Beating The Stock Market » Stock investments

Nuclear Energy Stocks

billy — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 03:34:07 +0000

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There are many different stocks out there that fall under the term “speculative”, of course that not really the case when it comes to the electric utility stocks. I just want to write about a sector that seems to be building up steam (literally and figuratively) later that needs to be addressed.
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A little over a month ago I started looking for a new speculative stock to trade (oppose to invest in) and I happen to stumble over a company that is in the electric utility sector, but because it is mainly a nuclear play, I thought it would be a decent opportunity. I looked around at other companies that are also trying to expand their nuclear plant output, but this one stuck in my mind.
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I invested a small amount (like I always do on speculative stocks) in the company after reading their earnings reports and reading the transcripts from their conference calls. Since then the stock price has moved up over 30% in just 5 weeks.
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What really made me think that I had to write a post on it, was the fact that the company was profiled on a CNBC special this week titled Nuclear Option. In the show there was a lot of positive talk about the use of nuclear power being used in this country. There hasn’t been a nuclear power plant built in the United States in over thirty years, but now there are two being built as I type this post. One in Texas and the other in Maryland.
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The company that I’m referring to is NRG Energy Inc. (NYSE:NRG). The company looks good to me and I will be buying more of it on the dips. I do expect it to lose some value because of profit takers as well as the overall market taking it down some as the DOW and the economy take a roller-coaster ride throughout the remaining part of the year. The chart looks healthy and with the price of oil expected to go back up, it will continue to rise.
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As with any stock you look to invest in or trade, you need to do your own research to see if it’s right for you.
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Happy Trading.

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Pork Barrel Spending Stimulus Package

billy — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 15:59:53 +0000

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The stimulus package was passed last week and Wall Street is letting Washington know that they are not happy. Since the package was passed, the DOW has dropped nearly 500 basis points, reaching a twelve year low of 7077.35 and closing at 7114 on Monday.
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The current stimulus package will cost American tax payers $778 billion. That’s after they’ve cut out all the unnecessary spending that was originally in the plan. Unfortunately, the Democrats that control the House are now in the process of passing another bill that will add up to about $410 billion in what they are calling “needed to fill the gaps that the first stimulus package left out”.
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This administration has only been in office for one month and they have already passed bills that will spend more money than the previous one did in it’s last year. Something that this administration campaigned on not doing.
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All this spending is going to have to be covered by some sort of tax increase and the one that will be hit first will be the capitol gains tax. It presently sits at 15%, but as President Obama stated on the campaign trail is that he feels that it needs to be raised to 25%-30%. If that is to happen, then expect the stock market to drop well below the 7000 mark.
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As this administration start to show their true agenda for this country, Wall Street will have no choice but to pull out their money to avoid unnecessary tax burdens.
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As for the economy, it won’t be any better. How can a company increase their profits, as well as their work force, if they become more tax burdened. If a business can not make a good profit, it will not attract stock holders. It all ties into one another.
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For the last couple of months, I’ve only been trading stocks that have taken a beaten because of the market as a whole has dropped. I don’t have the confidence in the stock market any longer and will do what I can to pull out the capitol that I have out of it. I stated before that I don’t typically short stocks and in times like this it too doesn’t sound like a great idea, but in bad economies, it’s much easier to make a profit shorting stocks than it is to go long.
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Whatever you decide to do with your trades, be aware that this economic turmoil is far from over.

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Stock Prices Are On The Rise

billy — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 05:12:47 +0000

After the year we had I the stock market, it’s nice to see stock prices on the rise. Today the DOW closed at 9015.10, up 62 points for the day. I know that 62 points isn’t really much, but I’ll take whatever I can get on the positive side.
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Stock prices have been rising steadily since the end of November. The Dow is up 19% since it’s November lows as well as the S&P 500 is up over 24% within the same time frame. I hope to see this continue. Especially after the news of Alcoa’s plans to cut 13,000 employees, roughly 13% of the work force, I look forward to see what will come in the next month.
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it seems that everyone globally has plans to pass out a stimulus plan of some sort. China is now reporting that they will have a stimulus plan of over $600 billion. Germany has released information that they too will have a stimulus plan. Everyone is getting happy with someone else’s money to stimulate their own economy. I don’t know about you, but doesn’t it sound odd?
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With all the news coming out that the U.S. can possibly see the light at the end of the tunnel sooner than expected, many traders are moving their capitol out of the consumer staple and health care sectors, which is what happens once the economy starts to show signs of improvement. To me I think it’s just been a good 5-6 weeks and I’m not expecting miracles of the stock market going up from this point without any temporary set backs and corrections.
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On top of all this news (particularly positive), it seems that another billionaire committed suicide. German billionaire Adolf Merckle stepped in front of an oncoming train in Berlin after leaving a note to the reason of his actions. It’s a shame that these wealthy people end their lives after they lose all their wealth. It just goes to show you that money can only make you so happy. This is the fourth person since September to end their lives because of their financial woes.

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Stock Market News For The Week

billy — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 06:09:55 +0000

It’s amazing how this week has turned out for me and for some investors that I talk to. I’m not talking about the traders who buy and sell everyday or even the day-traders. I’m referring about investors who have more of a buy and hold mentality. I’ve spoke before in another post about how in these trouble times that the buy-and-hold system isn’t really working. There’s too much volatility in the markets to do that type of trading, but with the moves (or lack of) of the markets this week…who knows.
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In this week the markets have held up quite well and I’ve made some good gains because of the strength and stability in the markets.
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News came out late last week about the Ponzi scheme that Bernard Madoff was running for some time. Taking over $50 billion dollars from many people. I would have figured that more people would have pulled out more money on that news.
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I guess that the Federal Reserve basically removing the lending rate this week help. That really got the markets fired up on Tuesday afternoon. It seem to continue throughout the week as well as news came out about the condition of the financial industry. The dollar has weakened in the last few trading days, which makes me a little confused to how the markets have been moving, but I’m not going to complain at this point.
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It seems that the stability is coming back to the markets as the VIX levels drop to more of a normal and acceptable area. Yes, the markets were flat, but with all the bad news that came out, we should be happy on the performance of the markets.
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Quite a few of the positions that I’ve taken in the last week were down from my core, so I did buy more of those stocks and from Monday to Friday, they’ve all made moves to the upside. With weeks like this when things could have gone worse than they did, It makes me wonder if we’re basically at the bottom already. I guess next week will give us a better clue on the answer of that.

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Stock Trading Insight

billy — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 17:25:49 +0000

So far today in the morning trading hours, the markets are on a tear. The DOW has been up big since it opened and if things continue in this manner, we will have a great day and the DOW should close above 9000 today.
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Talks of the stimulus plan has caused some positive trading throughout this morning’s trading.
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With the moves that have happened this past week in the markets, many think about moving their capital out of the equities out of some of the less favorable sectors and look for the tried-and-true sectors during a recession period.
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We heard last week that we are officially in a recession, but the real question hasn’t been answered. That question is “how long have we been in a recession?”
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With that in mind, you have to take into consideration that the smart money have been positioning themselves in those sectors for sometime to protect their assets.
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An article that I found today talks about the fact that the time to get into some defensive plays, like consumer staples has past and you may want to do something else.

The article is from CNN Money.com, I hope you you find it interesting.

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Are Dividend Yields Too High?

billy — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 05:17:40 +0000

What a difference a year makes. Last year at this time the stock market was on a tear, it just came off it all time high of 14,136 and looked like it was taking a healthy pull back, waiting to go up again. Then all of a sudden all the walls started to fall from the house of cards that had been built over the last few years. Signs of trouble from the sub-prime mortgage were starting to show.
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Fast-forward back to November 2008. The stock markets have lost nearly 50% from where they were last year and everyone is running for some sort of safe place to hide their money until the storm has passed. Jim Cramer from TheStreet.com
has been suggesting hiding out in strong companies that have some great dividends.
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What are dividends? Dividends are what some companies give to their shareholders. Basically dividends are cash that the company distributes from their cash reserves because they don’t have anything else to do with the profits that they make every year.
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Dividend payouts are figured on a percentage basis of what the share is worth at the time. When stocks drop in value, the yield on those dividends rises. Let’s say that a company’s stock is valued at $100 and they give a $5 dividend payout for the year (typically broken up in four payments), the yield of those dividends are 5%. Now if the company is now trading at $40 per share, the yield would be calculated at 12.5%. That would be some great returns on your investment. You can’t get that in any other type of investments.
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The problem comes in where the yield is too high for the company to keep paying out that dividend. So the company will cut the dividend to help the company keep some cash flow. So what is considered the “sweet-spot” yield for dividends? It’s hard to really pinpoint it. Typically look for those strong companies that give any where in the 3%-7% yield, but anything that is over 10% is considered too high to really expect it to stay there.
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Don’t get me wrong there are some that continue to give double digit yields, but they’re few and far between. The only one that I can say that kept their dividend payout the same this past month was Atlas Pipeline Partners (NYSE:APL). The stock was trading at $18 per share and their quarterly payout was $0.96 per share. That was a 5% yield just for the quarter, if you calculate it for the year it comes out to a 20% yield. I don’t expect it to be the same when they pay out their next dividend in February 2009. The company is in trouble now that oil has come down so much, so my advice is to stay away from Atlas.

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Stock Market Scams

billy — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:09:34 +0000

photo by azrainamn
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In these trouble times of the stock market no one is really sure what stock is going to break out and post some beautiful gains. Of course there are many out there that will offer you their services. I’m here to tell you, beware of wolves on sheep’s clothing.
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When you go ahead and type “stock market” or anything similar to that in Google search, you will get several million returned pages. The results are astounding as to the different types of sites you will find. many of them are site designed to get you to buy into their program or at least to leave your e-mail.
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The one and only purpose to these site are to make money off of you not to help you make money in the stock market. In some cases you will find that they offer you “tips” after you subscribe to their service. Sometimes it’s a monthly service, but mainly it’s by the year. The reason why many of them don’t do it by the month is because after the first or second month you would cancel once you see that you’re not making gains in your portfolio.
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The other way these sites will make money off of you is a little more shady that the other. These are the sites that will go ahead and say that they will send you daily notices for no charge. You only have to give them your e-mail. The way that they make money is that they will send you “tips” on stocks that they are already in or that they’ve just recently pumped up. Showing you graphs and charts showing that the stock is at the break out point. What they don’t tell you is that they are the ones pumping it.
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If enough people jump into the stock it will cause the price to rise, at which point they start dumping their position leaving you and others hold the bag.
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There is one stock right now that I’ve been watching because of one of these services. I learned about it through Twitter. I will not disclose the person or the stock for obvious reasons, but I will tell the rest. The person posts on Twitter the the particular stock has moved X amount on X amount of volume. This stock jumped 66% that day, the next day it jumped 125%. In the last week it dropped 95%. With these moves the stock now sit 56% below from where the person started hyping it.
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Just in case you were wondering what type of stock has movements that big in percentage. Penny stocks move like that all the time. That is why you shouldn’t invest more than 10% of your portfolio to penny stocks. You can lose all that you invest in these kinds of plays.
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To make matters worse, the Bid price never rose above the starting price until two days ago where it went to the height of the hype just long enough for one entity to dump several thousand shares. That is also why the stock is now down more than it was in the beginning.
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In the mist of all these types of people out there, there are those that are legitimate and very helpful. The only one that I would at this time recommend is Jim Cramer from TheStreet.com

Because of who he is and the influence that he has, he is not allowed to invest in the stock market himself. Instead he has a portfolio that the money goes to charity. We have an affiliate program with him that offers you a free
two week trial. I suggest that you give it a try. What the heck, it’s free.

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Sell-Off’s And Rallies

billy — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 21:59:27 +0000

photo by petrick2008
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As we see with the way the stock market performed today, the sell-off kicks back into high gear. Investors are still concerned about the condition of the economy no matter who won the election.
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The rally that took place over the last week in alternative energy was erased today with the sell off. First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR) which was up $70 in the past week gave back $24 (-13%) in today’s trading.
The rest of the sector did just as bad with Suntech Power Holdings (NYSE: STP) taking the biggest hit of almost 21%. Suntech was trading last week at $11 and gained almost 90% before today’s beat-down. The one stock in the sector that escaped the abuse of today was Biofuel Energy Corp (NASDAQ:BIOF) which gained just over 28%, take in mind though that this stock is a penny stock and gains like that are quite common.
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In the financial area of the stock market, the sector was another wash-out with nearly if not all of the stocks lost ground. Out of the ones that I really keep an eye on, the best performers still lost over 5%.
Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corp. (NYSE:AGM), a stock that I’ve talked about before here on this blog took the biggest hit, losing over 25%. Last week the stock traded as low as $2.85 (where I picked up 200 shares) and yesterday hit an intraday high of $8.40, a gain of almost 200% in just a few days.
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I’ve been saying it for some time now, but you need to be ready for when the stock market will turn (good or bad). If I didn’t sell out of AGM when I did, I would have lost some great gains. Don’t get me wrong, I did keep some shares (since I’m now trading with their money). When you get big gains like the one I just spoke about, you need to remember not to be greedy and SELL.
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*DISCLAIMER* At the time of this post Billy is long AGM and has no position in FSLR, BIOF and STP

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You Can Make Fast Money With Dividends

billy — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 04:30:08 +0000

With the way the stock market has been moving in the last few weeks, it may be wise to look for solid companies that provide a great dividend. Unless you’re a day trader and can play the volatility of this market, you really need to take positions in these types of stocks.
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I’ve been looking at dividend paying stocks for some time. It’s been profitable during these days and since my career is trading in the stock market, I’ve had the time to look into when these dividend payouts will occur.
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Typically dividends are paid out 4 times a year, just around the time that the company announces their last quarter performance. In this month alone I’ve taken advantage of over a dozen stocks that pay out dividends. Be aware though that just because the company has stated that they will paying out dividends, it doesn’t mean they’ll be paying out what you may see on a website like Yahoo Finance or TheStreet.com
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Let’s take a look at what I mean by that comment. A perfect example is Atlas Pipeline Partners LP (NYSE:APL). If you were to take a look at what was reported on Monday October 27th, Atlas reported that there will be a payout of $0.96 of common limited partner unit. In yesterday’s news Atlas stated that there will be a cash payout of $0.05 per share. After further research I found that the $0.96 per common share has been confirmed. As for the $0.05 I haven’t been able to find out if this will be a one time “extra” pay out for each share on top of the $0.96 per share.
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My point is that there are different types of stocks for some companies and if you’re not careful in your research you may be buying into the wrong one. Just for those who maybe thinking of catching some good dividends, Atlas Pipeline Partners LP (NYSE:APL) might be one that you would want to get into. The execution date (aka ex-dividend date) is for shareholders who have stock in the company on November 10th, 2008. Just for your information, at the current price of $17.00, the yield for this stock is almost 24%.
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P.S. Want to learn more about the stock market? take a free two week trail with Jim Cramer from TheStreet.com

*DISCLAIMER* At the time of this post, Billy is long APL

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T Boone Pickins Is Behind Natural Gas And Wind Power Stocks

billy — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 02:35:38 +0000

photo by Kevin Dooley
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Alternative energy has been in the forefront of the news lately, even with the price of oil dropping more than 50% in the last three months. The issue has become so important that more needs to be done. The problem is that any talk about it has it not making a good enough dent until 2018 or later. Why is it that something that everyone believes to be important isn’t being pushed harder to accomplish it?.
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T Boone Pickens is been putting his money where his mouth is, into alternative energy. Mainly in wind energy as well as natural gas. The plan is to build new wind generating facilities that will produce 20% of this country’ electricity and allow the use of natural gas as a transportation fuel source. He says that these domestic energies can replace over one third of our dependency on foreign oil imports. The best thing is that he said it can be done in ten years.
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I have been a big believer in alternative energy well before it became the “in thing”. When I first started trading in the stock market I invested in alternative energy stocks. Which was a good thing because they have grown into a powerful force in the stock markets. When the idea of alternative energy stocks started to really catch on it helped propel my portfolio by leaps and bounds. One of my best trades of all time was getting in and buying stock in First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR) when it was at $35 per share.
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Now that the stock market has taken a nose dive into oblivion, it has caused these stocks to come down from their highs by more than 50% (in most cases). That is exactly what I wanted to see for me to make a more of a foothold in this sector. I have always kept a position in alternative energy stocks over the years and look forward to major gains in this sector. I want to bring some stocks to light that I feel will benefit from the Pickens Plan.
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P.S. Want to learn more about the stock market? take a free two week trail with Jim Cramer from TheStreet.com

Quanta Services Inc. (NYSE:PWR), a company that I’ve spoken about before here and have been a investor of the stock for some time. They are a contracting service company that offers many different solutions to electric power, gas as well as many other areas. These guys I feel will be the ones who get the most of the contracts for installing the transmission cables for the wind turbines.
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Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP (NYSE:KMP) is a major player when it comes to natural gas companies. They are based in Houston Texas, which is in the heart of the wind corridor that Pickens speaks of and most of their pipelines branch out from that region. The Natural Gas Pipelines segment gathers, transports, stores, treats, processes, and sells natural gas through approximately 14,700 miles of natural gas transmission pipelines and gathering lines, as well as natural gas storage, treating, and processing facilities. On top of everything else that this company can do, their stock at it’s current price offers a 8% dividend yield.
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Linn Energy, LLC (NASDAQ:LINE) is an independent oil and gas company. The company has oil and gas, and natural gas reserves in Mid-Continent, which includes the operating areas Texas Panhandle and Oklahoma; and Western region comprising the Brea Olinda field of the Los Angeles Basin in California. They are also based in Houston Texas. To make this a more attractive stock to own at this time is that their dividend yield at it’s current price is 15.6% and it’s ex-dividend date is in the first week of November.
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Composite Technology Corporation (OTCBB:CPTC.OB) at the moment they’re the new kid on the block (relatively speaking). The company operates through two segments, CTC Cable and DeWind. Between the two areas they cover the cables and the turbines that will be needed. The ACCC conductors can handle a higher temperature than most to help reduce burnouts and blackouts. This stock is my speculative stock and should be treated as such by anyone looking to invest in it.
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Of course there are many more companies that will benefit for the growth of alternative energy in this company, but I don’t want to have this post go on forever. This sector will have great gains in the next few years and if you have the time to wait you can make out big with your gains.
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*DISCLAIMER* At the time of this post, Billy is long Kinder Morgan and Linn Energy.
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P.S. Want to learn more about the stock market? take a free two week trail with Jim Cramer from TheStreet.com

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