Saturday, September 27, 2014

Investment Idea Sharing 27 Sep 2014 - Lots of PUT and CALL activity

Investment Idea Sharing – Sept. 27, 2014: 
See below for my personal stock market Buys or Sells for this week:
Buy Stock: NE
Sell Stock: none
Buy To Close Covered Call: AAL
Sell Covered CALL: NOK, C
Buy to Close Cash Secured PUT: AAPL, AAL, EXC, NLY
Sell Cash Secured PUT: EXC, AAPL

This week I made a lot of trades because I had several CALL and PUT options that did not expire until January 17, 2015, and were very far “Out of the Money” due to great stock price movements after I had opened these positions.  That means I could buy these options back “Buy to Close” for pennies on the dollar when I had originally sold them for between $1 and $7.  This allowed me to close these options and take my money off the table 4 months early so I could look for other money making trades instead of just leaving this money tied up in these options for another 4 months.

Excellent article on how Lenovo (0992.HK) has grown to a worldwide power in electronics over the past 9 years.  http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00274?pg=all

Last week, the world market indices were all down except China’s Shanghai SSE which was up 0.7%, but hit a new 52 week high on Friday.  I could not find a story on why the SSE did this, but I checked its 1 year chart and found that it took a big jump in July 2014 and has continued this up trend.  Here is the 1 year chart for SSE:  https://www.google.com/finance?q=SHA%3A000001&ei=-HwnVJi2FajeiALmvYHACA

I continue to look for stocks that have good fundamental financial values, but stock prices near 52 week lows.

Summary Table of Worldwide Market Index Closing values for this week:


Here are my Stock BUYs for This Week:
Stock Symbol: NE
Buy Date:  24 Sep 2014
Buy Price:  $23.48
Target Sell Price: $30
All of the deepwater oil drilling companies have been driven down the past few weeks along with the price of oil.  Several of them (NE, RIG, PGN, ESV) have good fundamentals, so I have been selling some PUTs and also buying shares of stock.  NE 1 year chart: https://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=NE+Interactive#symbol=ne;range=1y;compare=;indicator=rsi+volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=;

Here are my Stock SELLs for This Week:
Stock Symbol:
Sell Date: 
Sell Price: 
Buy Price:  
Buy Date:  

Here are my Mutual Fund BUYs for This Week:
Fund Symbol:
Buy Date: 
Buy Price: 
Target Sell Price:

Here are my Option (CALL or PUT) Sells/Buys for This Week:
Option: Sell to Open Covered CALL 
Stock Symbol: NOK
Sell to Open Date: 24 Sep 2014
Expiration Date:  15 Jan 2016
Strike Price: $10
Option Price:  $.65
I had bought these shares back in 23 Feb 2011 at $8.50.  After that, NOK had all kinds of problems and the stock went to $2 in 2012.  I believed in NOK and now they are at $8.61, so it is time to take some profit by selling this Covered CALL. 

Option: Sell to Open Covered CALL 
Stock Symbol: C
Sell to Open Date: 24 Sep 2014
Expiration Date:  15 Jan 2016
Strike Price: $57.50
Option Price:  $3.90
I bought these shares on 12 Jan 2009 at $5.75.  In 2011, C did a reverse split of 1:10 so my shares would need to be $57.50 to be at break even.  But after this reverse stock split, C went to $25.  I waited to make my money back. C is now at $52.49 and their CALL options are looking good to me.  This CALL allows me to get out at my original buy in price plus another $3.90 per share.  If I do get called out, there will be No more C for me.

Option: Buy to Close Covered CALL 
Stock Symbol: AAL
Original Sell to Open Date: 14 Aug 2013
Original Expiration Date:  17 Jan 2015
Buy to Close Date: 24 Sep 2014
Strike Price: $41.00
Option Price: $1.40
I had initially sold this CALL at $4.28 in Aug 2013, but AAL went down so far, that the price of this CALL went to $1.40 last week.  Since there were still 4 months left before this CALL would expire, during which it would possibly make me no more money, I bought it back to re-deploy this money on another AAL CALL, I have a new CALL sell order in for Expiration date of Jan 2016, Strike price of $45 at $3.20 / share.  AAL is currently at $35.93 and I expect that my new CALL will sell when AAL gets to $36.50.

Option: Buy to Close Cash Secured PUT 
Stock Symbol: AAPL
Original Sell to Open Date: 30 Jan 3014
Original Expiration Date:  17 Jan 2015
Buy to Close Date: 24 Sep 2014
Strike Price: $71.43
Option Price: $.16
I had initially sold this PUT at $7.61 in Jan 2014, but AAPL went up so far, that the price of this PUT went to $.16 last week.  Since there were still 4 months left before this PUT would expire, during which it would make me no more money, I bought it back to re-deploy this money on another AAPL PUT, see below

Option: Sell to Open Cash Secured PUT 
Stock Symbol: AAPL
Sell to Open Date: 24 Sep 2014
Expiration Date:  15 Jan 2016
Strike Price: $95.71
Option Price: $10

Option: Buy to Close Cash Secured PUT 
Stock Symbol: EXC
Original Sell to Open Date: 8 Nov 2013
Original Expiration Date:  17 Jan 2015
Buy to Close Date: 25 Sep 2014
Strike Price: $25
Option Price: $.10
I had initially sold this PUT at $2.00 in Nov 2013, but EXC went up so far, that the price of this PUT went to $.10 last week.  Since there were still 4 months left before this PUT would expire, during which it would make me no more money, I bought it back to re-deploy this money on another EXC PUT, see below

Option: Sell to Open Cash Secured PUT 
Stock Symbol: EXC
Sell to Open Date: 25 Sep 2014
Expiration Date:  15 Jan 2016
Strike Price: $32.00
Option Price: $3

Option: Buy to Close Cash Secured PUT 
Stock Symbol: NLY
Original Sell to Open Date: 26 Nov 2013
Original Expiration Date:  17 Jan 2015
Buy to Close Date: 25 Sep 2014
Strike Price: $10
Option Price: $.19
I had initially sold this PUT at $1.81 in Nov 2013, but NLY went up so far, that the price of this PUT went to $.19 last week.  Since there were still 4 months left before this PUT would expire, during which it would make me no more money, I bought it back to re-deploy this money on another NLY PUT, I have a new PUT sell order in for Expiration date of Jan 2016, Strike price of $10 at $1.20 / share.  NLY is currently at $11.22 and I expect that my new PUT will sell if NLY gets to $12.00 which it was last at in Oct. 2013.

Visit www.ultimatestockfinder.com to download our Stock Evaluator and Mutual Fund Evaluator spreadsheets, read training articles and check out all our web links for investing information.
NOTE: Spreadsheets will NOT be updated from Sept. 1 until Sept. 20 because I am on vacation.

StockEvaluator ‘Short List’
‘Short List’ screens using 12 fundamental value limits that I want to see in a stock before considering it as a possible buy. 

View our training video that shows how to enter your preferred values for each of these ‘Short List’ screening limits:

View the Stock Evaluator ‘Short List’ screening criteria and target limit values here: http://www.ultimatestockfinder.com/short_list_12_criteria.JPG

Mutual Fund Evaluator ‘Short List’

View the Mutual Fund Evaluator ‘Short List’ screening criteria and target limit values here:

Please remember to send me any other investing ideas, information or questions that you want to share with the group.

Thanks,
John D.

Disclosure: The author has no positions in any of the stocks or mutual funds mentioned in this article unless clearly stated above. We certify that except as cited herein, this is our work product. We received no compensation or other inducement from any party to produce this article.  Please see our full legal disclaimer at:  http://www.ultimatestockfinder.com/stockevaluator_disclaimer.html
______________________________________________

To Remove Your Name from this email distribution list, reply to me and I will delete your name.

You can read this weekly ‘Investment Idea Sharing’ newsletter at our Ultimate Stock Finder blog: http://ultimatestockfinder.blogspot.com/

Ultimate Stock Finder is also on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/UltimateStockFinder


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Saturday, September 20, 2014

Investment Idea Sharing Sept. 20, 2014 - Google Watchlist

Investment Idea Sharing – Sept. 21, 2014: 
See below for my personal stock market Buys or Sells for this week:
Buy Stock: none
Sell Stock: none
Sell Covered CALL: none
Sell Cash Secured PUT: none

I use StockEvaluator.xls spreadsheet to run different Excel sorts and Auto-Filters to screen for companies with fundamental values that are close to meeting my target limits in Column E of StockEvaluator.xls.  Whenever I find a well run company that I would be willing to buy if it ever got down to a “Good” price, I add their stock symbol to my “Watch List”.  For the past 10 years I have used the Yahoo Finance “My Portfolio” screen for my “Watch List”.  Yahoo had a great function that allowed me to enter my Target Low Limit for each stock, and then Yahoo would display a down arrow beside each ticker symbol on my Watch List that had current stock price below my Low Limit.  This flagged me to do my final research on a stock when it finally got down to my preferred buy price.  This worked great for me for years. 

A few months ago, Yahoo Finance changed their Portfolio screen and took away my down arrows.  So, I had to look around the web for another free stock portfolio price tracker.  I found that Google Finance “Portfolios” is even better than Yahoo used to be.  Google Finance Portfolios calculates the percentage that today’s current price is away from my Target Low Limit, and then lets me sort this percentage column from lowest to highest which brings the stock symbols that are farthest below my target price to the top of the list for easy viewing.  Wow!       

Since Google intends this screen to be used to track your Portfolio, their column names do not instantly make sense for use as a Watch List, but the proper functions are all there.

Here is how you can use Google Finance.
  1. Go to Google Finance:  https://www.google.com/finance
  2. Select: “Portfolios”
  3. At upper right Click: “Create new Portfolio”
  4. Enter some stock symbols
  5. Click: “Edit Transactions”
  6. In “Shares” column, enter a 1
  7. In “Cost Basis” column, Enter your target buy price
  8. Click “Save Changes”
Your Portfolio will display with “Last Price” multiplied by “Shares” (where you entered a 1) and will calculate “Mkt Value” which is automatically divided by “Cost Basis” (where you entered your target buy price) and automatically gives you “Gain %”.  This “Gain %” value is the percentage that “Last Price” is above or below your target limit value.  Now click on “Gain %” to sort in Ascending order, and the stocks that are farthest below your target buy price will sort to the top.  If you want to change your target buy price at any time, you can always go back to “Edit Transactions” and change “Cost Basis” to whatever you want.

My Google Finance Portfolio currently has over 80 stock symbols.  Whenever I find a new stock that I want to track, I add it to my portfolio. I have no idea if Google has a limit to how many symbols I can track in any one portfolio, but I know they will let me add more portfolios, so I do not expect to run out of room.

Screen shot of my Google Finance Portfolio:

Last week, the world market indices were all pretty flat except Russia (down 3.5%).  The Dow Jones 30 Industrials and S&P 500 hit new all time highs. 

I continue to look for stocks that have good fundamental financial values, but stock prices near 52 week lows.

Summary Table of Worldwide Market Index Closing values for this week:

Here are my Stock BUYs for This Week:
Stock Symbol:
Buy Date:  
Buy Price:  
Target Sell Price: =;

Here are my Stock SELLs for This Week:
Stock Symbol:
Sell Date: 
Sell Price: 
Buy Price:  
Buy Date:  
Here are my Mutual Fund BUYs for This Week:
Fund Symbol:
Buy Date: 
Buy Price: 
Target Sell Price:

Here are my Option (CALL or PUT) Sells/Buys for This Week:
Option: Covered CALL 
Stock Symbol:
Sell to Open Date:
Expiration Date:  
Strike Price:
Option Price:  

Option: Cash Secured PUT 
Stock Symbol:
Sell to Open Date:
Expiration Date: 
Strike Price:
Option Price:

Visit www.ultimatestockfinder.com to download our Stock Evaluator and Mutual Fund Evaluator spreadsheets, read training articles and check out all our web links for investing information.
NOTE: Spreadsheets will NOT be updated from Sept. 1 until Sept. 20 because I am on vacation.

StockEvaluator ‘Short List’
‘Short List’ screens using 12 fundamental value limits that I want to see in a stock before considering it as a possible buy. 

View our training video that shows how to enter your preferred values for each of these ‘Short List’ screening limits:

View the Stock Evaluator ‘Short List’ screening criteria and target limit values here: http://www.ultimatestockfinder.com/short_list_12_criteria.JPG

Mutual Fund Evaluator ‘Short List’

View the Mutual Fund Evaluator ‘Short List’ screening criteria and target limit values here:

Please remember to send me any other investing ideas, information or questions that you want to share with the group.

Thanks,
John D.

Disclosure: The author has no positions in any of the stocks or mutual funds mentioned in this article unless clearly stated above. We certify that except as cited herein, this is our work product. We received no compensation or other inducement from any party to produce this article.  Please see our full legal disclaimer at:  http://www.ultimatestockfinder.com/stockevaluator_disclaimer.html
______________________________________________

To Remove Your Name from this email distribution list, reply to me and I will delete your name.

You can read this weekly ‘Investment Idea Sharing’ newsletter at our Ultimate Stock Finder blog: http://ultimatestockfinder.blogspot.com/

Ultimate Stock Finder is also on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/UltimateStockFinder


Your friends can sign up to receive an email of this weekly ‘Investment Idea Sharing’ newsletter at: http://www.ultimatestockfinder.com/contactusindex.html

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Investment Idea Sharing Sept. 15, 2014

Investment Idea Sharing – Sept. 15, 2014: 
See below for my personal stock market Buys or Sells for last week and Monday of this week:
Buy Stock: PGN
Sell Covered CALL: NOK
Sell Cash Secured PUT: PGN
  
Last week, the world market indices were all pretty flat except Russia (down 3.5%) and Brazil (down 6.2%).  The Dow Jones 30 Industrials and S&P 500 are still close to their all time highs. 

I continue to look for stocks that have good fundamental financial values, but stock prices near 52 week lows.

Summary Table of Worldwide Market Index Closing values for this week:


Next Monthly Meeting 2nd Tuesday of Each Month:
No meeting for September. 

Here are my Stock BUYs for This Week:
Stock Symbol: PGN
Buy Date:  9/10/2014
Buy Price:  $6.99
Target Sell Price: $10.00
I bought this same company (PGN) last week at $8.50.  PGN continued to go down this week and I could not find any more bad news about them, so I bought more this week.  Here are the reasons from last week’s email for why I bought them and still like them.
PGN (Paragon Offshore Ltd.) was spun off in early August 2014 from NE (Noble Corp).
I had been following NE this summer because they were at $28 which was flirting with 5 year lows, and they pay a nice 5% dividend and have good fundamental values.  Holders of NE received 1 share of PGN for every 3 shares of NE, and after the spin off, PGN was selling for $10/share.  This seemed high to me given that NE by itself was selling for $28 to $30 prior to the spin off and after the spin-off only went down to $27.50.  I put in two buy orders, one for NE at $8.50 and one for NE at $25.  NE went up and never came near to my $25 target, but PGN continued on down and hit my $8.50 so I bought it. 

Here are my Stock SELLs for This Week:
Stock Symbol:
Sell Date: 
Sell Price: 
Buy Price:  
Buy Date:  
Here are my Mutual Fund BUYs for This Week:
Fund Symbol:
Buy Date: 
Buy Price: 
Target Sell Price:

Here are my Option (CALL or PUT) Sells/Buys for This Week:
Option: Covered CALL 
Stock Symbol: NOK
Sell to Open Date: Sept. 15, 2014
Expiration Date:  April 2015
Strike Price: $9
Option Price: $.59
I had bought NOK at $8.90 in Feb. 2011, and after this purchase NOK had gone down to $1.90, and then eliminated their dividend.  I believed NOK would come back so I held them.

Option: Cash Secured PUT 
Stock Symbol: PGN
Sell to Open Date: Sept. 15, 2014
Expiration Date:  March 2015
Strike Price: $7.50
Option Price:  $1.00
See above for my reasons to buy PGN. They have continued to go down, but I still like their fundamentals and am willing to buy more if this PUT is struck.

Visit www.ultimatestockfinder.com to download our Stock Evaluator and Mutual Fund Evaluator spreadsheets, read training articles and check out all our web links for investing information.
NOTE: Spreadsheets will NOT be updated from Sept. 1 until Sept. 20 because I am on vacation.

StockEvaluator ‘Short List’
‘Short List’ screens using 12 fundamental value limits that I want to see in a stock before considering it as a possible buy. 

View our training video that shows how to enter your preferred values for each of these ‘Short List’ screening limits:

View the Stock Evaluator ‘Short List’ screening criteria and target limit values here: http://www.ultimatestockfinder.com/short_list_12_criteria.JPG

Mutual Fund Evaluator ‘Short List’

View the Mutual Fund Evaluator ‘Short List’ screening criteria and target limit values here:

Please remember to send me any other investing ideas, information or questions that you want to share with the group.

Thanks,
John D.

Disclosure: The author has no positions in any of the stocks or mutual funds mentioned in this article unless clearly stated above. We certify that except as cited herein, this is our work product. We received no compensation or other inducement from any party to produce this article.  Please see our full legal disclaimer at:  http://www.ultimatestockfinder.com/stockevaluator_disclaimer.html
______________________________________________

To Remove Your Name from this email distribution list, reply to me and I will delete your name.

You can read this weekly ‘Investment Idea Sharing’ newsletter at our Ultimate Stock Finder blog: http://ultimatestockfinder.blogspot.com/

Ultimate Stock Finder is also on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/UltimateStockFinder


Your friends can sign up to receive an email of this weekly ‘Investment Idea Sharing’ newsletter at: http://www.ultimatestockfinder.com/contactusindex.html

Friday, September 5, 2014

Investment Idea Sharing Sept. 6, 2014

Investment Idea Sharing – Sept. 6, 2014: 
See below for my personal stock market Buys or Sells this week:
Buy Stock: PGN
  
Last week, the world market indices were all pretty flat except Russia was up 5% due to the continued unrest in Ukraine.  The Dow Jones 30 Industrials and S&P 500 are still close to their all time highs. 

Over the past 3 weeks I have been following a buy-out battle among three of the dollar store companies, FDO, DG, DLTR.  Here is what I know so far, in June 2014, Carl Icahn (read bio here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Icahn ) bought a 9% stake in Family Dollar at prices ranging from the high $50’s to low $60’s/share.  This cost Mr. Icahn about $600 million.  Icahn then started pushing the FDO management to sell FDO.  On July 28, FDO agreed to be bought by Dollar Tree Stores DLTR at $72/share.  It was a cash and stock offer because DLTR did not have enough cash to just do a straight buy out.  DLTR will leave the FDO CEO (Howard Levine, son of the FDO founder) in place to continue running FDO.

This bid held for 3 weeks until Dollar General DG entered the bidding war at $80/share for FDO.  Dollar General is making an all cash bid, and will replace Mr. Levine with their own manager.  Also, since DG is the largest of these 3 companies, they may have to sell 1,500 stores to stay clear of any anti-trust issues with the US Government.

FDO does not like the DG offer of $80/share and still wants to continue to sell themselves to DLTR for only $72/share.  This will make a whole lot of FDO share holders mad, and probably cause those buy out attorneys to come running to place class action lawsuits for breach of fiduciary duty at FDO.  But Mr. Icahn is now dancing to the bank because, this week, he sold all his FDO shares while they were at $80/share.  This means he made a 30% profit on his original investment of $600 million, in a few months, and can walk away from this big hornet’s nest he stirred up.

Here is a list of Icahn’s holdings as of June 30, 2014: http://www.stockpickr.com/pro/portfolio/carl-icahn/
I checked them to see if he holds any other companies that have not gone up since he bought them, but may be poised for greatness.  None of them look good to me, but then I am no Carl Icahn! Check them out yourself.

Here is the current story on FDO not accepting the Higher Offer: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/family-dollar-rejects-dollar-generals-132931653.html

Wikipedia bio on FDO (Family Dollar):

Wikipedia bio on DLTR (Dollar Tree):

Wikipedia bio on DG (Dollar General):




Yahoo 2 year chart for IEP (Icahn Enterprise Partners)

Stock Evaluator spreadsheet comparing the fundamental values of FDO, DLTR and DG:
(Note: 99 Cents Only Stores are privately held)
On this sort, DLTR sorts to the top because they have the least red cells.  See that DG already has Goodwill to Equity of 103% v.s. DLTR Goodwill to Equity of only 14%.  This shows that Dollar General has gotten big by simply buying their competitors instead of actually growing their store count and revenues by good marketing.

I continue to look for stocks that have good fundamental financial values, but stock prices near 52 week lows.

Summary Table of Worldwide Market Index Closing values for this week:

Next Monthly Meeting 2nd Tuesday of Each Month:
No meeting for September. 

Here are my Stock BUYs for This Week:
Stock Symbol: PGN
Buy Date:  9/5/2014
Buy Price:  $8.50
Target Sell Price: $10.00
PGN (Paragon Offshore Ltd.) was spun off in early August 2014 from NE (Noble Corp).
I had been following NE this summer because they were at $28 which was flirting with 5 year lows, and they pay a nice 5% dividend and have good fundamental values.  Holders of NE received 1 share of PGN for every 3 shares of NE, and after the spin off, PGN was selling for $10/share.  This seemed high to me given that NE by itself was selling for $28 to $30 prior to the spin off and after the spin-off only went down to $27.50.  I put in two buy orders, one for NE at $8.50 and one for NE at $25.  NE went up and never came near to my $25 target, but PGN continued on down and hit my $8.50 so I bought it. 

Here are my Stock SELLs for This Week:
Stock Symbol:
Sell Date: 
Sell Price: 
Buy Price:  
Buy Date:  
Here are my Mutual Fund BUYs for This Week:
Fund Symbol:
Buy Date: 
Buy Price: 
Target Sell Price:

Here are my Option (CALL or PUT) Sells/Buys for This Week:
Option: Covered CALL 
Stock Symbol:
Sell to Open Date:
Expiration Date:  
Strike Price:
Option Price:

Option: Cash Secured PUT 
Stock Symbol:
Sell to Open Date:
Expiration Date: 
Strike Price:
Option Price:

Visit www.ultimatestockfinder.com to download our Stock Evaluator and Mutual Fund Evaluator spreadsheets, read training articles and check out all our web links for investing information.
NOTE: Spreadsheets will NOT be updated from Sept. 1 until Sept. 20 because I am on vacation.

StockEvaluator ‘Short List’
‘Short List’ screens using 12 fundamental value limits that I want to see in a stock before considering it as a possible buy. 

View our training video that shows how to enter your preferred values for each of these ‘Short List’ screening limits:

View the Stock Evaluator ‘Short List’ screening criteria and target limit values here: http://www.ultimatestockfinder.com/short_list_12_criteria.JPG

Mutual Fund Evaluator ‘Short List’

View the Mutual Fund Evaluator ‘Short List’ screening criteria and target limit values here:

Please remember to send me any other investing ideas, information or questions that you want to share with the group.

Thanks,
John D.

Disclosure: The author has no positions in any of the stocks or mutual funds mentioned in this article unless clearly stated above. We certify that except as cited herein, this is our work product. We received no compensation or other inducement from any party to produce this article.  Please see our full legal disclaimer at:  http://www.ultimatestockfinder.com/stockevaluator_disclaimer.html
______________________________________________

To Remove Your Name from this email distribution list, reply to me and I will delete your name.

You can read this weekly ‘Investment Idea Sharing’ newsletter at our Ultimate Stock Finder blog: http://ultimatestockfinder.blogspot.com/

Ultimate Stock Finder is also on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/UltimateStockFinder


Your friends can sign up to receive an email of this weekly ‘Investment Idea Sharing’ newsletter at: http://www.ultimatestockfinder.com/contactusindex.html