Twitter IPO / Who Buyin?

[StillHustlin]

I always have an option going. I usually just play with dividend that come in. sometimes I buyback more stock, somethings I play options. Just depends on what's out there. I bet on WMT to show poor earnings, which they did, but the stock price didn't even budge. So, I lost. Not much though.

So far it's been a great year, because I was heavily invested in the S&P. My biggest lag is INTC. Still holding...

How u likin INTC now? We just had a 13.8 billion $ Q2. w/ greater Q3 expectations.

 

[Rumpelstiltskin]

How u likin INTC now? We just had a 13.8 billion $ Q2. w/ greater Q3 expectations.

Finally it's my time.
Averaged in at 25.88
People are taking profits today but as of right now I'm a lifer...
No reason to sell. It's my main (currently only) tech holding.

MAT got hit today. I've been in and out of Mattel a couple times, but I just can't find a good spot to jump back in...

 

[StillHustlin]

Twitter Caught in Censorship Dilemma Over Graphic Images

The pattern goes like this: a major public death spreads graphic images across Twitter. Users express outrage, forcing the company to decide what to remove.

 

[StillHustlin]

GOOGLE CEO: ROBOTS WILL TAKE OUR JOBS AND ITS OK (LEAVES OUT PART WHERE ROBOTS WILL NOT TAKE HIS JOB)

Google

NASDAQ: GOOG - Oct 31 4:00 PM ET

559.088 (1.59%)

-----------------

Twitter Inc.

NYSE: TWTR - Oct 31 4:01 PM ET

41.470 (0.79%)

 

[StillHustlin]

How u likin INTC now? We just had a 13.8 billion $ Q2. w/ greater Q3 expectations.

INTC Record Q3: $14.6 BILLION

 

[CHAPO GUZMAN]

Finally opened up a Roth IRA also started investing a little, mostly through Vanguard ETFs.

What long term stocks would you guys recommend? Google is one im considering. But I'm talking about holding onto this stock for 20-30+ years.

 

[emma]

Finally opened up a Roth IRA also started investing a little, mostly through Vanguard ETFs.

What long term stocks would you guys recommend? Google is one im considering. But I'm talking about holding onto this stock for 20-30+ years.

Why not just set up a 3 fund portfolio with VTSMX, VGTSX, and VBMFX? It's very unlikely that you would beat the market investing in individual stocks over a 20-30 year period.

You could also just do a target retirement fund if you want to keep things simple.

Three-fund portfolio - Bogleheads
https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/target-retirement/#/

 

[CHAPO GUZMAN]

This is my current portfolio: Vanguard S&P500 ETF and Vanguard Small Cap ETF

But i'll look into the three fund and target fund. Thanks for the info.

 

[Rumpelstiltskin]

I've been steady buying WM (Waste Management) this entire year. So far so good.

I've very close to dumping GIS (General Mills) for a 25% gain. Just because I really don't see it climbing any higher. Keeps hovering. Quarterlies have looked bad several times in a row and people just buy due to it being a defensive play. Might dump it and buy more AXP (American Express). Not sure yet...

 

[Rumpelstiltskin]

What long term stocks would you guys recommend? Google is one im considering. But I'm talking about holding onto this stock for 20-30+ years.

I would go long term Yahoo over Google. Riskier, but the upside seems larger.

For me it's DIS (Disney)

I've been buying\selling DIS since 2006. I stopped selling and am just going to accumulate at this point. Current and averaged buy price is up 95%.

I've decided that DIS is going to be my "never sell" stock. Although at this point I am extremely overloaded in it (28% of portfolio).

Right now is a great time to buy into MAT (Mattel). I might buy some early next year.

 

[BASEDVATO]

Yahoo over Google? really?

Google is a leader in innovation, and has so many projects that they can easily create new industries. Google seems more future proof.

 

[Rumpelstiltskin]

GOOG is losing steam. They admitted themselves that they need to stop expanding into so many fields. They are taking on way too many new projects and buying all these small companies out. They stated on their last conference call that they are going to stop doing that and focus more on what they have always done best (traffic).

I just believe that there is a greater potential upside to YHOO.
Also, there is a greater potential downside as well.

Realistically neither are good for long term. If you want long term at least find something that would pay a dividend. ATT is much more dominant than GOOG, and it's safe to say they will be around as well. They pay a nice div on top of that.

 

[StillHustlin]

"Warren Buffett Is Dumping Stocks out the Backdoor"

Maybe Warren Buffet’s impeccable sense of timing kicked in. Or maybe he got shook up a little when IBM reported another revenue and earnings debacle in October, and in the subsequent swoon of its shares, he lost $1.3 billion. Followed a day later by a $1 billion hit on his position in Coca-Cola when it reported earnings. And all year, he has been getting hammered on his investment in British grocery chain Tesco which has lost nearly half its value, costing him around $750 million.

All this, even while stock markets have been bouncing around record highs.

“I like buying it as it goes down, and the more it goes down, the more I like to buy,” said the master manipulator during one of his hype interviews on his favorite and always helpful promo platform, CNBC, in early October. And true to form, filings revealed on Friday that he bought a few things here and there, such as increasing his stake in GM, and that he sold a few things too. But those were smallish amounts by his standards.

Meanwhile, he is dumping some of his big, highly profitable positions in publicly traded stocks – but not out the front door.

It was skillfully obscured by the ruckus over the tax aspects of these deals: that one of the richest guys in the world, or rather his company, Berkshire Hathaway, would be able to take advantage of a specially created tax loophole that regular folks don’t have access to, a loophole that would save the company billions in taxes.

Last week, it was Berkshire’s complex acquisition of Procter & Gamble’s Duracell unit. Everyone dutifully fell in line, laid out by Buffett, and called it an “acquisition,” though the other and more important half of the transaction was the sale of a huge position of P&G shares.

A “brilliant move,” explained Doug Kass, president of Seabreeze Partners Management.

Instead of paying cash for Duracell, Berkshire will hand over $4.7 billion in P&G shares that it has owned since 2005 when P&G bought Gillette, in which Berkshire had a major equity stake since 1989. As part of the deal, P&G agreed to infuse $1.8 billion in cash into Duracell. And it’s going to be costly for P&G: it would take a charge of 28 cents per share.

OK, so this deal involves a lot of paper shuffling. But in effect, Berkshire is selling $4.7 billion in P&G shares for which, as Reuters reported, it paid $336 million at the time of its investment in Gillette. Normally, an outright sale with capital gains of this magnitude would have triggered a hefty tax bill. By swapping those shares for Duracell, no taxes are due.

And this “brilliant move” wasn’t the first one: At the end of last year, Berkshire announced that it would sell $1.4 billion of its shares in Phillips 66, not for cash but for that company’s pipeline-services business, Phillips Specialty Products.

In March, Berkshire announced that it would sell $1.1 billion of its shares in former media giant Graham Holdings, formerly known as the Washington Post Company. In return, Berkshire would get paid some cash, a Miami TV station, and about $400 million in Berkshire’s own shares that Graham Holdings owns.

Sound a little circuitous? Berkshire started accumulating these shares in 1973 at a cost of about 1% of the selling price, the Washington Post reported. So it would have had to pay a big chunk in taxes on the capital gains if the sale had been done the way that normal investors have to sell and buy stocks.

By bartering these mega-positions of publicly traded shares for a mix of non-publicly traded assets, Buffett’s company dodged an onslaught of federal income taxes. And that’s what the mainstream media focused on. We’re shocked and appalled. How could he!

But these deals did something more important: they allowed Buffett to dump publicly traded shares that are subject to the stock market’s whims that tend to manifest themselves after long rallies in a most unpleasant manner, either individually, as in Tesco’s case, or jointly during a crash or a long bear market – and dump them out the backdoor without spooking the markets that could hit the rest of his holdings.

He did so with impeccable timing as the stock market has been bouncing to ever more inexplicable highs. In exchange, he picked up shares of companies that aren’t publicly traded. Berkshire would own them outright. No one else would have any impact on their market value because their wouldn’t be a market value. Stocks could go to heck entirely, but with regards to these companies, Buffett wouldn’t care; their “value” on Berkshire’s books wouldn’t change.

These deals are a way of cutting exposure to the stock market. They’re big bearish bets. And the fact that the media reported them as acquisitions and a billion-dollar taxpayer-funded welfare gift ingeniously obfuscated the reality behind them.

Perhaps Buffett saw something spooky: The shares of Phillips that he sold got caught up in the oil price plunge and have dropped 18% since early September.

 

[Rumpelstiltskin]

Sold GIS (4 or 5 bad quarters in a row, but price stayed level) for a nice 25% profit. Bought CVX with the funds. Oil prices plummeting. About to buy some more CVX (Chevron) with my IRA contribution. I know oil won't see daylight until March at best, but I'm loading up in Jan.

Bought some more WM today.

2014 has been a great year.

 

[StillHustlin]

CVX is still too high IMO, if it hits a 5yr low its a go for me. 1.89 billion shares outstanding? Still a solid EPS

 

[Rumpelstiltskin]

Some big option plays betting on oil to bounce back by March.

I like Chevron over Exxon and Conoco. Realistically no energy stock looks attractive as of right now, but oil has to come back sometime. Can't stay at these levels forever.

I read oil energy companies are going to try and borrow more money to get through the rough time right now. The banks probably have to do it, especially if they want to get paid back on the initials loans they gave for the increased drilling which partially caused this problem in the first place.

 

[StillHustlin]

U.S. oil producers and refiners with low leverage, consistent earnings:
Company Ticker Total debt/ total equity Closing price - Dec. 15 Price change since Nov. 1 Total return - YTD Dividend yield
Synergy Resources Corp. SYRG, +5.36% 13% $10.42 -19% 13% 0.00%
HollyFrontier Corp. HFC, +2.26% 17% $36.11 -16% -22% 3.54%
Dorchester Minerals LP DMLP, +3.75% 0% $22.39 -12% -8% 8.00%
Chevron Corp. CVX, +3.47% 16% $100.86 -11% -16% 4.24%
Occidental Petroleum Corp. OXY, +4.03% 19% $73.16 -9% -17% 3.94%
Exxon Mobil Corp. XOM, +2.53% 12% $86.90 -6% -12% 3.18%
Reserve Petroleum Corp. RSRV, +2.74% 0% $394.88 -3% -3% 5.06%
Trecora Resources TREC, +1.84% 8% $13.23 3% 5% 0.00%
Adams Resources and Energy Inc. AE, +4.52% 0% $38.85 5% -42% 2.27%


Total returns reflect reinvested dividends. Source: FactSet

 

[Rumpelstiltskin]

Market popped today.
I'm still on the CVX wagon. No change in my 2015 game plan.

Was thinking about buying some MAT (Mattel) put options. I think their earnings are going to be garbage.

 

[Rumpelstiltskin]

Damn, Mattel is getting CRUSHED (down 5.5%) and I couldn't pick up options for 3 days now. Tried mid-low ball offers on April $25 Puts and no one bit for 3 days. I'm still going a nickel above the bid price but the asking is just too high.

Damnit.

 

[2-0-Sixx]

Comin into this thread like