Yclept Trades

[yclept]

4 ma has crossed above 14 ma on major indices. That is the signal I'm using nowadays for entry and exit.

Bough TSTC @ 6.5
Ratios & Statistics - Trailing Twelve Months
P/E 2.59
PEG 0.37
Price/Revenue 0.60
Price/Cash Flow 2.86
Price/Book (MRQ) 0.68
ROA 15.47%
ROE 29.87%
Current Ratio (MRQ) 1.91
Total Debt/Equity (MRQ) 0.09

Short Interest Information
Current Month 2.06 Mil
Previous Month 2.21 Mil
Short Interest Ratio 19.84 Day -- this looks particularly explosive to me

Bought VSH @ 15.1599
Ratios & Statistics - Trailing Twelve Months
P/E 7.14
PEG 0.59
Price/Revenue 0.89
Price/Cash Flow 4.31
Price/Book (MRQ) 1.54
ROA 13.29%
ROE 24.63%
Current Ratio (MRQ) 3.64
Total Debt/Equity (MRQ) 0.27

Short Interest Information
Current Month 13.73 Mil
Previous Month 16.68 Mil
Short Interest Ratio 6.70 Day

Bought HGG @ 11.99
Ratios & Statistics - Trailing Twelve Months
P/E 9.92
PEG 0.40
Price/Revenue 0.22
Price/Cash Flow 6.12
Price/Book (MRQ) 1.48
ROA 8.34%
ROE 16.92%
Current Ratio (MRQ) 2.00
Total Debt/Equity (MRQ) 0.00

Short Interest Information
Current Month 12.35 Mil
Previous Month 10.28 Mil
Short Interest Ratio 23.14 Day -- again, an awful lot of shorts that are going to have to cover at some point (unless this stock goes to zero).

[yclept]

SoldHGG @ 12.3801 -- dropped from screen that picked it.

Bought FXF @ 122.719 -- taking some of my cash to non-dollar denominated currency (Swiss Franc). I got this idea from Dan's thread and it seemed the easiest way to go. Franc has already had quite a run (about 20% over the last several months) so I'm not really looking at this so much as a move to make profit as a furtherance of avoiding loss.

[yclept]

Sold ASMI @ 31.3101 -- bought @ 33.52 and 33.53 on 7/13

This dropped from the screen that picked it a week or so ago, and following my mechanical system I should have sold it then when it was just about break-even. But I didn't. For some reason I no longer remember I held it. I reckon it made perfect sense to me at the time. So I waited until they announced earnings the street says were disappointing (don't look all that bad to me, but what do I know!) and it looks like I sold it at just about the low of the day.

Reckon it now falls into the category of water and bridges.

[yclept]

Bought SDS @ 20.34

I'm tired of watching portfolio value decline day after day as the market rolls over. We have only one week until the inevitable crash so I'm starting to add some short positions.

Sold STM @ 7.9801 bought @ 9.32 -14%
Sold TSTC @ 6.32 and 6.25; bought @ 6.5; ~ -3.5%
These dropped from the screen that picked them. I expect by tomorrow the screen will be empty and the rest of my normal long positions will go, leaving the only long plays those designed to get some cash or near-cash assets diversified away from the USD.

It is time to crash the market, confiscating yet again retirement assets accumulated by the middle class and transferring them to the ultra-rich. The poor have been eating far too regularly and been receiving sporadic medical care at the middle class taxpayers expense. It's time for that to cease, and a further failing economy with attendant higher unemployment will help to reduce the tax available to be squandered on the poor. The ultra rich through their tools (investment banks and Republican politicians) are about to bring the hammer down again. The "hold through the downturn" and "buy the dip" lies will soon be everywhere. I will fight. I will not just roll over and expose my belly in a buy-and-hold surrender pose.

Bought UDN @ 28.9099; only bought a single position of this. It has already run a long ways and is near multi-year highs. But if the USD gets really hammered, I think this might go on to 'Niitaka yama nobore' (Climb Mount Niitaka) levels of success.

[Bluerobin]

I'm still hoping for a solution, which means I should be smart and sell off before the crash!

[yclept]

Sold SDS @ 20.781 +1.9%; one day

9:50 AM PDT
Bought DXD @ 17.2381
Worm seems to be turning back down; essentially the same position as sold above. Dow Ind this time instead of S&P.

11:08 AM PDT
Sold VSH @ 13.8601 bought last Friday @ 15.16; -8.79% -- nasty, nasty!

4 SMA has crossed below 14 SMA on $SPX which is the signal I am currently using to go long/short. I have one long position left that was based upon screen selection. It is Klic. I'm watching it for exit; it was up nicely earlier today and I'm kind of hoping it might mover counter to the market. Regardless, it will be gone before the end of the week.

The only long positions I will then have will be FXF and EWZ, which are both attempts to diversify some of my money out of the USD.

[yclept]

Sold KLIC @ 9.3311 loss of ~7%; this was almost the last intentionally long position I held. I still have long positions in FXF and EWZ, but I consider them to be diversification away from the USD. I have half a position of NBY (small drug company I took a flyer on a couple of weeks ago) that I will probably ride into the ground, or else to profits beyond all our wildest dreams.

I have positions in TBT (short US treasury) and ZSL (short silver) that should probably be considered as long market positions. They have done poorly (though ZSL has been recouping lately)

Bought SRTY @ 19.01 (this is 3x short Russell); bought 2 positions of this, so a significant short holding.

Bought FXC @ 104.21 -- Canadian dollar; moving more assets out of USD.

I think I'm now in pretty good shape so that when the pee party house members crash the market and the economy, I should come through it pretty well, and I'll be reasonably well positioned for the downhill run, however long it lasts.

[yclept]

I found this article pretty funny. A seemingly legal way to tell the pee party to go pound sand up their arses:

nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/07/trillion_dollar_coin_debt_ceiling_balkin.html

The Obama coin! I like it!

[mtntigger]

*snort*
Obviously this is not an election year and they are all hoping that people's memories are short.

[yclept]

I was going to start a thread with the title "My Thanks to the Pee Party", but decided it better to just bury it down in this thread as it's mostly a political statement.

That being said, and though it's not at all the way I would prefer to make money, I believe I am now positioned to reap significant profits from the terrorist actions of small minority of blatant idiots in the House, otherwise known as the tea party (no caps for them!), but more appropriately called the pee party. Though I hate them with a passion for their intransigence and stupidity, I should at least offer my thanks for this magnificent profit opportunity. None if it was necessary, so it is a rare opportunity for a windfall profit.

By the time Reid knocks out the most egregious faults in the Boehner bill and puts in enough mother's milk to make this a kick-the-can-down-the-road piece of legislation, and gets it back to the house for arm-twisting, Tuesday will have come and gone. The now-certain market reaction on Monday and Tuesday will have finally impressed upon the few House members with half a brain the dire consequences of their actions. The most ironic factor is that it will then fall to Pelosi to round up enough Democratic votes to add to the ones Boehner can gather from non-pee-party Republicans to get this milk-toast piece of legislation to Obama for signage.

But the damage will be done and I expect to have reaped significant profits from it.

[bimetalaupt]

This message has been deleted.

[rovo]

This is not a political board. Let us limit the messages to market actions.

rovo -- Moderator

[bimetalaupt]

This message has been deleted.

[yclept]

I don't know what went on in the last three posts. I wish I had seen them, as now I'm only left to speculate that Au-Pt once again stuck his nose in where it was unwarranted and unwanted.

I knew my post 130 was politically charged, admitted it in the first sentence and threw it onto the bottom of a thread that is almost nothing but a catalog of my trades. By doing so, I assume anyone reading it might be interested in why I take certain stances. A very large part of the reason I am so negatively biased right now is due to political malfeasance on the part the pee party obstructionists and the economic outcome of same that I believe to be inevitable.

Anyone who has followed this thread will recognize that I am in the most negative stance since it's first post. In fact, I am more negatively positioned against stock and away from the USD than I have ever been in my life, which is saying something!

I have one small truly long position in NBY. They have one anti-infective drug (not antibiotic, not antiseptic) that has approved for wound healing (especially effective against diabetic ulcers -- a potentially very big market) and that they have in trials for other applications -- it is effective against MRSA and a variety of fungal, viral, and other bacterial agents. It is only being used/investigated topically, so I'm guessing it is either ineffective or too poisonous to be ingested or injected. Not being an antibiotic, it's not something that MRSA can easily evolve to resist as MRSA has so many antibiotics. Past experience with such companies leads me to believe they will either succeed dramatically, or run out of cash and be bought by someone else for a song. And I reckon that's more than enough non-commissioned sales talk on that one! I have my money (albeit not a lot) where my mouth is.

I still have quite a bit of cash, which is normally thought of as neutral, but have also attempted to expatriate about 2/3 of it through positions in EWZ, FXF, and FXC. Granted EWZ is really a long play on Brazil (MSCI Brazil Index), but I'm primarily trying to use it as a way of divesting overseas. Brazil has been doing a lot of painful things right such as raising their prime rate to 11.75% to fight inflation and this has knocked EWZ down about 10% over the summer. I thought about using BZF as a direct way into the Real, but sometimes it lacks liquidity (yesterday for example it traded only 2500 shares). That and BZF is reaching new yearly highs while EWZ has retraced from it's high back last October. Finally, something dramatic happened to BZF last December that resulted in a single day 10% drop. It might have been just a 10/9 split, or something equally innocuous, but I didn't want to spend the time to ferret it out. In fact the only thing I see Brazil doing wrong economically is that they are the fifth largest holder of US treasuries, but they have held them relatively steady since January, so are not making the situation worse. If I were not buying EWZ as a play against the dollar, I would be looking hard at it as a value play. Some of my cash in USD is counter-balanced by a position in UDN. All of this has been cataloged above.

It could be argued that the negatively biased leveraged ETF positions I hold against treasury bonds and silver (TBT, ZSL) are actually artificial longs on stocks. But I consider them positions taken directly against the underlying assets which in my opinion are in "tulip-mania" land.

Finally I have significant leveraged ETF positions aimed directly at the US stock market's heart. Right now they are DXD and SRTY. The moving averages I use to determine market direction are only now turning negative (the 4/14 ma only crossed down Thursday). These signals of necessity lag the market. The slower one (5/15/50) has still not turned completely negative. The instantaneous slope of the curves indicate it should turn negative about Tuesday unless Monday and Tuesday are very big "up" days. Not likely in my opinion. I expect them to be very big "down" days.

So, I have cast my dies. For the first time in a long time I feel I'm playing with dies that are heavily loaded in my favor. The biasing weight is all attributable to the intransigence and abject stupidity of the pee party members in the House, and I owe them my thanks along with my abject disdain for what they have done. The US economy is in for some very rough sledding (a toboggan on an Olympic downhill course would be my analogy) until these idiots are voted back to stupid-land.

John D. Rockefeller, Bernard Baruch, Joseph P. Kennedy and others all increased their fortunes massively by exiting before the crash of '29; shorting through the 30s; and buying back at the bottom. In addition they had funds to buy the Treasury bonds that Roosevelt used to finance the "New Deal" and taxpayers picked up those interest payments for years thereafter. With the advent of ETFs, it is easy and relatively cheap for any of us to play the game that only the super rich had access to back then.

"Competition is a sin."
-John D. Rockefeller

[danshirley]

Yclept:
Just a piece of my mind as the saying goes:

In my business I used to have a lot of companies like NBY as clients and can say one thing for certain: They can't make it on their own. A company like this needs to have a large pharma company to back them not just for dollars but for expertise: scientific, financial, regulatory, marketing etc... and logistics. They apparently had backing from Alcon but that dried up in early May and so did their stock price:

finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=NBY&t=6m&l=on&z=l&q=l&c=

The usual strategy for such a company is to start out on their own, recruit support from the likes of Bristol Myers etc via collaboration agreements of various kinds and then get taken over when they have proved concept. The company founders typically get their big pay day at take-over time... and the longer it's put off the more money they make... presuming they have a successful product or technology to sell.

e.g. I provided technical support for Genentech when they were very small and had little support. Smith Kline sent me and several other people to California on multiple occasions on Smith Kline's money to meet with Genentech on a variety of matters. We used to meet with them in a big tent in a parking lot because the Genentech facility in those days consisted of a series of house trailers linked by plywood passageways.
:-)

Genentech successfully recruited support from several companies besides Smith Kline and it was that support that enabled them to eventually succeed. With out it they would have evaporated.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genentech

By losing their Alcon backing NBY has started a clock that will put them out of business if they don't replace that support in a short time. The market has recognized this issue by cutting their stock price in half in the last two months or so.

[yclept]

I don't know why the Alcon partnership was terminated. The opthalmic formulation was only half way through phase II testing. Alcon turned over all the rights, testing results and about $3M to Novabay with the termination of the agreement. Neither company says much about it on their website. I can't help but wonder if it's not more related to simplification of Alcon's business commitments prior to being absorbed into Novartis than to anything specifically related to this drug. Novabay has pushed further testing of the opthalmic formulation into 2012. From what information I can find, the early phase II tests were promising for conjunctivitis. The push into 2012 looks like an economic decision to me (as you outlined above).

With the $3M from Alcon, a recent placement of $4.7M of stock (which might be much of the cause for the drop in stock price you mentioned -- dilution) and current cash assets stated to be $12.6M, it sounds like they have about $20M to burn. But I've not found their actual burn rate, but Yahoo reports something called "levered-free cash flow" as -2.66M (TTM). If that's a decent number then it looks to me they have enough assets to last awhile. As of Nov 2007, they had 33 employees; so far I haven't found anything more recent. That was on a cached version of their website. They don't seem to be reporting that anymore, which I don't particularly like.

They do have a development partnership with Galderma for topical skin formulations directed at acne and impetigo.

Anyway, I just threw money at 3000 shares of it. If it goes "poof", I reckon I will have learned some lesson once again, though I seldom know what that lesson is. Maybe it's just to keep plays like this small. I once owned about 15k or 20k (varied over time) of SUPG that I had bought at about $3 or $4 and rode up to $29k where I dumped 1k shares; I rode the rest of it all the way up to about $65-$70 (at which point I was cussing myself for the 1k sold at $29) and then hung on for dear life back down; finally got out of some of it at somewhere around $12 and the rest at about $6. I just looked at it. It closed Friday at $3.06. It was profitable, but heart-wrenching. Stupid, stupid me!

At least with 3000 shares, I won't be doing that again!

[burger]

Hopefully, you stuck to your guns on the ETF's that short the market. I was a bit scared of mine at the open today, but things are looking up for DXD and the like.

[yclept]

Yes, today is a big surprise to me in a lot of ways. I thought there would be a big upsurge at the Washington announcement of a tentative deal (though I still question whether or not it can get through the House).

I'm particularly surprised at the losses I'm seeing in TBT, UDN, and FXC -- it seems that people are running toward the US dollar and Treasury bonds; it seems completely illogical to me. Fortunately my leveraged short ETFs profits are outweighing the losses on currency "safety" plays I had in place. I should probably be increasing the leveraged shorts, but will wait awhile for some of the dust to settle.

I'm watching $SPX at about the 1250 level where it has found support on the last two dips. If we can break below that level then I think it's going to be "Katie, bar the door!". Next stop will probably be somewhere down around 1050 (though I don't put a whole lot of credence in support/resistance levels, preferring to take my cues from the moving average cross-overs I belabor on a different thread). I could see us breaking that 1250 level today and the folks who do put faith in support/resistance will probably be throwing cans of gasoline on the fire as they head for the exit.

So, I am quite surprised with today's market action. Maybe folks are paying more attention to the factory data this morning and forgetting about the political shenanigans. I thought we'd have a big gap up and continue upwards in which case I was resigned to have to hold the shorts until my moving averages crossed back up and write it all off as another whipsaw. Scottrade's website was down for awhile at the open this morning, forcing me to be patient for that critical 5 or 10 minutes when I probably wanted to panic!

[yclept]

Bought FXY @ 127.71 -- only a single position; Japan has a better currency than the US, but still has a whole lot of physical reconstruction to pay for. Still, it might prove to be the economic boost they've needed since the early 90s. At any rate, it gets some more of my cash out of being denominated in USD.
I don't know where the line is between a recession and a depression, but the US is headed for a bad one by whatever name we end up calling it.
Until the terrorist pee party can be sent packing back to stupidland from whence it came, the US economy is doomed. They are the infecting agents of a festering wound on the economy that will not be healed until they are surgically removed.

Bought DXD @ 18.2481 -- doubled position size.

[yclept]

Sold FXC @ 103.5
I recently bought this as part of my decision to internationalize cash holdings rather than have them all sit in US dollars. The FXF has done well, and so far the FXY that I just bought is positive.
Canada, no doubt has a much saner economic and political system than we currently have. The Canadian dollar has made significant gains against the USD both long term and over the last year.
But I don't think it will be a good place to diversify holdings as the US economy fails. Canada is just too tightly tied to the US economy:
www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cprp-gepmc.nsf/eng/00064.html
www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/02/markets-canada-dollar-idUSN1E7710EK20110802

As the US economy continues to fail over the next several years (the pee party will be causing more and more disasters for another 18 months and even when the Republicans are all voted out, it will take another 4-5 years to undo some of the damage they will have caused), Canada will suffer alongside the US because of the over reliance on trade with the US. I don't think the Canadian Dollar will prove to be as good a hedge against the devaluation of the USD as currencies of countries less-dependent upon trade with the US.

Edit: whoops, I just noticed that only 100 shares of the FXC sold (it's a limit order @ 51.18, so I still have 100 shares left (with the sell order still open)). Hopefully the rest of it will sell sometime today without incurring another commission -- if not, I'll deal with it in the next few days -- have other stuff I have to do today.

Bought EPV @ 51.18
I've tried this double short on MSCI Europe index many times before and almost always lost money on it. The MA technical indicators I use have all turned positive and the price itself is breaking up through the 200 MA. MACD is positive. The only thing that I find worrisome is the RSI which is getting up into over-bought territory.
I've thought for a long time that Europe is toast. As far as I can tell, nothing has improved to make that theory wrong. At this point, the continuing failure of the US economy will also start to weigh on the stronger European countries efforts to keep the others afloat. So I picked this up again as only a single position (in fact, not even a full position as I only bought 100 shares of it instead of my normal $6k position size). Reckon time will tell.

Sold FXF @ 128.757
Swiss national bank cut interest rates today to stem flow of money into franc. I expect the FXF to drop for awhile and will be waiting to see the next good entry after the dust settles from this move. I'd still rather have some of my cash positioned in stronger currencies. After selling FXC this morning, the only cash I have positioned in other currencies is the FXY from yesterday and the 100 shares of FXC that didn't sell this morning and doesn't look likely to sell before the close.
In addition, Moody's and Fitch stated today they would leave the US credit rating at AAA for the time being, which should bolster the USD for awhile.
www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/03/swiss-snb-idUSLDE77209720110803

[danshirley]

I also went to FXC to protect against a dollar disaster... without adequate research I am afraid. The past 5 days the Canadian Dollar has underperformed the US dollar:
finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=FXC&t=5d&l=on&z=l&q=l&c=UUP
even though it had been running counter to the US dollar:
finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=FXC&t=5y&l=on&z=l&q=l&c=UUP

Not only is the Canadian Dollar too closely tied to the US dollar but the Canadian Dollar is a 'commodity linked' currency and has been pulled down by crude oil prices:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_currency

finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=5d&s=FXC&l=on&z=l&q=l&c=USO

www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-10/canadian-dollar-erases-decline-as-jobless-rate-unexpectedly-falls-in-may.html

Live and learn.

Had we had a disaster and the US dollar had taken a swan dive I think the Canadian Dollar would have been some protection. It just didn't happen that way.

Fortunately I didn't convert directly to FXC but sold puts at support instead and while that position is slightly negative now it should still come out OK.

[yclept]

Sold TBT @ 28.2815; bought 4/14/11 @ 37.5; -24.69%
Sold ZSL @ 12.0101; bought 7/14/11 @ 14.44 -17.05%
Sold FXC @ 102.3 -- got rid of the rest of this that didn't sell yesterday -- that point lower cost me an extra $100

At some point, no matter how "right" I am; no matter how "stupidly wrong" the rest of the market is, it comes time to throw in the towel.

No matter how ridiculous it is for people to think that precious metals are somehow a store of value and potential alternate currency in a disaster, silver refuses to break down from these ridiculous prices.

No matter how dumb it is for people to put cash into Treasury bills that pay virtually nothing and that will plummet like mad given any of a half a dozen likely scenarios, well, people still see them as a warm and cozy feather-bed and keep crawling in. Or maybe they see them as an ice flow in a freezing sea.

I paid the price trying to squeeze a little extra out of FXC -- the partial fill yesterday and wanting to avoid an extra $7 commission cost me $100; usually the limit would have worked on a nicely liquid stock like this. My mistake was that after the stock knocked its head on my limit price and went down again, I should have just changed to a market sell and basked in the extra $7 commission.

Bought QID @ 52.3881; when in Rome, do as the Romans do.

Sold UDN @ 28.5301 -1.55%
None of these plays against the USD are working out very well so I dumped this one too. That leaves me with FXY as my only currency play. I still want to get money out of USD denominated instruments, but can't really figure out a good place to put it.

[yclept]

Sold EPV @ 54.47 It was the only one of my short positions that was giving back a lot; Europe isn't doing all that well today, but I've been burned by EPV before. I took the money and ran! I've heard tell that nobody ever went broke by taking a profit.
6%-less than 2 days; reckon I can live with that.

[yclept]

I have errands to run today. Just put a 6% trailing stop on SRTY (it's up almost 10% so far today and 38% since I bought it on 7/29). If this insane panic reverses while I'm out and around, I don't want it to take back a bunch of what I've gained.
I think this market is probably getting mad as a dog in a cage that's been poked with a stick and may well bite back if someone gets careless and doesn't make sure the cage door is locked.

The RSI(14) on SRTY is up to 86% right now, which is insanely over-bought. The good news is that just in the time it took me to type this, the trailing stop has gone from 24.24 to 24.78. Whoops, 24.8 -- no, 24.82. Better go run my errands before I get filthy rich in a single day!

[burger]

I doubled down on SRTY this morning at 24.5 (wish I had bought right at the open). I'll be keeping a close eye one it over the rest of the day and into next week.

[yclept]

sold SRTY @ 25.1; 31.9%; about 5 days.

Whoops, didn't even get out the door before seeing that I sold SRTY. What the heck, I probably didn't want to hold that one over the weekend anyway. These be strange times, indeed!

[yclept]

Bought TVIX @ 40.5688
I'm sure we all know all about this one -- so I took a stab at it and did so right after the silliness of the open. This may prove to be nothing but a lesson in horses and barn doors; but for now, it's "yee-haw, ride 'em cowboy!"

Bought QID @ 58.1381; added third position
Bought DXD @ 20.4972; doubled holding from 2 to 4 position sizes

When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

Bought SOXS @ 104.51; 3x short semiconductors

[burger]

I just want to thank some of you on this board for introducing me to SRTY and TVIX. I got in both last week thanks to you guys. Now, I just need to figure out the exit point. We have to hit bottom at some point, and I don't want to be on the opposite side of these leveraged funds when it goes the other way!

[burger]

Yes, I could certainly do that. Doing that also has its downside. Yclept documented that he did that the other day (with SRTY), and in doing so, probably cost him quite a bit of money. Damned if you do, damned if you don't!

[yclept]

As I type, we have an hour and 10 minutes to go before the close. My big question is whether we can drop 700 on the Dow today -- that's probably hoping for an awful lot with only an hour to go.

It's true that the trailing stop on SRTY cost me opportunity to make today's big gains. But I've put the money to work in more QID, more DXD, and SOXS -- I actually feel more comfortable with the 2x leveraged ETFs than with the 3x. One has to sleep at night!

As long as I'm on the right side of the market, I'll do okay. Maybe slay medium-sized dragons instead of the really big ones. And then I took a flyer at D.I.s TVIX this morning which is more than making up any difference between what SRTY would have given over the other three ETFs mentioned above.

One hour left to drop another 170 Dow points. Can we do it? That damned EWZ is down almost 10% today (fortunately only a single-position size holding) -- seems like it ought to be a screaming buy at that level. But then, I reckon that's what everyone holding long positions is bemoaning today on virtually anything they own.