Stocks and Trading Thread - Channeling your inner Mono

[Ed Anger]

I'm thinking of making a play on the recent tech companies like Zynga and Groupon who might be gobbled up if their stock weakness continues. I ain't gonna invest much.

[MadImmortalMan]

I actually did get some September puts on TLT the day I posted my short, and they're up 48%. The short itself is up fifty bucks. Those puts way more than make up for my loss on the JPM puts. I still wish death or scandal on Jamie Dimon however. Hopefully before Friday.

[MadImmortalMan]

Sold 10 TLT puts. No reason to be too greedy. Gain was about 170% Will buy more if it drops below this line of support at around 120. Pretty likely it will take a swan dive then.


JPM puts will likely expire worthless tomorrow. Oh well.

[alfred russel]

You can send my cut of the TLT winnings to a charity of your choice. 

I'm thinking of cashing out soon too.

[MadImmortalMan]

Swan dive might be coming early. Just dropped fifty cents in the last few minutes. 

I still have the short, but no puts.

[Admiral Yi]

BOA just called my bond, so I'm thinking about rolling it over to a REIT.

MIM, can you expand a bit on the tax issues, or do you know a site that would spell them out for me?

[Barrister]

I'm thinking of making a play on the recent tech companies like Zynga and Groupon who might be gobbled up if their stock weakness continues. I ain't gonna invest much.

If you want to make a quick speculative play then sure, but the fundamentals of both companies are pretty crappy.

[MadImmortalMan]

REIT (and MLP) income is not dividends, and it's taxed at your normal tax rate instead of the normal 15%. You are a "partner" and they send you an income statement every year. Your income from the company comes as partnership/ownership proceeds.

So basically, you pay higher taxes because the REIT pays none. So I only own them in the IRA.

[Admiral Yi]

Danke.

Maybe I'll plop it in to PBI.

[Admiral Yi]

Order in for 200 shares of AGNC at 33.50. 

I was hoping I could get in to American Residential Properties.  They're a Phoenix outfit that buys distressed properties and rents them; mentioned in an Economist article on the trend toward rentals.  Alas, they're not publicly traded.

[Ed Anger]

I'm thinking of making a play on the recent tech companies like Zynga and Groupon who might be gobbled up if their stock weakness continues. I ain't gonna invest much.

If you want to make a quick speculative play then sure, but the fundamentals of both companies are pretty crappy.

I wouldn't be investing on the strength of their boards. 

[MadImmortalMan]

Thinking of going short bonds again...

[Admiral Yi]

I was looking at the Kinder-Morgan investor page (decided not to buy because the org structure was too weird).  Learned that the CEO is paid $1 a year.  Course he owns 24% of the company...

[Admiral Yi]

PBI up a buck off its trough. 

[MadImmortalMan]

I'm making a list of things to short going into the fiscal cliff. Widely-held stocks that have gone up a lot, so people have lots of unrealized gains they'd rather take at the lower tax rate this year.

1: Apple

2: Apple

3: Apple

4: Apple

Research ongoing...