Fiscal Cliff averted for now.....moar taxes

DOW up 150 points, NASDAQ up 2% already...Happy New Year to all....let the trades begin!




[Edited on January 2, 2013 at 10:03 AM. Reason : ps: Yes i suck at this but someone had to start a thread ]

1/2/2013 10:02:30 AM

FB at $29.37.

Loving those Jan 2014 $20 calls I bought when it was in the toilet.

1/7/2013 10:03:29 AM

My IRA is up 115% since October. If only I had started it sooner and put more money into it

1/7/2013 11:27:20 AM

That's surprising given november. In wtf did you invest?

1/7/2013 3:28:03 PM

From a macro level, a short small cap- long mid cap index relative value play should work nicely over the next 3 months

1/7/2013 4:03:33 PM

How do you guys feel about Alcoa? I feel like it's a good long term buy and hold stock especially with industrial growth in developing economies over the next decade. Thoughts?

1/7/2013 5:40:32 PM

im not sure about alcoa my friend. the growth in china is unsustainable as they had been overspending on infrastucture. they're going to have to do something to keep inflation down or else they are at risk of crushing the growth of their middle class.

I am a bit more bearish than a lot of people on the industrials and raw materials sectors with a long term risk horizon. For the short term, you prob could make 2-3% from their 4th qtr earnings after the close tomorrow. other than that, i'd stay away

1/7/2013 6:17:55 PM

Yeah, I understand the China concerns. The thing with AA is that pre-recession it was trading at $40/share, now it's sitting at less than $10. I can't help but think that over the next 5-10 years, assuming global growth, even with a lagging China, is going to be strong enough in the US and in places like Brazil, Turkey, and India that the stock could easily hit $40 or $50 a share again.

I'll be interested to see what their earnings look like.

1/7/2013 6:27:14 PM

honestly i could see the next 10 years for the US being like Japan has been for the last 20.

fairly stagnant. Don't let where something was trading at in the past fool you into thinking it is undervalued now. It's a $9 stock now. Check out the typical P/E ratios for companies in the same sector and how those have changed the past couple years. That tells the story

[Edited on January 7, 2013 at 6:49 PM. Reason : m]

1/7/2013 6:35:54 PM

I am unsure what to do given the abbot split, i've held the stock for 22 years but I don't know about this split into two companies. Does anyone have any advice?

1/7/2013 6:41:28 PM

Nah, I don't necessarily think it's undervalued, just that it has strong long term growth potential. I think you could be right about US stagnation, but Alcoa isn't wholly beholden to the performance of the US market or even the US and China.

Thanks for your input though. I really do want to see what they report tomorrow.

1/7/2013 6:42:34 PM

pharma unfortunately is not a sector that i dive into. you should have already received the new ABBV shares. if you dont have any conviction to keep them, then you probably shouldnt

1/7/2013 6:49:06 PM

^^ earnings are likely to be decent with the price of aluminum having rallied during their Q4

1/7/2013 6:55:10 PM

Anyone know of the trading site that allows you to trade and allow others to view performance and invest? You can charge your followers fees or allow them to follow for free.

I am thinking about doing this for free for tww if anyone cares (just so people can see what I'm doing/track performance/discuss strategy). I wont be taking investments...i remember seeing the CEO of that company being interviewed on bloomberg but i forgot the site

[Edited on January 7, 2013 at 8:46 PM. Reason : G]

1/7/2013 8:45:02 PM

^i would like to subscribe to your newsletter

1/8/2013 9:49:51 AM

Quote :

"That's surprising given november. In wtf did you invest? "

Well I guess I started in Sept. I did gamble a little I owned CPRX at 1.38 and sold it at 1.62 before bad news broke and it fell off. Then on the big NFLX spike in Oct I bought some puts at the very top for 2.23 each and sold them the following day for 4.50. After that I picked up AMD at 2.20 and have been sitting on that since.

1/8/2013 10:00:55 AM

Nice. I still haven't messed with options any.

1/8/2013 10:05:14 AM

Well to be fair options destroyed my regular account last year so its give and take haha. I had setup my regular account as sorta my gambling account but after the yoyo ride last year Im slowly cashing out and moving that money to my IRA where I actually try to be smart haha.

1/8/2013 10:06:58 AM

Any thoughts about Campbell Soup Company(NYSE:CPB)

I love bolthouse farm products (bought by campbell soup company in 2012) and they have been coming up with so many new stuff recently. Company has P/E of around 14.

1/8/2013 10:19:11 AM

At that price point and playing in that arena I'd rather own ConAgra.

1/8/2013 8:36:34 PM

Quote :

"Your estimated annual income of $109,000 ($66,600 or less, if markets perform poorly) may be enough."

Not bad. In March I'll be able to increase my 401k contribution and really start pumping some money into other avenues as well.

1/8/2013 10:43:38 PM

Come again?

1/8/2013 11:06:21 PM

Ehhh, just checking some retirement income projections.

1/8/2013 11:08:31 PM

So, you'll either be at <66 or 109??? WTF kind of shitty software is this?

1/8/2013 11:20:33 PM

This isn't stock market related, but it is investment related, anyone ever tried http://www.lendingclub.com? Basically lets you finance private loans. Initial investment is small, but kind of scared to jump in, plus I have to clear it with my employer.

[Edited on January 8, 2013 at 11:23 PM. Reason : ]

1/8/2013 11:22:52 PM

Sounds a lot like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosper_Marketplace which had a pretty high default rate iirc.

1/8/2013 11:24:55 PM

^^^ 109k assumes historically average market performance, the 66.6k assumes poor market performance. It's hard to project an exact number 20-30 years down the road.

[Edited on January 8, 2013 at 11:27 PM. Reason : sdfsdf]

1/8/2013 11:27:20 PM

I prefer the other ones where you give it a target and it says something like you have a 93% chance of making that target or you'll run out of money by the time you are a 86, etc.

1/8/2013 11:28:50 PM

I used lending club in 2008 and actually had great returns. Only one default which was a bad loan I made. The guy had a really high verified income but he basically used the loan to pay off IRS debt and then he declared bankruptcy after a few payments.

I opened my portfolio on January 2008 and all the loans were paid off around Feb 2011 and my ROR was in the double digits, 12% I believe including the write-off. And that was during one of the worst credit crises ever.

It can definitely be a valuable piece of a well diversified portfolio. That being said I haven't checked their site since my portfolio cleared, so I don't know if their fee structure is still the same.


The key is to make loans to people who are credit worthy. Don't touch students, minorities, people looking to finance vacations, etc. Go after people with solid DTI, who can type complete sentences, who are consolidating debt and seem serious about paying you back.


^^^ $109k unadjusted for inflation is pretty low you probably need to ramp up your savings now while it has the most affect. I'd like to generate about $300k/year in retirement that way if I fall a little short I still can live comfortably on $200k+ or so. But I have decided lately that I want to spend more money in my 30's then I did in my 20's. I've always been in the max your 401k and IRA every year in your 20's so that you have a solid base and emergency savings in place. Now I want to enjoy myself a little more with vacations and nicer living conditions well I'm still relatively young.

[Edited on January 9, 2013 at 12:20 AM. Reason : a]

1/9/2013 12:17:10 AM

Cool, I may check it out then. I'm aiming for 160K fwiw.

1/9/2013 12:27:52 AM

^^Yeah, it's inflation adjusted. That's 401k only and doesn't include my pension or other investments.

[Edited on January 9, 2013 at 12:34 AM. Reason : sdfsd]

1/9/2013 12:33:29 AM

ok if its inflation adjusted that's a good track.


Can't really worry about those calculators when you're young anyway. There's simply no way to accurately predict your income for the next 30 years. On top of that your expenses are almost impossible to project too so your savings rate is difficult.

It's still nice to track it though and make sure you're on top of your retirement savings. The main thing is just to stash it away early and often.

1/9/2013 12:46:23 AM

SNY is one of my top 5 buys of 2013. A great short term or long term investment. Has a nice div yield as well

1/9/2013 12:32:50 PM

FB north of 30.

1/9/2013 12:35:44 PM

What's SNY?
Do they only pay the dividend once a year?

1/9/2013 12:55:12 PM

Sanofi, they pay a yearly dividend in May.

They are one of the global leaders in production of vaccines and their precription product list is vast:

http://www.sanofi.us/l/us/en/layout.jsp?scat=5668F5DC-416D-4978-A1B6-989FEE5957CB

Solid management team. SNY is an ADR as the company is French

1/9/2013 12:59:10 PM

i will also be watching the COV spinoff of Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals

for anyone that was in the game back in 1999 (i wasnt) that name should sound familiar as that was the company that was acquired by Tyco (who then spun off Covideon)

seems to be a lot of interest in new issues (as evidenced about the interest in LMCA's STRZ spinoff that is going to be executed this friday)

1/9/2013 1:20:24 PM

^ it's a logical split. Covidien is primarily a medical devices company, and Mallinkrodt has a long history of excellence in medicinal chemistry and fine chemical manufacture. always seemed weird to me that covidien was making pharmaceuticals. they should be better off decoupled IMO.

also i'm a stock idiot - feel free to correct anything i say. I've tried to follow this thread in the past, but it's intimidating when you're a noob.

i invest a small amount of money each month in sharebuilder as a glorified savings account for fun stuff, just trying to get a better return than a savings account. I'm considering MITT - any of you guys know if REIT are a good idea these days?

I guess I'm looking dividends... I like the CFB vs CAG choices for the same reason.

[Edited on January 10, 2013 at 2:07 PM. Reason : sdfh]

1/10/2013 2:05:27 PM

sold some FAS from before new years, and bought some GS yesterday

1/10/2013 3:49:50 PM

AAPL to shit the bed today

1/14/2013 9:26:49 AM

time to buy? have no monies to buy anymore

1/14/2013 3:22:52 PM

i'm playing a game of "just the tip" with this market, to see how it feels..

1/14/2013 10:19:46 PM

for the guys able to trade in European equities, I like a basket of:

BMW GY : BMW
BAYN GY : Bayer
MC FP : LVMH
FP FP : Total SA

these adr's are available as well

1/14/2013 11:28:07 PM

the ADR tickers are:

TOT
BAYRY
LVMUY
BAMXY

1/15/2013 12:03:22 AM

What are the new dividend tax rates for the under 200k crowd?

1/16/2013 12:04:29 PM

i have a sinking suspiscion AAPL could either be back to 650 or fall to below 300 by the end of the year.

if you own the stock, it's reflection time before 1/25. AAPL starting to get bullied by the financial news media, which is annoying

My guess is they may raise the dividend next week

[Edited on January 18, 2013 at 11:00 AM. Reason : c]

1/18/2013 10:50:52 AM

I have a friend who wants to buy Herbalife stock now. Thoughts?

1/18/2013 11:15:47 AM

I bought some calls on it last week that are way up right now.

1/18/2013 11:25:07 AM

i'd stay away from HLF (herbalife). A long story short, It's a big time hedge fund name and it has a lot of people on both sides (who hate it and who love it) and one large hedge fund manager looking to short any HLF shares that he can get the borrow on (to short a stock in the HF world, a brokerage house has to in essence "borrow" the stock on one's behalf from either an account or from another HF and than the guy going short has to pay the small borrow fees)

any time you have hedge funds this polarized in a stock, the little guy always loses

again, i'd definitely stay away

[Edited on January 18, 2013 at 11:27 AM. Reason : c]

1/18/2013 11:27:30 AM

finally found a good day to buy the basket i mentioned earlier

just bought the basket:

TOT
BAYRY
LVMUY
BAMXY

and added to my position of SNY

1/18/2013 11:31:44 AM