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September 28, 2014

Funds on Clearance as Bill Gross Leaves PIMCO

Incase you don't know famous bond guru Bill Gross quit his position at PIMCO a major investment firm. This is the news story on his move. He left for Janus. As this news story was being digested lots of PIMCO funds began crashing as people sold. This really hit the closed-end funds the hardest. I was looking through the daily largest percentage losers on the NYSE. I found atleast 3 down almost double digits. Out of the ones I researched a couple stood out.

The first one is the PIMCO Corporate Income and Opportunity (PTY).  It traded down 6% Friday to 17.18. It isn't below net asset value (NAV) yet but still has a 7% yield now.

The second one is the PIMCO Income Strategy Fund (PFN). It lost 4% and is now at 10.31 which is a 5% discount to its NAV. It's sporting an 8% yield.

The other funds I looked at were heavy into mortgage related securities so I took a pass on those. I read that a lot of the PIMCO funds have traded at steep premiums to net asset value over the years so seeing some of these fall below NAV is a good opportunity.

September 24, 2014

What I've Been Doing And Looking At

Greetings from Bull Market USA. The bull market capital of the world. Where low interest rates reign forever! Wheeee! In all seriousness however, I don't think Japan's lost decade has much on our QE. We've done better in my opinion. A few years ago everyone was predicting something along the lines of a Japan post asset bubble collapse stagnation. That is what they had in the 90s. Our true collapse was really in the wake of the tech bubble bursting in the year 2000. Atleast when it comes to the economy and equites. Yes, that was the secular stock market bubble that had been going since the early 80s. So I don't think comparing Japan and the USA was really apples to apples anyway. The other expectation Austrian economists had was serious inflation following QE. There was definitely some inflation as evident commodity prices but the dollar inflation seems gone now. Just look at the gold price. Gold and the dollar are always completely inverse. Gold is still crashing. I'm not sure what is going to happen from here.

History would say that if rates stay low for a long period of time there will be significant inflation ala the 70s inflation. Only Paul Volcker could stop it when he effectively let the market set rates at 20%. Could you imagine that today? So far things are going pretty well with the macro here. Doesn't hurt to be hedged though.

To me a good hedge on low rates is to be long precious metals.  I actually bought some more silver bullion recently around $21 an ounce. I got some Engelhard Silver Rounds on Apmex.com. I've always been pleased with my orders with them and I recommend them. They are one of the top 2 respected online metals dealers. So far I have Silver Eagles and the Engelhards. I'd like to get some gold Krugerrands soon and some Palladium.

I longed some emerging Asian stocks via the Fidelity Emerging Asia (FSEAX) mutual fund in my Roth IRA. I like the Goldman Sachs Emerging Debt Fund (GSDAX) also and have it on my watchlist along with the I-Shares International Real Estate Fund (IFGL). All of these funds have low expense ratios and similar or better performance vs their benchmark index.

High Yield Stocks
I also have some high yield equites on my watchlist. Whether stuff keeps falling or not these look good to me too. The first is my favorite REIT. It's not one of those sketchy adjustable rate mortgage REIT's or anything like that. Those mortgage REITs are going to blow up when rates go up. There's probably a reason they are all yielding 9 to 11%. I like these simple ones.

One like Sun Communities (SUI) which is just mobile homes and RV's that have great cash flow. Sun has increased the dividend consistently and currently is yielding around 5%. Shareholder equity has been growing the past couple years along with revenue and earnings. The chart is a breakout too.

UMH Properties (UMH) is the second REIT. UMH is yielding 7% and has a consistently rising dividend history along with revenue and earnings. This one has a smaller market cap at just $215 million.

Another high yield stock I like is Energy Transfer Partners (ETP). This is a diversified natural gas pipeline company that also sells gasoline and runs retail convenience stores. ETP's current dividend yield is 6%. The PEG ratio (price to earnings growth) is a very nice .69.

August 9, 2014

Ebola Virus Stock Plays

With ebola in the news there has been considerable buzz about what is going on with the drug that the two Americans were given. Apparently there is more than one company that is working on a vaccine. The company that has gotten the most publicity the past couple days is Tekmira Pharmaceuticals (TKMR). TMKR's stock was up 45% today. Another company I found that is working on a vaccine is Newlink Genetics (NLNK) . The news headline is the company "secures a Letter Contract From the Defense Threat Reduction Agency for Testing and Evaluation of Ebola Virus Vaccine". Its stock was up 6% today. I found an interesting link in the comments on ZeroHedge.com from 2013. The military was supporting working on a vaccine back then. It proved effective on primates. Here is a summary from the military.

July 29, 2014

A Good Chinese Stock Short Setup to Trade















I noticed The 9 Limited (NCTY) had a parabolic move from 2.4 to about 4.00 a share. On the run there were not any red (negative) days. This is a very good short setup here as today it finally closed red. NCTY is a Chinese company that hasn't had a profit since atleast 2011. For a target, I see this testing the $3.00 a share area soon. 

disclosure: no position

July 3, 2014

Looking Overbought















Even as IPOs are soaring and low interest rates are pledged to infinity the major indices are at a major test here. These highs are following the trend breakdown we had back in the spring. That pull-back was pretty significant. Before that the market was in a tight uptrend. Whether the correction in the spring was just a pull-back or the start of a major top will be decided over the next couple weeks. If there's going to be a double top it is going to start very soon. The Nasdaq has printed two days back to back above the upper bollinger band. This is bearish. A shooting star candle above the upper bollie is very often the "kiss of death" in technical analysis with stocks. A crashing stock price often follows.

The Russell 2000 index is at resistance and could be topping out. I remember the 2007 Chinese stock market crash began with a double top. I don't think anything here is starting to "crash" as I'm pretty bullish long-term on equites but some major consolidation could be in store. As much as I'd love to see us finally clearly break out of the trading range we have been stuck in since the 2000 Tech bubble crash and 2008 banking panic a runaway market has to consolidate. If this raging bull market is going to stop it is going to begin here. However, if we keep heading higher there is no resistance in sight. So, maybe it's prudent to get some protection on the short-side for a bit. Buy some puts, sell some futures or something and get a little short.

















May 15, 2014

LoJack LOJN Up 18% On The Day

Just two days after the last post I put up on LOJack the stock has run 18% on the day today and was a top percentage gainer on the Nasdaq. That trend support held well. Since I had a buy stop order at 4.60 set I didn't get filled until after the gap up. I got filled at 5.07 which I'm still happy with as I plan to keep the position on for some time. It should be volatile for awhile here anyway. I might get to add some at a lower price.

May 13, 2014

LoJack LOJN Looking Good

Fundamentals
I wrote a quick post on a small-cap stock I thought was undervalued a month ago. LoJack Corp. LOJN I believe is a good value here now at $4.50 a share. It looked cheap then at almost $6.00 a share when I wrote that. With $.23 a share in earnings for the year the current PE multiple is just 19 here at $4.50 a share. This is a small company with only about an 80 million market cap and revenue growth is apparent along with earnings growth. Next years earnings are forecast at $.43 a share. If they hit the $.43, that times a PE multiple of just 20 values the stock at $8 share. I think that PE is pretty conservative given how fast their revenue and earnings can grow. I see this stock as an economic recovery play at a fair price.
Technicals
I am going to nibble on some shares and put a buy limit order in to buy at $4.57ish a share. I want to see it hold the $4.50s first. Sell volume looks currently exhausted as it is resting on trend support.

April 7, 2014

Going Private Transaction Shanda Games GAME

Back in January Shanda Games GAME announced a proposal of a going private transaction valued at $6.90 a share. The stock is currently at only $6.50 a share based off of Fridays close. This is about a 6% spread. I did some quick reading on this as I was unable to actually pull up the filing outlining it. The most official info I could pull up was that old press release. As far as I know this is still likely to get approved and become a done deal. I don't see how it wouldn't when "As of January 27, 2014, the Consortium members beneficially owned, in the aggregate, approximately 76.2% of the Company's outstanding shares" according to their press release. The only key thing I'm missing here is the limit on the number of shares one can hold.

April 4, 2014

Interest Rates and One Stock

As far as macro trades go there doesn't seem to be anything more certain than the fact that interest rates will eventually rise. The FED has said they will raise rates when they like the employment figures. Unemployment rates have been falling across the country and to my knowledge the most recent rate was between 6-7% nationwide. My state of North Carolina is now down to about 6.5%.
A few years back I was almost certain that the FED's unprecedented low interest rate environment was going to spawn serious dollar inflation. Something along the lines of the late 1970s through early 1980s inflation that only Paul Volker saved us from in the early 80s. One of the reasons I feel less concerned about massive inflation is the falling price of gold. To see the true value of the dollar you only have to look at gold. Rapidly rising gold means the dollar is falling and vice versa.
Now to the play. The only place rates can go from here are up. The timeframe is less certain but the fact they will go up is clear. When rates go up bonds go down. The simple trade is to short long-term Treasury Bonds. The Proshares Ultra short US Tresury bonds ticker TBT is a vehicle. I'm not going into this trade tomorrow or the next day or even next month. But some day this will be a good trade.
LoJack Corporation (LOJN)
As I am typing this we are in the middle of the tech bubble it seems. I probably wouldn't touch Facebook with a ten foot pole. I noticed this stock LoJack LOJN awhile back when they reported their 4th quarter. 4th quarter revenue had risen 20%. The thing I like more is that they gave guidance of next full years revenue growth to be 8% to 10% year over year. The business is simple. They help people recover stolen cars and do car security. It's a small company too with just under a $100 million market cap which is good. The market still isn't fully valuing this companies revenue and earnings growth. The stock is currently at 5.60. They should grow earnings atleast 25% a year but the current PE is just 16. Foward PE multiple is just 13!! This is if they just do $.43 EPS for the year.

February 19, 2014

Oil and Silver Position

I bought the oil ETF UCO awhile back. This position trade is working out well. It's up 11% now as oil has climbed. I also bought some Silver American Eagle coins as a long-term investment from Apmex.com recently. Gold and silver have both fallen a lot from the highs. It wouldn't even surprise me if they fell more. But, I don't really care as I'm just looking to build a long-term position. Both charts of course went parabolic and are selling off. Silver looked like it came down a lot more than gold has so far. That's one of the reasons I started in the silver.