Saturday, March 2, 2013
03/02/13 Suicide is painless, not
The game of life is hard to play
I'm going to lose it anyway
The losing card I'll someday lay
So this is all I have to say
That suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
and I can take or leave it if I please
Suicide, in most cases, is an irresponsible act that leaves one's family devastated, and hardly painless. It indeed brings on many changes, and the person who's able to take or leave the consequences has truly abandoned all hope.
I did my best to put myself in cheapy's shoes. Here's what I would do.
(a) Sell it all.
(b) Take some time off.
(c) Return to trading in a few weeks.
The portfolio balance that displays at the end of each day is truly 'the bottom line.' That's what you have. If you still believe RBY is the single best play you can make going forward, then stick with it. Otherwise, cash out and wait for the next pitch. It'd be the same play for any of us.
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Culturally, we Americans are soft, unable to handle emotional pain without reaching for the medicine cabinet. Trading is a tough game, and 'may not be suitable for all comers.' If you can't handle the pain, then walk away. I'm a lazy-ass coward when it comes to contact sports, and see nothing wrong with that. I'd be the last person to judge someone for staying away from the trading game.
ReplyDeleteI agree.
Deleteby the way, as far as trading goes, we should ALWAYS consider the alternatives out there. while this can cause you to become unfocused you should always assess if your play is the best play out there, taking into account risk of course.
the chart on NOAH is phenomenal. i really like the chart on NQ too. after looking at the PAM chart more i think i'm going to pass. famous last words...
ReplyDeleteNOAH. Crap...China. I liked the chart too.
DeleteThat was also my first thought.
Deletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82wU5NfRfr4
ReplyDeleteJust placed a buy stop limit for 1000 shares of SNE at $15.3/$16. The fact that SNE was able to recover quickly after a "bad" earnings report and started moving back up again is a sign that it is ultimately headed much higher.
ReplyDeleteFound this chart on the "sister blog":
ReplyDeletehttp://www.caracommunity.com/sites/default/files/2013-03-01-tos_charts.png_march_1st_2013.png
It is actually pretty instructive, as it shows that even if gold bounces next week, it won't mean in any way that the "pink line" support has held. In order for us to assign odds greater than 50% to that support holding, gold also has to break out of the downward channel it has been in since last October.
On the other hand, I have just looked at the latest COT reports and saw that as of Feb 26, the net long gold position of small speculators was 21K contracts. The previous two times when this number dropped below 25K in the last 5 years were on May 15 (25K contracts) and July 24 (23K contracts), which were both major bottoms for gold. In contrast, the one-year high in the gold price attained in early October was marked by the net long 61K contracts. These numbers suggest that we are much closer to the bottom now than to the top.
ReplyDeleteFrom the latest WIR:
ReplyDelete"Talk on the blog of suicide is unnerving to me because a few years ago, within a day of sending me a personal message of despair, one of you did commit suicide, which I only discovered after his distraught family checked his computer and found the dialogue with me."
Wow... I hope we see more posts from Cheapy soon!
Yes, I recall the suicide. I can't recall his 'handle' (something related to sailing). It was 2005 or 2006.
DeleteThose of you who remember 'leisa' probably remember her disclosure that her younger brother also committed suicide in response to serious trading losses (unrelated in any way to the blog).
It might have been tacktitian (as opposed to tactician).
DeleteMy best friend, who was a very successful business owner and just had his first child, killed himself once he realized his relationship with the child's mother was REALLY over. Must have been 15 years ago.
DeleteI'd watch to see how things work out. I was shaken out of WNR in single digits a couple years back, now it's up pushing $40...
DeleteThe part that gets my goat though, is Cara has been pumping gold and miners all the way down. Something really sick going on there, IMO.
DeleteWow - pretty sad some of the things that happen. The worst part is people is people read stuff like Cara, get some positive reinforcement from success, don't realize the risks they are taking and when things go bad, they really go bad. They really should make financial planning a mandatory part of children's education these days.
ReplyDeleteRight on BB
DeleteSome positive news:
ReplyDeleteHere’s an interesting fact: The S&P 500 has risen in both January and February. Since 1945, the S&P 500 has been positive for the first two months of the year 26 times. Every single time that’s happened, the index has closed higher for the year. No exceptions. In fact, it’s usually closed a lot higher. The average total gain, including dividends, has been 24%. If the S&P 500 were to rack up a 24% total return this year, the index would have to be well over 1,700 by the end of the year.
yo fellas - when you get a chance, listen to this conference call:
ReplyDeletehttp://wsw.com/webcast/bbt24/register.aspx?conf=bbt24&page=yrcw&url=http%3A//wsw.com/webcast/bbt24/yrcw/
this was done after the Q4 2012 results for YRCW. their CFO was sick this day so they had Stephanie Fisher take over...she's not really that smooth with the presentation and she only covers the financial aspects. Jeff Rogers who heads up YRC Freight was also presenting. On the 2nd or 3rd question the topic of debt and how they're going to repay it comes up. I found the discussion really interesting and it gives me confidence that these guys are getting things geared up for a nice 2013 and 2014. they also talked about pension reform and how even though they don't know what the impact will be they're pretty sure it will be at least neutral if not positive for them. this will happen in 2014/5.
i was also digging around more and saw they just did a deal with this company MAEVA, which is a company that specializes in turnarounds.
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/716006/000071600613000003/yrcw-20121231xex1037.htm
"As set forth more fully below, MAEVA will advise the Company with regard to one or more potential value enhancing events, transactions and/or strategic initiatives involving the Company."
the founder of this company is Harry J. Wilson who was involved in numerous turnaround / restructuring events including GM/Chrysler (he was on that auto task force thing back in 2009), Hostess, and he was involved in the restructuring of YRCW in 2011. here is his background:
http://www.teamster.org/sites/teamster.org/files/Wilson_Report_as_Filed_Redacted_(00216121)_c.PDF
i don't know what kind of value enhancing events they are considering but I also noticed when i looked at the insider buys/sells that Harry Wilson bought about 10,000 shares of the company on the open market back at the end of August:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/it?s=YRCW+Insider+Transactions
this guy has had access to the company's books and specializes in turnarounds so i think it's at least a small vote of confidence.
also, look at the cash flow statement from last quarter. the company actually generated free cash flow of $4 million in q4. i believe that is the first time in a while that that has happened.
i know this company has a ton of debt but the operational improvements are trending in the right direction. i still think there is a small to medium chance this stock just takes off at some point this year. i don't think the market has priced in anything remotely close to positive net income and i think that could happen by q2 or q3 of this year. they had their best quarter last quarter in many years and that was despite having to deal with Katrina and in what is typically a slow quarter for them.
remember, this company has massive operating leverage. they do $5 billion in revenues and they are valued at less than $50 million in the open market. if you account for all potential share conversions (6 million shs convert at $14 and another 6 million converts at $34) then they are worth about $120 million fully diluted right now. even at that valuation it's trading at 0.024 times sales when the industry average is about 0.40. again, those conversions don't take place until $14 and $34, though.
it's an interesting turnaround. it could potentially be a bankruptcy or a 15 bagger over the next 3 years. given no major debt obligations for the next 18 months or so, this is the year to shine. if they return to profitability they will be able to restructuring and negotiate better interest rates on their debt. they have about $150 million in annual interest expense. lets say they return to profitability, restructure their debt and can cut int exp by 10%. that equates to almost $2 EPS. so as they continue to improve the long term benefits could be pretty drastic in terms of debt restructurings.
i'm not saying it's a done deal but this is getting more and more interesting to me...