The week wrap.
Friday we were at the close and we sent our Salve Lucrum Family the following recap of the day:
Boys And Girls;
It was a sideways day. Consumer sentiment disappointed and a little rise in Brent Crude. The market closed mixed.
AAPL
During regular hours AAPL did not do much but for the entire day (Before and after hour trading) it was down a hair. This, again, is not unusual for AAPL at the release of a new product. I received my new iPad about 35 minutes ago. It is charging. I assume my position will be cleared this weekend because of the calls I sold against the stock last week. We look to enjoy 13.3% on the sale. Now of first trade in this series began on February 6. So annualized, it would be a 127.8% gain including the premium we took for the sale of the call. If anyone wants the details on the trade, drop me a note. Now the question is, do we get back in?
MSFT
A Little soft in today's trading but I can see no good reason.
XOM
Oil was up a bit so XOM was up a bit.
CELG
In line with a mixed market.
UNFI
Off a full point. Not sure why?
GWW
This to was off a full point and them some. I think this might have to do with the Monthly and Quarterly Options cleaning up. Remember when options expire, there is usually a lot of trading to cover margin positions. My guess is there were a lot of PUT positions that were expiring on the 17th so people had to sell stocks to fill the options trades. In reality it might have been a quick buying opportunity. We will also be called out of this position at a 7.4% gain. Our first trade into this series began on December 22, 2011. That would be an annualized gain of 35.2%.
MGRC
In line with the market, no news. Let's start our own news. This is the kind of company Buffet would love. He could probably grab it for $39 a share. Let's see if that get's the needle moving.
ACET
In line, no News.
Lingo Alert:
Sideways means there was not strong commitment by the market either up or down.
Consumer Sentiment might seem self explanatory, but in case. The University of Michigan's Consumer Survey Center questions 500 households each month on their financial conditions and attitudes about the economy. Consumer sentiment is directly related to the strength of consumer spending. Consumer confidence and consumer sentiment are two ways of talking about consumer attitudes. Sometimes you'll hear this referred to as the Michigan Survey or The Conference Board's survey.
The marketClosed Mixed. That means at least one of the three key market indexes (NYSE, NASDAQ, or DOW) closed down while the others closed up or vice versa.
Brent Crude. The energy industry gauges the price of oil by three indexes. The West Texas Intermediate, Brent Crude and the Opec Basket. Brent Crude aka Brent, London Brent, is sweet light crude (Unrefined) from the North Sea. The name came from an early Exxon Royal Dutch field named after the Brent Goose. WTI or West Texas Intermediate aka Texas Light Sweet (Light and sweet refer to the oil density and sulfur content. Light has a lower density and sweet indicates it is low in sulfur.) The Opec Basket is a price index for the weighted value of oil from all the OPEC nations. WTI and Brent are the most commonly mentioned oil price indexes. There is usually a gap between the two and it is explained by speculation, oil composition, logistical issues. The delta is about 5-15% on any given day. If you want to play the commodity, you might want to look at the BNO ETF for Brent and USO for the WTI ETF.
ETF. Exchange Traded Fund. A security that tracks an index, a commodity or a basket of assets like an index fund, but trades like a stock on an exchange. ETFs experience price changes throughout the day as they are bought and sold. You can also sell them short and most have options plays as well.
Drop me a note if I used some vernacular that you did not understand and I will splain it.
Brian
Focus on Housing
Some weeks we have economic data points all over the map. We might have production numbers, inflation numbers, retail numbers, and 10 other relevant categories. This week, we have a bunch of housing and housing numbers to pay attention to.
Now the main thing to keep in mind is that most of the Swammie's and the Casino Managers (analysts and fund managers) are expecting improvement in many if not all of these numbers. We hope they are right. If you go way back to November 2009, right here in this blog, we said in order for the market to get back to a confirmed sustainable bull market we would need improvement in the housing numbers and the employment numbers. The employment numbers have show a slightly upward trend over the last four months. If we can get more stabilization in the housing sector, we could see that 15,000 in the DOW everyone keeps yackin about.
Monday we have the National Association of Home Builders produces a housing market index which is based on a survey in which respondents from this organization are asked to rate the general economy and housing market conditions. We have had 5 months of increases in the number and we are expecting one more.
Tuesday we have the mortgage application numbers which we get every week. We also have existing home sales. Self explanatory, but in case it is the number of homes and condos and like structures that have closed their transactions over the last month, in this case February. There is a small upward movement expected.
The FHFA house price index is out and it is expected to drop. Now believe it or not that makes sense since the Fed settle with all of the big banks and they must clean up their balance sheets so they must begin unloading home in their inventory of foreclosed sales. More inventory almost always means lower prices, just like Walmart.
Friday we have the new home sales numbers and that too is expected to go up a bit.
If all of this comes to fruition, we should see a very positive week in the market. If we have some negative surprises, then it could be a good week to sell call options.
Salve Lucrum
