[JayJuanGee]

EDIT: Actually, I realized that in my below response post, I probably should have directed jbkunt2 to another thread, and answered him within that other thread - since my below response is NOT very much the topic of this thread... related to Stock Market 2014, but rather overall considerations in basic ideas about "safe" investing.

So fair warning: my below post is largely a tangent from the theme of this thread - and I will concede in advance that continuing such discussion, if anyone is interested in such, should be taken to another thread - relating to thoughts on overall "safe" investment strategies/considerations over the next 12 months or so.

(06-25-2014 08:04 PM)jbkunt2 Wrote:  

Hi all,


This may be slighty off-topic but can anyone recommend the best options for low to medium risk interest-bearing savings accounts or investments?

I am trying to save for a deposit on a mortgage - I have around $50k - but need to build credit history first (12 month goal).

I'd like to get this cash earning at least some interest over the next 12 months. A mix of low/medium/high risk investments would work too. I'm not afraid of putting a chunk in medium to higher risk investments.

Any recommendations on products or banks/firms would be greatly appreciated. I am clueless here!

Thank you kindly![/align]

You have outlined fairly well a few of your parameters, including the amount of money that you have and the timeline in which you want to be able to use it.. and the fact that you are continuing to work on your credit history.

I have a little bit of trouble understanding your scenario to have a solid $50k at the moment, but then don't you have some kind of cash flow over the next year? I am NOT much of a believer in pumping a large sum at once into one investment but diversifying it and using your cashflow over the time period to dollar cost average the investment while potentially front loading various aspects of the investment.

Guys are going to have varying opinions regarding this, but it has been my sense that in the past 5 years or so that most banks (whether online or NOT have been increasingly reducing the amount of interest that they pay). Accordingly, if you find anything paying 3% or more, then you would be doing pretty good, relatively speaking.

It appears that you are in the UK, and it is possible that you may have some better options than guys in the US... Much of my cash is getting less than 1%.. which is really bullshit. using Capitlal 0ne online banking (which used to be ING and used to earn more than 5%, but that was 5 yrs ago)

Personally, $50k is quite a bit to acquire without having it work for you in some kind of way.. or if you just have it in cash or if you just have it earning 1-2% interest.

Over the years (20 years or so) I have put a lot of my money in varying index funds (stocks and bonds), and they have done o.k., but NOT great, but overall they have averaged between 5 and 6% returns (they have had some good up years of 20 to 30% and some down years of similar magnitude). One good thing about index funds is that they may be less risk over the long run, but any one year period, they may be up or down... .and you could get screwed....

In the last 8 months, I have been putting some of my newly available investment funds into bitcoin (actually, i have been fairly strategic about it in attempting to invest on the dips and to plan the investment over an extended period of time), yet my timeline, when i started with bitcoin was 2 years or more, b/c I got into bitcoin after it had experienced more than a 50x increase in value (price) over the previous year.

Probably many guys here are going to be pretty hesitant about bitcoin, the future of bitcoin or how to allocate bitcoin investments within their overall investment holdings. Ultimately, there is a lot of misinformation and disinformation out there about bitcoin - even though there are some advantages to bitcoin (including being able to manage it fairly well yourself with varying amounts of investment, can put money in or out fairly quickly, and it has been going down in price over the last 7 months, so i believe it is likely to go up in the coming months especially if you measure probabilities 6-12 months from now).

Overall, I am of the belief that 12 months is a pretty short time line for any guy to plan how to invest $50k, and I am of the belief that you need to account for your cashflow over that time period, as well as how much you have available at this particular moment. Accordingly, if you were to adjust your timeline a little to 15-18 months, then you could invest in a variety of instruments over the next 2-3 months, and then just dollar cost average over the remaining period, until you cash out.

So in this regard, pick your various investment instruments, divide your $50k into $2-5K allotments, and distribute that money over the various instruments. I think that you should also plan out your cashflow for the next 15-18 months in order to continue to invest incoming money (on a dollar cost averaging basis) into the varying financial instruments that you chose. Ultimately, I would place between $5-10K of the initial funds into bitcoin, but certainly, you should be able to figure out some risk allocation that is comfortable for you.

I do NOT know about any one stop shopping bank that is going to get you more than 1% interest on cash, yet some other guy may know and be able to chime in with that kind of information.

[DVY]

Whats your guys thought on Bed, Bath and Beyond (BBBY). Seems like an interesting play. Lots of household knick-knacky products that is driven by the mail-coupons and catering to the middle-aged housewife or youngish aged females.

I've been reading there 10-K almost 5 years back and am impressed by how they manage capital and grow at the same time. Its truly a cash-cow.

Theres the two quarters of missed earnings, and slightly decreased gross margin (but still quite good for retailers) BUT is it really reason to drop it that much? The company has zero debt and 700MM cash on hand, and 1B of cash flow every year.

What are your guys thoughts? Valid worry or just fear hype?

[Richiavelli]

GoPro has returned 100% since IPO. I feel its a momentum play but I'm going to wait until i can trade options on it. It feels super overvalued.

[gsinplaya]

(07-01-2014 08:28 PM)Richiavelli Wrote:  

GoPro has returned 100% since IPO. I feel its a momentum play but I'm going to wait until i can trade options on it. It feels super overvalued.

Options are available for this next week ..7th July
Looks appealing in the 39 - 40 range to me for a move above highs.

[Steve9]

(04-28-2014 10:11 PM)BIGINJAPAN Wrote:  

Just a warning gentlemen but selling days are getting a lot bigger than buying days. Earlier stock leaders such as the MOMO stocks are getting crushed as everyone can see and now the leaders have been bluechip dividend paying stocks and Utilities as well. The smart money is moving out of momentum stocks and over to safer stocks.

It is interesting to note that many of the momentum stocks have had a great run since that April pullback. Eg. Netflix is up 50%, 3D Systems up 38%, ExOne up 68%.

[BIGINJAPAN]

(07-06-2014 07:57 PM)Steve9 Wrote:  

(04-28-2014 10:11 PM)BIGINJAPAN Wrote:  

Just a warning gentlemen but selling days are getting a lot bigger than buying days. Earlier stock leaders such as the MOMO stocks are getting crushed as everyone can see and now the leaders have been bluechip dividend paying stocks and Utilities as well. The smart money is moving out of momentum stocks and over to safer stocks.

It is interesting to note that many of the momentum stocks have had a great run since that April pullback. Eg. Netflix is up 50%, 3D Systems up 38%, ExOne up 68%.

Very true. But there is still net selling and today was led by utilities again. The top performing assets I believe so far this year have been utility companies and gold.

[jamaicabound]

Someone a few weeks back recommended gogo. Im long. Just picked up some more on the dip down to 17.45 or so. Im long but may sell what I picked uo today if we see a quick jump back to like 19.50. Sell and buy back on the dip that will probably follow. Overall im long though. Also following southwest, 3m, western union at the moment. Made some money off those trying to figure out when to get back in.

[BIGINJAPAN]

(06-20-2014 08:15 PM)scotian Wrote:  

Have any of you (Big In Japan?) invested in Canadian oil companies? I"m thinking about buying some stock soon, apparently companies such as Suncor and CNRL are forecasted to jump quite a bit this year, both are going through major expansions at their oil sands sites right now and with recent events in Russia and Iraq, investors are flocking to Canadian oil. Here's an article that explains it in detail: http://business.financialpost.com/2014/0...=d5df-fedc

Did a little research on the Canadian oil companies and I have to say im not overly impressed with their numbers. Most of them have had stagnant earnings since 2011. Costs are out of control by the looks of it. Stocks have had a good run though. The majors have a high beta correlation with the price of oil so my guess is that is the cause for the run up.

One of my friends who is big into oil and gas plays like BHI and DVN. Both have had big run ups as of late as well. But they have all been upgraded by analysts and have great earnings reports so far this year. Also they have a lot of open interest as well going into 2015. I think on a pull back I would look to get into these companies until the Canadian producers can get costs under control again

[Steve9]

I am looking at taking a stake in Lumber Liquidators (LL), "the largest specialty retailer of hardwood flooring in North America"

Shares are down to $57 in aftermarket trading after they announced an "earnings revision" tonight :

http://investors.lumberliquidators.com/2...-Year-2014

Robert M. Lynch, President and Chief Executive Officer, commented, "Customer traffic to our stores was significantly weaker than we expected, particularly in geographic areas severely impacted by the unusually harsh weather in the first quarter."

Their shares traded as high as $119 just 8 months ago.

As the USA home renovation market recovers over the next few years I expect that Lumber Liquidators will be a winning investment.

[DVY]

I just purchased shares and options (0.99c at strike price 3.0 dollars- feb 2015) of Veringo (VRNG). This was funded by my sale of Corning(GLW) which I sold out at 22.23 (purchased at 12ish back in mid 2013, which i posted in the 2013 stock thread).

Short write-up-
Veringo is basically and Intellectual-Patent Company that purchases under-utilized patents and sues other tech companies for patent infrigment- "IP Troll". Thing is this company is a touch different- they've been winning almost every case.

Their biggest case to date is against Google and Microsoft. Microsoft already settled. Google brought out the big guns, went to trial and lost- settlement value 1+ Billion. They are in appeals court, but it seems like they are unlikely to win.

One of the employee/directors was CTO for Lycos (older software company) that is alledging that all major companies basically copied Lycos' search engine alogrithim and criterion ranking (think Adsense). This is unlike other patent trolls, because this guy actually worked in early TECH. He was in charge of this technology and it makes it a tough sell to just dismiss as another patent troll.

They have a pretty good track-record of winning cases (mostly at the previous company before the merger- Innovate/Protect). Also have an ongoing case against ZTE w/various injunction issued in different countries (huge ups to Veringo). Market cap is just under 300MM w/share price of 3.44 with a negative eps. This means that most mutual funds/ETFs are unable to buy into this company at this current price.

Big minus is the cash-flow burn per quarter, but I think that is hugely overstated because they have a proven track-record of winning litigations and have ongoing and recent settlements w/various companies (settlements include a confidential settlement from ADT, settlement from microsoft, win from google to the tune of 1B+ but still held up in appeals court).

I pose this company has a massive upside w/minimal downside. I wouldn't be suprised to see this company jump to 8 dollars or even as high as 12-14(1B- 1.2B) if google just decides to buyout the company for its numerous patents.

Another upside is that w/a 1B+ cash war-chest they could go on a patent shopping spree and be much more formidable to large corporations. Google's strategy of going to war may be palatable against a small firm w/limited cash funds (40MM), but with Veringo's win over the giants of tech (MSFT and GOOG) and soon-to-be giant warchest, other tech companies will be gun-shy to go to trial. Its a true positive reinforcing cycle.

[Nemencine]

(07-10-2014 11:39 AM)DVY Wrote:  

I just purchased shares and options (0.99c at strike price 3.0 dollars- feb 2015) of Veringo (VRNG).

Okay, i will read up on it. Let me elaborate why i had that negative first impression.

It is a technology patent troll company. It is not a bio-pharmaceutical company or a biotech company. Why is this relevant? Bear with me here. We are both familiar with the biological sciences, so we both know how hard it is to bypass patent protection in biotech areas, especially with Orphan Drug status. This difficulty doesnt exist in technology areas.There is no "Orphan Tech Status" in technology space. VRNG business model may make sense in biotech space, but not in technology space.

There are tens of hundreds of tech companies worth millions(with patents and lawyers) that became obsolete because some child in a garage invented a new software that out-compete their tech( which undergirds their business model).

So, VRNG won a tech patent infringement here and there, and never loses... so what?. how much is that patent worth in the open market giving the plethora of new tech coming in every month, doing old things better? As such, grabbing tech patents is like going for sloppy seconds, actually, sloppy thirds or sixth on a porn set after a gangbang.

I would rather look into buying the stocks of a company X producing new tech X that kicks arse; than a company Z suing company X for tech X... by the time company Z gets his hands on tech X, company X has moved on to tech Y or even worse, reverse engineer a better version of tech X and launch it. To further make my point, GOOG and MSFT have been sued several times...even entire countries has sued them. Look at the stocks of GOOG and MSFT versus the stock of the companies that have sued them? Which one perform better? I think you know the answer to that.(I have attached below the stock charts of VRNG versus GOOG and MSFT. to give a good comparison)

From the little i understand about the technology space, you need three things to have competitive advantage. (1) first to market (2)ability to out-execute the competition (3)hot-pace innovation within your company. otherwise, you will simply die out.

This is not biotech where i can see this business model working because of the strong patent protection clauses in that industry. also, because in the biotech, a patent is worth millions or billions for a decade or far more. So, if you get your hands on a biotech patent, you can be set for over a decade. This is not the case in technology space. New things become obsolete overnight. It is hard to reverse engineer in biotech, however, in tech space, you can reverse engineer EVERY BLOODY THING....and make it better.

This is why i think option trading is the best way to go about VRNG.. it is either a hero... or a zero.

anyways, later, i will read the financials on the company.

regards,

Nemencine.

I did only 44.5% last year... clearly, you kicked my arse. good work.

p.s.s. I have attached below the stock chart of VRNG since 2010 for the last couple of years...I could only go far back to 2010; and compare it to the stocks of GOOG and MSFT from the same period(2010)

[samsamsam]

Anyone have a thought on American Apparel? I have been reading a little on the drama and the battle for control, but not sure about its outlook as a stock. It did get some desperately needed funding.

[DVY]

@nemecine- Respect for the thoughts. I've been having a bumper year and 44.5% is nothing to sneeze at.

Its not just as simple as a "patent". The patent they are suing Google and Microsoft over is the search engine patent from Lycos. This means Bing and more importantly Google Adsense. For google at least, this is the KEY revenue driver. The patent expires in 2016, but they are entitled to a % of US-based Google revenue from Adsense. Google already attempted to do a work-around for Adsense and failed.

The company was originally a ring-tone and multimedia company, but sold of that business and pivoted into IP company.

http://www.wired.com/2014/01/adsense-patents/

Beyond that, the own hundreds of other patents from cell-phones to semiconductors to processing data. These are old patents made from legitimate old tech companies. They also received some key patents from MSFT in the Bing settlement in addition to 1MM in cash and 5% of whatever google pays (up to a certain cap. Believe off the top of my head 60MM).

[samsamsam]

(07-10-2014 05:47 PM)DVY Wrote:  

I've been having a bumper year and 44.5% is nothing to sneeze at.

What are you charging to manage money?

[DVY]

^^I'll do it for fogo de chao and sushi. =).

I've been looking at mobile gaming recently. Huge opportunity. These freemium games are unto something. Huge real money revenues and giant piles of cash. Check out the cash-flow for King digital. Its truly a ridiculous feat.

[samsamsam]

(07-11-2014 10:42 PM)DVY Wrote:  

^^I'll do it for fogo de chao and sushi. =).

I've been looking at mobile gaming recently. Huge opportunity. These freemium games are unto something. Huge real money revenues and giant piles of cash. Check out the cash-flow for King digital. Its truly a ridiculous feat.

Done! I'll have my brokerage info sent over.

I'll check out King Digital. Thanks.

Never made either sushi place you suggested. I am sure you have discovered new and better ones.

But seriously, congrats on how well you are doing with your stock picking. You still in Corning or blow it all out?

[DVY]

Closed out the day I made the post about Veringo.

I still believe Corning will improve, but I think veringo has a better risk-return-value.

[Richiavelli]

Fed minutes came out and said that QE is going to end this year.

Anyone else read ZH? The article about goldman saying stocks are overvalued and then they raised their forecast on the S+P was pretty funny.

[Steve9]

(07-12-2014 11:30 PM)Richiavelli Wrote:  

Anyone else read ZH? The article about goldman saying stocks are overvalued and then they raised their forecast on the S+P was pretty funny.

That is the way stock markets work. A couple of relevant quotes on this issue:

"To the dismay of many, stock prices are under no obligation to respond in kind to fundamentals in any predictable time frame. Beside fundamentals, there are a host of other factors (rational and irrational) that influence the actions of buyers and sellers in the marketplace. Prices don’t change when fundamentals change. Prices change when expectations and perceptions change and they could change for various reasons."

"You must stop thinking that the market is logical or should act in a reasonable manner. Most of the analysis and headlines you’ll read make the faulty assumption that the market is logical when instead it driven primary by perception, emotions and liquidity which have nothing to do with reason or logic."

[babelfish669]

(07-10-2014 02:32 PM)samsamsam Wrote:  

Anyone have a thought on American Apparel? I have been reading a little on the drama and the battle for control, but not sure about its outlook as a stock. It did get some desperately needed funding.

Basically a bet on them going bankrupt or not. Is the brand worth $200 million + their debt? They aren't profitable and their debt levels keep going up year after year.

As a brand and an apparel company, their target demographic has cheaper more diverse options such as Zara and Forever 21. The ironic thing would be someone to take them over and them ship all of the manufacturing jobs to China. I don't see much to like here.

I've made good "bankrupt" bets in the past -- but I don't see any great argument for American Apparel.

[aphelion]

(07-08-2014 06:47 PM)BIGINJAPAN Wrote:  

(06-20-2014 08:15 PM)scotian Wrote:  

Have any of you (Big In Japan?) invested in Canadian oil companies? I"m thinking about buying some stock soon, apparently companies such as Suncor and CNRL are forecasted to jump quite a bit this year, both are going through major expansions at their oil sands sites right now and with recent events in Russia and Iraq, investors are flocking to Canadian oil. Here's an article that explains it in detail: http://business.financialpost.com/2014/0...=d5df-fedc

Did a little research on the Canadian oil companies and I have to say im not overly impressed with their numbers. Most of them have had stagnant earnings since 2011. Costs are out of control by the looks of it. Stocks have had a good run though. The majors have a high beta correlation with the price of oil so my guess is that is the cause for the run up.

One of my friends who is big into oil and gas plays like BHI and DVN. Both have had big run ups as of late as well. But they have all been upgraded by analysts and have great earnings reports so far this year. Also they have a lot of open interest as well going into 2015. I think on a pull back I would look to get into these companies until the Canadian producers can get costs under control again

ZAR.TO, QXP.V and CAZ.TO have been very good to me this year.

[jamaicabound]

Was curious if anyone has ever invested in the Iraqi stock market? I think it's called the WARKA. I've heard about it for years, some people were making some pretty good gains for a while. I've heard ever since this ISIS business their market is down 35% to 40% lately. Never really trusted how secure or how safe money is in there plus I hear it's a pain to put money in have to send over your passport with money and a bunch of other stuff.

I hear people talking about making good gains in the Turkish and Eastern European stock market. How do you invest? Do you have to get a special account setup or do you just buy funds that are a collection of stocks from their market

[Steve9]

(07-14-2014 08:00 AM)jamaicabound Wrote:  

Was curious if anyone has ever invested in the Iraqi stock market? I think it's called the WARKA. I've heard about it for years, some people were making some pretty good gains for a while. I've heard ever since this ISIS business their market is down 35% to 40% lately. Never really trusted how secure or how safe money is in there plus I hear it's a pain to put money in have to send over your passport with money and a bunch of other stuff.

I hear people talking about making good gains in the Turkish and Eastern European stock market. How do you invest? Do you have to get a special account setup or do you just buy funds that are a collection of stocks from their market

No special account needed for Turkey/EE.

There are Turkish & EE companies that are listed on the NY Stock exchange, eg. Turkcell (TKC)

If you do not want to research/buy individual companies then look at Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) which hold a basket of stocks. You buy ETFs exactly the same way as you buy US stocks, via your online broker.

A couple of relevant ETFs listed on the NY Stock exchange (there are quite a few more than this) :

iShares Turkey Index Fund (TUR)
iShares Emerging Markets Eastern Europe (ESR)

For obvious reasons investing in these countries contains more risk than investing in developed countries.

As for Iraq, I expect it will be broken up into 3 parts for the Sunni, Kurdish, & Shiite. There is no way I would invest there, the way things are looking.

When I get around to it I will be researching investing opportunities in Myanmar, as this country holds great promise.

In the longer term (10 to 15 years) I expect North and South Korea to reunify which would open up some great opportunities.

[samsamsam]

I can't seem to post this video.

It is from CNBC.

Santelli lost his shit - it was hilarious.

http://time.com/money/2982907/cnbcs-rick...ed-policy/

[BigDonDickDangler]

Anyone shorting QQQ or similar here? I thought of buying puts on QQQ for expiry late fall but haven't bitten the bullet yet.

I closed a position for a decent gain to reduce risk on a long-term speculative stock in my speculation account.