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18 January 2013
[All the news was out last year. F may be the best of breed and worth consideration - but the global macro environment trumps the Detroit "love-in".]
[On 18 Jan I was trying to dampen some enthusiasm...]
F is
international -Detroit show etc was probably nice, but it’s hard to
see European prospects looking good… And then there’s newly
competitive Yen. What are you projecting that makes F attractive, or
is it just a trade?
**********
17 January 2013
[How to play the US housing market rebound; not my choices, some typical ETF problems, but possibly valid]
IYR
is a real estate index linked product with about a 1/2% expense ratio
vs XHB which is also an index linked product, but only tied to home
builders, and with a slightly lower expense ratio. XHB has a much
smaller “float”, so, in the short run, it’s hard to make sure
that the NAV doesn’t go adrift, but over the long haul it’s
actually closer to its benchmark than the IYR (largely expense ratio
related).
[Note:
this entry was edited for clarity and spelling]
***********
16 January 2013
[It's always worthwhile paying attention to the basics]
[Price action trumps fundamentals and there really are some "sacred" technicals.)
On Apple
– wonder if there are any tactical asset allocation models that
will defend/preserve an investment once the 200 day moving average
is breached? It’s possible to analyze Apple, do the sums, assess
the news flow, look into the supply chain, etc and actually view it
as, on balance, a positive story, but the dismal technicals/price
action is going to force out some of the managers commonly clinging
to fundamentals – there’s no tactical asset allocation model
supporting ownership.
[corrected for typo errors]
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14 January 2013
[This is hopefully a sign of "healthy" paranoia. Hard to reconcile all the industry "fixing"' charges with a healthy autonomous VIX.]
Don’t
want to go all “zero hedge” on people or in any way cater to the
conspiracy theorists, BUT, the VIX, to most people, is a black box.
Set up by GS with discretionary management/admin etc by the CBOE.
Might be time to have a look under the hood…
***********
31 December 2012
BUD once issued some bonds which allowed them to do some pot market research. This was spelled out as an allowable expenditure from the proceeds – not sure the marketing exercise was carried out, and I’m not sure that today’s BUD is anything like it was back in the early 90s (at the time of the bond issue).
[NOTE/WARNING: I've no access to the indenture - so treat this entry as "hearsay" - I'm not sure the current BUD would approve/acknowledge/accept this "story".
It was, to some of us with a sense of humor, an interesting underwriting at the time - successfully placed with all the usual institutions, largely under the radar. Recreational drugs are big business - frankly, I can't figure out a defensible public avenue for participating in the marijuana legalization "movement", but maybe BUD has a an old marketing plan they could retrieve from their archives - who knows. They could surrender some of their bottling/distribution business in the pursuit of their current merger/acquisition plans and replace lost revenue by becoming your helpful neighborhood "dealer".]
**************
11 January 2013
[Surely someone's got to be a winner in the nationalization of the agency RMBS sector... maybe it could be ELLI, but then again, maybe not.]
Not sure
if they’re affected by the well-being of the agency MREITs (Annaly,
Two Harbors, AGNC etc). Investing in RMBS has been nationalized
thanks to QE Infinity – maybe ELLI could sign up the Fed, after all
they probably need all the help they can get to keep track of their
underlying mortgages ($40bn/month – forever).
*************
30 May 2012
[In response to a trader's perception that TLT=The Long Bond]
Hold on, hold on! Stop!
TLT is an ETF It ain’t the 30 year bond, and it’s not the 20 yr and it’s not the average of the two… it’s an attempt to replicate the 20+ year Barclays govt index. BUT, the ETF’s got slippage and expenses.
TLT is at 2008 levels – not the tracked index, not the long bond.
Back to your analyses…
***********
12 April 2012
[UNG slippage due to its "reliance" on constantly rolling futures, and some background "reasoning".]
The oil
and gas sector is pretty complex if you try looking at it as one
industry, but if you separate it into segments it’s easier to make
sense of the processes and operations involved. Upstream gas
operations are not complex, but once gas has been scrubbed and is
past the first compressor its all about infrastructure (including
storage), and it’s a good idea to have a look at the different
infrastructure components separately. If natty is a hit with
customers then that’s great, but for the foreseeable future it’s
infrastructure plays that will reflect that success. Haven’t seen a
well researched case for higher natty prices, and most folks have
correctly avoided the NYMEX “products”.
[...] before getting involved in natty it’s worth getting
a good understanding of the segment, and before betting on UNG it’s
good to have a look at the underlying NYMEX contracts (UNG might have
its day, but over time its the floor of NYMEX that soakes up the
cash).
[A final chart, with a final typo]
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