May 11, 2009
· Filed under business, economy, investing, money, politics, stock market · Tagged ABK, Ambac Q1, C, Citigroup, MBI, MBIA, PMI
Friday was a $1500 day for me, which was a first. I made [back] the same amount of money in a day as I do after taxes in two weeks of work. I’m looking forward to being able to exclude [back] from my vocabulary.
The market has been rallying and against everyone’s suggestions, I continued to average down over the winter. Now it’s spring, or it is according to my landlord who shut the heat off for the year even though it gets into the forties over night (fucking bastard), and the world is again becoming green. I’m now down “only” 18%, and most of my stocks weathered the cold. Still, I’m looking forward to the day when I’m deep in the green with all of my survivors.
Ambac (ABK) released its Q1 results today and at one point rallied from its open of $1.58 to $2.09. It posted a loss, but “not as bad” (heh) as expected. PMI Group (PMI) was up over 50% at one point this morning before it fell to more conservative gains. PMI closed the day up 27%, which was a 50 cent gain.
After market close, MBIA (MBI) posted its first profit in five quarters, and as of 6PM, its share price is up $1.61 (23%) to $8.57. Back last summer when I first began buying stock in the bond insurers, good news for one would pull them all up. Hopefully that will hold true tomorrow.
Overall, the market sold off today after Friday’s rally. The Dow fell 155 to close at $8418, which is still the highest it’s been since January. I haven’t been following oil because the “pain at the pump” has subsided. It’s been so long since I’ve seriously written this blog because of work and work and disgust at being so wrong with stock picks and winter and work and school and just plain laziness. Winter itself takes the wind out of my sails, so add that to being six months ahead of a financial rally… well, let’s just say I felt like a total asshole. But maybe things are getting good again.
Here’s a list to consider…
Stock 52-week low Current shareprice
- ABK $0.35 $1.75
- MBI $2.17 $6.96
- PMI $0.26 $2.36
- RDN $0.70 $3.43
- RF $2.35 $5.92
- C $0.97 !! $3.96
If I was an “if only” kind of person, I’d be kicking myself for not seeing into the future that in March 2009 my stocks would be selling at fractions of where I bought them. But scrolling out their Google Finance charts to a year, two years, three years, shows that, even with current rallies, their share prices are still considerably low.
March 23, 2009
· Filed under business, economy, investing, money, politics, stock market · Tagged AIG, dow closed at, Geithner, SWOBX, GE, General Electric, Schwab, PBW, WFMI, URBN, ESLR, Evergreen Solar, toxic assets
It’s been a while. Since the last time I wrote, I got through Calculus in a few pieces, picked up the pieces and glued them back together, decided to take the next semester- this semester- off from graduate school, and met the most wonderful guy I’ve ever met, let alone dated. I got an integral permanently tattooed on my ankle to remember that yes, I can do it, work is going as ok as it ever goes, and I opened a Roth IRA where I can buy into this mutual fund “SWOBX”. The Schwab lady told me it was a good one. What do I have against her?
I wanted to wait to write again until my first $1,000 day since the market completely shit the bed, but I decided to settle for my first day over $900. The Dow gained 497 points today to end at $7775, which is 1,300 points up from a low it hit earlier this month. If someone told me in the summer that by the spring the Dow would fall below 7,000, I’d have laughed in their face. Actually, people did tell me and I did laugh in their faces. But I definitely wasn’t laughing earlier this month when my portfolio was down 73%. However, I still dream of an early retirement or a big down payment on a loft in a city someplace warm, so I tried to stay optimistic. I’ve continued to average down on my financial stocks and bought into General Electric (GE), United Steel (X), and back into Evergreen Solar (ESLR) just to get more “diversified”. They say diversity is good. They say a lot of things, some are true.
After today’s rally, I’m down “just” 53%. And to be honest, I’m starting to actually feel optimistic again instead of just pretending. I didn’t think I’d ever see that red percentage turn greater than -60%, and my portfolio gained 20 percentage points in about 2 weeks.
Oil was trading at $53.93 when I wrote this, and it’s the first time this year that a barrel of oil has been above $50. Home sales took an unexpected jump in February and Timothy Geithner, the US Secretary of Treasury, spoke today about taking the “toxic” assets off banks’ books. Back in the summer, this was the only thing being talked about; now it’s just an appendage to an already humungous financial bailout.
There are a few stocks I have my eye on in the near future (ie: when I get paid next): Powershares WilderHill Clean Energy (PBW), Urban Outfitters (URBN), and Whole Foods (WFMI). Though I may hold off. There’s no telling if the market will take another dip and hit the 3,800, or whatever the doomsdayers are saying, mark. I suppose anything is possible.
October 28, 2008
· Filed under business, economy, investing, money, politics, stock market · Tagged assasination, Bush, consumer confidence, dow, election, fed, interest rate, Obama, oil, skinheads
Oil lost another 4 months of gains since Friday, settling at a 17-month low of $62.73 today. The Dow rallied in the last half-hour of trading to close up 889 points to $9,065, which marked today as the second-largest day of gains ever. It seems as if $8,000 may be the psychological bottom, but consumer confidence is still at a 40-year low so it’s still a waiting game. The Fed meets tomorrow to discuss lowering interest rates, which would ease some of the pressure people who fought to keep their mortgages.
In one week we’ll elect a new President, and with any luck it’ll be Barack Obama in a landslide victory that will send McCain back to the cage he came from. A plan made my some inbred skinheads to kill Barack Obama and cut the heads off of a few black people was averted today, but it makes me nervous that there’s a real possibility I’ll live through an assassination. No one wants to kill Bush because there’s no passion either way for the guy. No one really cares if he lives or dies. I shouldn’t be nervous; I should be excited about the prospect of a charismatic intellectual in office. I should see the glass 90% full instead of 10% empty and dream about the life that Barack Obama will breathe back into our country if elected. I remember driving to work on the day after the 2000 election and passing a woman on the street with a sign that read “Is it 2004 Yet?” At the time, 2004 may well have been a million years away, yet despite not actually electing the guy in 2000, we voted him back in four years later. What’s wrong with us? One week from tonight the map will be up and the voted will be counted, and we can finally put the Bush administration to rest, and in time we’ll forget the last eight years ever even happened. I doubt this time will go down in many history books, except for those focused on economic crisis and bad executive decisions.
October 26, 2008
· Filed under business, economy, investing, money, politics, stock market · Tagged accounting, C, centerline, CHC, Citigroup, CN8, gasoline, Iran, mark-to-market, Money Matters Today, new home sales, Nikkei, oil, SCA, SEC, Syncora
The Nikkei 225 hit a 26-year low today- last night for us. Gasoline prices in the US fell the fastest in the past two weeks that they have ever fallen, and now the national average for a gallon of unleaded gasoline is just about where it was a year ago.
The SEC is still deciding whether it will suspend the mark-to-market rules, letting banks value their bad assets at whatever they want. Critics say that this will further warp perspective, but people in favor of getting rid of the rule say it will help banks’ balance sheets. This coming Wednesday, the SEC is set to hold a discussion on the implications of mark-to-market accounting and its possible recent effect on the market.
New home sales data came out today and was better than expected. Although 33% lower than they were a year ago, sales of new homes increased 2.7% from August to September. So there is some sign of movement.
The Dow crept up today until 2PM when someone yelled, “sike!” and everything came crashing down to close 203 points below open to $8,175. Just 175 more points until we’re in the seven thousands and half of where we were just about exactly a year ago. Crude took a big dip in early morning trading, but then rallied a little after the new home sale data to close down just 93 cents to $63.22 per barrel.
My stocks are all in the can. Citigroup (C) is trading under $12 a share, and two- Syncora (SCA) and Centerline Holdings (CHC) are under $1. If only they stay on the New York Stock Exchange, I’ll be happy.
A couple interesting things were said on Money Matters Today tonight: Iran needs its oil, which it’s only real export, to be sold at $95 a barrel in order to fund its social programs. I’m no expert on Iranian social programs, but oil trading in the $60 range has got to be hitting Iran hard if they need it trading 60% higher.
Another interesting thing said on the show tonight was that for every penny drop in the price of a gallon of gasoline, Americans add over $1 billion to their pockets annually.
October 25, 2008
· Filed under business, economy, investing, money, politics, stock market · Tagged dow, existing home sales, oil, OPEC
Existing-home sales jumped in September to their highest [seasonally-adjusted] level in 13 months, and based on this data, 5.1 million homes will move into new ownership this year- a 1.4% increase from a year ago. Analysts had estimated this number to hit 5 million from the 4.91 million that moved in August, so could this be a sign that the sludge is finally clearing? Experts have been saying for a while that we need houses to move for the economy to move, so maybe. But based on this week’s numbers on Wall Street, even if every house sells, something else may need to kick this country out of its funk. Obama? Oh God, please let it be Obama.
The last time I wrote about the Dow’s average- eight trading days ago- it was at $9,311. Within those past 8 days, the average has dropped 10% to close yesterday at $8,378. The Dow is made up of 30 companies, and a quick Google search is enough to find out which ones.
Let’s put this into perspective for a second by dividing both 9311 and 8378 by 1000 to get some numbers we were all used to seeing (if we were lucky) on our high school report cards, or if we went to an A, A-, B+, etc school, the grades we calculated ourselves to buffer report card shock.
Now let’s consider we’ve already taken 29 exams and we’re on the 30th one (30th company in the Dow), and let’s switch the numbers so that we’re now at a respectable 83% and we’re trying to figure out what score we’d have to get on that 30th exam to bump our average up to the much more respectable 93%. Here we go with some high school algebra…
[(83)(29) + x] ÷ 30 = 93
A little cross multiplying, subtracting from both sides.….
We’d have to get a 383% on that 30th exam to bump our grade from 83 to 93.
$8,378 is the lowest the Dow’s seen since April 2003. Everything is down. For a minute there a week or so ago it seemed that maybe the worst was over, but the numbers this past week and a half show that the worst is not over. So when will we see the worst? The worst part about the answer to that question is that no one has any sort of idea about an answer to that question, and even when they think they’ve crunched the numbers hard enough and dug deep enough into the annals of history to see how long it took for the bottom to be hit the last time, we have another Black Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday, or entire week. Most people alive have never seen such a thing, and I’d say all people on Wall Street have never seen such a thing except for in that one history elective they may have had to take in business school where they read about something called “The Great Depression”.
It’s amazing, really. True I’ve lost about half of what I’ve invested since July, but I’ve got time on my side and an overall apathy about money. Yeah I want to turn a little into a lot, but it’s more about the game of it, or the experiment to see if it can actually be done. If I did turn $10k into $100K, what would I do with it? I have absolutely no idea. Maybe I’d buy a house somewhere, but I think people who buy houses usually have a rough idea about where they’d like that house to be located.
My one regret is that I have too much going on outside Google Finance and Bloomberg.com to really keep up on what is happening day to day. I keep the corner of my right eye on my stocks, but as far as what OPEC’s doing, where the $700 or $850 or whatever billion is going, which companies are failing, who’s buying who (whom? Whatever.), and all that stuff I was able to read about during summer vacation, I’m in the dusk. Speaking of OPEC, I’m reading today they’re going to cut production in an attempt to drive prices up. They’re messed up. But their ploy may not even work anyway since the entire global economy is in the can and we don’t have anything to put their dumb oil in, even if the stuff was being given away. Crude oil fell to a 13-month low on October 23, and closed yesterday at $64.15 a barrel. Go ahead OPEC, try your best you greedy bastards.
As for my plan, I’m waiting for one of two things to happen before I consider averaging down on the stocks I own that are still afloat by then, and maybe even picking up some other ones like Apple (APPL) and Wachovia (WB): the Dow to hit $7,000 or $10,000. I figure that even if $7,000 isn’t an actual bottom, it has got to be pretty close (um, right?) and $10,000 will be a real psychological barrier to break. In all honestly, I’d like to see $7,000 before $10,000, just so I can get in on the super cheap.
October 21, 2008
· Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged Add new tag
For the three or four of you who accidentally stumble upon my blog, to ease the withdrawal you’re no doubt going through not having read a post form me in a while, I’ll be back posting as soon as one of two things happens: 1: the new internet antenna I ordered works, or B: the new internet antenna I ordered does not work and I break down and get my own wireless internet connection.
In the meantime, I’m writing from my feet from a corner of my apartment on my my work laptop on a ghost wireless connection from Mikey O in the neighborhood somewhere and am feeling quite extracted from the recent happenings on Wall Street since none of this is too pleasant. Oh the day when wireless is free… February 08?
TMA had 95% day today. Opec might cut production (I’ll be surprised), and I set a Google alert to send me news on “mark-to-market” and it’s been reeling in a lot of stories. A new stimulus package is threatening release, and American Express (AXP), which unlike Visa (V) actually extends credit instead of simply playing middle man, had a better than expected quarter. Is it a sign the “credit crunch” is nearing an end?
I never averaged down last week. In my mind, the Dow needs to hit $10k again in order for me to believe we’ve seen the bottom. Once that happens, I’ll average down- no doubt I’ll still be able to.
Till 1 or B….
October 14, 2008
· Filed under business, economy, investing, money, politics, stock market · Tagged BAC, Bank of America, Bank of New York, BK, C, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, GS, JP Morgan Chase, JPM, MER, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, MS, National City, ncc, Radian Group, RDN, State Street Corp, STT, Wells Fargo, WFC
Bank of America (BAC), Merrill Lynch (MER), Morgan Stanley (MS), JP Morgan Chase (JPM), Bank of New York (BK), State Street Corp (STT), Wells Fargo (WFC), Goldman Sachs (GS), and Citigroup (C) will be the first nine banks to be capitalized by the US government, and will be followed by the funding of “thousands” of smaller banks once these top nine start lending.
Today was another good day for the financial sector, despite the Dow dropping 76 points of yesterday’s profits and most sectors slipping back into the red. MER pulled back into the green for me today, bringing the tally to 4 greens and 12 reds. So things are slowly coming back. National City (NCC) and Regions Financial (RF) respectfully made 34% and 28% gains today, so I’m guessing they’ll be the next to return from the dark side.
The Dow closed at $9,311, showing that investors gave back just a fraction of the almost $1 trillion made [back] yesterday on Wall Street. Crude oil closed down 2.56 dollars at 78.63.
October 13, 2008
· Filed under business, economy, investing, money, politics, stock market · Tagged ABK, ambac, dow closed, Henry Paulson, interbank lending, MBI, MBIA, Mitsubishi, Moody's, Morgan Stanley, MS, Radian Group, RDN, SCA, stimulus package, stocks, Syncora, wall street
Forget Prozac, the market needs lithium. After last week’s worst week, today marked the best day in Wall Street’s history and the biggest one-day percentage gain since 1933. Stocks rallied all across the board. The Dow closed up 936 points, or over 11%, to $9,387, and the Nasdaq and S&P also gained over 11% each. Morgan Stanley (MS) traded like an OTC today, gaining 86% from its close of $9.68 on Friday after Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group invested in it $9 billion. Will it stick? Maybe. Countries all across the globe are now jointly focused on fixing their banks to stave off a worldwide recession, so if this doesn’t work, what will?
By the way, sometime over the weekend the plan changed from “buying toxic mortgage-backed assets” to “let’s follow Great Brittan because they seem to know how to deal with this crisis, so let’s pump money into a few good banks like they’re doing over there across the pond”. So that’s what we’re doing. And the figure is now $250 billion instead of $700 or $850 or whatever it ended up being once al the rum and wooden arrow makers across the nation were settled up.
The credit markets were closed today because of the holiday, but they open back up tomorrow. Analysts are now looking to see if the interbank lending rates, or the rates banks charge each other to borrow each other’s money (think what needed to happen but didn’t when people ran IndyMac) will come down so that banks will again lend to each other. Until banks again start covering each other, no one who missed one electric bill will be able to get a loan.
The only stocks I’m ahead in right now are Radian Group (RDN), MBIA (MBI), and Syncora (SCA); the rest are one big hemorrhage. Moody’s still hasn’t lifted their threat of downgrade of Ambac (ABK). But to stay positive after such a positive day, at least I’ll be able to average down. And average down I definitely will!
Word that a second stimulus package may be on its way may have also helped boost the markets today. Crude oil followed the rest of the market today, closing up $4.14 to $81.84.
The #1 movie in America is Beverly Hills Chihuahua.
????
October 10, 2008
· Filed under business, economy, investing, money, politics, stock market · Tagged AAPL, AIG, Apple, dow, Great Depression, National Debt Clock, November 9, oil, SmartMoney, St. Regis Spa & Resort, wall street
And so ends the worst week in Wall Street history. The Dow is now trading comfortably under $9,000 and every opening bell has become the signal at the gate of a downhill skiing competition. My 403b statement came in the mail today; I won’t look at it. In the envelope it will stay until times are good again and I can look back on this time and laugh.
One year ago yesterday, the Dow hit its highest trade ever at $14,164. As of today, we’re rapidly closing in on half that number. $6,000 is beginning to look like a fair estimate of the bottom. Could it go lower? If this week was an indicator, yes it could go lower.
The National Debt Clock in Times Square ran out of number placements this week because back when it was erected, no one ever predicted our national debt would soar to over $10 trillion. Well it did, and now we need a new clock. If our current debt was divided by the number of people living in the US, we’d currently all owe over $33,000. I wonder if the cost of the new clock, which will be able to track debt up to a quadrillion dollars, will be tacked onto the national debt.
If there is a silver lining to this story it’s torn and tattered but definitely intact in a few areas. For one, strong stocks are being thrown away with the rest of them, making it clear that people are somewhat overreacting. This week, Apple (AAPL) hit a low of $85, yet as we all know, everyone has at least one ipod. I have two. One doesn’t work anymore because it was the second generation mini that wasn’t covered under the bunk battery warranty, and even if it had been covered, the application for refund or repair was too involved. Genius, Apple, genius. So, Apple’s got money- our money.
The second good thing this week brought was lower and lower oil prices. My cheap landlord, after provoking me to tell him I was moving out (“You want to leave? I can get $1,200 for that apartment no problem! You tell me right now! You tell me right now if you want to leave and I’ll get someone else in there! You tell me right now!!) finally put the heat on, which is fueled by oil. So my cold is lifting. OPEC wants to meet soon to talk about the dropping oil prices and whether they should decrease production, but with gas prices still up over $3 a gallon, and people losing their jobs, my suspicion is that oil will continue to fall. And my apartment will continue to be warm.
The third good thing is that lobster prices are way down. Mmmmm….
The last good thing I can see from this mess we’re in is that once it’s over, there are going to be some serious undervalued stocks to scoop up. The fact that Apple is being tossed out with the garbage screams undervaluation. My plan now, since I’ve taken a big hit with the rest of the world, is to wait for the white flag and average down. By then I should be in a good position to pick up a bunch more shares on the super cheap.
But that time isn’t yet. Henry Paulson says he’ll get the plan in place “soon”. How subjective. How soon is soon? That’s as hard a question to answer as “where is the bottom?” I doubt even Paulson knows.
One story that I forgot to write about, but which deserves attention, is the one about the AIG executives on the days following their taxpayer bailout. Just one day after we showered them with $85 billion of our hard-earned tax dollars, a whole bunch of these bald bankers were showering in luxury at the St. Regis Spa & Resort in Monarch Beach, California. For an entire week while we were all trekking to work, they were being treated to facials and manicures, free food and wine. The spa trip cost the company, and in turn you and me, hundreds of thousands of dollars and has caused some AIG big-wigs, and I use that term loosely, to be called to Congress’s carpet.
But the thing that bothers me most about the whole AIG spa trip thing is not the free pampering or even the gross sense of entitlement these guys still have despite f*cking up all of our lives. What bothers me most about this story is the thought of a few dozen or so pasty white bankers wrapped in only slightly whiter terry towels, sitting around pools and steam room benches talking about whatever it is bankers talk about when they’re not at the office. By God, please tell me the towels stayed on. It’s enough to shift one’s reoccurring nightmare from piles of 401k statements on milk crates within cardboard residences up and down Main Street to dark steam rooms and sweaty, liver-spotted heads. I’m going to be sick.
On a lighter note, the Dow lost a modest 128 points today to settle the week at $8,451. Crude oil closed at a 13-month low of $77.70 today. I’ve likely lost half of my investment, and am doing an OK job at staying positive. My landlord is a drunk who talks big and who won’t really make me leave, my job is secure, and any waken moment that I’m not working or preparing lessons, I’m working on my calculus homework. First test this coming Wednesday- a little nervous. So I’ve been staying occupied. And I know the ship will eventually right, just as it always has throughout time, and out of this crash will emerge some seriously rich folk who took advantage of some seriously good stock deals. I hope to be one of them.
SmartMoney Magazine published a letter I wrote to them one early morning about their September article “10 Things Millionaires Won’t Tell You”. I think it’s pretty hilarious I got published in a money magazine considering that a year ago I didn’t know how to open a brokerage account. Oh how the tides do change.
October 8, 2008
· Filed under business, economy, investing, money, politics, stock market · Tagged $850, bailout plan, crude oil closed at, dow closed at, interest rate, short selling, Steve Forbes
Paulson says “it will take weeks” to get the $850 billion bailout plan in place. Market analysts are crying for Paulson to get some sort of plan in place sooner.
The Fed slashed the interest rate by ½ a point to 1.5%, sending the Dow into a frenzied sine curve that ended down 189 to $9,258. Crude oil lost $1.11 to $88.95.
Steve Forbes of Forbes Magazine was on Money Matters Today tonight claiming we’re near the bottom.
The short-selling ban lifts at midnight.
