Livestock Trading Thread: Baa or better

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Livestock Trading Thread: Baa or better

«‹›2 »

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

Does anyone here follow insurance stocks? What's your opinion on the catastrophe insurer Montpellier (MRH)?

It's looking really cheap right now and i'm up 16 percent on the stock but I'm not sure if I should offload some.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2010 04:08

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 00:39

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

I recently received a quite significant sum of money in the form of a credit agricole bond from my father.

The bond pays out about 7% in interest rate, but the coupon payment is tied to the audusd. If audusd at any time goes below 0.85, there will be no coupon payment made (I believe they take the average of days the audusd is below 0.85 to determine how much in interest is paid out to me).

I looked up the market price of this bond and it's decreased by more than 5% since my dad made the purchase, it has only paid out its coupon payment once (a quarterly coupon) so if i sell now I probably lose about 3.25% + fees.

I recently read the australian property housing bubble thread and got spooked, and I think I want out of this bond if I can.

I would be glad for any opinion on those that understand the currency market better.

I believe my options are:
- Sell now and take the 3.25% loss
- Wait until the second coupon payment (in June) and hope the bond price have not fallen much further by then.
- Don't sell it and pray to god the audusd doesn't go below 0.85.

Which one do you guys think is the best option?

Edit: You know what, I just reread the term sheet and I think I might have misunderstood the audusd lower limit, it says in the final term sheet that:

audusd lower limit : usd 0.8500 per aud
audusd upper limit : n/a

Does it mean what I think it meant?

Shrinkage fucked around with this message at 13:49 on May 9, 2012

# ¿ May 9, 2012 13:19

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

gvibes posted:

Is there a fairly liquid market for these bonds? Where are you getting the price from?

This seems like a pretty complex derivative to be sold to individual investors.

The bond is held in a private banking account, and I can see the value of the asset change daily when I access the account online.

Yeah, my dad was advised to purchase the bond by one of his private banking account manager.

# ¿ May 9, 2012 18:00

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

gvibes posted:

I hate to ask, but is this private banking account at credit agricole?

I just assume every complex interest rate or exchange rate derivative is a way to screw a customer over.

Nope, Citibank.

But they're all the same, man.

# ¿ May 9, 2012 18:25

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

Nifty posted:

This sounds like a really weird bond.. is there is reason the bond for a french bank is tied to that random exchange rate? However looks like the lowest audusd price in the last year is ~0.94 so you look pretty okay in the coupon payment department.

7% is a nice coupon rate, what is its YTM based on it's current price? How long until it matures? Does the account website calculate the bond's duration (that's a bond term for its price sensitivity) for you?

Bonds and especially European banks are a scary place to be right now both because of the company's fundamentals/volatility but also because of the possibility of overall rising rates.

I'm not worried about the coupon payment in the short term, but the bond matures in 2021 and I don't want to have an Australian real estate crash halfway through the maturity, and be left holding a 0% coupon bond for 5 years or so.

It's current price is about 95000 (bought it at 100000) so I'd say at $7000 annual coupon that's a 7.36% return a year (7.36% x 9.75 = 71.76% return + $5000 profit at maturity if you don't count the reinvested coupon).

Nope, the account website just shows its current value and that's it.

Anyway I made the decision to sell, I talked with my account adviser and told her to sell, she offered me the bond of a Singaporean company called noble group at 6% interest rate selling at 101.6. I looked up the company's balance sheet and annual performance and it looked very healthy so I think I'm gonna switch to this new bond.

Overall I would probably lose around $8000 from the deal after all is done.

gently caress private banking.

Shrinkage fucked around with this message at 14:56 on May 10, 2012

# ¿ May 10, 2012 14:52

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

Flying Guillotine posted:

I can't tell you what to do, but you sound like a "fearful" investor, selling at the bottom, because of fear, or because you can't take the pain.

I'm saying this respectfully.

I listen to my fear because most of the time they save my rear end.

# ¿ May 10, 2012 15:28

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

cowofwar posted:

You had all your eggs in one basket then got cold feet. You ate a big loss so that you could move all your eggs in to another single basket.

You need to put that money in to a bond fund or ETF if you want to stick with bonds. Diversify and hold is how you make money.

Did you not read the part where I got the money already in form of a bond?

I did not get to make the choice of where to put the money at first, fella.

Also, this isn't all my eggs, it's barely worth 5% of my assets.

Shrinkage fucked around with this message at 03:39 on May 11, 2012

# ¿ May 11, 2012 03:36

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

Hobologist posted:

So a $100,000 bond is about 5% of your assets and you're asking for help on a comedy website.

Do you need a financial advisor? I'm available for a reasonable fee (disclaimer: not a licensed financial advisor, not actually available, and your fee would be highly unreasonable).

Anyway, I'm curious why you're so interested in foreign bonds (unless you live in Singapore, in which case it makes more sense). Messing with currencies, and especially currency derivatives like the original Australian bond, seems to increase your risk without providing any increased expected return, unless you know something about the Singapore dollar that most of the rest of the world doesn't.

Well, I'm always willing to listen to people's opinion especially when they're free, and most people in this thread seems to have a good head on their shoulders so I figured who knows maybe I get some good advice for free on how the AUD will do in the future.

I live in an South East Asian country, and with the high interest rate here, a low interest rate bond is just not worth it even if it's in a secure low inflation currency such as the US dollar.

A 6% interest rate from a bbb- rated company which has a healthy balance sheet is a risk that I'm willing to take, way much more than some bond derivative that depends on the AUDUSD staying over 0.85 for 9 years in a property bubble economy.

cowofwar posted:

If it's only 5% of your assets then why are you dumping it over a possible market turn? Do you micro-manage your way to losses with your entire portfolio?

Most of my "assets" are in a trust fund and real estate of which I have no control over, so yes even though I can afford to lose the whole thing, I'd just rather not to

Baddog posted:

Hahaha I need to become a "private banker". Here have this insanely structured bond that makes you feel special. Oh you dont like it? Here's another, that'll be 8 loving percent of your 100k "investment".

Yup, people just love to feel special, especially in asia where prestige is just about what everyone wakes up every morning and go to work for. These guys must be making a killing expanding into Asia.

Shrinkage fucked around with this message at 06:49 on May 11, 2012

# ¿ May 11, 2012 06:46

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

So, STD, is it another AIB or will it's latin america exposure protects it from the shitstorm that is Europe?

# ¿ May 21, 2012 18:03

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

agarjogger posted:

So are share prices connected to earnings or not really/sometimes.
Serious question.

Sometimes.

Serious answer.

# ¿ May 21, 2012 19:03

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

COUNTIN THE BILLIES posted:

Bloomberg terminals are a HUGE waste of money nowadays. The traders I know who have them are forced to have them from the company they work for and they barely use them.

So what do the traders use for real time informations these days?

# ¿ Jun 13, 2012 16:19

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

HPQ is trading at 4x FCF and I'm really tempted to take a bite at this price.

# ¿ Jun 19, 2012 19:35

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

Kneel Before Zog posted:

Heres something that just donned on me. JPMorgan Avg Vol (3m): 44,021,200 . Does this mean that over one billion dollars of stock exchanges hands every day around this one company? That's insane.

Apple averages out about 9 billion dollars worth of stock trading hands everyday btw.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2012 17:52

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

evilwaldo posted:

Too many if's for a market where stock picking is at a premium. The stock is beaten up for a reason.

The 3rd quarter is also historically negative for tech stocks.

I would prefer to play the short side waiting for a break below the May lows and then buy when the stock finished crapping the bed.

Just bought couple hundred shares at 20.45.

I'll see you in a couple of years mate.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2012 15:40

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

Turkeybone posted:

Ugh. Why? Like why at this point in time, what is telling you that the stock is remotely done crapping or turning around?

Nothing's telling me that.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2012 17:07

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

COUNTIN THE BILLIES posted:

Hmm HPQ is very interesting. Baupost has a 13% stake in them. But Jim Chanos is very negative about the stock.

It's PE ratio is 8, below the industry average of 13.5 but Dell is lower than it.

I might be tempted into buying some over the summer too and hold for a long time...\

This was 3 years ago, I don't know if they still do it. But it worked for other exchanges to like ICE. We said we needed it for a school project haha.

Look at the percentage of earnings HP has in the enterprise solution and compare that to Dell's.

Turkeybone posted:

Welp.

I can't help but reach out when I see falling knives.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2012 18:05

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

evilwaldo posted:

Good luck with that one. There are much better places to chase returns or yield over a multi-year time horizon than HPQ.

In bull markets you buy stocks like HPQ on a turnaround story, in bear markets you avoid that garbage until it craps the bed. Right now we are in bear mode.

I talked to a friend yesterday who does tech analysis and asked him what he thought of the industry and his response was slow demand across the board. Yeah Apple but that is it.

I don't know about Apple, I mean how many times can you hit a homerun in a row before you get like 4 strike outs in a row. You know what I mean?/

Also if you can share some of the great stocks you got in your sleeves that would be great mate.

Shrinkage fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Jun 22, 2012

# ¿ Jun 22, 2012 19:10

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

evilwaldo posted:

That line of thinking is ok for a bull market but this is a stock pickers market. You have to be in the right stocks at the right time.

My portfolio is mostly long gold/short the broad market. A couple of gold stocks and a Canadian oil stock for dividends.

Right now I am watching everything and making a list of high quality blue chips to buy when this market bottoms out. Stocks on my radar include PG, GE, and NKE. There will be a great buying opportunity coming around but not right now.

What do you think of SOHU?

# ¿ Jun 22, 2012 21:38

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

Edit: Woops turns out it actually was a steep fall off after all in Japan in 1990.

Shrinkage fucked around with this message at 05:02 on Jun 23, 2012

# ¿ Jun 23, 2012 04:59

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

Yggdrassil posted:

So i got my hands on "The Neatest Little Tricks", "The Intelligent Investor" and "Security Analysis" to start. Im really enjoying my reading and will continue with the recommended list. The thing is that im looking to EEUU's companys, and im from Argentina. Is it ok to invest in foreign (for me) stocks? I've got sort of a list of brokers that give foreign support;

-Interactivebrokers
-OptionsXpress
-Thinkorswim (by TDAmeritrade)
-Tradestation
-MBtrading
-Firstrade
-Just2trade

Does anyone have any info on this brokers and, is there anyone in particular that you could recommend me?
The advantage of investing in NASDAQ for me is that i have a pretty good tech knowledge, and tech companys in my country are almost non-existant, thus im more confident in my capability of analizing a tech company than, say, a food company or something like that.

I use Interactive Brokers and I would recommend it but bear in mind I've only used two brokers in the past IB and TDameritrade.

In terms of fees, IB can't be beat by TD (which has a fee of like $10 per trade or something) while IB decides your fee by volume. (Number of shares). It's ridiculously cheap though, most of my trades (around $4000-10000 worth of shares) ends up costing me $2 per trade or something like that.

It offers you access to more than 10 international markets I think, I forgot what all the markets are but it's pretty extensive. Account creation is also very fast, I think it took me something like 5 days from start to finish. Bear in mind I also live in Indonesia and had to do an international wire transfer.

Just don't fall for all the extra news services though, it can cost a lot of money and don't provide you with any extra values except if you're a professional trader.

I haven't had the chance to use their customer services yet, but I've heard that they're known for being poo poo.

# ¿ Jul 2, 2012 07:05

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

onefish posted:

A stock-buying trip report for any thread lurkers:

Don't buy individual stocks if you are gonna buy NOK.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2012 06:45

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

Janin posted:

Any thoughts on Aqua America? I bought a small position in April at $22, and then in June and July it went nuts and shot up by 20% (currently at $26.60). I can't figure out why this happened, to me it looks just like any other water utility.

Drought in more than 20 states?

# ¿ Jul 13, 2012 17:27

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

alnilam posted:

I don't know much about the economics of utilities, but I would have guessed drought meant hard times for a water utility.

It's nothing more than a guess but maybe the lack of available natural water substitute means that farmers would have to pay the utilities company for water instead of getting some of it for free from the rain.

Quick Google

quote:

Elsewhere in the state, many larger cities are in a very different situation. San Marcos, San Antonio, Odessa and Lubbock are among those with revenues that are either higher than normal or higher than last year's

quote:

Tom Taggart, director of the San Marcos utility, said that the drought tends to mean more money for the utility "until you're in the deeper-stage restrictions." He estimates that revenues are up roughly 10 percent this year, due to more watering before restrictions (now twice a week) took effect.

Shrinkage fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Jul 13, 2012

# ¿ Jul 13, 2012 18:58

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

Turkeybone posted:

Well, at least you didn't go with NOK.

I did say a couple of years, mate.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2012 19:14

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

Turkeybone posted:

What do you get at a bank, .5%? Don't talk down to 5%.

I remember when I had 5% two days ago.

It was good.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2012 15:17

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

Hope nobody here holds FB shares.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2012 21:23

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

R.A. Dickey posted:

Edit: and so this isn't just a hit piece I'll contribute two ideas to the thread. I'm long MBI and long HFC, when I have some time I'll write up an investment thesis if anyone is interested.

Go for it.

# ¿ Jul 29, 2012 10:00

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

Dolphin posted:

The fundamentals of Seagate look great... but is anyone else concerned that with the world moving to solid state that Seagate is going to start running out of customers fairly quickly as SSD $/GB levels out? From what I've heard (I'm by no means an expert), hard drives have the advantage for now for server applications because the $/GB ratio is still a competitive advantage, and they have a longer read/write shelf life, but as more people adopt SSD and SSD becomes more reliable and cheaper I don't see how Seagate can maintain their current growth without substantial changes to their business model.

Interesting article on SSD vs HDD $/GB

Myth 2 addresses your concern, I think.

I'm long WDC and up about 50% so far.

Shrinkage fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Aug 13, 2012

# ¿ Aug 13, 2012 16:00

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

Vile posted:

I've looked into this also, Only thing holding me back is the thought intc misses estimates in mid oct and takes a drop to 22 / 21

Buy more if that happens.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2012 17:09

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

COUNTIN THE BILLIES posted:

Wasn't there a goon who said he was going all in with HPQ? Hope he figured out it was a value trap.

It's not really all in, but yep I'm still long.

It's my worst performing stock and I have developed some sort of an attachment to it, probably will throw in another thousand dollar or two into it today.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2012 07:03

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

evilwaldo posted:

It is supposed to be the other way around.

It's okay, I'm a "Value Investor".

# ¿ Oct 4, 2012 17:18

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

COUNTIN THE BILLIES posted:

No, that's being irrational. I could consider HPQ becoming a value trade at some point in the future but not anytime soon. Not with the huge amount of debt on it's balance sheet and the lack of any real idea on how to increase revenue.

I kid, i'm not value investing at all. I know i am gambling with my money and that's fine.

The 5000 bucks or so (i plunked down on another 100 shares today) is a small enough amount that i really wont lose a night's sleep if i lose them, and i believe the upside here is huge if they can stem the decrease in earnings and pay off the debt which isnt really out of the realm of possibility considering their cashflow.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2012 04:37

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

PRADA SLUT posted:

It's illegal to act based upon non-public information.

*Wink Wink Nod Nod*

# ¿ Oct 16, 2012 17:59

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

WDC is going to make me loving rich.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2012 21:30

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

greasyhands posted:

I read this post and went and looked at earnings and thought 'hmm no guidance yet, he's gonna eat his words'. Sorry man.

Yeah i'm still hoping tomorrow will be like the last time they released and they will increase after the open.

If it doesnt i guess its another chance to increase my position in the stock.

Thats a thousand dollar swing in the AH, gently caress.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2012 07:00

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

Josh Lyman posted:

Were you long stock?

Yeah opened position at $30 a few months ago.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2012 09:10

Shrinkage: Oct 23, 2010

Turkeybone posted:

At $30? And you held on this whole time? I mean... I guess you obviously did, but, looking at a weekly chart WDC seems pretty cyclical (buy <$30, sell >$40). Of course, hindsight, all that, etc.

Yeah.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2012 17:04