Wednesday 26 January 2011

Back into market?

The indicators indicating a turndown have sorta leveled out and climbed back again into the green.

Still very risky, market is way overbought but...sometimes you gotta flow with the momentum?

Problem is there's nothing good to buy with such an overbought market...

Some possibilities: LTD, VZ (a bit late, early this week was better), C

Nothing convincing however.

India Bets

India market has been down a lot lately and looks like a small upside available soon.

May be worth adding a few positions to TTM or EPI to lower cost basis for current holdings.

Sunday 23 January 2011

Long term China - How to profit from turndown?

While there's a lot of public mainstream support for growing china and etc etc, there's just too many cases indicating china's going to have massive problems in the near future. Top of those lists are unsustainable property price increases (housing bubble), way too loose credit, large inflation runs, etc. There's a good chance of a china crash and many large funds are starting to place bets against China now (similar to how housing bubble bets got placed).

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/01/china-enormous-tail-risk/

"“The Chinese delegation has said all week that there will be double-digit growth for years to come and the Brits have lapped it up. But the data doesn’t add up. We think we’ve experienced credit bubbles over the past few years, but China is the biggest. And yet the global economy is looking to China as not just a crutch but a springboard out of the recession. It’s crazy.”"

So now to think of how to profit from this?...

Well, many of those funds mentioned are private so no access, what other ways to benefit from a crash?

1) Short FXI/China ETF's - very obvious
2) Short anything related to China
3) Commodities - china is driving the cost of many energy and construction materials up (copper? cement? steel?)
4) Long term leap options

Of those, 1 & 2 are sorta risky and normal payoff so not as interesting.

3 & 4 are interesting ideas but require very well timed bets.

Note: need to find etf's for those commodities.

Follow Up:

Some suggestions:

XME - S&P mining index - steel + others - not sure if companies or commodity
SLX - Steel index - companies
DBB - general futures price of basket of metals

Wednesday 19 January 2011

Market turning down?

Indicators are reversing again, lot of not so good earnings news to defend against overbought market...probably a good time to trim holdings.

Sells:

GE (part)
UCO (all)
EEM (or half)
Most of my options
IACI
MRH
NOK
TM

Maybe Sell:

FXI?
VWO?
QQQQ?
NILE?

Thursday 13 January 2011

Market Charting Indicators

List of symbols to use in stockcharts.com to determine % of stocks above/below moving averages.

Useful to determine oversold/overbought conditions in market

http://stockcharts.com/symsearch/?day%20moving%20average

List of Commodity Based ETFs

  • Broad commodity indexes and baskets are available via ETFs (GCC, GSG, DBC) and ETNs (UCI, GSC, DJP, GSP). There's also a leveraged broad commodity ETF (UCD), a leveraged broad commodity ETN (DYY), and a double-short broad commodity ETF (CMD) and ETN (DEE).
  • Agricultural commodities include cocoa (NIB), coffee (JO), cotton (BAL) and sugar (SGG) -- all ETNs. Agriculatural commodity baskets cover livestock (UBC, COW), grains (JJG, GRU), softs -- ie. coffee, cotton and sugar -- (JJS), biofuels (FUE) and food (FUD). Broader agricultural indexes are also available via ETF (DBA) or ETN (UAG, JJA, RJA). Don't confuse agricultural commodity ETFs/ETNs with ETFs which track the stocks of companies in the agricultural commodity business (CUT, MOO).
  • Industrial commodities include aluminum (JJU), copper (JJC), lead (LD), nickel (JJN) and tin (JJT) -- all ETNs. Industrial metals baskets are also available via ETF (DBB) and ETF (UBM, JJM, RJZ). As with agriculture, ETFs are available which track the stocks of companies in the industrial commodities business (PKOL, KOL, SLX, HAP).
  • Oil is available as a simple long (USO, USL, OIL, DBO, OLO), leveraged long (UCO), short (SZO, DNO) and double short (DTO, SCO). There are also simple long ETFs for heating oil (UHN) and gasoline (UGA). Natural gas is available as an ETF (UNL, UNG) or ETN (GAZ). Energy commodity baskets are available as an ETF (DBE) or ETN (UBN, RJN, JJE).
  • Precious metals are available as baskets (DBP, PSAU) or individual metals. Gold is available as a simple long (GLD, IAU, SGOL, DGL, UBG), leveraged long (DGP, UGL), short (DGZ) and double short (DZZ, GLL) position. Silver, too, is available as a simple long (SLV, SIVR, DBS, USFV), leveraged long (AGQ) and double short (ZSL) position. Platinum comes as a simple long (PPLT, PTM, PGM) and short (PTD). Palladium comes only as a simple long (PALL). Like the other commodities, you can buy ETFs containing gold and silver related stocks -- the gold miners and junior gold miners (GDX, GDXJ).



http://seekingalpha.com/article/30369-a-guide-to-commodity-etfs-and-etns

Monday 10 January 2011

Sell GE

Most indicators are reversing and since options expire next friday, get rid of GE options

Prolly do the same with C options.

Wait a few more days for F.