ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on February 17, 2013. Click here to read the entire piece.) Friday’s trading in Herbalife (HLF) after Carl Icahn filed SEC documents announcing his 13% stake was a microcosm of how to trade the HLF drama: play the extremes. {snip} Click for … Read more
For this chartfest, I do not have time to provide extensive commentary. So, this is mostly a visual presentation of the charts with some labels or notes to point your attention to what I think is most interesting from a trading perspective. Feel free to post questions if anything is not clear. Enjoy…! I have … Read more
This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on January 21, 2013. Click here to read the entire piece.) The negative news cycle has begun again on Monster Beverage Corporation (MNST), and it is creating fresh trading opportunities. On January 10th, the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN), “a public health … Read more
Autozone (AZO) was a banner stock coming out of the 2001 recession. In 2001 alone, AZO logged a 152% gain. Over the next six years, AZO gained another 67%. During the financial panic in 2008, AZO plunged but did not even come close to erasing all those hard-fought gains. In 2009, the stock barely paused … Read more
In “A Trading Plan For Herbalife: A Pullback Likely Before A New Trading Range“, I used options trading and presumed resistance at the 50-day moving average (DMA) to estimate that this week would finally mark a pullback in Herbalife (HLF) shares. Instead, HLF punched right through 50DMA resistance on Monday (Jan 14) and in just … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on January 3, 2013. Click here to read the entire piece.) A little over a week ago, I wrote optimistically that Skullcandy (SKUL) could make 2013 a comeback year. Those hopes were dashed right at the gate of the new year as … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on December 24, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) In early October, I ended the trade in Skullcandy (SKULL) playing a bounceback from Morgan Stanley’s devastating downgrade, but noted I would remain a buyer on dips (see “Skullcandy Recovers Losses … Read more
“This is the hedge-fund equivalent of Stalingrad. Someone is going to lose big. And the victor will be so bloodied that the word victory will sound hollow… For a short-seller who is as risk-averse as me watching this is pure hedge-fund porn.” From “Bill Ackman enters the city of Stalingrad,” John Hempton of Bronte Capital, … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on January 4, 2013. Click here to read the entire piece.) {snip} This reversal was punctuated by Chapman Capital’s Robert Chapman revelations on January 3rd that he bought HLF on the cheap to trade directly against Ackman. Source: FreeStockCharts.com Herb Greenberg of … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on December 24, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) So it turns out that Bill Ackman, with his hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management, is the “big whale” behind the massive short position built against Herbalife (HLF). Ackman indicated that … Read more