January 15, 2011, 1:59 am
Coinstar Inc. (NASDAQ: CSTR) is an automated retail solution company mainly operational in the United States and Canada. Coinstar also operates in Mexico, Ireland, the United Kingdom and Puerto Rico. The company is involved in the business of owning and operating self service machines that are used for counting coins. The company also installs and operates DVD kiosks and is the parent company of Redbox.
Coinstar shares plunged on the release of preliminary earnings guidance and sales figures. The company has revised both the metrices downward, expecting revenue for the fiscal fourth quarter to increase 31% over the last year. The company expects the revenue to be $391 million. Coinstar earlier provided the guidance in the range of $415 million and $440 million.
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January 14, 2011, 9:32 am
Is it possible to time the market? Can you buy or sell the market at the appropriate time? Can you choose the right time to get bullish or the time to go bearish with your trades? Financial advisers have been warning investors that you should NOT try to time the market. They say it isn’t possible. They recommend instead that you diversify your holdings into different categories: stocks, bonds, cash, real estate, precious metals, commodities, for example.
Why you should diversify?
If you diversify your holdings, you will limit your losses – if you pick the right investments. Unfortunately, you will also reduce your gains. You will also reduce the volatility and variability of your returns. You need to include enough risk or you won’t earn enough to reach your goal.
A diversified portfolio should be diversified at two levels: between asset categories and within asset categories. For e
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January 13, 2011, 7:54 pm
We are running a little late today because we wanted to see how the market would hold up going into the afternoon. The bulls have managed to push the indexes to fresh session highs after a slow start and the bulls look poised to capture another weekly win.
One interesting development, the Volatility Index (VIX, 15.73, down 0.66) is down more than 4% to a new three-week low. For those of you who are new or unfamiliar with the VIX, it is an index that measure fear in the market.
A rising VIX means the market is nervous while a falling VIX is good for the bulls. Usually, a reading under 20 indicates confidence and calm while a reading above 30 indicates the bears are in control.
There is one stock we would like to cover before we roll out today. Biodel (BIOD, $2.80, up $0.30) is up another 10% following yesterday 25% pop. We profiled this company in our Weekly Wrap on Sunday night and said it could be active this week. We aren’t ready to jump back into the name just yet but we are keeping our eyes on it.
As we head to press, the Dow is higher by 40 points to 11,772 while the S&P 500 is up 6 points to 1,290. The Nasdaq is showing an advance of 12 points to 2,747. We have more good news regarding our current trades so let’s get to the updates.
January 12, 2011, 6:25 pm
Since hitting a low last July, the benchmark Reuters-CRB Index of 19 commodities has surged 29%. The widely followed CRB Index is now at its highest level since the credit crisis but remains 29% below its all-time high recorded in July 2008.
Commodities are hot, red hot. You could say we’ve entered the “super-spike” phase over the last six months, triggered by the Fed’s desire to print more currency and grow inflation. Just about everything in the complex has been rocketing since last August.
Other catalysts contributing the super-spike include major flooding in coal-producing Queensland, Australia; the worst crop harvests in decades in several countries and rising inflows from ETFs into new base metal funds and other raw materials.
Grain prices have now gained more than 50% since bottoming earlier last summer and the stakes are growing as governments are forced to control rapidly rising food costs.
Food riots are erupting once again with protests turning violent in Algeria last week. The Chi
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January 10, 2011, 8:09 am
Options – Buying and selling Strategies, Profit as well as Risk
Risk is not inherently bad. Without it, there would be much fewer opportunities to make money. In particular, there would end up being no options market whatsoever. No one would have to theorize on price path or other factors, because risk always suggests uncertainty about the long term.
But risks are available in different flavors as well as degrees. Let’s look at some trading methods with an eye towards risk…
Long Calls
The simplest options trade, the main one usually first performed by investors shifting beyond stock or even bond investing, may be the long call. The call is a agreement that confers the right to purchase an underlying instrument in a set price, the actual strike price. With
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January 9, 2011, 2:21 pm
ITT Corp. (NYSE: ITT) shares are up after the company announced plan to divide itself into three publicly traded businesses. At last check, the stock was up 16.20% to $61.33 on high volume of 11.82 million shares. It set a new 52-week high of $64.00 earlier in the session. (NYSE:ITT), (ITT)
Telestone Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ: TSTC) is up 4.46% to $7.96, on above-average volume of 1.88 million shares, turning around yesterday’s decline when news of fraud allegations rang out. (NASDAQ:TSTC), (TSTC)
Strategic Diagnostics Inc. (NASDAQ: SDIX) is up 43.01% to $2.66 on news that its RapidCheck Salmonella test has been determined by the FDA to be equivalent to current standard methods for poultry house environmental drag swabs and pooled egg testing. The stock set a new 52-week high of $3.13 in early trading. (
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