Author Archive

• Skyworks Solutions (SWKS) Beats Estimates, Raises Guidance – But Still Sold Off
  Fund My Mutual Fund, Trader Mark | January 21st, 2010 at 10:04 am

  

  Skyworks Solutions (SWKS) looks like it has done everything right... beat analysts expectations, increased future guidance; but the stock is still being sold off in premarket (as it had been last night in after hours).  It just appears to be an environment where - short of the few names that absolutely are obliterating estmates - "sell the news" is the reaction.  The stock appears to be trading under $14.30 in premarket which would cause some issues in the chart, but let us see if the stock can recapture $14.60 or so today, placing it back over the 20 day moving average.

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• Bookkeeping: Closing Sourcefire (FIRE), Adding to Rackspace Hosting (RAX)
  Fund My Mutual Fund, Trader Mark | January 20th, 2010 at 1:01 pm

  

  Just as watching which stocks are acting poorly on strong days for the market, we can often learn something observing which stocks are acting well in a bad tape.  Today is one of those rare days where the names in green stand out like a sore thumb.

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• Bloomberg: Obama Administration Looks to Annuities to Improve on 401ks
  Fund My Mutual Fund, Trader Mark | January 20th, 2010 at 7:43 am

  

  I've advocated that the 401k plan is going to be revealed as a massive disaster for the private sector American worker - of course many in the private sector never have been exposed to this paradigm shift and enjoy the old school pension plans.

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• First Quarter Fiscal 2010 US Deficit 16% Higher than Record 2009 Levels
  Fund My Mutual Fund, Trader Mark | January 14th, 2010 at 10:02 am

  

  The fiscal deficit black hole carries on, almost ignored by the mainstream media as the numbers are simply too big for the average American to comprehend.  [USDebtClock.org]  Plus, American Idol was on last night.  Despite the green shoots popping up all over Cramerica, somehow the US has a 16% larger deficit in the first quarter of fiscal 2010 (Oct-Dec 2009) versus fiscal 2009 (Oct-Dec 2008) when TARP was launched.  Funny that...

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• Why Telestone Technologies (TSTC) Should Knock Our Earnings Socks Off
  Fund My Mutual Fund, Trader Mark | January 14th, 2010 at 7:45 am

  

  
  If you just fly by this website you might think I am all about technicals; that would not be true.  I am a huge fan of secular growth stories and I try to focus investments on that end.  However, as the years have passed - technical analysis seems to the main driver of many stocks, so I've moved to a much more hybrid model combining technicals and fundamentals.

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• Wyndham Worldwide (WYN) Surges on Analyst Upgrade
  Fund My Mutual Fund, Trader Mark | January 13th, 2010 at 11:55 am

  

  I continue to be amazed at the power of analysts over stocks; especially when anyone who follows the market for years sees how badly analysts are off the mark, and all the conflicts of interest in the industry.

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• Quick Thoughts on Labor Reports
  Fund My Mutual Fund, Trader Mark | January 8th, 2010 at 12:22 pm

  

  As long time readers know, most of the employment data from the US government is extremely suspect so we're not going to analyze most of the report as "garbage in, garbage out" analysis is a waste of time.  We'll wait for the TrimTabs data to get a better look at reality; remember the data from this private firm is generally correct from the get go, whereas the government data is revised over a period of months and indeed quarters to eventually get to the same answer TrimTabs provides immediately.

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• Geithner’s New York Federal Reserve Pressured AIG to Delay Disclosures
  Fund My Mutual Fund, Trader Mark | January 7th, 2010 at 10:32 am

  

  I wrote a few times in 2008 and early 2009 that as historic and mind bending the times we were living through then were, that when all the details of what was happening behind the scenes leaked out in the coming years ... that's where the truly fascinating information would be found.  How short are memories are - all the furor over the direct handout to investment (and other) banks the world over, led by our friends at Goldman Sachs (GS) via AIG swap agreements - is but a distant memory. 

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• Bookkeeping: Adding Back to Gold (GLD) Silver (SLV) as Both Rebound Nicely
  Fund My Mutual Fund, Trader Mark | January 6th, 2010 at 1:18 pm

  

  There was a question if the strength in the dollar we saw in December was a year end "squaring off" or a counter trend move that could last a few months.  Thus far as 2010 unwinds it appears it was more of a year end tactical retrace.  That said, it is not a completely lost case for the dollar yet - after such a quick spike up, one should not expect the any instrument to crash right through a long term moving average, in this case the 200 day.  The currency is still sitting nicely over both the 20 and 50 day moving averages and could be building a consolidation base for the next attempt to push through the 200 day moving average (green line below) - let's keep an eye on it.

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• WSJ: The Treasury Department’s Christmas Eve Massacre of the US Taxpayer
  Fund My Mutual Fund, Trader Mark | January 6th, 2010 at 7:17 am

  

  Long time readers of FMMF know of our calling out warnings of the disaster that was to become of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, or what we call FanFredron (i.e. Enron).  I'll outline some of the history below - but the steps taken on Christmas Eve to open the US taxpayer to unlimited losses for the next 3 years borders on unconstitutional.

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• Rhodium: the New Copper?
  Fund My Mutual Fund, Trader Mark | January 4th, 2010 at 10:14 am

  

  With traditional commodities now completely swamped by (a) the demand whims of the Chinese [May 13, 2009: Commodities - It's China's World: We Just Live in It] and (b) the purchases and techniques of institutional investors i.e. hedgies and investment banks [Feb 12, 2008: Wheat is Being Ruined by ... what else... Hedge Funds and Speculators] - it is much more difficult now to use traditional pricing mechanisms to figure out what is going on in the world.

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• The Perfect Technical Pullback
  Fund My Mutual Fund, Trader Mark | December 30th, 2009 at 10:51 am

  

  It is amazing how predictable things have become.  Yesterday we noted things were a bit overbought and we threw out some of our long index exposure over S&P 1029.  The futures had been up 6 sessions in a row, and we had gapped up each day.  Surely futures would be allowed to open down one of these days?

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• Echelon (ELON) Breaks Over Resistance
  Fund My Mutual Fund, Trader Mark | December 29th, 2009 at 7:56 am

  

  So many of these bullish moves I am seeing in charts are coming on below average volume - it truly is difficult to destruct long formed rules, and chase these names.  Echelon (ELON) is another candidate, from the "smart grid" subsector, I've been watching for a few months.

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