Investments Trade Log

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bryan
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Re: Investments Trade Log

Post by bryan »

Leaning towards realizing all my losses from shorting to offset a fraction of my gains from Bitcoin.. Still a bear on SYMC, GDDY, VRSN, ALL, EBAY and if I'm not mistaken they have performed worse than the market (so if there ever is a downwards trend, I believe these stocks will go down more than others). Jacob's link kind of agrees, I guess? In so far as red and orange are bad..

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Seppia
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Re: Investments Trade Log

Post by Seppia »

I sold the small position I had in Pfizer (bought back in 2011) at an approximate 38% net gain (dividends included), and used the proceeds to add a tiny bit to my GE position at $17.70

Michael_00005
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Re: Investments Trade Log

Post by Michael_00005 »

jacob wrote:
Wed Dec 06, 2017 12:13 pm
https://simplywall.st/stocks/us/diversi ... e-hathaway (example) is a neat tool I recently came across.
Yes a very nice tool! It took me a second to realize how it works, you enter a ticker in the top left corner of the site page.

bryan
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Re: Investments Trade Log

Post by bryan »

bryan wrote:
Mon Dec 11, 2017 9:52 pm
Leaning towards realizing all my losses from shorting to offset a fraction of my gains from Bitcoin.. Still a bear on SYMC, GDDY, VRSN, ALL, EBAY and if I'm not mistaken they have performed worse than the market (so if there ever is a downwards trend, I believe these stocks will go down more than others). Jacob's link kind of agrees, I guess? In so far as red and orange are bad..
I closed all my short positions.. not necessarily to realize losses but rather because I was cash poor. Basically I didn't have enough cash at the ready for a Q4 estimated tax payment. I still didn't (unless I wanted to realize even more cap gains in 2017 at a high tax rate) but realized I could just ensure I paid >100% of my tax from 2016 to avoid fees (hopefully I am not wrong here..) and I did at least have that much cash.

Kind of sucks that I closed out.. especially my INTC position which I timed exactly wrong (before major flaws published resulting in performance degradation as workaround for Intel processors). Thinking about re-opening some short positions.

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Re: Investments Trade Log

Post by jacob »

Any insight/opinion on whether the INTC snafu is a temporary set back/quick fix ... or whether this is a structural problem that requires redesigning everything/starting from scratch/class action suits/... ?

IlliniDave
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Re: Investments Trade Log

Post by IlliniDave »

Dumped 10% of my US equities today. That's my first proactive strategic move since Q1 2009. It wasn't easy moving against the "Trump Effect".

On an unrelated note:

I don't have great sources but the tech gurus expounding on NPR this morning thought it would require a new generation of intel processors to truly fix and the world would have to deal with it the meantime. Microsoft and Apple apparently have patches they are pushing but at the expense of up to a 30% hit in performance.

My first thought was that the "bug" was no accident--it sounds like a complete de-pantsing of any device the processors are used on and the only accident was the wider world learning about what the US Department of Dirty Tricks (or the ever-colluding Russians) was up to. That's the conspiracy nut in me talking, but I think everything has a backdoor the nice people in Washington can stroll through when it suits them.

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Chris
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Re: Investments Trade Log

Post by Chris »

jacob wrote:
Thu Jan 04, 2018 3:54 pm
Any insight/opinion on whether the INTC snafu is a temporary set back/quick fix ... or whether this is a structural problem that requires redesigning everything/starting from scratch/class action suits/... ?
There are two issues: Meltdown and Spectre. The first mostly affects Intel, is easier to exploit, and easier to fix in software. The second hits everything, though it is harder to exploit and harder to fix. Since Spectre hits all over, I think it's unlikely Intel will be specifically affected by it. And since Meltdown can be fixed in software, I don't expect a recall of hardware (unlike the FDIV bug). People are used to security patches, and would likely even prefer a software fix for this, since it's less disruptive to them.

Going forward, I would expect both of these to be fixed by hardware redesigns.

George the original one
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Re: Investments Trade Log

Post by George the original one »

Chris wrote:
Thu Jan 04, 2018 8:42 pm
Since Spectre hits all over, I think it's unlikely Intel will be specifically affected by it.
For those who haven't dug into this, Spectre affects AMD & ARM chips in addition to Intel chips, so it's surprising that Wall Street has been gung ho on AMD. ARM chips are used in smartphones and other devices which gives you an indication of how pervasive the problems are.
Going forward, I would expect both of these to be fixed by hardware redesigns.
Redesign will likely delay the next generation a bit, but the companies will be swamped with orders when units are available.

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Re: Investments Trade Log

Post by George the original one »

jacob wrote:
Thu Jan 04, 2018 3:54 pm
Any insight/opinion on whether the INTC snafu is a temporary set back/quick fix ... or whether this is a structural problem that requires redesigning everything/starting from scratch/class action suits/... ?
There will be class action suits. There always are. One Intel executive is already in trouble for selling stock.

bryan
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Re: Investments Trade Log

Post by bryan »

Intel CPUs are the only ones that were truly screwed by Meltdown, but it may still be possible that non-Intel are affected (it's just that no PoC has worked that the public knows about). The current mitigations' effects looks like a small hit on performance for some loads and a bit bigger on others (which means AMD and ARM SoCs gain some edge in some market segments.. until someone can reproduce on those archs at which point they would endure the same sort of performance hit.. but maybe that won't happen until the new product is on the shelves).

Spectre effects most Intel, AMD, and ARM models, but the paper only mentions working PoC on Intel, iir. However, those three have already responded with some admission so I guess their architects replied internally "Obviously this attack probably works, we've warned about it for years! We never claimed to be immune to side-channels like this! Obviously man! Here are the old emails and documentation saying as much." even if there is no PoC exploit. Of course, maybe those companies also wrote their own PoC code or looked into the actual schematics/models of their processors to prove to themselves it is something they must admit to and fix.

I would think ARM will be the fastest to actually fix the class of issues at the HW level and disseminate to their customers (e.g. apple, broadcom,TI, qualcomm, nvidia, etc) and get manufacturing without any delay.

I was surprised to actually see ARM saying they were affected, given their arch was newer and they have shown some modern views on security boundaries (e.g. for memory).

If I were in some specific industries, I would be investing in RISC-V and The Mill developments/architectures.. personally I may take up becoming an expert in those archs and contributing, even. The Mill is an actual modern, from scratch arch that is immune to countless software attacks yet improving performance by a significant margin (whereas RISC-V is just a pretty good lessons learned arch that is BSD-licensed thus cheap and customizable).

So all-in-all, it's a bit hard to tell exactly what the result will be for the companies' financials (will it place more demand on upgrades? lawsuits?). I had a negative outlook on Intel even before this, so this another bundle of hay loaded onto the camel.

In the meantime, keep your shit updated and avoid untrusted or outdated programs (e.g. javascript, parsers), as should have already been your default.

Certainly the modus operandi for the last few decades has been improving performance metrics (per watt? dollar?) above all else. I doubt any of the three will start from scratch or re-design that much, at the risk of falling behind their competitors too much.

bryan
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Re: Investments Trade Log

Post by bryan »

Anyone have a recommendation for an airline to short? My current candidates are Delta, JetBlue, or American.

Not re-initializing my short positions yet.. but have my account flush with cash now. Added to my bear list is Best Buy and Blackberry.

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Chris
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Re: Investments Trade Log

Post by Chris »

Why are you looking to short an airline?

Due to consolidation, the majors aren't showing an appetite for pricing wars, and they aren't overextending their route networks. Planes keep getting cheaper and cheaper to operate. Passenger loads are expected to increase. OPEC is having a hard time controlling the market price of oil. And those are just the broad factors. It's a very different business than it was a decade ago.

Let's look at Delta specifically:
- Revenue is more diversified with incremental fees: baggage fees, wifi, etc.
- More cabin options allows them to capture incremental revenue from passengers (Economy->Comfort+) and thwart LCCs (Basic Economy)
- Co-brand credit cards: they pull-in $3B annually from Amex
- They own a refinery, which tempers some fuel pricing effects (compared to their competitors)
- Great brand improvement, positioning themselves as a top tier operator (better margins)
- European carriers (Alitalia, AirBerlin) heading for the grave helps gain marketshare on their trans-Atlantic routes (more profitable than domestic)
- Smartly attacking their previous partner in SEA, Alaska, while Alaska tries to digest Virgin
- Investment-grade credit rating allows them to more cheaply invest than their competitors (except SW)

So yeah, unless you're expecting a shock to occur -- terrorist, plane crash, strike -- soon, I think there are better short candidates out there.

bryan
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Re: Investments Trade Log

Post by bryan »

That's fair. For Delta specifically, they have mile rewards that don't expire. I'm not sure how they account for those.. (I would assume this would be bad for them as it means a higher likelihood of being redeemed, though any program can inflate reward points away instead of just expiring them..). Mostly I just don't see a bright future for air travel.

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Seppia
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Re: Investments Trade Log

Post by Seppia »

Nobody looking into GE?
I bought a bit at $17.70 average, now at 16.2 or something. They have their earnings in a couple days, I'm rooting for a miss of any sort so it can plunge a bit deeper.
Save for a brief period at the depths of the 2009 crisis, it has never been this low in 20 years.
It seems attractive

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unemployable
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Re: Investments Trade Log

Post by unemployable »

Chris wrote:
Fri Jan 19, 2018 10:06 pm
Why are you looking to short an airline?

Due to consolidation, the majors aren't showing an appetite for pricing wars, and they aren't overextending their route networks. Planes keep getting cheaper and cheaper to operate. Passenger loads are expected to increase. OPEC is having a hard time controlling the market price of oil. And those are just the broad factors. It's a very different business than it was a decade ago.
I agree with this, except that by now load factors are about as high as they can be. You need some slack to cover irrops, missed connections, eqp swaps and the like.

The airlines had their lean years in the early 2000s, between 9/11, the recession then, the multiple bankruptcies, skyrocketing oil and trying to compete with Southwest. United was hours away from a strike that could have forced their liquidation (was a 1K at the time). Another telling sign is they've all gutted their frequent-flyer programs in recent years without consequence. There are only four airlines really, three with a global presence, so where you gonna go?
Last edited by unemployable on Mon Jan 22, 2018 10:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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unemployable
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Re: Investments Trade Log

Post by unemployable »

Seppia wrote:
Mon Jan 22, 2018 7:08 pm
Nobody looking into GE?
I bought a bit at $17.70 average, now at 16.2 or something. They have their earnings in a couple days, I'm rooting for a miss of any sort so it can plunge a bit deeper.
Save for a brief period at the depths of the 2009 crisis, it has never been this low in 20 years.
It seems attractive
Seems like a classic value trap. Their problems will take more than one quarter to sort out. I feel like there is no hurry to buy here.

That's a 3% yield at 16 and plenty of stocks yield 4% plus.

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unemployable
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Re: Investments Trade Log

Post by unemployable »

I'm getting an itching to roll into US smallcaps. Specifically, sell VTIAX buy VSMAX. Retirement account so no tax considerations.

VTIAX outperformed VSMAX 21%-16% last year and is ahead a percent or so YTD. Smallcaps historically outperform the broad market for several fundamental reasons (takeover premium, lack of analyst coverage, law of large numbers working against largecaps) and should especially outperform during bull markets (they have less liquidity and higher volatility). But that hasn't happened yet.

Large-caps do tend to outperform towards the END of a bull market, when the rally gets confined to fewer and fewer stocks. But I'm not sure we're there yet. This has been a broad rally, just one where smallcaps have lagged.

Anyone aware of any research relating to the small-cap underperformance? I do wonder whether the indexing craze is partly to blame, as more money would be definition go into the biggest companies.

I don't think the US market keeps going up without smallcaps participating to a greater extent. This is one reason I also favor international over the US, too.

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Re: Investments Trade Log

Post by jacob »

@bryan - So did you find one to short? Looks like it didn't matter which one today...

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Seppia
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Re: Investments Trade Log

Post by Seppia »

In one of the typical stupid overreactions, SUEZ Environnement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Environnement one of the world largest waste management companies together with Veolia) is falling 15%+ because they forecasted earnings of 1.28 billion euros instead of the consensus 1.31.
I like to take advantage of the market stupid overreactions, so I bought a month and a half worth of salaries @11.89€
Hasn't been this low in 3.5 years

bryan
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Re: Investments Trade Log

Post by bryan »

@jacob, doh, no. I spent more time making coffee in the last few days than trying to figure it out. Initially didn't consider United or Spirit since I am impressed at how willingly people suffer to save a few bucks and those airlines have great expertise in that game. Then again maybe that means they have the most to lose?

edit: I'm leaning toward Meltdown/Spectre actually being a (medium-term) boon for Intel, AMD, et al. I finally updated my old gaming PC (had an OS patch with a fix for one of the variants) and one of the games I play regularly now runs like dog-dookie. So maybe in six months we will see larger than normal number of CPU upgrades (and there's not really many alternatives to Intel/AMD other than in the ultrabook space).

edit #2: confirmed that the "Meltdown fix" in Windows 10 introduced a 40% performance penalty in the game. https://www.grc.com/inspectre.htm is a tool you can use to toggle (reboot required).
Last edited by bryan on Thu Jan 25, 2018 2:12 am, edited 2 times in total.

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