OptionPundit

Tag: GS

  • Is Berkshire in Trouble?

    This 2 part series will cover recent market developments about Berkshire Hathaway, points to a strategy on how you may benefit more on the same trades he did recently and an option trading strategy that probably Berkshire uses for maximizing it returns on the underlying they find worth investing. Don’t forget to read the big picture of US stock markets. Markets are behaving pretty much that way. I am opening December portfolios for OPNewsletter, to join, pls click here.

    Before I proceed, I must mention that I admire Mr Buffett’s skills. I got an opportunity to meet-up face to face with him in 2005 and it was one of the finest moments of my life to first hand hear the living legend. Listening and questioning him propelled my learning about his style way more than any book did. I, in no way can doubt his selection or will know in full his style of investing. Beyond classic investing theory, his intuition is par excellence. So below post is a mere attempt to interpret in my way. Pls do your own due diligence before making any decision based on info presented here.

    According to Forbes, The credit default swap market says the Oracle of Omaha is headed for trouble. The credit default swap market thinks so. Spreads on insurance against a debt default by Warren Buffett’s triple-A-rated Berkshire Hathaway are trading about on par with that of the embattled General Electric and worse than Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. Per same article, “Credit default swaps on Berkshire traded at 440 Wednesday, according to Phoenix Partners Group.

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  • The Wall Street Bailout Plan- OP’s Perspective

    The $700billion market bail out plan is disclosed and is for review withCongress. The Target is to get it to President table by Friday, according to Forbes. As per the same article– Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson “is in effect becoming the dictator of the American financial system for a few months, subject to congressional oversight,” said Wall Street historian John Steele Gordon, author of a book about the national debt. They are seeking unchecked power from Congress to buy $700 billion in bad mortgage investments from financial companies in what would be an unprecedented government intrusion into the markets.

    I hope congress evaluates the plan going into deeper level of analysis so as to a) solve the crisis, b) Fix it for long term and c) consider the implication on average American. I hope they read the fine prints (If those were read earlier, the results wouldn’t have been so severe for the US economy). This massive bailout plan plus the past ones (~1 or more trillion dollars), almost of the size of entire Indian Economy (one of the pillars of BRIC) will be funded from the Taxpayer’s money primarily. So I sincerely hope that the guardians of world’s largest economy view this in all fairness to the small and medium and average American who had nothing to do with this mess but still need to pay for this clean-up (instead of letting these institution bear the sour fruits of their doings). US’s “Every Street” will now bailout “The Wall Street” ; and probably the guys who created the mess will still earn gazillions of $$$ in salary. If you would like to know more about this plan, read this straight forward explanation from New York Times. All eyes are upon US financial systems, how wizards solve this issue.

    Let’s come back to Markets-
    This was the largest two day rally since 1987 market crash. I think last week’s event provides a good story for a Hollywood movie that could be equally successful as “Wall street” if not better. On a bigger picture basis S&P 500 is almost flat as a week ago, as if nothing happened in a week that was full of pain, drama and a lot of emotional swings. So if we had such a huge rally, ideally I will be expecting huge volumes, IV crash especially for those financials. That should be the case. Really?

    • RVX, a measure of volatility on Russell 2000 index was in fact up in spite of a massive rally in the underlying.
    • VIX a measure of volatility on S&P500 was still above 30 and merely 3% down vs. a day ago.
    • Show me the volume- There wasn’t much of the volume in the financials in spite of huge surge (volume with respect to the down volumes we saw preceding few days). Goldman (GS), nearly half of the last two down days…AIG same; BAC, so so; Citibank (C), nearly 3/4; Morgan Stanley (MS), 1/3; Wachovia (WB), nearly 3/4; XLF, financial etf, half of the day before and lower than preceding 3 days; and IYF, DJ Financial Sector index, half of average of past few months and nearly 1/5th of the past few days.This is not what one would expect after such a massive “bail-out”….

    Further more, even though it was a huge up day, for NYSE- Up volume was still less than 90% (my gauge for trend strength) and on Nasdaq it was close to 80%. Technically, all the key indices Dow, S&500 and Nasdaq all closed below respective 50 days moving averages. A lot is going on in financial markets. Not an easy pill to swallow. Even if you are right, you are now not sure which rule will be changed next and you’ll lose your shirts in spite of being correct. A baffled market that it is.

    Trade extra carefully, Profitable trading, OP

  • Pre-Market Losers

    A fantastic day (of course assuming that one embraces volatilities well) for some bearish play.

    Bearish plays on a bearish day can yield significant returns but one needs to be very careful and should clearly defined entry and exit points well in advance. Before I share the list, pls note that we may play some speculative trades for OPNewsletter subscribers as bonus alert, so pls stay in touch with the forum.

    TTWO, AAPL, RIMM, FSLR, GOOG, AIG, BAC, JPM, GS, CS, EWZ, POT, CF, MOS, MON

    One you have determined your entry exit points, choose whichever bearish strategy you would like to play (Put diagonal, bear call, bear put, straight put and many more).

    Trade carefully, trade profitably, OP

  • Equity Option Expiration and Pin Opportunities

    Today is a special day, a day that occurs only once a month offering good opportunities for intra day trading. Today is Aug’08 option expiration Friday.

    Before I proceed to talk about opportunities, pls note that the threshold for automatic exercise of stock-settled in-the-money options is $.01. Long equity options in the money by $.01 or more will be automatically exercised. Please monitor all your expiring positions and check with your broker for if you do not want to be assigned. Also be especially careful with the estimated $.17 DIA dividend on Friday morning.

    If you are looking for some past discussion, check out OP Forum (free section). If you are an OPNewsletter subscriber, pls check this link to see an example of GOOG pinning in action.

    Top of the list includes Google(GOOG), ISRG. OIH, MA. Other key tickers to look at are Goldman Sachs (GS), Apple (AAPL), CME Group (CME), Amazon (AMZN) and Research in Motion (RIMM). But be careful, as options will lose time value and IV very rapidly. So if there are chances to make disproportionate money, so are the chances of loss.

    Pls do your own due diligence and stress test your strategies, create “what if” scenarios and understand the risk/reward so are prepared in advance.

    Profitable trading, OP

  • Fantastic Four Does it Again

    Mosaic (MOS), CF Industries (CF), Monsanto (MON) and Potash (POT) are my fantastic four of the agriculture and farming sectors. I mentioned those here and then again asked a question about a month ago, when the four were travelling earth from the sky. Whoever has the medicine to manage trading constipation did pretty damn good. And guess what, on Tuesday when crude slipped, it seemed as if these were dumped again. See today’s action and all four are flying CF up +10%, MON +5%, MOS +7% and POT +4%. Those may not sound big % gains, so look at absolute dollars, and if you are an option trader, I think you will be pleasantly surprised. POT has been my 4th biggest profit contributor of the 2008 (so far). They have a particular behaviour and in case, you are on the wrong side, these four could easily be money losing machines. That’s why I called in my last post “Hot is tough to handle, so handle carefully”. These continue to be on my watch list as long as agri and commodities business is booming. They will also be the first ones to get out any signs of “commodity bubble” bursting.

    It’s beautiful if a computer modeling can help you multiply your investments, but I shall be careful. Quant Asset Management, a Singapore- based hedge fund which uses computer models to pick trades, said it plans to double the assets it manages this year after beating its peers Oh btw, The top three countries to invest in now would be the U.S., South Korea and the U.K., according to Quant’s computers, and the industries, marine transportation, general mining and exploration. Read more.

    But I will not leave Vietnam behind. It has excellent potential. Read recent free economic paper from Goldman Sachs (GS) to understand more about the Potential country that could be the next Asian Tiger in the making. Be mindful this is the same Goldman sachs that coined BRIC and also told the world about N-11 so Ignore it at your peril.

    Food For thought– JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst Kenneth Worthington became the latest to cut his fiscal second-quarter earnings estimates on Investment Banks. This includes Lehman Brothers (LEH), Goldman Sachs(GS) and Morgan Stanley (MS). As per Bloomberg, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., the fourth-largest U.S. securities firm, needs more capital even after raising $6 billion to recover from credit-market losses, said David Einhorn, a hedge fund manager who’s betting that Lehman shares will fall.

    Love it or hate it, it’s called WallStreet,

    Profitable trading, OP