RallyCry's Blog

JCP at $14.50 - Overdone

RallyCry — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 15:55:47 GMT

Call me a contrarian but I think JCPenney (JCP) at $14.50 is way overdone. The company is struggling but its being priced over the last week like it is going out of business. I know Ron Johnson has underperformed but no one said it would get better overnight. The sad truth is if they fired him, the stock would probably jump much in the way Groupon traded higher after their CEO left recently. Also at some point shorts will probably cove...

New Head of FTC

RallyCry — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 09:06:31 GMT

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/feb/28/obama-name-edith-ramirez-lead-ftc/

From the Washington Times Report:

Over the past few years,

I love that Visa is partnering with Samsung for mobile payment technology.

This shows that they don't only know how to execute, but that they also get it.

Faster checkout combined with sleek cool phones should really pay off for both companies.

For 2012, I picked five stocks that I felt offered good risk reward profiles. They were V, STX, WPRT, BDX, and SODA. All were up for the year except WPRT, and their combined return beat out the S&P 500 by a few percentage points.

So this year I am back to the drawing board and have come up with 5 new stocks. I put $800 in each. I am looking to duplicate the solid returns...

Who is Getting Rewarded in Today's America?

RallyCry — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 09:38:13 GMT

Just got done reviewing open enrollment info on my latest health insurance premiums at work for 2013. 20% increase expected for the HMO option I have used the last several years. I went back and figured in the 5 years with my employer, I have earned an average of 6% salary increases while my average yearly increase in health insurance costs over this 5 year period is 138.17%. 2008 and 2009 were particularly bad and skews the average up...

Reduced Obama Enthusiasm = Romney Presidency?

RallyCry — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 09:01:34 GMT

Four years ago there was great excitement in the air and many Americans shared strong feelings that they were going to be part of history by casting a vote for Barack Obama, an eloquent speaker, political superstar, and first black president of the United States. People cried at campaign rallies upon hearing his message of hope and change. They recalled having goosebumps casting their vote and saw a brighter future on th...

Hurricane Sandy: Homeowners Get Screwed

RallyCry — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 12:06:25 GMT

Mark my words. This is about to be huge news and everyone related to the National Weather Service and the insurance industry is going to want to bury it. Since the National Hurricane Center did not issue Hurricane warnings for Sandy, residents on the coast line from Virginia to New England are left out to dry.

I was amazed today that the market did not sell off with the potential for a devastating weather event poised to crush the eastern seaboard Monday and Tuesday with a high likelihood of lasting effects.

Are the floor traders, institutions, and computer algorithms blind to weather events ahead of time? Do they need the actual event to unfold or poeple to be under evacuation orders before they sig...

Summer Haiku Contest

RallyCry — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 08:49:55 GMT

Starting 7/23/2012 and ending 9/28/2012, I would like to open up entries to a Haiku based stock picking contest. Only rules are it has to be an individual company with an opening price of $2 on Nasdaq or NYSE (no indexes, leveraged ETFs, or plain vanilla ETFs allowed) pitched in haiku form. We will take the first 5 votes for each Haiku rated on a scale of 1-10 and that will contribute 50% of the overa...

Give Me a Double Order of Pessimism

RallyCry — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 10:08:37 GMT

The biggest bull sign I see right now is a huge amount of pessimism in the market. To a certain degree it is the byproduct of election trail rhetoric, "the worst economy since the Great Depression", "a huge outsourcer of jobs", "we're better off now then where we were on the brink of collapse in 2008."

How about the fact that aside from Europe things are really not too ...

1 Big Day Does Not Break the Trend

RallyCry — Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:04:29 GMT

Over the past few weeks, I was considering if the dollar strength and slacking oil prices would help to prop up retail spending and GDP here in the U.S in the second half of 2012. However, with Merkel stepping up and supporting the notion of ECB bond buying in the south of Europe and oil surging 9.24%, I paused to wonder if my theory still has traction.

Taking a broader look, I am not inter...

Going Long - Sell Off Overdone

RallyCry — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:56:44 GMT

I am going long the market. My 5/7/2012 short call proved out but we have gone down too far, too quick. I am hoping for a 3-5% spike up from these levels with some green thumbs on long ETFs and red thumbs on short ETFs. I may go short again if Europe keeps deteriorating. I think the ECB will get their act together to calm the panic in Greece soon.

Revisiting Market Call 5/7/2012: CAPS Advice

RallyCry — Tue, 15 May 2012 06:24:31 GMT

So far the 19 long/short ETFs CAPS I picked to play my European driven market heading lower call on 5/7/2012 are all in the green to the tune of 126 CAPS points. I am now eligible to close a number of them.

http://caps.fool.com/Blogs/market-heading-lower-thanks/732844

Market Heading Lower ..Thanks Europe

RallyCry — Mon, 07 May 2012 16:13:43 GMT

Today I am taking up some CAPS picks in the ultra shorts as I believe we are going to be experiencing a Euopean flashback, redux, crisis 2.0. Why? Because now that Europe has moved further to the political left, the neat and tidy austerity resolutions which were never really neat or tidy but always prolonged and dragged out will become even messier and more protracted. The volume will be turned up even higher on these seeming...

Identify Stocks that Chart their Own Course

RallyCry — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 10:42:37 GMT

One key factor in more accurately assigning price targets to stocks is having a solid basis for revenue and earnings growth. When revenue and earnings growth are largely based on the movement of commodities it can be wildly difficult to use earnings estimates when much of these numbers are a function of the price of inputs or sales booked at a given spot price. For example, MERC is highly levered to pulp prices and their earn...

6 Reasons The Fed Doesn't Care About Higher Oil Prices

RallyCry — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 13:45:16 GMT

1.) The Fed will be able to validate their statement that interest rates will remain low until 2014.

2.) The resulting U.S. GDP slump will give QE proponents ammunition to keep rates low by instituting further easing initiatives.

3.) The alternative energy policies pursued by the U.S government will gain wider acceptance when gas prices move to record lev...

Grab Some Seagate Mate

RallyCry — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 13:16:06 GMT

Seagate Technology (STX) trading around $27 looks interesting to me. Its had a huge move already in the last 6 months, but is expected to earn $8.66 in 2013 on the average estimate of 17 analysts following. The range of analyst estimates for 2013 is pretty wacky, $4.57 to $12.78.

Seagate does have about 3 billion in long term debt but in the last quarter they paid off $500 million in ST debt, so they ha...

Experimental Market Timing - February Edition

RallyCry — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 01:21:47 GMT

Last month was a bad month for experimental market timing since my defensive strategy of sitting in cash for about half of January led me to underperform the S&P 500, Large Cap Value Fund, and Small Cap Growth Fund by 3.07-5.40%. http://caps.fool.com/Blogs/market-timing-january-tug-of/687851 (com...

The Results Prove the Process is What Matters

RallyCry — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 23:57:29 GMT

Tonight I thought it was appropriate to revisit the approach Eli Manning takes toward the game of football. His process has been consistent and deilberate. The product has been excellent results.

http://caps.fool.com/Blogs/its-the-process-not-the-stats/666198...

Revisiting a Recent Observation

RallyCry — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 23:28:12 GMT

Recently, I detailed the bounce shares that have been hammered precipitously by 60% or more often see in a relief rally. I posited that this price action is the result of shorts getting carried away and overcrowding a trade. They then scramble and cover when the stock finds support.