Same here. I got in at 180 and again at 150 but then pussied out and stopped buying.

1/24/2010 1:15:35 PM

Ha. I used to own a good bit but it was called away at 35 and 40 and I was too much of a puss to get back into it.

1/24/2010 3:37:31 PM

yeah, I bought into AAPL at $102 and $174...it's my 2nd largest holding in my LTBH account, behind BRK.B (I do own a whole pile of Burlington Northern Santa Fe in my short-term trading account, just to make a few easy bucks on Berkshire's acquisition...and I put sizeable amounts on stuff like SSO in that account, usually just to get back out of it in a few days).

anyone think that adding to my Schlumberger and Phillip Morris positions is a terrible idea?

1/24/2010 5:46:04 PM

I loaded up on aapl when it was low, as well. up a shitload. scary part is that they have a lot of room to grow.

1/24/2010 11:28:51 PM

needing to unload my TYH & EDC on up days today and/or tomorrow

1/25/2010 9:18:33 AM

SWHC looks interesting again

1/25/2010 9:19:14 AM

Picked up a bit more MSFT and COH today.

1/25/2010 3:40:21 PM

AAPL after hours trading is retarded considering the earnings call they just had

1/25/2010 5:17:54 PM

Not if you've been following Apple for more than 1 conference call.

1/25/2010 6:41:01 PM

I'm still waiting to see what their supposed unveiling does to prices.

If it's a legit tablet that gets a good reception I'd expect to see MSFT and INTC jump as well.

1/25/2010 7:27:26 PM

Quote :

"AAPL after hours trading is retarded considering the earnings call they just had"

1/26/2010 11:18:56 AM

seems like i got stopped out of AGQ

will get back in later i guess

1/26/2010 12:20:53 PM

Quote :

"AAPL after hours trading is retarded considering the earnings call they just had"

I'm actually somewhat stunned that aapl managed to keep a gain in todays trading session. This is Commander in Chief Bear-ack Obama's market. And investors are clearing out. As they will clear out of AAPL when they announce the tablet in similar fashion to GOOG's nexus one launch. It is going to be an ugly battle ground tomorrow ahead of the state of the union address.

I loaded up on FAZ options before the close. If you are bullish I suggest buying "the right" stocks at tomorrows close.


For the Record:

C 3.15 -2.48%
BAC 14.77 -1.40%
JPM 38.44 -1.96%
WFC 26.99 -2.42%
GS 150.88 -2.65%
MS 27.33 -1.48%

1/26/2010 4:24:13 PM

Gooooooo GS!

1/26/2010 4:50:29 PM

^^now 4/7

1/26/2010 5:02:46 PM

I sold calls on a ton of stuff today.

1/27/2010 5:47:10 PM

Quote :

"If you are bullish I suggest buying "the right" stocks at tomorrows close."

Ya think?

1/27/2010 7:24:26 PM

Quote :

"I loaded up on FAZ options before the close."

How'd that work out for ya?

1/27/2010 7:31:30 PM

^ It hasn't.

1/27/2010 11:31:33 PM

feels bearish out there..

1/28/2010 11:32:20 AM

Not for NFLX.

up 22% to $62

[Edited on January 28, 2010 at 2:19 PM. Reason : .]

1/28/2010 2:19:37 PM

TM is down pretty hard on news of their recall. Might be a good time to buy in or sell some puts.

1/29/2010 3:51:04 PM

GDP grew by 5.7% last quarter, beating expectations and the market just did not give a fuck... We Still Smashing.

For the record:

C 3.32 +0.08 (2.47%)
BAC 15.18 -0.19 (-1.24%)
JPM 38.94 -0.54 (-1.37%)
WFC 28.43 -0.02 (-0.07%)
GS 148.72 -4.57 (-2.98%)
MS 26.78 -0.71 (-2.58%)

1/29/2010 4:32:24 PM

^^^ sweet, i own some NFLX

1/29/2010 6:21:53 PM

Quote :

"TM is down pretty hard on news of their recall. Might be a good time to buy in or sell some puts."

I thought about this as well. You know quality wise they'll recover, but I can't help but think of just how bad their reputation is damaged from this. Consumers are fickle people. Just look at how Ford has knocked it out of the park because people were afraid to buy from GM and Chrysler. I suspect something similar will happen to Toyota in the short term. Long term they'll be fine. Consider the market appears like it wants to reflect reality and you're sorta trying to catch a falling knife with this one.

1/29/2010 6:46:09 PM

As big a deal as they make about it, I doubt that many people are going to swear off of Toyotas due to a relatively minor error like this. Lets not forget that less than 10 years ago Ford was making SUVs that blew tires and flipped over as soon as you took them out of neutral.

1/29/2010 8:17:06 PM

10 years ago at the end of 2000 after the .com was halfway to unwinding (which didn't have quite the same effect on all the other sectors like this most recent bubble has) Toyota was an $80 stock. Today, it is basically an $80 stock. Ford was a $25 stock at that time. Now granted, this single Toyota issue doesn't compare with the tire issue + all the other problems the American car makers were facing, but it does illustrate where the stock could be headed.

1/29/2010 8:53:57 PM

anyone seen this shit? $36K top line and they're asking for $12-13M from the public? if i were i pro, i'd come up with a shorting strategy, but since im an amateur who's only experience with shorts has been 3rd degree burns, i'll probably leave it alone.

http://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1410428/000119312510016082/ds1.htm

2/1/2010 4:48:03 PM

traders market like whoa... been stopped out of damn near everything save a few long held biotech names.

m guess is down again tomorrow, and a slight uptick on low volume Monday, which if we see needs to be faded

2/4/2010 11:49:59 AM

goodbye 10K

2/4/2010 3:58:28 PM

Damn, a 3% down day on the S&P? It's been awhile since we've seen one that bad right?

I'm still sitting mostly on the sidelines as this market still makes no sense. Sure the employment number wasn't so grand, but the GDP number was good and earnings numbers are still good, good enough that the market shouldn't be selling off like this.

I'm thinking we tread down for awhile, bolstered by decreasing improvement in the numbers at which point Helicopter Ben will announce QE 2.0. The timing of that depends on how far out this administration thinks they need to announce it to jolt the market heading into the election cycle. Unfortunately for them, the public has now become a deficit hawk so they have to figure out how to do it without lighting that fire.

Like ^^ said, it's a traders market and at this point you're simply gambling that you can get it right. Having said that, I'm still holding PGH and TNK from last July and both of them are riding out these swings very predictably (TNK was actually up on news they'll be increasing their dividend).

2/4/2010 6:33:24 PM

Well let's see... fair value on the S&P is probably around 850... there are negative flows from retail investors again... the economic news has been horrible.... housing looks ready to fall apart... earnings have been decent but with no revenue growth.... sovereign debt looks ready to implode... and california is bankrupt again...

There are plenty more down days ahead, don't worry we are only ten years into what will likely be a ~17-20 year bear market.

2/4/2010 7:04:35 PM

^ All reasons I think they'll launch QE 2.0. In fact, if you look at treasuries over the past couple of weeks, it's possible they have already started.

Quote :

"There are plenty more down days ahead, don't worry we are only ten years into what will likely be a ~17-20 year bear market."

Basically. Part of me wishes we would have had a Depression so we'd get a reset on the economy. The other part of me thinks we're still going to have it.

2/4/2010 8:03:18 PM

Heh, it's coming. There's no exit strategy from this, and there's no recovery in sight. The only thing you can do is prepare for the worst. If you look at all of our unfunded liabilities, and how our current expenditures are paid for, you can only come to one conclusion. I'm not so worried about the depression, though. I'm worried about what the government is going to try to do to stop it. Price controls? Possibly. More irresponsible monetary policy...QE: Zimbabwe edition? Let's hope not.

Big sell off in gold today, oil dropping. Hard to say why, but I'm betting it has something to do with the Chinese...they've been propping up commodities for some time.

2/5/2010 12:24:08 PM

bought in to some agq at 42.00 ...

In the money right now, but really nervous about being in the position. Especially with the drop off lately ... just really trying to bet on a small rebound.

Wish I knew something about commodities ... I dont really understand the macro surround metals.

.... out of position now ...

[Edited on February 5, 2010 at 12:41 PM. Reason : .]

2/5/2010 12:30:50 PM

bought some BUCY & CAGC

i think you can start testing the waters again at S&P 1050

2/8/2010 11:25:07 AM

That's pretty bullish... I'm still hanging in there and now I'm going with a 90/10 split between equities and gold but this has been pretty stomach turning.

I just dont want to be in cash when the devaluing takes place.

Im probably 65% foreign, 25% domestic, 10% gold with ~35% materials....

2/8/2010 7:05:09 PM

You know, there is such an option as cash, right?

There aren't really any classes that survive deflation.

2/8/2010 7:08:42 PM

I keep enough cash to pay my bills each week and no more, period.

Cash is just too risky in my book. I'm pretty liquid and self-sustaining besides my car payment and alcohol needs. I don't need more than $1-2k in my bank account at any time.


Now I was in cash for the last two weeks of January in my 401k just to avoid the spiral downwards. I'm playing a bump right now, but if I don't get it I'm confident the positions I took will outperform cash by several percent over the next 7 years. (50% emerging, 50% INTL index)

2/8/2010 7:38:49 PM

Quote :

"outperform cash by several percent over the next 7 years"

If the S&P doesn't outperform cash (which I assume you mean a money market account which at best I would guess are 2% in most accounts) over the next 7 years when we're still down 4,000 dow points off highs 28 months ago, we're going to have bigger issues..... For all I know, we're going to be right back at 10,000 in 20 more years, but at some point I think you can exit all positions above 15,000 on the Dow in the next 5 years, just my opinion of course



[Edited on February 8, 2010 at 9:25 PM. Reason : .]

2/8/2010 9:21:11 PM

Thinking about going with VTWSX for my roth ira this year. Thoughts?

2/9/2010 4:48:15 PM

Quote :

"If the S&P doesn't outperform cash (which I assume you mean a money market account which at best I would guess are 2% in most accounts)"

5% at crescent state bank, up to 25k...looks like they "allow" up to two accounts, but i bet you can get more than that

http://www.crescentstatebank.com/personal/personal-checking/account-details.html

2/9/2010 7:07:13 PM

Quote :

"At least 10 debit card transactions per month, 1 direct deposit or automatic debit per month "

Qualification are annoying but probably worth it vs the 1.5 % I'm getting with secu.

2/9/2010 9:42:57 PM

picked up some TRIT and STV

2/12/2010 2:05:36 PM

As if anyone needed more reasons to doubt the data coming out of our government. Earlier today the Commerce Department reported (http://www.census.gov/retail/marts/www/retail.html) that January retail sales data came at a nice and bubbly 0.5% sequential increase, and an even nicer and bubblier 4.7% YoY. This presumably beat expectations which were looking for a sequential beat of 0.3%. Yet here comes the much more reliable Gallup data to throw some salt in yet another economic data fabrication. According to daily Gallup consumer polling (http://www.gallup.com/poll/112723/Gallup-Daily-US-Consumer-Spending.aspx), which due to its lack of proximity to the government propaganda complex is vastly more reliable, the January average data showed a decline of 5.8% over January 2009 and a whopping 16.3% decline over December. This is beginning to parallel the ever increasing divergence between the ABC consumer comfort index and the UMichigan index which lately seems to only track the average level of the S&P over the prior month.

The chart below shows the true consumer spending behavior of Americans.


The gallup methodology is much more accurate than anything that could possible come out of the Commerce Department with its infinite data "adjustments."

Quote :

" Gallup's consumer spending measure tracks the average dollar amount Americans report spending or charging on a daily basis, not counting the purchase of a home, motor vehicle, or normal household bills. Respondents are asked to reflect on the day prior to being surveyed and results are presented here in both a 3-day and 14-day rolling average."

And here is how the Census Bureau determines its data:

Quote :

" The advance estimates are based on a subsample of the Census Bureau's full retail and food services sample. A stratified random sampling method is used to select approximately 5,000 retail and food services firms whose sales are then weighted and benchmarked to represent the complete universe of over three million retail and food services firms. Responding firms account for approximately 65% of the MARTS dollar volume estimate. For an explanation of the measures of sampling variability included in this report, please see the Reliability of Estimates section on the last page of this publication."

Feel free to decide whom you trust.

2/12/2010 2:17:59 PM

2/12/2010 2:20:50 PM

^, ^^

Obviously all of the best economic websites are based on Fight Club.

2/12/2010 3:04:58 PM

yeah obviously their concern for anonymity makes everything they say a lie

2/12/2010 3:11:03 PM

Well, its more the idiotic tone and poor journalism, but whatever.

[Edited on February 12, 2010 at 3:23 PM. Reason : Oh good lord, this reads like prisonplanet.]

2/12/2010 3:22:11 PM

no doubt there is an amount of alarmist sensationalism taking place there, but sometimes they hit on extremely good points as proven by the number of market rule changes and legislation resulting from that site alone...
I think the bigger danger is refusing to question or consider new perspectives on seemingly conventional wisdom...

2/12/2010 3:45:32 PM