their money out and stuff it into there mattresses. Raising the FDIC insurance limit would only encourage a small amount of people to put their money back in banks if any at all.
3) Suspend mark-to-market accounting?
Good try! This seems like a good thing for the bank but it is a lousy thing for the tax payer. The banks screwed up. They should have to accept the debt they incurred. But a compromise can be reached. The bad bank idea isn't really that bad of an idea. It just needs a very rigid foundation.
My opinion is that the US government, after federally mandating a temporary moratorium on all foreclosures in process, should buy all of the bad real estate assets that the banks have at market value or the remaining principle value, whichever is least. And then supply a tax deduction to the banks for accepting their losses.
Then assign the government in which the real estate asset resides to auction it off. The capital from the auction then becomes assigned to the education and infrastructure budgets. See how cash can flow?
After all that is done, any remaining home mortgages on primary homes must be allowed to be refinanced at a fixed rate for the remaining principle regardless of the payment status of the borrower. Why not let up to date borrowers better their terms? And if the mortgage is backwards, any back ended interest is a loss to the bank. Another lump the banks should have to accept. But again, another tax deduction to the banks for accepting the loss.
Secondary homes? Well who needs one should be able to afford it. If you have one and can't afford it, you lose. Banks, put them on the auction block regularly until they are sold. Hire a rehabilitation professional to get them in selling condition. Nothing extravagant, just clean and presentable.
As far as regulations go, make it mandatory that the mortgage applicant be screened against the payment to be expected on the first month of the 6th year to determine if they can afford the mortgage instrument. That should prevent 5-1 ARMs from being sold to the majority of incapable borrowers. That mandatory tax records for the past two years.
If, after all this, some individuals still can not afford to stay in their homes, they probably shouldn't have been in them anyway. Those then also get seized by the US government for market value and distributed to the local government to auction off and the funds funneled into the education and infrastructure budgets.
4) Reinstate the uptick rule?
Now, since I don't short stocks or commodities directly, I didn't have a clue what this was. So I looked it up. Thank you Wikipedia. The uptick rule is a rule that pretty much states that a short trade has to be made at the next 'tick' higher than the last executed long sale or at market value if the last long sale was higher than it's previous long sale. At least that is how I understand it.
Well, Aaron Task came up with this one and he might have something here. If you think about it, without the uptick rule, shorters can do trades without restriction. And since the market can have unlimited gains but only a finite loss, resistance against profiting on loss is actually a good thing. It would help slow but definitely not stop the market decline. The financial sector needs to stabilize, people with a job need to feel secure, those that are looking for a job need to find one, and those with businesses need to be able to hire more from within the country. The only way to accomplish all of this is to uproot the problem in the financial sector, and provide the needed incentives to get credit and cash flowing correctly.
So, in conclusion, Jon Najarian is either a confused individual or someone with his own agenda. Considering he is president of OptionMonster.com, I lean towards the latter. But...
That is my opinion, you can take it or leave it.
Disclaimer: I am not a stock broker; I am not a financial advisor; I am not recommending to you what to buy or sell. I am just an opinionated investor. If you decide to follow in my footsteps you are taking risk. It is inevitable that I may be wrong. So if you are going to follow in my footsteps that is your own personal decision. I am not responsible for any loss that you may, and probably will, incur regardless of my opinion.
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