Saturday, March 29, 2014

3/29/14 Sold on Gold

Can't recall the last time I was bullish on gold, which represents strong support for miners.  Not quite ready to jump in, but I'm headed towards the water.

53 comments:

  1. I hovered over the buy button on SLW at last Wednesday's close (22.3x), but I was too focused on EM at the time.

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    1. If we have a 80 / 98 etc move you're best off in uup. Shit even if the economy zooms higher like everyone expects uup will go up

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    2. I'm thinking the dollar will indeed spike next week, which will send gold down and set up a buying opp.

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    3. ECB meeting next week could be catalyst. I'm biased as I have uup

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    4. I would close UUP on the spike, and rotate into miners.

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    5. I'll prob never buy a miner. Not my area of comfort / expertise

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    6. Nor mine. But I recognize negative sentiment/panic when I see it.

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    7. I kinda like the UUP idea, myself.

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    8. Pretty good knock out in the miners. If they trigger, I'm in (again). They are still in an uptrend.
      I suppose it will be a news driven event or process, but the charts (prices) will reveal the move.

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  2. Anyone looked at RNDY?

    Big jump this week on a BACML upgrade, but still a good looking chart and the cheapest of the grocers in North America with a 7% yield. Investor presentation sounds like they are running things well.

    Grocers, in Canada at least, and I think also in the US, have been knocked down over the last few years due to increased competition from Wal-mart, Costco, etc. Maybe it is getting time to buy.

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    1. Here's the chart of grocers:

      http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/number-cruncher/browsing-the-bargain-aisle/article17667679/

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    2. People around here have been talking less about WMT and more about the competition, not sure if WMT has raised prices too much or what, exactly.

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  3. 2nd- It's not that, I'm just really bad with dates, years, etc. If asked something specific from 20 years ago I would remember it, but not if it was any specific date.

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    1. ie, I remember graduating, winning the national championship, getting married, etc, but the dates escape me totally.

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    2. It's all good until you find yourself driving somewhere and can't remember how to get back home.

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    3. What national championship did u win?

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    4. I heard he came in 1st and 3rd!

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  4. Just finished reading Jesse's latest (which included commentary from Steven Kaplan). Here's my takeaway. All else being equal:

    (a) The best possible time to buy a beaten down sector might be during the first hour of market open on a Monday morning.
    (b) The best time to sell an extended sector might be the week before April 15.

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    1. I don't see it, where'd you locate it?

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    2. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qFkJQYP1c6rVWCTTtE2-AXsVV3eNYRvaDQqDC-ern5M/edit

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    3. Maybe I shoulda' asked how you located it, LOL, there seem to be numerous pipelines.

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    4. That explains it, Twitter(and FB) is a complete mystery to me.

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  5. http://www.viralnovelty.com/pretty-girl-seeking-rich-husband-reply-got-banker-priceless/

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    1. That response sucked, for various reasons. Besides, she's at least a 3 on the Budweiser scale.

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  6. F - We could get another chance on this one if market does pull back, maybe drop it 50%?

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  7. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-to-win-the-losers-game-2014-03-28?link=kiosk

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  8. TWTR - Seems like we can't conduct our lives without this one?

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  9. MEOH - Talk about disorientation, I've been sitting here for over three hours trying to recall this ticker.

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    1. I have to wonder why Jesse doesn't ever discuss serious stocks like this one (or others like TSM/WHR, etc. for that matter), always concentrating on some POS's like PLUG and other bizarre crap that don't qualify as investment vehicles gets old really fast and frankly, offends my intelligence.

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    2. In fact, I really would rather bought TSM as opposed to BALT as TSM was getting pummeled in Feb, at least I know which one actually can compete in the global market by providing something that has verifiable demand and high entry barrier.

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    3. Cp I think the point is unconventional thinking is what makes us big bucks in the market. If we traded tsm or other big cap stocks we would never achieve significant returns. Think about the big winners in the past two years: csiq ire nm sune himx etc etc they were all complete dogs and pos's just 2 years ago

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    4. Shit what about redf? We made hundreds of % returns as it went from pos to the best momo stock inthe market and now back again. Tzoo was a pos. Huge winner. Gmcr dmnd nflx were all complete dogs 1,5 yrs ago now they're huge winners. Sts and patk

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    5. If you want slow and steady investment, then stick with the slow and steady slugs with historical volatility that matches the market.

      If you want to beat the market then you need vehicles with higher volatility than the market and you need to forget fundamentals and trade prices and psychology based on charts/chart patterns. Risk in this case is offset with money management instead of 'fundamentals'. It's really two separate philosophies. Jesse is a trader in the true sense of the word, he is not an investor and I doubt you will see him suggest something big and thick with low volatility.

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    6. Yeah but I'd rather put half my portfolio in and just get a double as opposed to 1/10 and getting a 2000% return (which I have never achieved with anything!) :)

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    7. "If you want slow and steady investment, then stick with the slow and steady slugs with historical volatility that matches the market."

      I guess you mean like this (basically the final point made by author):

      http://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-to-win-the-losers-game-2014-03-28?link=kiosk

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    8. "he is not an investor and I doubt you will see him suggest something big and thick with low volatility. "

      Exactly, his time horizon is about 10 seconds...

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    9. "If we traded tsm or other big cap stocks we would never achieve significant returns."

      I see, somehow I had the impression you thought BALT was a better investment but in reality you were just looking for something to flip, not invest in.

      I gotta tell you guys, I've always experienced much better performance when my time horizon was longer. The advantage of this game is you can get out fast in case you were wrong. Seriously, I don't have an interest in buying TIMBK if it's just another pump and dump that might run 1000%, I'd rather invest in something I know will still be around and in business beyond 2016

      So it sounds like I should ignore a great majority of the ideas here on TT and pursue my own ideas, most of them have done very well, BTW, but thanks for finally explaining why these ideas never receive any response, it's b/c they're not spicy enough I guess..

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    10. 2nd is jealous it's that long!

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    11. Cp - I've found that being flexible is the best option. It's easy to get caught up in the long term beauty of an investment then watch it go down the drain. I still really like balt a lot but my thinking has evolved after realizing the changes in pollution control going on in china and given their impact on the dry bulk trade a move away from coal really caps the upside IMO. So I guess being flexible and continually evolving / challenging yourself and your assumptions is crucial in the markets. And to each his own in terms of holding periods really. Look at bb he holds some stuff for 5 years and has been doing quite well. 2nd has solid returns with quick hits.

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    12. Finding your comfort level is absolutely crucial. I have periods where I can hold stuff for a year and other times when I'm as skittish as a crack addict. I need conviction with whatever holding period I choose.

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    13. Yeah, I know, the pollution thing in China might even increase the need for foreign coal though, instead of the stuff they have domestically. I keep thinking about BTU saying in their CC that Chinese coal power plants (or was that steel plants?) are located near seaports for a reason.

      Then there's Mongolia to think about, and all the mining activity going on there. Could be low sulfur coal is brought by rail from Mongolia.

      Then think about the recent downgrades of US coal producers, weren't these same analysts upgrading them just before they crashed? Now they downgrade them, hmm..... Makes me wonder.

      But the big picture is CO2 emissions, global warming, social unrest due to high fuel costs (electricity), maybe natural gass never goes back to $3 and just keeps climbing but I just don't see how we can escape high as hell electricity prices if we keep cutting back on coal, it's an almost infinite amount of energy that's produced in terms of human perspective, What 200 cars of coal per day per powerplant or something like that, a long damn trainload every single day multiplied by the number of power plants, it's gonna take one hell of a lot of natty available supply for decades to take coal's place, either we cut way back on electricity consumption or price of electricity will go parabolic or both without coal and that won't be a popular thing.

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    14. "forget fundamentals and trade prices and psychology based on charts/chart patterns."

      Honestly, I don't see much difference between that and rolling dice.

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    15. Oh, and one of the problems US based coal producers are up against is trying to export and still turn a profit, the access to ports is apparently a bottleneck.

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    16. "I have periods where I can hold stuff for a year and other times when I'm as skittish as a crack addict. I need conviction with whatever holding period I choose."

      And that makes perfect sense, you have to be flexible, some trades may not take long to accomplish and others should take longer to meet the expected circumstances. Meanwhile you have misleading media stories to contend with. For instance, if I could see with my own eyes all of BALT's bulker ships arrive at Newport News harbor and load a quadrillion tons of coal every single day of the week repeatedly for months and months, then I'd feel pretty comfortable about whether or not their ships are hauling freight. The problem is I don't have the benefit of being able to verify any of the half truths floated about by the news media.

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    17. I think the most important thing is being comfortable with your own method for making money. At the end of the day does it really matter how you make money in the markets? I understand your frustration but let's not lose sight of the fact that all we're trying to do is make money, right? If you're only comfortable with knowing your investments well, sticking with blue chips, and holding long term and that's the method you have found that jives best with your personality / risk-tolerance and makes you money then who the hell cares if you're not subscribing to Jesse's method or Jim Cramers method or whomever else thinks their method is best?

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    18. TOF is right of course. Making money is the goal and your own method, whatever that is, is the best.

      Jessie seems to do great in bull markets with his buying of these rocket ships, but if you read his book, he said he went from $45,000 to $6,000,000 back to $100,000 during the last cycle. Hopefully, he learned from this and will get out keeping more of this money this time, but that is the risk of his style of trading.

      Much better not to try and trade like anyone else and get what works best for your aptitude/intellectual approach/style, etc.

      My style of analyzing stocks, finding good value, buying and holding until that value is recognized works great for me as I feel comfortable that the research I have done has truly identified value and rarely get shaken out and make money on most of my stocks. But if you're not willing to do that level of work to feel comfortable, you will make bad decisions trading like this. There is a lot of emotion in trading and you need to have something, whether it is fundamentals, a chart pattern, etc. that you know works for you and can use.

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    19. The other thing I would add is it is important to accurately track your trading. I've got several spreadsheets which I update monthly to ensure my trading and portfolio growth is successful over time. When I have tried new trading approaches - day trading, merger/arb trading, options trading, covered calls, etc., I keep a separate spreadsheet to track just how that style works, to accurately analyse how that style works.

      For example, with day trading, I found I was making money most trades, but my losses when I took them, tended to be larger. So, it felt good as I had all these winning trades, but when I looked a the actual numbers, I was actually spending a lot of time to be around break even, so I stopped it and looked into other approaches.

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  10. GM - ""Engineers considered increasing or changing the ignition switch 'torque effort,' but were advised by the ignition switch engineer that it is 'close to impossible to modify the present ignition switch' as the switch is 'very fragile and doing any further changes will lead to mechanical and/or electrical problems.'"

    Fragile ignition switch. This is one of my biggest grips about GM, they can be unbelievably cheap in some areas that comes back to bite owners and piss them off. Cars are extremely complex these days and all these switches have to be robust or all kinds of ghosts will persist, fragile ignition switches isn't something to crow about if they're easily broken. Not saying the switches were inadequate, just that GM should make sure the damn things can outlast the car and not become a problem. Owners shouldn't be hanging bowling balls off their ignition switch either, Christ they paid $25k for the damn thing, that's just being equally stupid.

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  11. EM feels a little crowded right now. And I have no interest in buying US indexes at these levels.

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  12. If interested in a Volume profile view of the market, FuturesTrader71 does a real good job of explaining in his morning videos:

    https://www.youtube.com/user/FuturesTrader71/videos

    This mornings video just completed ...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwvoLz_nwGY&hd=1

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