Archive for July, 2010
Rambus Trumps NVIDIA, Options Acted as a “Tell” (RMBS, NVDA)
Rambus Inc. (NASDAQ: RMBS) turned into an after-hours stock story on Monday July 26, but the options trading earlier that day was the flag before the news got out. The common stock closed up 3.16% at $19.59 ahead of ruling on NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) issued by the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC). The ITC has ruled that graphics [...]
Weekly Expiration: Looking At The Options Greeks
As mentioned in an earlier post, the CBOE has added weekly options covering a select group of stocks, ETFs, and indexes. So it might be a good idea to see how these new options behave over their short life span. Just to recap, the new CBOE weeklys let you buy or sell options that expire [...]
Options Trading Help: Watch For Liquidity
A ZeccoShare Discussion on options was started by jdmiller8, who asked: For instance, if I want to buy a PWER stock option with its high growth because I don’t have the money to buy it outright. What things in such a option should I look for and what should I avoid? I’ll leave it to [...]
The “Champions” – 50 Years of Raising Dividends
You may have heard of the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Index, which includes companies that have been increasing dividends every year for at least 25 years. No small feat, I’d say. There’s even an ETF that tracks this index, the SPDR S&P Dividend ETF (SDY). But David Van Knapp posted a list of 45 “dividend [...]
Could The Euro Rally Really Be Toast?
Vincent Fernando at Business Insider reports that Morgan Stanley analysts have set a new target price for the euro of $1.18. There are a couple of charts in the article that are interesting because they suggest that central banks worldwide were big buyers of euros during the first quarter of 2010, but that a further [...]
Data Storage: Valuation Versus Earnings (STX, WDC)
Storage of personal data on PCs, media devices, and external hard drives has been a growth sector in recent years as the public buys more media and stores more data. This week brought two earnings reports from the leaders in the sector: Seagate Technology PLC (NASDAQ: STX) and Western Digital Corp. (NYSE: WDC). Despite having [...]
The ETF Deathwatch: Funds on the Brink
In a recent SmartMoney article, “ETF Report Card: Bullishly Treading Water,” Will Swarts notes that while ETFs as an investing instrument are growing in popularity, the ETF business is getting a lot more competitive. That means some funds “will be left by the wayside.” Swarts talked to Ron Rowland, who runs an “ETF Deathwatch” site. [...]
When VIX and VXV Get Out of Whack
Everyone seems to be watching the VIX these days, but there’s another market indicator I like to watch: the VIX/VXV ratio. The VIX, is of course, the CBOE Volatility Index. This measures the implied volatility of S&P 500 options expiring in about one month. For more on this, see my previous post: “Does the VIX [...]
Earnings War Between Morgan Stanley & Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) may have just freshly reached a $550 million settlement with the SEC, but the normal blow-out earnings report did not follow suit. The key rival is Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS), and so far it is Morgan Stanley that has received the best reception into this earnings season. Morgan Stanley [...]
BP’s Hayward: Does He Stay or Does He Go?
A report in The Times of London on July 21 (as referred to by Bloomberg) indicated that Tony Hayward, CEO of BP plc (NYSE:BP), is likely to resign by the end of September, if the leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico is permanently sealed by then. A BP spokesman denied the report, saying that [...]
