Posts tagged stocks
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.
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September 21, 2008
· Filed under business, economy, investing, money, politics, stock market · Tagged ABK, AIG, ambac, banks, banned, Barclays, Ben Bernanke, Charles Schumer, economy, financials, Henry Paulson, investing, LEH, Lehman Brothers, LEHMQ, MBI, MBIA, Moody's, Moody's Ratings, short selling, stocks
Whoa mama. I was definitely wrong about the profit-taking. The US market rallied harder in the last two days than it has in 38 years- longer than I’ve been alive! Lehman Brothers, now on the OTC board as LEHMQ, gained 313% on rumors that it would sell parts of itself to foreign banks. Barclays is back in the running. In just the last two days of trading, I made up almost all of what I had lost in the last week and a half.
The SEC banned ALL short selling- regular and naked alike- of 799 financials for the next 10 days. The United Kingdom temporarily halted short selling yesterday, and the US did the same. This is a huge step from just banning naked shorting; this is a total ban on betting that stocks will lose value, essentially disqualifying half of the game. Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer, both New York Senators, proposed the ban. Critics say this ban will warp the market, making it seem as if the financial stocks are worth more than they are. But when naked shorting was banned in July, the effect lasted long after the ban was lifted. In fact, it lasted right up until last week when AIG teetered and fell and dragged the entire sector along with it. So in a market that is so emotionally driven, a little banning may do the trick to snap the depression (no pun intended).
Henry Paulson, our Treasury Secretary, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke proposed the idea to spin all bad parts of financial institutions into its own entity- a black hole of badness. This idea reminds me of that story I had to read in high school about the utopian society that was only a utopia because of the little girl who lived in a cage in the basement of someone’s house. Remember that one? I was never big on reading, so titles slip my mind. I just remember the girl in the cage and the annual field trip every schoolkid would take to see the girl in the dirty dark cage dungeon as a reminder of why they lived as perfectly as they did. I wonder if part of the Paulson and Bernanke plan will have the American people visiting the dark entity once a year. Oh wait, now I get it. We will be visiting once a year- at tax time. Seems these two guys kept up on their high school reading.
Meanwhile in Ratings Land, Moody’s threatened to downgrade Ambac (ABK) and MBIA (MBI), which dropped ABK 42% and another 27% in afterhours, and MBI 8% and another 8% in afterhours. The ABK message boards caught fire, and it seems Moody’s may catch some of it by Monday, if not sooner.
Do you know the name of that book yet? Maybe it was a short story.
September 8, 2008
· Filed under money, politics, stock market · Tagged Alan Fishman, Andrew McCain, dollar, dollar value, dow closed, financials, Fitch Ratings, freddie mac, Friedman Billings Ramsey, Hurricane Ike, investing, John McCain's son, Kerry Killinger, money, oil closed, Radian Group, RDN, SCA, September 8 2008, Silver State Bancorp, SSBX, Steve Stelmach, stocks, Syncora, trading, Washington Mutual, WM
“Never count your chickens before they’ve hatched” goes the saying, but I didn’t follow this advice. This morning during the premarket, I busted out my calculator to crunch just how much I was set to make based on the premarket numbers, and it was a lot. So you can imagine my surprise when I signed back into Etrade at 11AM to see most of my stocks in the red and Freddie trading at $1 (which actually was better than I expected). Indeed, the financials all opened up big- real big- and I’m sure today’s blip will be seen for years to come. But then things happened. I’m still not sure exactly what, but maybe it was a composite of a bunch of things:
Washington Mutual (WM) gave their CEO Kerry Killinger the boot, instated veteran Alan Fishman, and was told by the Office of Thrift Supervision to provide “an updated, multi-year business plan and forecast for its earnings, asset quality, capital and business segment performance” (SmartMoney.com). Sure sounds like micromanagement to me. WM closed the day down 5.62% after being down 20% during some of the session.
Syncora’s (SCA) rating was withdrawn by Fitch Ratings, who had just in August changed SCA’s rating from “evolving” to “positive”. Who are these Fitch Ratings people anyway, and why does their word mean so much? SCA closed the day down 4% after being down by double digit percentages various times during today’s session.
Radian Group (RDN) opened the day at $5.50, which was up from Friday’s close of $4.79, steadily fell throughout the day like its siblings, then fell off in the last few minutes of trading to close the day down 17%. Google message boarders think someone knows something, although no news has yet hit.
Silver State Bancorp (SSBX), driven into the ground by John McCain’s son Andrew McCain, failed on Friday, making US bank casualty number eleven. I held just 125 shares of them, worth just over $100, so the hit wasn’t so hard. But that with Freddie had me reeling. I contemplated selling WM and SCA, or buying more WM, or buying Deerfield Capital (DFR), or not buying them, or waiting it out, or putting a 60-day limit order in, but in the end I did nothing. I sold SSBX at market for a gain less than the commission and held on to FRE. I decided that once the smoke clears, which stock is which and where each is going will become much clearer. But I sure do wish those pre- and early-market numbers held! And most of all, I hope today isn’t a sign that the US banking industry is going the way of Wal-Mart (who coincidentally closed the day up 2%), and headed to put all the little guys out of business. One analyst, Steve Stelmach of Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co. said that “mortgage insurance could become an obsolete form of credit enhancement” in the long-term because of the bailout. He was loosely referring to the drop in RDN’s share price and how the company, and ones like it, could be phased out.
The Dow ironically traced a smiley face, opening way up, dipping a bit, then closing the day up 289 to $11,510. Because of Hurricane Ike barreling towards the Gulf of Mexico, oil closed the day up as well, but just by 11 cents to $106.34. The dollar is at its highest value in nearly a year! It would now take just $1.41 to get one euro. Including the hit from SSBX, I closed the day down $323, $211 of which was from FRE.
You win some, you lose some; I just wish I had won today. The market rallied and I was left in its dust. With any luck, much of today’s activity in the financial sector was just profit-taking and the days to come will reveal the real reaction to this past weekend’s news. Next time I won’t count my chickens before they’ve hatched and started laying eggs of their own!
August 25, 2008
· Filed under money, stock market · Tagged Alexei Kudrin, Biden, bonds, Columbian Bank and Trust, Denver, FRE, freddie mac, investing, money, russia, stocks, Thornburg, TMA, trading
Barack Obama announced over the weekend that his running mate will be Joe Biden. The Democratic National Convention begins tonight in Denver, Colorado.
Columbian Bank and Trust Co. of Topeka, Kansas collapsed, bringing the death toll to nine, and Korea Development Bank is having second thoughts about buying Lehman.
My stocks were split in the morning: PMI, FMD, FRE, RDN, TMA, ABK, MBI, and C all saw green while SSBX, SCA, WM, CHC, RF, NCC, and MTG were in the red. Freddie Mac has seen this same pattern day in and day out: big daily swings, which have no doubt has been making some big people some big money. Russia’s Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin reported that his country has made over one billion dollars (670 million euros at today’s exchange) on Freddie Mac bonds in the last six months, and Reuters has reported that demand is up for their 3-month and 6-month bills, so maybe today’s gain has some backbone to it. Warren Buffett says it’s “game over” for Freddie and Fannie, so it could be the run on bonds is an anticipation of a government bailout. Bonds get paid first. Time will tell. The stock has lost 2/3 of its value since I bought in, so at this point my 50 shares aren’t really worth worrying about.
Oil was up in the morning but went red by around 11AM. Resales of homes previously owned rose in July from the 10-year hit in June, and were the highest since February, which beat the Street’s forecast. The median home price has dropped 7% in a month, making is seem as if home prices may finally be meeting buyers’ expectations. Still, the amount of homes for sale in July was the highest ever, according to TradeTheNews.com.
Once the lunch bell rang, oil went green again, and the Dow really started to nosedive. Citigroup (C) clicked into red, and FMD followed once the brokers got back from lunch, but FRE, RDN, and TMA really started to take off. I’d think it was the bond insurers shining again after the news about Russia’s take on FRE bonds, but SCA wasn’t following suit. I take the fact that any stocks are up on a day the Dow is down over 200 points as a good sign of things to come, but the market these days is anyone’s interpret.
Meanwhile, as a throwback to my greener days, America’s Wind Energy (AWNE), the last slug standing, continues to drop. By now, much like with FRE, I’ve lost so much on the thing it’s not even worth thinking about, except for the fact that AWNE was supposed to be bought out by a larger wind company at some point and I continually wonder when that day will be. I’m not really even sure if that day has passed or has yet to come, or if it will ever come to fruition, or if that fruition will be fruition at all. All I do know is that “AWNE” may not even front an actual company and its presence in my portfolio serves as a constant reminder that day and swing trading OTCs on good news may be ok, but trying to invest in one of these small non-companies with low trading volumes is never ever ever a good idea. Ever.
After some flip flopping between red and green, my stocks eked out a modest $80 gain with TMA and FRE as the day’s big gainers and WM and MTG as the day’s big losers. The Dow lost 241 points to close the day at $11,386, and oil gained 52 cents to close the day at $115.11.
All eyes on Denver.
August 21, 2008
· Filed under money, stock market · Tagged dow, financials, first marblehead, fmd, investing, money, oil closed at, russia, shana donohue, shanadonohue, stocks, Thornburg, TMA, trading
This morning was filled with even more doom and gloom, until around 10AM when Freddie turned, taking other financials with it. One by one, red turned to white turned to green, but not before I picked up more shares of MGIC Investment (MTG), Radian Group (RDN), and 100 initial shares of First Marblehead (FMD). Yeah I know what you’re thinking: “where’d she get the money?” I did an awful thing- I took a credit card advance. But just until tomorrow! This week’s downs were too good to pass up, so I took the advance for two days until I get paid. OK, now that I’m all confessed…
FMD came out with earnings after the closing bell today, and of course posted a loss. But considering this week’s terrible performance across the sector has nothing to do with actual company performances and all to do with worries about the imminent government bail out of Freddie, I’d say FMD is a decent bet under $4. This stock has a 52-week high of $41, which by my very scientific calculation yields a fraction under 0.1. If First Marblehead rebounds, it could potentially multiply my investment by ten.
By 10:45AM, Freddie blinked back into red, essentially ending the morning’s rally. It saw green again for a bit later in the day, but the window closed. On the other hand, Fannie Mae (FNM) was one of the financial sector’s big gainers today. Thornburg mortgage (TMA) that on Wednesday saw a crash, hit 50% above open by 11:30 AM on no [public] news at all. TMA closed the day up 35%.
But oil was the day’s real leader. It was up all day on news that Russia may disrupt its oil flow (Bloomberg reported them as being the world’s second largest oil producer) because of yesterday’s signing of a missile-shield agreement between the US and Poland. Once everyone realizes that the US has no plans to piss off Russia, oil will again fall. Oil closed the day up $5.62 to $121.18 per barrel. The Dow traveled sideways today and closed up just 12 points to $11,430. The dollar fell against the euro; it would now take $1.487 to get one of them.
August 15, 2008
· Filed under money, stock market · Tagged ABK, ambac, bonds, dow closed at, MBI, money, oil closed at, PMI, RDN, SCA, speculation, stocks, trading
Both MBIA and ABK were upgraded afterhours last night, so their share prices soared in afterhours trading, leaving no possibility of getting more ABK on the cheap! I put in a limit order to buy 100 more shares, but it didn’t take, so I bumped my order down to 75 shares at a higher price and the order took. Prices always seem to fall after a hot stock’s early morning surge, but I got punchy and bought in. Luckily by the end of the day, my buy-in price started looking pretty cheap. ABK broke the $6 mark, then fell to close the day at $5.63- up 23% on the day.
Shares of Silver State Bancorp (SSBX) fell 25% today on news that their second quarter loss was miscalculated and was actually larger than reported. Ouch. Google message boarders think the bank will go bust. Its 52-week high is $19 and SSBX is currently trading at just 62 cents. My very scientific calculation of dividing the current share price by the 52-week high yields the tiny fraction 0.0326, which tells me, in a very scientific way, that this thing is at least a decent bet and at most a real money-maker. I’ll keep my $77 worth of shares until the real bottom is reached, then maybe average down.
When starting this experiment, I set two goals for myself: to have a $1000 day, which happened yesterday, and to hit $10,000 by October. Today I hit the second goal two months early, thanks mostly to the bond insurers PMI, ABK, MBI, RDN, and SCA. So what now? Let it ride! I honestly wasn’t sure $10,000 would ever happen. But it did. So what’s the next goal? I like base 10.
The Dow moved sideways today to close the day up 44 points to $11,659. Oil closed down $1.24 today to $113.77 on news that world demand is down. Wasn’t demand in developing countries reportedly way up a month ago? Wasn’t that the reason oil was at $140 a barrel? Gee, things sure can change in a month! Please, it’s all speculation.
Whoo hoo, Friday! I’m headed out of Massachusetts for the first time in a while.
August 14, 2008
· Filed under money, stock market · Tagged dow closed, financial sector, inflation, money, oil closed, oil demand, oil inventory, PMI, QBE, stock market, stocks, trading
At the bewilderment of the New Yorker who took my call, I cancelled my free trial membership to the Financial Times today. “Your free month isn’t over yet, are you sure you want to cancel?” she asked. “Yes,” I answered, “I never get a chance to read it.” The honest answer would have been that there aren’t enough pictures and the print is too small, but I didn’t want to get into all that. I picked up the October issue of Writer’s Digest because it boasted a 28-person long list of agents who are actively seeking new work. I emailed three of them last night. Two of them already rejected me. Fuck them.
Better times did indeed come today. QBE Insurance Group announced this morning that they plan to buy PMI Group’s (PMI) Asian and Australian businesses for $896 million, which caused my 250 shares of PMI to skyrocket in price from $2.79 to $4.00 in premarket trading, climb to 70% above open, and fall to close the day up 49% to at $4.17. All at once, all the losses I incurred this week disappeared. Nice.
I had a change of heart about UCBH last night. Its 52-week high is just $20, which doesn’t seem worth the $4 a share now. The financials are so beaten down, there are much better bargains to be found. Picking up more shares of Ambac Financial (ABK) for the same price, and which has a 52-week high of $74, may be a better bet, but its share price was up too high to buy in today. PMI, SCA, RDN, and MBI all had double digit percentage gains, and just about all the financials closed in the green today. Tomorrow, when everyone is done grabbing profits, will be a better time to buy. I had a dream last night that I signed into my brokerage account, which wasn’t Etrade but another strange trading platform, saw that I had made $50,000 (I wish), and somehow lost the internet connection and web address to get back in and sell. By the time I did get back in, after a tryst with my dead friend and being robbed by one of my student’s parents, all the profits were gone. I woke up pretty distressed, so the surprise about PMI came on a good morning.
I also hit a personal goal today: my portfolio took in $1000 in a day. Making $1000 everyday would be pretty sweet, and I really never thought it would actually happen. But it did. Maybe my experiment is really working. One of my friends said that he feels bad for the people losing money, but I don’t. They don’t cry on my bad days. I’m all about helping people, and in fact can’t imagine what I’d do if I wasn’t a teacher. Well I’d be a locksmith, but they help people too. Whenever I locked myself out of my car, which used to be a lot, just the sight of the locksmith truck made me tear up. They help people big time. But I have learned to separate good deeds from money. There’s absolutely no correlation at all between the two, no matter how many times people that say nice people don’t care about money. Nice people are nice because they don’t have to worry about their hot water being shut off or not being able to buy their organic vegetables at Whole Foods. The Wall Street Journal reported today that inflation hit a 17-year high in July, and that it’s being fueled by the costs of energy, clothing, and food. Getting ahead has been replaced by making par in this economy. It’s OK to want to make money. Ain’t nuttin’ wrong wit buying Hood milk!
The Dow made a rainbow today, opening in the red, soaring into triple digit green, and then dipping to close up 83 points to $11,615. The news about inflation seemed to tip the scale a bit, but it was still a decent day. Bloomberg cited Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as leading today’s financials rally, but I think it was PMI. Oil closed the day down 99 cents to $115.01, falling on news that demand is down. I wonder what would have happened if yesterday’s news about the decline in oil inventory hit today and today’s lower demand story hit yesterday. Or what if the two stories hit on the same day? There isn’t as much money to be made in a flat market. Oh these news people sure are savvy!
“Annals”. I heard this word today for the first time since I was a kid. I remember pouring over the annals at the Worcester public library to write book reports on Egyptians and early American settlers. Annals. What a funny word.
August 12, 2008
· Filed under money, stock market · Tagged bank downgrades, banks, dow closed, downgrade, Fannie Mae, financials, FNM, Goldman Sachs, GS, money, Morgan Stanley, MS, naked short, oil closed, stocks, trading
Today was one of those days that made me wish I stayed in bed. Both the Dow and oil were down, gold was down, energy was way up, and unfortunately, the financials were way down. A lot of downgrades were handed out this week: Goldman Sachs (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS), and Fannie Mae (FNM) were all downgraded, and may have led to today’s march into the vortex. An email from a guy named Charles Payne popped into my inbox today, apparently from some stock market mailing list I inadvertently signed myself up for, that was titled “Tough Day to Decipher” and called today’s session “murky”. Loch Ness murky. Mid-Atlantic Ridge with no flashlight murky.
The downgrades of such big banks no doubt contributed to today’s dismalness; just the threat that Zion Bancorporation (ZION) may be downgraded sent the stock into a tailspin. But it may all be a ploy by the big guys to keep the naked shorts away. The ban on naked short selling was lifted today, and it’s hard to imagine there was no connection between its lift and the big downgrades. Once a stock is downgraded, it falls sharply, then begins to make a steady increase. No short money can be made on a stock going up.
I bought more SSBX in the morning, and it held at about where I bought it all day. I finally gave up on the dream that the fake OTC IndyMac (IDMC) was more than a fake OTC IndyMac and sold it at a pretty substantial loss. Looking forward, I can use those funds better investing in UCHB, MF, and/or Community Bancorp (CBON), the last of which weathered today’s storm pretty well, closing up 5%. A friend of mine says CBON is a good investment and points to the nice steady upward slope the stock has made since July 15. He thinks “Something must be going on with it.” I like his technical analysis. CHC held up pretty well today too.
The Dow closed down 139 to $11,642. Oil sank $1.44 to close at $13.01. Every stock in my portfolio, with the exception of CHC and TMA, closed in the red today, but several of the downers (and the Dow) had small rallies at the very end of the day. Hopefully it’s an indication of better days ahead.
August 11, 2008
· Filed under money, stock market · Tagged banks, CHC, dollar, dow closed, economy, FRE, freddie mac, investing, legg mason, michael phelps, money, naked short, oil closed, phelps, Radian, RDN, SCA, SSBX, stock market, stocks, Syncora, trading
The Financial Times called this week “crucial” for determining if the six-year downward trend of the dollar will finally end. One Euro now costs $1.4904, down almost 10 cents from about a month ago. If it does break free, economists are expecting a quick economic rebound. Fingers crossed.
Etrade pushed my funds through this morning so I was clear to buy. I picked up more shares of MBI and CHC, and then bought into ACA Capital Holdings (ACAH) before reading the news that hit Friday about the company writing no new business. So about 15 minutes later I sold ACAH at a loss. I also sold off TGIC today at a loss and for the same reason. No new business can never be a good thing, and I should have read up first before buying. Haven’t I learned this lesson already? Yes I have; the reason I sold TGIC the first time was due to a “no new business” declaration. I should have read up on ACAH before jumping in. I’ll never learn!
With the rest of my available funds, I was only able to buy 40 shares of Silver State Bancorp (SSBX), which I should have bought into first, and had written a note to myself to buy into first, but for whatever reason didn’t. It has a relatively low trading volume, but the tiny fraction created by dividing its 52-week high into where it’s currently trading was just too good to pass up. I’ll pick up more SSBX later in the week.
By 1PM I set up a plan for what to buy into next. UCBH Holdings (UCBH), MF Global (MF), AMCORE Financial (AMFI), and Corus Bankshares (CORS) all create tiny fractions when dividing the current price by the 52-week high, and UCBH and MF both reported some sort of second quarter gains. CORS and AMFI had unusual upward movement today, which could be a red flag, and also have much lower trading volumes than UCBH and MF. Because of all this, I decided my next two moves would be into UCHB and MF, as soon as Etrade clears the funds created from selling off TGIC and ACAH.
I’d like to take a second to scream how dope Michael Phelps is. MICHAEL PHELPS, YOU ROCK!! He doesn’t represent every boy whose dad was an ass; he represents what every person can be. Why Channel 7 shows soap operas over the Olympics I’ll never understand. Ok, back to stocks.
Radian Group (RDN) reported a loss of $392.50 million ($4.91 per share) this morning as opposed to a profit of $21.1 million ($0.26 per share) this time last year, causing its share value to drop in the morning, but the news was quickly forgotten RDN closed up 8% on the day. Reporting a profit these days is the anomaly, and even when a financial posts a profit, such as ABK last week, a stock can still fall. There seems to be little rhyme or reason to financial stock prices in this environment, except that the announcement of “no new business” slaughters a stock price. All other news is fair game.
The Dow was completely driven by oil today: when oil fell in the morning, the Dow made gains, and when oil had a change of heart around 2PM, so did the Dow. http://www.advfn.com/p.php is a great site to watch the Dow, Nasdaq, and the S&P 500, and their connection to crude oil prices. The Dow closed the day up 48 points to $11,782. Oil closed the day down 75 cents to
$114.45, the lowest it’s been since May 1, and fell below the benchmark $113 a barrel at one point during today’s trading session.
After the closing bell, Syncora Holdings (SCA) reported a second quarter loss of $492.9 million ($7.67 per share). It should move up or down (who knows?) in the morning. Naked short sellers return tomorrow, and I’m starting to have serious doubts about the fate of Freddie Mac (FRE). By the end of the week if the news that big wig Legg Mason bought millions more shares doesn’t send FRE into the green, I may need to cut it loose. Manny needs mental peace, I need mental peace. Sinkers don’t bring the peace, just the pain!
August 8, 2008
· Filed under money, stock market · Tagged ABK, banks, CHC, China, dollar, dow closed at, Etrade, Fannie, money, oil bubble, oil closed at, SCA, stock market, stocks, trading
Etrade sucks. When I transferred finds in this morning, a little window popped up saying the funds would be ready for immediate investment. When they didn’t show in my account, I called and the rep told me I’d have to wait until the 14th. By 3:30PM I wasn’t happy with that answer, so I called back and the new rep told me they’d fix the problem within 30 minutes. But they didn’t. Total bullshit. You really do get what you pay for, but in Etrade’s case, I think $10 a trade and free customer service is way overpriced.
Telegram U.K. declared a burst of the oil bubble. Well no shit. All the Escalade drivers who have been [falsely] cursing China’s oil demand for driving up the cost of their premium unleaded must be thanking God for answering their prayers. Ah, I’m just bitter today for being cheated by Etrade. As a result of the burst in oil, transportation was the big winner today.
But all I could do today was watch. Mbia (MBI) reported a surprise profit of $1.7 billion before the bell this morning, so its stock jumped big in early morning trading. Between last night and this morning, I whittled today’s buy plan down to three stocks: 50 more shares of MBI before it hit the stratosphere, 100 more of CHC, and 50 more of ABK, but it was a no go on any of it. Damn you Etrade! Liars!
JP Morgan analysts, as if they’re any sort of authority these days, downgraded Ambac (ABK), so its stock fell even after the great profit it reported on Wednesday. People on the Google message boards think it was a classic case of stock manipulation, and I may agree. ABK ended the day down 8%, MBI ended the day up 3%, and CHC ended the day up 48%.
Fannie Mae (FNM) reported a huge second quarter loss of $2.3 billion ($2.54 per share) and a slash of its dividend before the bell this morning, so it was no surprise its stock fell. But it was a bit surprising that Freddie Mac (FRE) saw green today. I know I still have a lot to learn about the stock market, but it struck me as odd that Fannie didn’t pull everything else into its vortex like Freddie seemed to do yesterday.
All in all, I gained today, but not enough to erase yesterday’s huge loss. The Dow closed up 303 points to $11,734, and oil closed down $4.82 to $115.20 per barrel. The dollar made its greatest one-day gain in over five years, and gold hit a 3-month low. The Beijing opening ceremonies are tonight, so the world’s eye will be in China.
