Ended up just applying for the Sapphire Preferred straight away and was instantly approved. I don't know why I was surprised. I have above average credit, two CCs in good standing with Chase, and a bank account with them for almost 7 years. They also gave me a $16K credit limit which did surprise me, given that my other two cards had $7K between the two of them in limits. It will do wonders for my utilization ratio. I'm planning on paying off the Slate balance over the next 2 periods and closing it.
Sold off all of my holdings today beyond my one long term investment. It's going to be a big downhill slope forcing the Fed to either eat the downturn and scale back on buying bonds, or continue the program in which case we will see a huge spike back to last weeks levels. The most maddening part about all of this is the idea this decision really makes an impact in the overall market and isn't some scapegoat the MM's use to manipulate prices.
Opened up a large position a couple days ago in INO. This is one of those companies that's doing novel drug work and could easily become a $20-30 stock overnight. SUPER cheap at the moment and worth a look if nothing more than a thousand share Christmas present.
I have no ties to Biopharma whatsoever. The reason I focus on it so much is the barrier for entry to own large positions doesn't exist like it does in different sectors. For example, in the Tech sector, there aren't many $10 and under stocks that have any surprises or any possibility for large share price growth. Most "normal" people who are trading don't have the money to open large positions in high share price, growth companies. Even some of my past trades I've mentioned on here, the Netflix one in particular, was a HUGE one for me. I was highly confident in it, took the risk and wish I had more money to put towards it as I was correct in my DD, but I can't work the position like I could if it was a $5 stock. I just don't have the money available to do so. With a stock like $INO that's trading around $1-2, I can easily build a position over time. I can buy dips, sell a little off for profits, and not tie up all of my money while doing so. Just an aside in response to a rep comment, all of the money I trade with is extra money I've put aside to use specifically for trading. This is not my rent money or my 401k/IRA money. If I happen to make some bad trades and lose a good chunk of my bankroll, it won't affect my daily life. I do this for extra cash, but more so for the financial knowledge I use in my real world job. Being able to read a 10k and being able to interpret what the information is saying and what effect it is going to have on the company is something everyone should know.
I don't know if any of you have been following the whole Ichan vs Ackman thing, but it's reached new heights of hilarity. To see multi-billonaire hedge fund managers basically having a high school "fight" in the lunch room is hysterical. Now with Soros jumping into the party, it just keeps getting better. Anyone else surprised to see Facebook have one good quarter and pop back to their IPO price?
Facebook is the new Yahoo. You can only buy so many of your competitors, add so many features, and integrate with your customers so much before they revolt. Is it a photo sharing site? A message forum? There are better sites that integrate and just need a small bump in internet traffic before they gain traction in the market. I don't see FB being relevant in 5-10 years. Now Amazon, on the other hand, pretty much invented e-commerce and is revolutionizing logistics with same day delivery. I always thought shipping costs would keep them from being competitive with brick and mortar retailers, but they're clearly poised to dominate market share.
I don't have money to invest but if I did Amazon would be on the top of the list, same day delivery, same day delivery of fresh local groceries, cloud services and upcoming original programing on Prime are all a few reasons why it would be a great investment.
Their Cloud Services and S3 stuff is where its at. Theyre making a killing with that, and theyre doing it better than their competitors (mainly IBM).
McMaster-Carr has been doing same-day deliveries near their warehouses since at least 2000. Order by 11 am, it's delivered by 3 pm. They are the premier industrial supply vendor. Good to see that Amazon is offering it now too.
I'd be wary of investing anything into Amazon at the moment. Although it doesn't look like a huge deal, the addition of sales tax is a huge challenge that needs to be looked at. Even bigger than that, slowly but surely, Bigbox retailers are starting to shore up their websites, D2C channels, and same day shipping. The biggest knock against most retail stores was limited selection, better pricing online, and ease of shopping online. With many retail places starting to offer shipping straight to their local stores, easier policies on price matching, and an ease of shopping online but dealing locally, the grip Amazon had on online shopping is going to start to loosen. A few trades of interest. I've been aggressively moving in and out of $INO. This stock has been all over the place, but it's very easy to snipe some quick profits on both ends if you pay attention to how the stock is trading. I've flipped this thing more in the past 5 trading sessions than I've done with any other stock I've invested in. I don't usually buy a stock based solely on buyout rumors, but with the knowledge of the company putting the screws to $SLTM, I'm confident it's just a matter of time before they are sold. VOCE capital is an absolute barracuda when it comes to leveraging a company to sell. They've done it numerous times, the last being $OMPI who finally sold after continuous pressure. I don't expect $SLTM to sell for a huge premium from their current stock price, but I could easily see them go for $4-5. If you told me I could give you $2k and in 6-8 months you'd give me back $5k, I'd be more than happy to do so. $ZEX.V They are getting closer and closer to realizing the amount of shale oil they are sitting on and being able to extract it. It's still trading for pennies, but this is one of those, when it hits, it's going to run into the $50-100 range real quick. If you take a $300 flier at this level, you wouldn't be making a bad investment.
Dipped my wick into some $HALO today. Huge amounts of insider buying and an option chain that is getting torn up all across the board. If we don't see a huge down turn in the overall market, I'm seeing $9-$10 by late September/early October.
Anyone on here trade Forex? There are two main reasons I am leaning towards that over equities- 1) The market is too large to be manipulated by speculation. World news is much more accessible than a particular company. 2) For all intents and purposes, currencies don't default. I know there are exceptions to this, but I feel 10x more secure with my money in a country than a corporation.
You had better know what you are doing if you are going to trade currencies. I dabbled a bit here and there and I got wiped out quite a few times before I realized that I didn't have enough knowledge of how certain geopolitical events affect currencies. On top of that, instead of being able to DD on one specific company, you literally have to track hundreds of total economies and be able to decipher how all that information is going to change the rates for the day. If you are interested in FOREX trading, I'd suggest trading some of the OTC penny stocks. There are a bunch out there that trade in the .000x-.0000x range that somewhat mimic the kinds of moves you'll see in currency trading. The upside is you won't be able to buy at 100% margin and lose your shirt if a trade goes bad.
I'm not sure if this is the proper thread for this, but fuck it. I'm looking for information on refinancing my house. I currently have an FHA loan, and closed on my house in 2010. I would like to find out if there are any FHA streamline refi loans that don't require MIP, since that seems to be the main cause of my headache in refinancing since the premium went sky-high... From what I can tell, there might be, but I am not sure where to start. I'd be OK with a traditional refi as well, but I don't know if that's possible due to how much I owe, versus how much the house is valued at. Help?
I wouldn't trade currencies. Based on what's going on in Asian economies, it's getting impossible to predict. Hedge fund managers that do it for a living are losing money. If you do decide to, get in and get out, holding when trading futures is a big mistake. I started getting into commodity futures, and holy Christ is it a different animal than regular stocks.
Got out of my $HALO a few days ago after it touched $11 for a few days. In what may be amazing news, I got this email alert today. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/article/2013-10-07/aqH14Ow7BROg.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.bloomberg.com/article/2013-1 ... 7BROg.html</a> Christmas may come early this year.
FHA now requires monthly MIP for the life of the loan, so in answer to your question, No there is not. You may want to go with a conventional loan even if you or over 80% loan to value and need Mortgage Insurance, as the rates on that are less than fha. Currently FHA monthly mortgage insurance (MIP) is Loan amount x .0135/12=monthly MIP If you have 10% equity depending on credit scores and loan term on a conventional loan your monthly premium should be half of that or less and cancel when you have 20% equity.
Any idea when this will open back up? I've got a few extra bucks laying around I was thinking of investing in.
No idea why it's been held this long. *edit And now I just found out why. They bought out another company's assets and now are a pretty big player in shale oil. I don't know when the stock will reopen, probably this morning, but it would behoove you to jump in sooner than later. I honestly thought they were going to be bought out by someone else, so for them to be buying another company, that's a very bullish move for their future.