Trade in Groups

Returning readers will be familiar with our continued negative outlooks for many of the market’s problem children – financials, REITs, and certain commodities. A short while ago, we posted about an aggressive series of trades on that thesis, and promised to track the progress of both the underlying positions as well as a specific options […]

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Step aside Abercombie (ticker: ANF), H&M, and all other prophets of all things young and hip. While other retailers saw sales predictably crumble in the face of a difficult consumer spending environment, Urban Outfitters (URBN) has been a bit of an outsider. During the fourth quarter, which included a subdued holiday shopping period, Urban Outfitters, […]

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The bearish outlook given yesterday was based off a combination of general economic data (fundamental) as well as a handful of indicators about market internals (technical). The underlying theme here is that the leaders into this crisis – namely, real estate and financials – have not yet hit a bottom (or at least need to re-test lows).
 
The […]

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This recent post on the TradeKing community site got me thinking about current sentiment among traders, and what implications (if any) it has for the markets going forward. Regular readers have seen bearish stances over the past several months on financials and energy, along with a focus on alternative strategies to earn profits when the […]

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This series on commodities has taken a detour or two, but the recent explanation of how to use a covered call strategy brings us back to one of the original points about commodities: when used in combination with other strategies, they can both provide income and change the correlation of a portfolio.
 
A problem traditionally associated […]

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An area of opportunity for individual investors that we’ve only touched briefly on so far is traditional options. This article assumes you have a basic understanding of call options – if not, a few quick primers can get you up to speed – see here for a basic long call, and here for covered calls.
 
There […]

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One thing we have focused on heavily in the last month is presenting strategies used to create absolute returns – that is, manage risk and turn trading profits regardless of the general market’s direction. It’s a difficult market, and the days where simply owning a handful of hot tech or commodity stocks could result in […]

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A recent email from Steve Jobs to Apple (ticker: AAPL) employees announcing his medical leave of absence has left some investors in a bit of a tizzy. While the email promises a summer return, some have been hesitant to immediately accept the pledge. The concern and even distrust over Jobs’s departure most likely stems from […]

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In the previous article introducing commodities, one strategy that was mentioned was relative value trading using long positions paired with short positions. A benefit of this strategy is that having both long and short positions can help offset broader market moves; for a more detailed explanation see “Absolute Returns for Individual Investors: Long/Short”.
 
When the topic […]

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Last time, we discussed how investors willing to analyze opportunities up and down a company’s capital structure open up numerous possibilities to generate absolute returns - in particular, through looking for undervalued embedded options in convertible securities. Reading the last article will be helpful to understanding this one, but an abridged summary is that convertible […]

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