Insomniac Hedge Fund Guy

Bubble Meter: Zillow CEO on housing market

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Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff on housing market.. Link here. Recap: Zillow’s data suggests that, while down 29% as a nation, home values haven’t bottomed out quite yet: Another 3-5% decrease in values can be expected based on foreclosure back logs, this decline will most likely be spread out over the course of 2012. While shadow inventory is dwindling due to the majority of 2005-2007 loans that ran the risk of default having done so, a slow and relatively jobless recovery will continue to put a damper on home demand further restrict appreciation. After a 3-5% reduction, home values are expected … Read more

‘s 2011 Hedge Fund Performance

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John Paulson’s 2011 Hedge Fund Performance   Despite a rather disastrous mess of 2011, Paulson has managed to keep redemptions down to just 8%..  An impressive achievement nonetheless, but is it due to belief in the strategy or belief in the brand?  Either way, his performance is a good illustration of how timing can cause even the soundest convictions to run awry.  Don’t forget the importance of a solid hedge when dealing with a timely trade..   The numbers are in for John Paulson’s Paulson & Co. The hedge fund finished 2011 with depressingly low returns reports the New York … Read more

Index Funds, Where Are We Now?

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Index Funds, Where Are We Now?   While following important economic news as it continually streams through headlines, its akin to wrapping your mouth around a fire hose to quench your thirst; however it’s essential to consider how these developments are affecting your investments. Take a look at how a couple of major indexes and index funds have performed since the beginning of the year…   PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish (NYSE:UUP) -1.53% U.S. Equity: SPDRS S&P 500 Index (NYSE:SPY) -1.22% Technology: PowerShares QQQ (Nasdaq:QQQ) 0.94% Europe, Australia-Asia iShares MSCI EAFE Index (NYSE:EFA) -15.77% Energy: United States Oil (NYSE:USO) -1.82% Precious Metals: iShares Comex Gold Trust (NYSE:IAU) +9.57% Fixed Income: iShares Barclays … Read more

The Mafia Is Now “‘s Largest Bank”| ZeroHedge

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The Mafia Is Now “Italy’s Largest Bank” Whoever says there are no winners in the European banking crisis apparently has never woken up with a horse’s head in their bed. According to a new report by Italian anti-crime group SOS Impresa, as reported by Reuters, “Organised crime has tightened its grip on the Italian economy during the economic crisis, making the Mafia the country’s biggest “bank” and squeezing the life out of thousands of small firms, according to a report on Tuesday.” You mean kinda like Intesa credit cards demanding a 39.95% APR: we knew we had seen that “life … Read more

‘s Only Wednesday: Urban Outfitters, WebMD, The White House, Swiss National Bank, and Italy

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Out of the markets and into the midst of  both earnings and elections seasons, volatility seems here to stay.  Here’s a quick recap of the most recent turnovers in the headlines the past few days, gathered from.. well, everywhere.   Clothing retailer Urban Outfitters Inc. said its Chief Executive Glen Senk resigned: The company named Chairman and co-founder Richard Hayne as his replacement.  Shares of the company fell 12 percent after the bell. They closed at $29.41 on Tuesday on the Nasdaq.via Urban Outfitters CEO resigns | Reuters. WebMD Chief Executive resigns: INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — WebMD Health Corp. CEO Wayne T. … Read more

Healthy, Low-Calorie and Diet-Friendly Fast Food Choices

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The 22 Healthiest Fast Foods What to Order at America’s Top 10 Fast Food Joints — By Liza Barnes, Health Educator The trade down diet is in full swing in America.  Out with the fancy dining experience and in with the survival feed a family of four with some modicum of health.  Each one of these chains should be analyzed for money making opportunties. via Healthy, Low-Calorie and Diet-Friendly Fast Food Choices.

JP Morgan Global Biotech Outlook

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2012 Global Biotech Outlook Company Profiles from Our Global Biotech Universe – What to Expect in 2012 Published at the beginning of each year, our Global Biotech Outlook highlights industry-specific trends that we think are relevant for the coming year as well as our favorite biotech names from the Meacham, Kasimov and Vosser/Gordon franchises.Click here for the complete report.

Top 20 Best Performing Stocks of 2011 – Stock Trading To Go

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Top 20 Best Performing Stocks of 2011   A recap of the top performers of 2011   VRUS, YTD Return +467.49% SIMO, YTD Return +380.24 INHX, YTD Return +309.62 COOL, YTD Return +233.77% GLNG, YTD Return +201.45% MDVN, YTD Return +199.87% QCOR, YTD Return +182.62% PZZI, YTD Return +178.97% LQDT, YTD Return +160.57 PKT, YTD Return +156.94% MDW, YTD Return +145.24% PCYC, YTD Return +144.57% ARIA, YTD Return +140.20% SCSS, YTD Return +132.20% CRIS, YTD Return +130.30% ONTY, YTD Return +129.14% ELN, YTD Return + 128.97% HSTM, YTD Return +127.99% CONN, YTD Return +126.50% SNSS, YTD Return +125.00% via Top … Read more

Undervalued Stocks Trading At Lows That Are Being Accumulated By Insiders – Seeking Alpha

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Undervalued Stocks Trading At Lows That Are Being Accumulated By Insiders includes: CIM, FNFG, NLY, NVAX, TQNT Everyone loves a deal, so here are five beaten down stocks that are showing positive signs based on insider action.   The current volatility in the market has left many promising stocks trading near their lows. We mined through the over 6,000 insider transactions filed on SEC Forms 3, 4, and 5 by insiders in the month of December, and crossed them with stocks currently trading at their lows, many at valuations much cheaper than their peers, to identify the following candidates. These … Read more

Hedge Funds Lose Tons Of Money After Family Dollar Drops 7%

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  Hedge Funds Lose Tons Of Money After Family Dollar Drops 7% By Bob Luochang Yu Family Dollar Stores, Inc. (FDO) drops about 7% today after the company reported its 10Q for fiscal first-quarter 2012. According to WSJ, Family Dollar’s earnings rose 8.1% as the discount retailer’s same-store sales improved due to higher traffic and customer transaction values. However, its revenue missed analyst expectations. FDO closed on Thursday at $57.96 and is trading at $53.87 at 11:44AM EST on Friday, losing 7.06% or $4.09. Several hedge funds may suffer big losses due this price decline: 1. Pershing Square – Bill … Read more

BlackRock And Pimco-Led Group Targets Wells Fargo Over Mortgage Securities – Forbes

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BlackRock And Pimco-Led Group Targets Wells Fargo Over Mortgage Securities While Bank of America saw a steady decline in share price leading up to their agreement to pay the $8.5 billion dollar settlement, share prices popped once the agreement was reached.  Could the same scenario be the case for Wells Fargo?   Houston lawyer Kathy Patrick has negotiated an $8.5 billion deal with Bank of America, the biggest legal settlement in Wall Street history, and publicly declared her intention of going after JPMorgan Chase & Co. Now, Patrick is targeting Wells Fargo & Co. Patrick’s law firm, Gibbs and Bruns, … Read more

Five Dumb Things Investors Do With Their Money

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Five Dumb Things Investors Do With Their Money Investors are human.  We all make mistakes with our money, yet for some reason it’s the losses we remember most rather than the successes; the instances where we step out of our zone of comfort testing the waters of a new idea or trade concept.  Above my desk at home sits a small wooden plack inscribed with the words ” Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement”.  It’s a subtle reminder that mistakes will be made in order to achieve success, but we need to learn from each … Read more

Get Asymmetrical in 2012 – Barrons.com

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Get Asymmetrical in 2012 By STEVEN M. SEARS | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR Learn to look at the stock market through the options market. Options are arguably the most sensitive instruments for divining the future of stocks. The smartest stock investors dominate the options market. When they are afraid a stock may fall, they buy puts. When they think a stock will rise, they buy calls. Implied volatility, which reveals their expectations of the future, shows if they expect the stock move sharply, or not. By dividing an option’s implied volatility by 16 — the square root of the number of trading … Read more

Transocean Stock Appears to Have Bottomed – Barrons.com

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A Smooth Transition for Transocean By DIMITRA DEFOTIS | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR With the oil field service company’s stock near a 52-week low after CFO Ricardo Rosa suddenly resigned, we see deep value.   After losing almost half its value last year, Transocean lost its chief financial officer, Ricardo Rosa, who resigned abruptly Thursday after just two years on the job. However, with the oilfield services company’s stock hovering near a 52-week low of $38.21, we think it’s time to give it a second look. Shares of Switzerland-based Transocean (ticker: RIG), which fell 1.5% Friday to $39.08, were one of the … Read more

Give me your worst performing funds!

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When I trained stock brokers at Paine Webber, I was responsible for organizing lunches that mutual fund wholesalers would throw for our office brokers.  During those lunches (you had to provide free food to get stock brokers to show up)they would talk about their best performing mutual funds, while we wolfed down sandwiches and tried not to appear overtly bored.  Finally in an act of desperation one day, I interrupted the presentation “Let’s do something different today, ” I suggested.  “Tell us about your worst performing funds.  We’ve been buying your best performing funds and they all seem to turn … Read more

Bank of America Blows Past $6 as Financials Surge – Stocks To Watch Today – Barrons.com

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Bank of America Blows Past $6 as Financials Surge Bank of America (BAC) has recently displayed a strong reaction to headlines, especially having dipped below the $5 handle just over a week ago.  Today saw a similar instance where the bank posted a 8.6% gain during market hours based on…  nothing??  Now the far reaching rumor of The White House’s supposed trillion dollar bailout plan could certainly be considered a catalyst for such a strong upward move, but that would suggest that such a plan would be of benefit to the Bank.  When an institution’s source of income is from … Read more

Options Traders See Higher Volatility Ahead – Barrons.com

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Bracing for a Return of Volatility By STEVEN M. SEARS | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR Savvy options traders are taking advantage of the subdued VIX to buy low-cost protection   On Thursday, the stock market sent investors a critical message. If you failed to hear it, you missed information that matters more than the mostly rosy prognostications for the stock market in 2012 from Wall Street banks. The message: Volatile volatility is back from winter vacation, and likely here to stay for all of 2012. Even though stocks surged higher on Tuesday, the first day of the trading year, and inched higher … Read more

Hedge Funds End 2011 on a Very Bad Note – NYTimes.com

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Hedge Funds End 2011 on a Very Bad Note By KEVIN ROOSE and AZAM AHMED When the history books are written, 2011 may go down as the dark ages for hedge funds. Last year was dismal for hedge fund performance, according to an index maintained by Eurekahedge, an independent information firm that specializes in hedge fund data. Amid political uncertainty, the debt-ceiling debate in Congress and mounting fears of a European financial crisis, the Eurekahedge index, which measures average returns, dropped 4.1 percent for the year. via Hedge Funds End 2011 on a Very Bad Note – NYTimes.com.

Big downside potential if this controversial deal gets killed by emboldened Obama Justice department anti-monopolists

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So the detailed Morningstar analysis is summarized below: What if the Obama Justice Department nixes this deal? If they didn’t like AT&T and an also ran T-Mobile combining for anti-competitive reasons, they’ve got to be pretty emboldened by the possibility of quashing a deal where there is very real potential for monopolistic behavior. I’m hearing they’re getting a mouthful from the other competing pipeline companies.  At any rate the Puts on EP are pretty cheap considering the downside potential.  It might be a good speculation to bet this deal down not up. Kinder Morgan Merger With El Paso Will Create Value … Read more

We told you so! Tests Find Mead Johnson Infant Formula Not Contaminated – WSJ.com

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Readers of the SaxAngle making record profits this month.   Federal Health Probe Finds Mead Johnson Infant Formula Not Contaminated   Federal health investigators cleared an infant formula of suspected bacterial contamination that last week prompted retailers to pull a batch of the product from their shelves. In a joint statement late Friday, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said tests of factory-sealed containers of the formula, made by Mead Johnson Nutrition Co., showed no contamination. “Based on test results to date, there is no need for a recall of infant formula, and … Read more

Is the stock market manipulated?

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We were surprised like most market participants by the record volatility in the market and the insidious correlation.  The phrase “risk on” and “risk off” became the new descriptor for market behavior in 2011.  The last day of November the S&P 500 moved over 4.2% alone nearly erasing the entire month’s loss.  If you weren’t 100% invested you missed out on the whole month.  There’s an old saying that the market figures out how to screw the most people most of the time.  Whether you were long or short, Mr. Market had a trick up its sleeve for you. For … Read more

2012 Investment Predictions

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First of all let me say, macro investing is not my style.  None the less like a chocaholic,  I can’t help myself.   So without further ado my 2012 predictions, they are: The trade down economy will continue to be resilient.  People will continue clipping coupons, searching for ways to make a dollar go further, and making less do more.  It’s bleak, depressing, and if you can find any untapped ideas, you’ll make a lot of money here.  As the lady said, let them eat cake.  I’m not talking about cheesecake either.  Long Mickey D. Short Cheesecake Factory. Dividends will … Read more

Volatility Cuts Hedge Fund Returns – Barrons.com

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Volatility Minces Returns By BEVERLY GOODMAN | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR Why John Paulson—and many other hedge fund managers—did so poorly in 2011. Where have all the stockpickers gone? Even John Paulson has apologized. It’s no secret that 2011 was a tough year. But investors who sought refuge in hedge funds—especially those thought to excel in choppy markets—were sorely disappointed. Not to mention none the richer. As of Nov. 30, the 2,000 hedge funds tracked by Hedge Fund Research are down, on average, 4.5%, trailing the Standard & Poor’s 500 by almost four points. “This is only the third year … Read more

Shale-Gas Boom Spurs Race – WSJ.com

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Shale-Gas Boom Spurs Race States Vie for New Chemical Factories—and Jobs—Powered by Lower Energy Costs By JAMES R. HAGERTY The boom in low-cost natural gas from shale is driving investment in plants that use gas for fuel or as a raw material, setting off a race by states to attract such factories and the jobs they create. Shale-gas production is spurring construction of plants that make chemicals, plastics, fertilizer, steel and other products. A report issued earlier this month by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC estimated that such investments could create a million U.S. manufacturing jobs over the next 15 years. West Virginia … Read more

Baby formula death setting up to be one of the major buying opportunities in some time.

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This is setting up to be one of the major buying opportunities in some time.  Mead Johnson (MJN) since it’s February 11 2009 spin-off inaugural debut close of $26.43 had risen to a recent high 0f $76.53 on December 21 when the death of a new born baby was  linked to Enfamil which accounts for  the majority of MJN revenue.  Although there has been nothing conclusively  linking this death to the Enfamil batch a  number of retailers including Walmart have removed it from their shelves.  It’s important to note that the Company states this batch was tested for Cronobacter (the … Read more

How do you put your child through college without spending big bucks on them finding themselves?

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– 3 Kings – from Cole Sax on Vimeo.   If you encourage your son to follow his dreams, you might wind up with one  that has marketable talents without spending big bucks on college for four years while  they try to find themselves.  Check out my 19 yr. old son, Cole’s, latest rocking’ ski video featured on Oakley’s web site featuring local phenom Alex Schloppy, X Games Gold Big Air 2011.  Excuse the puffing from a proud father but this video rocks.

‘s the next bubble?

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Most people look at investing in bubbles as a human weakness.  The investment lore is filled with tragic stories of people investing at the top of crowd mania.  You don’t have to look far on the investment horizon to see the carnage.  The fabulous run up in value of single family homes culminating in the giant collapse of value of house values we are into now, the dot.com bust and attendant tech crash in 2000- 2002 and to a lesser extent the fabulous appreciation of stock prices in the 80’s and 90’s that created a decade of sub par returns in the … Read more

ECB Won’t Step Up Bond Purchases: Draghi – Bloomberg

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This is really pretty incredible.  It’s surprising to me that more people  are not talking about this.  While the headline reads all doom and gloom, if you read the article, the ECB just provided unlimited loans to banks and without question many of these if not all will be buyers of their country’s soverign debt.  This is the defacto unlmiited support peple are calling for.  I guess they may have to spell it out better.   The ECB is resisting pressure to increase its bond buying, saying governments need to find a lasting solution to the debt crisis. The central … Read more

Zynga IPO Fizzles as Stock Falls 5% – WSJ.com

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In the upside down world of good news is bad news, bad news is good news, this is actually a bullish event although on the surface people are interpreting it negatively. There is no surer way to hurt equity prices than by creating more supply.  Wall Street might not be good for much these days but they are great at floating stock when they smell the slightest opportunity.  If the Zynga IPO had stuck, greedy bankers would rush out as many overpriced deals as they could. Now they will hesitate on adding more supply to a weak market and this … Read more