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The first day of trading after the labor day weekend has been very interesting. The three indicies finshed the day higher, Dow up 56 points while the S&P 500 closed at 1025.39 and the NASDAQ did the best of the three closing at 2037.77 (up 0.94%).
That wasn’t even the most worthy news of the day, that honor goes to the price of gold, which went above $1000 for the first time in quite some time. The U.S. Dollar lost value today and with that going on, the Commodity sector gained throughout the day.
This week will be a very telling sign of things to come in the near and distance future. Just to be on the safe side, I will be treading very carefully through it all. For those of you that want to try out a different trading technique but are afraid to do it in such trying times, here is a free fantasy stock market game that you can find out if those ideas will pan out.
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What can you lose? It’s FREE.
We’re having our very first (but not our last) contest here at Beating The Stock Market! 
The contest starts right NOW and ends on Sunday, September 30 at 12:00 noon EST.
First, the prize….one winner will receive a copy of Kiplinger’s: 12 Steps To A Worry Free Retirement.
Actual customer review:
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Here’s how to enter:
All you need to do to enter is post about the contest and link to this post. Leave the link to where you posted about it in a comment here so we can keep track of the entries.
Good luck!
Yesterday the news came out that new home sales jumped 9.6% for the month of July. It was the fourth straight increase in sales. Sales rose to an annual rate of 433,000, up from June’s rate of 395,000. Many are saying that the bottom is definitely in and now is the time to buy, but is that really the case.
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Yes, sales are up more than 30% from the bottom in January, but nowhere near the peak of four years ago. Of course that’s was because of the inflated bubble that was created by the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac sub-prime loans.
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So does this really mean that the bottom is in and we can expect the economy to turn around? I doubt it. Why I think that is because of the fact that the numbers are (I feel) are mis-leading. Many of the new home sales that have been happening in the last month or so were first-time home buyers. That’s because of the government’s incentive plan for first-time homeowners who qualify for an $8000 tax credit. That in itself is misleading on the fact of it’s a tax credit, not a rebate. Which means of you don’t have enough of tax liability, you won’t be able to write off all of the $8000.
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What does that mean for the industry? Well, home builders saw a jump in their stock price today, but will it be able to maintain those levels? I doubt that too. mainly because when the program will be terminated at the end of November. I believe the market will dry up again with sales. As it is, some builders have already seen a dip in home sales. In Arizona, A.F. Sterling Homes stated that sales in July stalled because the builder couldn’t guarantee the homes would be completed in time to qualify. The industry (real estate agents and builders) are really leaning on Congress to extend the the credit on the grounds of the sales could reverse from their current trend. As a matter of fact, Randy Agron, the vice president of A.F. Sterling Homes was quoted as saying “The real estate market is really a fragile thing. It’s not the right time to take (the tax credit) away”.
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With that in mind, do you really think the bottom is in? It has been proven in the past that when the government gets involved with trying to “save” the economy, it actually extends it by not letting the free market follow it’s natural course. With this program as well as the financial bailouts and “Cash For Clunkers”, we have three major industries being manipulated within the American economy.
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All I can say is…hang on, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd is up and running again today after they reported their second quarter earnings report. I’ve spoken about them in the past in regards to having a position and using a technique referred to as channel trading..
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Well so much for that idea now that the company has posted some good results and given some (in my opinion) great guidance. It will be some time before I’ll know what their new trading range will be. On top of all the news that AEM released, there have also been several analysts that raised the target price for Agnico Eagle.
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Yesterday when I saw the price dropping I put in a limit buy order at $52 per share. Unfortunately the low of the day was $52.17. I figured that I’ll just get the shares today at even a lower price, but when I was watching Mad Money with Jim Cramer, he had the CEO of Agnico Eagle on to discuss the report. I knew at that point the shares would go up in the pre-market and continue to do so throughout the day. So I had to put in a limit buy in for 54.00 (hoping that it would be a good bid) before the market opened and was lucky that it did trigger. I think we’ll see some great thing from this company in the next few quarters and I expect to make some great gains with this stock.
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Their two newest mines, Kittila and Lapa have achieved commercial production as well as their other mine Meadowbank and will be operational in the first quarter of 2010. If you haven’t jumped into Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd., do your research and maybe this can be a winner for you and your portfolio.
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Second quarter 2009 highlights include:
- Record Production – record gold production of 119,053 ounces. First gold poured at Pinos Altos in July
- Good Cost Performance – LaRonde, Goldex and Lapa achieve good
minesite cost performance
- Commercial Production At Lapa And Kittila – commercial production
achieved as of May 1 at both mines
- Remaining Two New Gold Mines On Schedule – Pinos Altos and Meadowbank remain on schedule for initial production in third quarter 2009 and first quarter 2010, respectively
- Growth profile bolstered – expected after-tax internal rate of return (“IRR”) of 76% at Goldex expansion and 17% at Pinos Altos expansion at Creston Mascota
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Happy trading.
It has finally been decided that the art of naked short-selling will be banned from now on, which is a good thing since that technique of trading is what caused the demise of Lehman Brothers and many other stocks of the financial sector.
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I’ve never really been a fan of short-selling any stock even though I’ve done a handful of times. Short selling is the idea of betting against the stock, expecting it to go down in value. A trader will borrow and then sell shares of a company, only to buy them back at a lower price to return them back to the entity that they borrowed them from. With naked short-selling, the trader doesn’t worry about borrowing the share before he sells them. At that point he/she has to look around for someone to borrow the shares from. In most cases there aren’t enough shares to go around, causing turmoil and wild swings in the stock price.
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Now the SEC has included a requirement that all brokers must buy or borrow the shares promptly to cover the short sale. The SEC is also considering several other ways to limit short selling. Let’s not forget that it was the SEC that removed the up-tick rules a few years ago.
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The up-tick rule refers to the price of a stock has to move up in price by at least a penny before anyone else can short the same stock. That helps avoid a runaway drop in the stock price.
I’ve said it many times, and I stand by it; Stock Trading Is Not A Game. It doesn’t matter if you’re a trader or an investor, you must do your homework by researching every stock you plan to invest in or trade But what if you could play a game and practice investing without risk? You could have fun “playing”, while learning and understanding the stock market even more.
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I stumbled upon a free website where you can trade stocks on a virtual Wall Street. UpDown.com is a free fantasy investing site. People join UpDown to practice investing and can earn money for winning contests. Start with a $1,000,000 cash reserve and start trading stocks immediately after registering and creating a profile. With up-to-date news information along with an active forum for members to share ideas and investment strategies.
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The UpDown is a community for people interested in investing in the stock market. If you’re new to the stock market or have a few year under your belt, this site will give you the chance to try different strategies without any actual loss of money.
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UpDown.com provides a platform where investors can view, share, and rate high-quality stock analysis and investment ideas. They then filter, aggregate, rank, and present the community’s investment recommendations for the benefit of all UpDown members looking for valuable investment advice.
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Click the banner below, or the one in our sidebar to join. I just joined myself and it looks like a good place for me to test out new strategies that I normally wouldn’t, with my own money.
It’s that time of year again that comes every three months. That’s right, it’s time for earnings reports. Alcoa (NYSE:AA) is the first company to come out with their results for the second quarter for 2009 (actually it’s just that they are the biggest company to report). Alcoa will release their report after the closing bell on Wednesday July 8th.
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After last week’s debauchery, who really know what to expect. I not expecting anything good from any one company, so I will be watching the companies that I favor to buy on the dips. I’ve again back out of a lot of the positions I had in the past couple of weeks, so I’m in a good position to pick up some of the companies I was in at a lower price. Unfortunately, I’m not all that comfortable with the way the government and the Federal Reserve are handling things right now, that I just might sit out for the next month or so.
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Of course with me doing that, I just may miss out on some great moves, but when in doubt, sit it out.
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On Thursday the DOW lost 223 points. It started off bad in the morning and was pretty much steady all day until the end when the rest of it fell out. The whole week was trading on light volume, which makes it hard to really see which way the markets could have gone. It’s not easy to get a feel for the markets during a holiday week.
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I will wait until tuesday to get a feel for the market tread, but the way the markets have been lately, it’s doesn’t stay one way or the other for long. Take your time and do your research carefully, like you should do all the time.
With the economy the way it is right now along with the volatility in the stock market, If you have the ability to trade stocks on a daily basis (day trader) or even holding for a day or so, you can make some money without really trying.
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You will still have to do your homework and research on the companies that you want to invest in, but if you have a list of stocks that you’re very familiar with, playing the volatility is quite profitable.
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Yesterday I spoke about building position in the companies that you want to invest in. When the markets were at their lows, I started to do so. I actually picked up some at good prices, even though I would have like them to come down some more. I told you in the past to buy in increments, not all at once. If the price did continue to fall yesterday, I would have bought more later on.
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I bought Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) @ $134.75, Joy Global (NASDAQ:JOYG) @ $34, Research In Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) @ $76.25 and last, but not least, Sirius Satellite Radio (NASDAQ:SIRI) @ $0.325. I expected prices to bounce back up yesterday as well as a little bit more of a gain today. I was right only three of the four trades I did. This morning I waited for the opening to see what I was going to sell. At the opening bell, Sirius was up to $0.43 per share and after the negative news about their downgrade, I expected it to drop down below $0.40. I put in a limit sell order for $0.425 and it sold shortly afterward. A gain of 30% over night. To be honest I was planning to hold on the Sirius for the long term (until their next earnings report ), but when I was up that much, I sold it and will continue on the next dip.
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As for Apple, I was also able to sell my shares at $138, for a gain of 2.5%. I know that isn’t much to boast about, but if you think that you can’t even get that on a basic 12 month CD these days. Take into consideration that I did buy large amounts of share that help offset the fees that were charged to me. Joy Global was the last on I sold this morning. I sold it at $36.50 per share, for another gain of 7.3%.
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As for RIMM, I didn’t get the action I wanted, but that’s OK since I do expect that to run into the $100 range in the coming months. I will continue to hold on to the share and add to my position.
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You need to take advantage of the opportunities when they present themselves, so if you are able to trade on a daily basis, good luck.
Here we are again going through another correction in the markets. The three indicies have dropped over the past week off their seven month high and I’m not surprised. Over the last three months the markets have been on a tear coming off their lows. I mentioned before about how the markets wouldn’t be able to continue these gains without some sort of correction and profit taking.
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Even though I’ve been waiting for this pull back for some time, I did expect it. I will say that the markets aren’t as weak as I thought. I no longer expect to see the DOW reach 7000 again. As a matter of fact I don’t think it will get below 7800.
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The word on the street is that there is a large amount of money sitting on the sidelines waiting to jump back in, which means that once investors and traders feel that the waters a safe enough to come back in, it will help the markets rebound even more. Yesterday I heard that many of the hedge fund managers are already invested in and that they don’t have much capital not isn’t in the markets. The report stated that they are concerned that they may miss the next surge in the markets and they don’t want to be caught sitting it out.
If that’s the case, it can also be said that if they get skittish and pull their money out to avoid another big loss, we will see the 7800 level on the DOW.
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I don’t think so on the latter issue because the housing market is showing signs of stabilization, as well as the financial sector. Jim Cramer last night even had a segment in regards to the housing bottom. Since last August he has been saying that the housing bottom would be around June 30th of this year. Well, he ripped the board down and said that after yesterday’s housing number were the third straight month that they have improved. Other indicators are looking good too.
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With that in mind, I will start building positions in the stocks that I’ve been watching for sometime. Over the next two weeks, I will be looking at Apple, JP Morgan, Research In Motion and Agnico Eagle Mines. Of course there are others that I do like, but I would want more of a pull back before jumping on board with them.
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If you’re looking to take advantage of some free advice from Jim Cramer (besides his TV show), Check out his Action Alerts program that he’s always mentioning on his show. I’ve been a member for over a year and find some sound information from him, along with some great picks. Follow the link for a two week free trial of his Action Alerts subscription.
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