Category: Media

CNBC is starting to sound like late night Cinemax with all the double entendres. I think I heard this report last night and actually double checked to see if I was still on the business channel.

Female Anchor (FA): We are going to need a really big package to make this worth the effort.

Male Anchor (MA): How big does the package need to be to make you happy?

FA: I really think we need something that can go deep enough to put …

Forbes had an article explaining why DRYS and other dry bulk shipping companies are a bad buy right now.  Forbes seems to be under the belief that the economy will never pick up.  I had to give DRYS some extra thought throughout the day yesterday.  I’m long (own) 200 shares and short (sold) two naked puts and six calls.  Two of my calls are so far out of the money I’m not even thinking of buying …

Here’s an interesting article on CNN.com’s site that I almost had for MyTradersJournal.com.  It’s written by a friend of the family who works at CNN, Paul Varian.  He sent me his story via email and said that he was sending it to the AC/360 team also in case they were interested.  He gave me permission to post his story if CNN wasn’t interested.  They were and posted it, so I’m just linking to it instead …

Today (even the past few days) has been interesting to watch how oil reacts to Ike, the hurricane, not Turner.

The AMEX Oil Index (XOI) is up almost 2%, but oil ETF USO is down a half percent.  I recognize they aren’t tracking the exact same underlying issues, but that’s a big difference when both are tracking oil.  INO has an interesting take on it.  Check out the video they posted yesterday:

Crude, wasn’t it …

I got this idea from Jim Cramer’s Mad Money show on Friday night.  I only watched about 20 minutes of the show, which is pretty much the norm for me if I get to watch it at all.  (I skipped Monday night’s show to watch some Eurocup soccer while my wife is out of town.)

Tidewater Inc (NYSE: TDW) is listed in the services sector under shipping industry, but is really heavily tied to the energy industry since those are the …

I pulled this from “In Play” on Yahoo! Finance today. They referenced this press release from overstock.com’s Web site.  (I watch In Play throughout the day to get the short story on what’s moving the markets.)
9:08AM Overstock.com issues press release related to Reg. SHO (OSTK) 20.15 : Co announces that “yesterday marked the 800th trading day that the co has appeared on the Regulation SHO threshold list”. The CEO said “While this may seem paradoxical, the facts can …

I saw this article on money.cnn and thought it was worth sharing.  Basically it highlights the same thing that many of us have read for years – the roaring 80s and 90s won’t be seen again.  I take from this yet another reason to follow the naked put selling trading model. 

If the markets stay at a 8-9% annual clip, selling naked puts is the way to go.  Once you get closer to the …

I haven’t made it through this week’s Barron’s yet and don’t see it happening.  I read more than half of it, but couldn’t get into it with most of the stocks they highlighted.  I was surprised to see Michael Santoli moving away from being a solid bear and even hinting towards a bullish lean soon.  I don’t think I’ve read his bullish side in months.  Maybe I misread it…

I did find a few stocks worth mentioning though.  Before listing them, I …

For those who don’t read Barron’s (you should) the format is pretty basic.  It generally comes in two sections unless there’s a special.  Each section starts with one or two long articles summarizing the past week’s market activity.  Following the summaries are more in depth articles on individual stock picks or pans and some follow-ups.

This week all three summaries painted a fairly bearish picture.  (Admittedly, Kopin Tan who is often the bullish one of the bunch didn’t write this week.)  …