Also, a little tangential, but worth asking, is the college fund your folks have for you some sort of investment account or is it just a pure savings account? If it's the former then you may consider (each individual situation is different, check with your own financial adviser)taking out loans and then paying them back with the college fund after it has had some more years of growth.
Small updates: Bought back into my Netflix position this morning and promptly sold it in AH. Saw that earnings beat from a mile away and it blew past my price target by almost 10 bucks. I might pop back into the stock if it drops under $200 again and play the same position leading up to their next earnings. I think the release of Arrested Development is going to put a nice cherry on top of what is turning out to be a banner year for NFLX. Sold my shares of $LULU today as well. It hit my price target and blew by that as well, but I missed some upside and probably should have held onto this for a few more weeks. Regardless, made another nice profit today. Holding a small bag on $AVEO, but awaiting a catalyst from them that will easily move this stock well past my price target. With the sudden influx of cash I'm heavily weighing buying into Apple after earnings tomorrow. I have a buy order for a few shares @ $355. I know this is a risky trade as they've been in a free fall the past 6 months, but I'm under the impression that they are going to break out of this down trend funk come Q3/Q4. We will see if that turns out to be true. Opened a rather sizable position in $DARA @.75. Looking for it to hit $1.18 in the next 1-3 months. Added to my core position of $ATRS. I'm so bullish on this stock in the next 12 months, I'm putting a lot of cash trying to accumulate as many shares as I can within reason. If there was one "sure thing" stock I could suggest it would be this one. It's not going to make huge moves like most bio-pharma's, but I can see it making steady, strong gains for the foreseeable future.
Bought a little $AGEN this morning. Looking for $6.50 in 1-3 months. Biopharma is on fire and I don't see it cooling down any time soon.
Biotech and pharma are usually always good bets, especially since the FDA stopped dragging its feet on a lot of stuff. Im cautiously optimistic about a rebound in natural gas exploration. Well see...
Good luck with the small-cap biotech trades. Never been good at handicapping drug success. What gives you confidence in these stocks? Do you understand the composition? What do you understand that the market doesn't?
First off, most of the stocks in the biopharma space I only day trade. There is almost nothing in the space I'd be comfortable owning long term, save the one stock I mentioned in my last post. Biopharma is actually really easy to understand. It's somewhat a rumor/catalyst run market space. Although the actual drugs are important, the run ups to FDA decisions, NDA's, and drug trial announcements is really the space you want to trade in. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.biopharmcatalyst.com/fda-calendar/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.biopharmcatalyst.com/fda-calendar/</a> This site has a list of all the catalyst dates for all the major exchanges. It's invaluable in figuring out what stocks to bounce in and out of and when to start accumulating a position. If you look, quite a few of the stocks I've mentioned have major catalysts this year. A very important thing to understand about this market as well is who will the drug benefit and what is the market for the drug. For instance, a huge cancer drug may show great results, but there might be another drug already in the space that does something similar and does it far cheaper. In that case, insurance companies will push for the usage of the cheaper drug and the better drug might turn out to be a bust. If you want a prime example of this, look at the 2yr chart for $DNDN. This is what happens when you don't look at the bigger picture of a drug a company has approved. There are A LOT of people who got absolutely wrecked with this stock. ALWAYS look at the price point of any drug a company is trying to get approved and also look at how much of the TRUE market they can capture. I've seen too many drug companies tout that if their drug gets approved they are going to start turning 300 million in profit, yet realistically, they may capture 2% of the market and make 4-5 million. Partnerships/Debt management is another key component. Most micro caps don't have the money to push their drugs even if they are fantastic. They look for bigger companies to partner with to push their products and they each get a share of the profits. Micro companies who have a lot of partnerships with big name companies is a good sign. One caveat to this, make sure the company isn't giving away the farm. Another major mistake most small companies make is giving away all their profit to a bigger company and they are left with the crumbs from all their patents. Another thing to look at is their debt load. A company that has huge amounts of debt isn't unusual for micro caps as it takes a major amount of money to do research. With that said, keep an eye on how they've managed that debt. If every time they need money they dilute their shares or make some toxic financing moves that will forever keep their stock price low, there is little that will move the stock price in a positive manner. The last thing, there is major "manipulation" that goes on in the micros. It's sort of the seedy back alley space of the market. With stock prices being as low as they are, it's easy for a big MM to move a price or churn shares without major risk to their overall portfolios. If you have access to Level 2 trading (which you should if you plan on day trading) after watching a stock for long enough you start to see the trading patterns and start to understand where the stock is going to move and how a typical trading day goes. This is crucial as it allows you to make moves in and out of a stock when you see certain trading patterns and also chart technicals that benefit the positions you are holding. One more thing. Unless you are 100% sure of a failure because your brother works as the CEO of a company... NEVER EVER EVER EVER try to short a micro cap biopharma. If you think a stock is going to drop, play the option chain. Playing the short side is a recipe for disaster.
I'm a financial analyst (specifically stocks), so I understand your methods. When you just started throwing picks out there in the biopharm space is what had me worried. My ideal strategy for biopharma is to basket trade them to fill your allocation (5-10% of portfolio). The theory is, some will do really well - multi-baggers - and some will do horrible. In 2010, I did this with these stocks... CYTK ACAD ACHN ARIA GNVC NBIX ZGEN Up 260% since that date. Haven't figured out how to backtest it yet though. Nearly impossible because literally all I am doing is looking at sub $300mm mkt cap. companies and looking through their pipelines. Then I pick the ones with the largest addressable market and try to find ones that are working on multiple trials/diseases. It's an interesting space, that's for sure.
Not sure if this is a question that's too broad for this thread, but how would you invest 1.5 million? Say you're mid-late 30's with a small 401K, small IRA and make a decent living so you don't technically *need* the money. Can some of you more financial savy people shoot holes in this idea; Buy 8-10 houses outright, rent those out, save the rental income until you can buy another house outright, rinse, repeat. It seems like a win-win situation. As your investment increases in value, you're also getting dividends every month. Eventually you'd probably need a property management company that'll take about 10% of the rental income and have to deal with a crappy tenant from time to time but those are the only cons I can see.
First and foremost pay off every and all outstanding debt, especially CC debt. Once that's settled, do NOT dump all the money in one vehicle (i.e. real estate). If the 1.5M is a windfall (inheritance, lotto win, large bonus, etc.), hold it for 6 months without touching in. Anyone who suddenly comes into that needs to take time to get used to having that amount of money in their account first without blowing it all. Personally, I would diversify this way: -Max out all IRAs/savings accounts and set aside enough cash to max them out annually for the next 10 years ($17600 I think is the max). -10% into an Index Fund I like, but not without doing some heavy research into an industry/market I know and will be interested in. -20% into some real estate, maybe buy up a small complex and renovate if needed. Do the proper due diligence before buying any real estate. -Set aside 100K cash for a rainy day. -Take the rest, put into a high interest/limit savings account and just live off of the interest assuming you continue to work (Interest at 500-750K will be 30-35K a year for doing nothing.) You could comebine the rainy day fund with the remaining principle, but I like spitting things up based on purpose. This is a fairly conservative approach and I'm not a trader, so others might favor a more aggressive strategy.
Unless you want to work full time, you're going to need a management company right off the bat for 8-10 houses. There goes your margin. Not to mention you're sinking a million into a single sector. From a cash flow perspective, it's not bad but you still have the huge risk of the proprty values plummeting. But I think you're severely underestimating the work involved.
I'm wanting to buy a house soon but don't went to spend a lot of money. I hear about people buying land and homes where taxes are owed. Is there some sort of listing or office where I would be a le to find this information? How do I go about buying something like this? Is there an auction?
Whatever town/city your in will have a public listing of properties with tax liens on them as well as properties that were seized by banks, by the state during drug busts, etc. Problem is, you likely wont find anything decent or diamonds-in-the-rough. Reason being is ever since infomercials started popping up about buying these kinds of properties and then flipping them for profit, the market is grossly over saturated with people jumping on the "me-too" bandwagon. You can go to auction, but the ones that usually make it to auction are the ones that no one wanted out right and they usually end up there after no one wanted them on the regular market (around 90 days or 6 months). If you really want a fixer upper you can go this route, just keep in mind that whatever you buy will either probably be condemned or in shitty areas. Still, if there is a great economic downturn in whatever community youre looking in, you have a better chance of finding something decent. Just be careful and watch out for the brokers that hang out at these auctions and have the listings themselves. Theyre a sketchy bunch.
Ugh. Selling off my $AVEO shares as soon as the halt is lifted. Terrible ADCOM that basically said the drug works, but the trial was run piss poor. This may be a trade I revisit once there is more info on what the company plans to do, but for now, another bio stock crashed and burned. On a positive note, my other holdings are doing well so I can't complain too much about one bad apple in the bunch.
In response to a rep: The drug they were trying to get approved was trialed against an already approved drug as opposed to a placebo. The ADCOMM had some issues with very specific parts of the trial as opposed to whether the drug worked or not. One of the largest was the population of people in study was not diverse enough. Another was a few statistical anomalies that existed that weren't vetted well enough and explained with data as opposed to hypothesis. It basically comes down to the company having a drug that works and is better tolerated than drugs already on the market, but they half assed their presentation and completely bricked on some pretty basic questions from the committee.
What the hell, though. Drug companies are not required to disclose their trial data, the only reason they usually do is they get strong-armed by the journal community. Unless this happens, why volunteer that data and send your stock down a few points? Most of my clients are financial, but one in particular was at the time, a burgeoning bio-tech firm and had a transparency policy to disclose everything. We strongly advised them not to disclose the data when it was an abject failure, especially the early trials. They didnt listen and it sent their stock on a nose dive and nearly ruined the company. They have since had a C-level overhaul and changed their "policy."
Dropped a little bit into $TSRX and I'm looking for the low 10's in 1-3 months. Sitting on most of my cash at the moment as the market is starting to get a bit choppy. I'm looking for the signs that the past week has been just the taking of profits/backing off selling, as opposed to the slight drops before losing complete cabin pressure.
Credit card question for you guys. I currently have a pair of Credit cards with Chase. A Slate and a Freedom. I got the Freedom right when I graduated college and got a card which converted into a Slate shortly after cause I was briefly unemployed and took advantage of the 6 months no interest balance transfer. Now I have good credit (720ish) and a steady cash flow, pay off my balance monthly, and the Slate doesn't do shit for me. No rewards, its just kind of worthless. My original plan was to try to convert cards so I could have a Chase Freedom and a Chase Sapphire Preferred which is more like an American Express with great travel and dining rewards, but Chase isn't really keen on doing that sort of thing and stonewalled me. My question is, if I'm looking to get a better card, am I better off just straight up paying off the balance and canceling the Slate and applying for a new card as opposed to just having it sit dormant?
Technically, yes. But with a credit score of 720, it's not going to do too much more for you. At least not as much as just closing it and getting a better card. You honestly could go either way.
A question for you all: I have a month-old $250 credit card, 12.5% interest, secured with $250 held out of my savings. I'm looking to get a new car, around the $5-6k range, hopefully around the end of the year and no later if at all possible. I have two collections on my history, but I was told they aren't counting as hits against my credit score which I was also told is nonexistent as of a month ago. Now in regard to paying it all off or carrying interest, I've heard it both ways a thousand times each. I'm also considering that buying from a private seller will likely be a better option than a dealer, and since my bank only offers auto loans for dealership buys, I'm going to have to go for a personal loan. I have $2500 I can safely put down as of now, so buying a $6k outright from a private seller in the time frame I'm wanting is not an option. What, in your opinions, is my best bet in regards to payments/carrying interest in order to best build my credit without burning money I could otherwise be saving for a down payment?
Well I can tell you right off the bat, you aren't getting a personal loan for any amount of money from a bank with nonexistent credit. It'll take you at least a year or two to build up enough history to qualify for a personal loan and even then, you'd have a hard time finding a bank that will lend to you. Your best bet, lower your expectations for a car and get something in the $3000-$3500 range and buy it outright. While you are saving the rest of the money for that, I'd take a little of what you have saved already and open another secured card at a different bank. It's probably one of the easiest and safest ways to improve your credit without stretching yourself thin or paying huge interest rates. As far as the balance goes, carry a small balance that hovers around a quarter of your total debt limit. Something in the 30-50 dollar range.