Sunday, October 26, 2014

Investment Idea Sharing Oct. 26, 2014

Investment Idea Sharing – Oct. 26, 2014 
See below for my personal stock market Buys or Sells for this week:
Buy Stock: none                                        Sell Stock: none
Buy (To Close) Covered Call: none               Sell (to Open) Covered CALL: AAL, VVI
Buy (to Close) Cash Secured PUT: none       Sell (to Open) Cash Secured PUT: none
See the details on these transactions below the Weekly Summary table.

All of the world market indices were up nicely except for Russia, Shang Hai and Brazil.  Even the 10 and 30 year U.S. Treasury yields were up.  I think the market drop of the past 3 weeks made too many bargains for people to pass up.  Read more here: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2014/10/24/stocks-friday/17823391/

I continue to look for stocks that have good fundamental financial values, but stock prices near 52 week and, where possible, 5 year lows.

Weekly Summary Table of Worldwide Market Index Closing values:


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: Sell to Open Covered CALL 
Stock Symbol:  AAL
Sell to Open Date: 10/20/2014
Expiration Date:  1/15/2016
Strike Price: $45
Option Price:  $3.20
I originally bought AAL in August 2013 when American Airlines was in bankruptcy.  I paid $2.88/share.  After AAL merged with US airways and came out of bankruptcy it went clear up to $44.88 on June 26, 2014.  I had sold a Jan 2015 Covered Call for $4.28 at a strike of $41 on June 2, 2014, but I was never called out because AAL went back down very fast after hitting that $44.88.  On Sept. 25, 2014, when AAL got down below $35, I bought my Covered Call back (Buy to Close) for $1.40/share.  AAL went on down to $28.58 on Oct. 13, 2014, but now has turned back up.  So, today, with AAL at $34.44, I was able to sell this new $45 Covered Call.

Option: Sell to Open Covered CALL 
Stock Symbol:  VVI
Sell to Open Date: 10/24/2014
Expiration Date:  3/20/2015
Strike Price: $22.50
Option Price:  $1.10
I originally bought VVI in July 2014 at $22 after it had dropped from $28 in January.  After that it went down to $20.26 in early October.  Now it is back to almost $22, so I am able to sell my first covered CALL on it.

Option: Buy to Close Covered CALL 
Stock Symbol:
Original Sell to Open Date:
Original Expiration Date: 
Buy to Close Date:
Strike Price:
Option Price:

Option: Sell to Open 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.

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/

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Investment Idea Sharing Oct. 18, 2014

Investment Idea Sharing – Oct. 19, 2014 
See below for my personal stock market Buys or Sells for this week:
Buy Stock: none                                         Sell Stock: none
Buy To Close Covered Call: none                  Sell Covered CALL: none
Buy to Close Cash Secured PUT: none           Sell Cash Secured PUT: none
See the details on these transactions below the Weekly Summary table.

Effective immediately, I am discontinuing the monthly Investment Idea Sharing meeting at my house due to the fact that over the past year, most months nobody showed up.  Anytime, that any of you want to talk about investing, just send me an email, and we will arrange a time to meet, because I am always ready and willing to talk about investing.

Over the past month, the S&P 500 has dropped 6.1%.  
Sept. 19 it was the all time high closing value of 2,010.40
Oct. 18 it closed at 1,887 down 6.1% from the Sept. 19 high closing value.
But this week’s low is still 7% above its low for 2014 of 1739.66 on Feb. 3, 2014.


All of the world market indices were down last week by about 3%, but 10 and 30 year U.S. Treasury yields were down by 10% and 5%, which means that the price of treasury bonds went UP.  This is due to The Fed hinting at leaving the interest rates low for another year.  Read more here: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-30-treasury-yields-fell-130023057.html

I continue to look for stocks that have good fundamental financial values, but stock prices near 52 week and, where possible, 5 year lows.

Weekly Summary Table of Worldwide Market Index Closing values:


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: Buy to Close Covered CALL 
Stock Symbol:
Original Sell to Open Date:
Original Expiration Date: 
Buy to Close Date:
Strike Price:
Option Price:

Option: Sell to Open Covered CALL 
Stock Symbol:
Sell to Open Date:
Expiration Date: 
Strike Price:
Option Price:  

Option: Sell to Open 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.

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/

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Mid Week Update due to Big Market Drop - 15 Oct. 2014

Investment Idea Sharing – Oct. 15, 2014 Mid Week Update: 
See below for my personal stock market Buys or Sells for this week:
Buy Stock: none                                         Sell Stock: none
Buy To Close Covered Call: none                  Sell Covered CALL: none
Buy to Close Cash Secured PUT: none           Sell Cash Secured PUT: none
See more details on these transactions below the Weekly Summary table below.

For the past 10 days, my wife and I were on vacation in New York state and visited Niagara Falls, Albany, Manhattan and Long lsland.  We had a great time, but I started getting worried when the market did the big drop this week.  Last night when we got back home, I ran the program to update the values in Mutual Fund Evaluator.  This morning, I ran a screen to find mutual funds with performance equal to or better than my favorite fund FCNTX (Fidelity Contrafund).  We have owned FCNTX since 1995 and it has been great. 
Over the past 25 years, FCNTX returned an average of 14.2% per year versus the S&P 500 which returned an average of 10.4%.  10 year average annual returns: FCNTX is 10.1% and S&P 500 is 7.5%.  FCNTX is 4% better than the S&P 500 at 25 years, and 2.5% better at 10 years.  Using my Mutual Fund Evaluator spreadsheet screening capabilities, I have found 90 funds that returned as good or better than FCNTX over at least the past 10 years.  But even with this week’s big drop, almost half of these 90 funds are not yet down to be within 5% of their 52 week lows.  Use Column C “Fund Symbol” and Column D “Fund Family” to confirm with your brokerage house if any funds you are interested in can be purchased at no transaction fee from your brokerage.


My wife and I decided a year ago that the next time we got a 10% market drop, we would move 3% of our idle cash into a mutual fund that has better performance than FCNTX to gain more diversification.

Over the past month, the S&P 500 has dropped 7.3%.  
Sept. 19 it was the all time high closing value of 2,010.40
Oct. 16 (today) it closed at 1,862.76 down 7.3% from the Sept. 19 closing value.
But today’s low is still not its low for 2014.  That low was 1739.66 on Feb. 3, 2014.


Here is the S&P 500 chart from March 2007 to Dec. 2012:

I made a table to look at the big drops in the S&P 500 since 2008 so I could see how long each of these drops lasted from the starting high to the finishing low before the market finally turned back up.  There were 7 drops greater than 5% and the duration ranged from 294 days to 12 days.  This current drop has lasted 27 days and has not turned back up yet.  But it has not hit my 10% down target, so I am going to wait and be ready to buy if it goes on down to my 10%.



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

Weekly Summary Table of Worldwide Market Index Closing values:

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: Buy to Close Covered CALL 
Stock Symbol:
Original Sell to Open Date:
Original Expiration Date: 
Buy to Close Date:
Strike Price:
Option Price:

Option: Sell to Open Covered CALL 
Stock Symbol:
Sell to Open Date:
Expiration Date: 
Strike Price:
Option Price:  

Option: Sell to Open 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

Saturday, October 4, 2014

Investment Idea Sharing 4 Oct. 2014 - PUTs on EBAY & RIG

Investment Idea Sharing – Oct. 4, 2014: 
See below for my personal stock market Buys or Sells for this week:
Buy Stock: none
Sell Stock: none
Buy To Close Covered Call: STM
Sell Covered CALL: AEE, NOK
Buy to Close Cash Secured PUT: none
Sell Cash Secured PUT: EBAY, RIG
See more details on these transactions below the Weekly Summary table below.

This week I closed (Buy to Close) a CALL option on STM for $.10.  It did not expire until January 17, 2015, and was very far “Out of the Money” due to great stock price movement for STM after I had opened the position.  I sold Covered Calls on AEE and NOK as part of my strategy to generate steady revenue from my core holdings whenever they are near 52 week highs.  I sold a Cash Secured PUT on EBAY because it had high volatility after announcing it would spin off PayPal, and this caused their PUT option prices to go very high.  As RIG continues to go down along I am selling Cash Secured PUTs because I think the deepwater drillers are being overly punished by the stock market and I believe they will come back.  If RIG is put to me, they pay a 7% dividend and have good fundamental financial values.

Last week, most of the world market indices took a big 2% drop on Wednesday and Thursday, but recovered most of this drop on Friday to make the week almost no change from last week.  Pretty exciting to watch that drop happen!  Here is the story about the good unemployment and new job hires report that brought the market back on Friday:  https://finance.yahoo.com/news/unemployment-rate-falls-to-5-9---employers-hire-248-000-workers-140327159.html

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

Weekly Summary Table of Worldwide Market Index Closing values:


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: Buy to Close Covered CALL 
Stock Symbol: STM
Original Sell to Open Date: 22 July 2014
Original Expiration Date:  Jan 17, 2015
Buy to Close Date: 1 Oct 2014
Strike Price: $10
Option Price:  $.10
I had bought these shares back in May 2013 and have sold Covered Calls on them several times since then.  STM pays a 4.5% dividend, but this year their profit dropped to a $-.18 / share, so their dividend is at risk.  They do have a chip in the new iPhone 6, so I am hoping that will bring them back to profitability.  But for now, their stock is so low that I was able to buy out of this CALL for only $.10 which gets me positioned for when STM comes back so I can sell another Covered CALL.
Here is the 5 year chart for STM:

Option: Sell to Open Covered CALL 
Stock Symbol: NOK
Sell to Open Date: 30 Sep 2014
Expiration Date:  15 Jan 2016
Strike Price: $10
Option Price:  $.70
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 $8.28, so I can sell this $10 Covered CALL. 

Option: Sell to Open Covered CALL 
Stock Symbol: AEE
Sell to Open Date: 30 Sep 2014
Expiration Date:  20 Mar 2015
Strike Price: $40.00
Option Price:  $.85
I bought these shares on 12 Jan 2010 at $24.  They pay a great 4.2% dividend, but have hit a ceiling at $40 / share for the past year.  My prior Covered CALL at $40 expired in September, so I was happy they came back quickly so I could sell this next Covered CALL.

Option: Sell to Open Cash Secured PUT 
Stock Symbol: RIG
Sell to Open Date: 29 Sep 2014
Expiration Date:  15 Jan 2016
Strike Price: $33.00
Option Price: $6
This is the second PUT I have sold on RIG in the pst 3 months.  I sold a PUT in August on RIG at Strike of $38 for $3, but RIG continued to go down.  All of their competitors (NE, PGN, ESV) are also going down as the price of oil drops.  RIG fundamentals look good to me, so I am continuing to follow them down with these PUTs. 
Here is the 5 year chart for RIG:

Option: Sell to Open Cash Secured PUT 
Stock Symbol: EBAY
Sell to Open Date: 30 Sep 2014
Expiration Date:  15 Jan 2016
Strike Price: $55.00
Option Price: $5.85
EBAY is not very close to their 52 week low, and their fundamental values are not as good as I prefer, but I decided to sell this Cash Secured PUT on EBAY because it had high volatility after announcing it would spin off PayPal, and this caused their PUT option prices to go very high. 
Here is the 5 year chart for EBAY:

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.

There will be no newsletter next week (Oct 11) because I will be on vacation.

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