ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
Last week, Zillow (Z) published an infographic on its blog site purportedly describing the impact of the Facebook (FB) IPO on home listings in the local neighborhood of its Menlo Park headquarters (see “Millionaire’s Row: How Did Facebook’s IPO Affect Silicon Valley Real Estate?“). The summary caught my attention: “To illustrate the Valley’s real estate … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on May 31, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) The SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF (XHB) has remained amazingly resilient during the stock market’s latest rendition of the “sell-in-May” swoon. {snip} Source: FreeStockCharts.com I believe this trading action is consistent with … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on May 31, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) {snip} Since a spate of heavy call buying in February, short interest has taken a fresh plunge. It has now returned to levels last seen right before foreclosuregate exploded. Source: NASDAQ.com … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on April 16, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) On January 13th this year, I argued that it was time to buy the dips in homebuilders in preparation for a bottom sometime in 2013. I targeted KB Home (KBH) in … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on March 26, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) Despite an improving outlook for KB Home (KBH), the stock sold off post-earnings on Friday. KBH dropped 8.5% for the day after dropping as much as 15.0% and after closing the … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on March 20, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) Kb Home (KBH) dropped 6.8% on Monday, March 19. KBH last sold off this heavily over four months ago. Buyers of call options rushed in to take advantage. For the April … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on March 19, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) I still believe that a bottom is coming for housing in 2013. Some areas of the country, like the Silicon Valley area of Northern California, have already left a bottom far … Read more
In late January, I made the case for investing in Dynex Capital (DX) as one way to bet on a recovery for housing starting that I believe will begin in earnest next year. DX had dipped at the time on news of a stock offering to raise more capital. As anticipated, DX did eventually recover … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on February 26, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) When Lender Processing Services (LPS) reported fourth quarter and full 2011 earnings on February 13, the company provided downside guidance on earnings and revenues. When the stock opened 6% lower, it … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on February 12, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) Perhaps I should all the recent call option activity in Lender Processing Services (LPS) should not surprise me given a massive foreclosure deal between banks and federal and state governments arriving … Read more