Investors 411 Blog

Option candidates those of you who gamble with options, take a look at the following possible long candidates;

BKI, FAST, KEX, ODFL, SIMO, ANDE

FTK up nearly 5.8% at the close today, to 10.53. Resistance is 10.77 from back at July 27.

Today Iran currency fell 10% vs. the dollar. Th US has tough new sanctions. Anything oil related from Calls on USO or UCO to FTK and other oil related stocks are on fire. If hostilities break out oil prices will rocket and stocks will plummet. Chances of this happening are small. Intrade has 23.5% chance of air strike against Iran by Sept.. But, when your currency takes a 10% dive because of sanctions you make an impact.

Barr

Looking at other charts from today, looks like lot's of profit taking. I did Ok,50% of my stocks are oil related.

TSCO which remains on Your Stock List 2012:

In a note out today,  Piper Jaffray  reiterated an Overweight rating and  $81  on Tractor Supply (Nasdaq: TSCO), implying decent upside from where the shares currently trade.
"Based on state specific weather data that we have weighted according to TSCO's store base, we estimate the average temperature for TSCO stores were running 7.5 degrees F higher for the month of December. Despite guidance calling for warmer temperatures, we believe this somewhat extreme y/y change likely takes out the potential for meaningful upside in Q4 earnings and we are reducing our estimate from  $0.89 to $0.85 . That said, we point out that TSCO is not a holiday-driven business. In Q4 2006 it experienced weak sales from warmer weather only to have sales snap back strongly in Q1 2007 once the weather turned colder. Additionally, TSCO currently has a favorable inflation benefit in place for comp, and several gross margin drivers that should allow for EPS to come roughly in line with consensus," Piper said in the note.

MOS is up over 4% today. Double what stocks are. So I assume you will place the Puts and Calls somewhere around 52.54. Where it is now.

:)D

:)D - Yes  about 52.5.

 Barr is going over this tomorrow in the blog. The fact that MOS has gone up over 4% is great because the bigger the move after earnings the more we make. You want big moves before earnings because is suggests a big move after.I tend to prefer the 21 expiration date. Let's see what put and call prices are for both the 7th and 21st.Critic

Lots of changes to Investors411 coming tomorrow. MOS trade will be covered. Oil prices are shooting (+3.5%) up on fears Iran may do something nasty, so our stampede, which is holding on, may take a bit of a hit. Lots of great info in your posts today. I'm considering adding EWG (Germany) ETF to one of Investors411 longer term portfolios.
Barr

SIMO mentioned by Ron Brown (HGSI) in his weekly report Saturday  up 3.37% today in early trading. Closed up 1.56%

SIMO remains on Your Stock List 2012.

A Letter from Kim Jong-un

http://www.borowitzreport.com/...

Critic

I'm in, but let's wait and see where MOS is later today or early tomorrow to set a price to place the put and call. Obviously not expecting GMCR results. Looks like we'll risk about $300 to $400 per position. 

The 1/21 expiration date may be best. Cash is one side of the trade quickly then wait on the other.

Jim J

Have you checked the news stories from last week corresponding to the moves?

Iowa caucus tonight and I understand Romney has spent about $400.00 in money for every vote he gets. Double the amount of all the others combined. My$on him . But I do love Ron Paul's foreign policy.

I've been on the same island as as Obama for the last week so a late Happy and prosperous New Year to all of you

Popeye

Portion of Ron Brown's (HGSI) morning report which should be considered:

Stock futures are showing a strong open as I write this, but they are well off of their highs. Asia and Europe were up while the dollar and bonds gapped down. This led to a spike in oil and gold. It looks like shorts will be getting squeezed at the open, but chasing gaps to get long is a dangerous game. I will have to wait until the end of the day to see if any real buying comes into the markets, or if the smart money is selling into the gap up. The daily candle and volume will give us a picture of the strength of today's move.

so nice to see Germany's feurwerks leading the other market in a stampede.

Great chart on deficit.

EW

Hedge Put/Call combination trade.

I've worked this out with Barr and we came up with this.

Hedge combination tradeProposed Stock Mosaic - Ticker Symbol MOS. Reports Wednesday, after bell, January 4th

Beta 1.55 - Very high.  Examples - Last week it went down about 4% on Tuesday, gapped down another 4% and rallied to close slightly higher Wednesday. I count about twenty 4% or larger interday moves  for MOS since last earnings report including two at about 10%. I'm eyeballing a chart for price data, so all these are a ballpark figures.

MOS has gone from low of 45 on Oct. 4th to high of 62.5 Oct 31 then fallen to 50.43 at the end of the year.

Last earnings report was after bell Sept 28th. On 28th before earnings it was down about 5%. On the 29th opened slightly lower then fell about 8% and ended up down about 5%. The 30th it was down another 10%.For reference SPY was down about 1.5% on 28th. Big range on 29th but ended up about 0.7%. On 30th fell almost 2%.  

So it was a volatile bearish time for major indexes, but they rose on the 29th - the first day after earnings report and MOS fell 5%.

You could buy a Jan 50 put for about 1.95 and a Jan. 52.5 call for about 1.25.  These are the jan 20 options.  Be careful because there are also Jan. 5 options which are cheaper but only gives you 2 days after earnings are announce.There's several other  more expensive plays like buying the Put and call at the same price.

What do you think?

Critic

MOS news, 2nd page

http://www.thestreet.com/story...