Y.I.
Loading...
Symbols:
Loading...
Symbols:
Hedge Fund Jobs
Job Seekers: Search jobs by category, get job alerts by email or live feed, apply online See full list of jobs »
Employers: See all recruitment options, get applications online or by email Post a job »
Trading Center
- Free E-Newsletters
- About Seeking Alpha
- About Us
- Contact Us
- What's New
- Readers Feedback
- Advertise With Us
- Contributors
- Contribute an Article
- Feature Your Book
- Our Contributors
- Anonymous Contributions
- Dispute an Article?
- Legal
- Terms of Use
- Privacy
- Copyright
Latest Comments218 Comments
General Discussion on GDX
Gold miners's costs are impacted by energy prices. The price of oil (USO) has fallen dramatically. That should contribute to miners' profits.
General Discussion on GDX
finance.yahoo.com/q/bc...
General Discussion on GDX
1. After a brief period of inflation, all these bailouts and budget deficits will result in inflation -- good for the gold price.
2. The spread between gold miners and the price of gold is unusually wide.
3. The easiest way to buy the miners is with GDX.
General Discussion on GOOG
"Investors are running, not walking, to the exits. TrimTabs Investment Research of Sausalito, California, estimates that September and October redemptions totaled $87.5 billion. Total industry assets, which peaked at $1.93 trillion in the second quarter of 2008, declined 11 percent to $1.72 trillion at the end of the third, according to HFR."
"Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has created what it calls the Very Important Position basket, which tracks a roster of 50 stocks -- including such companies as Anadarko Petroleum Corp., General Electric Co. and Google Inc. -- that most frequently appear among the top 10 holdings of hedge funds.
When fund firms scrambled to raise cash in September, those stocks were pummeled worst of all. The VIP fell 19 percent in that month.
A companion basket of stocks least likely to appear among hedge funds’ top 10 holdings fell just 2 percent. "
Source:
www.bloomberg.com/apps...
Marc Faber Says Time to Buy Gold Exploration Stocks
General Discussion on TSCM
"Huffington has several important advantages over TheStreet. For starters, it does not rely on one person for most of its traffic. If Jim Cramer left TSCM, the company would be in real trouble.
Second, Huffington has diversified beyond it political news base. Over the next year or so, it will become clear whether that was a good idea or not. Adding “style” and “entertainment” sections puts it into competition with a lot of other online success stories.
Third, Huffington aggregates a lot of content from around the web. The cost of doing this is remarkably low. The company pays little if anything to most of its bloggers. TheStreet has a relatively large staff and produces most of its own content.
The final difference between the two companies is probably the most telling. At its current rate of growth, which could be hurt by the end of the 2008 election process, Huffington may double in size again over the next year or so, if its efforts to diversify its content works.
It would be hard to find analysts who believe TSCM is going to expand its audience or revenue at a rate of 100%."
Source:
mediamemo.allthingsd.c.../
General Discussion on NYT
"On the content side, the $25 million will go towards the jump-starting of a new investigative journalism initiative, expanding its video offerings and a rollout of local versions of the HuffPo aimed at an unspecified number of cities. It already has a Chicago-centric site. The funding comes as HuffPo says farewell to what appears to have been a successful and long campaign season. With interest in politics expected to wane compared to the height of its election coverage, HuffPo hopes to become known for more than its left-leaning politics coverage, by building on its other sections, which include media, living, style and green. While broadening its content should attract more advertisers, this is a tough time on the local ad front, as Borrell Associates and other analysts have pointed out that the growth in that area had and will continue to slow down considerably. "
Source:
www.paidcontent.org/en.../
General Discussion on NYT
“The cycle of print media is accelerating downward and there are not as many companies with a balance sheet and focus to do it right online,” said Harman, who will join the Huffington Post’s board. “The news market is really up for grabs in a lot of ways…and it is a good time for those who are viewed as authoritative.”
“There is an inevitable shift from offline to online with people increasingly getting their news media online, and this election proved how powerful the Huffington Post could be,” said Harman... “And I think the post-election perception of the Huffington Post has changed in the eyes of advertisers to being a key mainstream news site.”
“Who knows how deep this economic situation is going to be,” said Harman, who noted that he and others kept investing in aQuantive through the last Web downturn. “But strong companies that keep investing through a bad cycle can emerge as winners.”
Source:
kara.allthingsd.com/20...
General Discussion on ETF
One of my main concerns about ETF is the thin trading volume. Yesterday the Dow was down 7.7%. VWO, the Vanguard Emerging Markets index ETF was down 8.9% and traded almost 5MM shares.
In contrast, ETF traded only 115,000 shares, and was down only 5.5%. But many of the stocks in the fund, such as MICC, CHU, MBT, VIP and TKC were down much more than that.
Does the thin trading volume mean that the ETF isn't tracking its underlying stocks on a day to day basis? I suspect that's the case.
My guess is also that the bid-ask spread is wide.
Bottom line: ETF's thin trading volume is a problem. It mutes the volatility, you probably pay the price with a wide bid-ask spread, and once you buy the fund, the lack of responsiveness to the prices of the underlying stocks could work to your disadvantage.
Despite Apple's (AAPL) relatively modest holiday promotions, it appears to have started out the holiday shopping season very well indeed.
General Discussion on EEM
EEM is down 54% this year. If you own EEM, you could consider swapping it for VWO, the Vanguard Emerging Markets ETF, for two reasons:
1. Tax loss selling. The two ETFs are similar, but not identical. If you've got a tax loss on EEM, you can realize the tax loss and swap into VWO, maintaining your exposure.
2. VWO is a better ETF -- its expense ratio is less than half EEM's.
Having said that, the EEM and VWO are different. The most important difference is that VWO doesn't include Russia, whereas EEM does.
There are some good articles comparing the two listed here:
seekingalpha.com/artic...
General Discussion on ETF
Its top holdings are mobile carriers.
I'm watching this fund because:
1. Mobile carrier businesses will probably do better in a recession than other forms of consumer discretionary businesses.
2. ETF is trading at a 21% discount to net asset value, according to ETF Connect, and its discount to net asset value has widened.
3. I like mobile carriers as long term investments. They tend to grow their customer bases over time, and their value therefore grows cumulatively.
4. Emerging markets offer the biggest opportunities for mobile.
The problem, however, is that ETF has a massive annual expense ratio of 1.36%, according to ETF Connect. Does that offset the discount to net asset value for long term investors? Perhaps, yes.
Bottom line: I haven't purchased ETF, but I'm watching it and mulling it over.
Resources:
Listing of ETFs top holdings here: www.etfconnect.com/sel...
Chart comparing ETF to EEM:
finance.yahoo.com/q/bc...
A Skeptic on Leveraged ETFs
This works to your advantage if the underlying index moves strongly in your favor. For example, when the market dived over a period of a few weeks, the 2x inverse ETFs were massively more profitable than shorting the plain index ETFs.
Here's what happens if the underlying index drops 3% every day for 10 days. The first column shows the value of the underlying index and thus a regular ETF; the second column shows what happens to a 2x inverse ETF tracking that index:
100 100
97 106
94 112
91 119
89 126
86 134
83 142
81 150
78 159
76 169
The underlying index is down from 100 to 76 -- a 24% decline. But the double inverse ETF is up 69%.
But now look what happens if the index goes nowhere over a 50 day period, up 3% one day, down 3% the next:
100 100
103 94
100 100
103 94
100 99
103 93
.
.
.
98 92
101 87
98 92
101 86
Over a 50 day period, the underlying index is up 1%, but the double inverse ETF is down a massive 14%.
Bottom line: Leveraged ETFs are great for sharp market moves, but do really badly if the market is broadly flat but with volatility.
Together with the other disadvantages pointed out in the article (the cost of rolling over futures etc.), this also makes them great for short term trading, and bad for long term investing.
The holiday shopping season got off to a surprisingly solid start, with Black Friday sales up 3% (or 11%) from a year ago.
1. "But the sales boost during the post-Thanksgiving shopathon came at the expense of profits as the nation's retailers had to slash prices to attract the crowds in a season that is expected to be the weakest in decades."
2. "Also complicating matters is a shorter buying season — 27 days between Black Friday and Christmas — instead of 32 last year."
The holiday shopping season got off to a surprisingly solid start, with Black Friday sales up 3% (or 11%) from a year ago.
On Nov 30 05:30 PM Mr. EB wrote:
> If you read the ShopperTrak estimate methodology on their website,
> they emphasize counting retail foot traffic. Obviously in this retail
> environment, old estimates based on how many people went out for
> Black Friday and correlation to actual total spending dollars is
> tenuous at best.
>
> I mean ShopperTrak said retail sales were UP y/y September and October,
> and down tiny in November, give me a break.
>
> Meanwhile, Mastercard Spendingpulse which is based on actual spending
> data from their credit card users, NOT estimates counting foot traffic,
> shows deep double digit y/y declines in sales dollars.