Monday, December 27, 2010

Looking Ahead 2011

Winding down 2010 and looking ahead to 2011
Im sort of mixed in my feelings and almost i should say BLANK about 2011, Every body around is predicting good retail sales over holidays, more momentum in industrial output, growing emerging markets, rate hikes in china, higher oil prices all indicate we are looking towards growth
Its a good story to beleive in
Im although as i said BLANK, i will stay on side lines for the first couple of weeks in January and wait and watch how things shape up.
My top sectors to watch for 2011 with good growth prospects are
XLF - Financials / FAS for risk takers
XLV - Financials
XRT - retail
FAA - Airline stocks after Oil plateaus
XLK - Tech is cheap and is really cheap
Combine this with Internationals which you are comfortable and knowledgeable about
May it be
Brazil, Turkey, India, China, Austria, Singapore, Malaysia,South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Canada
whichever is your most favorite country play some exposure there would complement a US domestic.
For 2011, i do expect the internationals to look at US domestic and feel US is cheap and good area to invest, i expect may Emerging and Soverign funds flowing money into US which could help drive US equities up
Shorting TLT , buying TBT will be good trade
Buying metals such as SLV and PALL could be good trades, some gold will be ok , i prefer silver and palladium
What are some of your thoughts ?

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Finally Obama Pulls Through - Cave in is some times nice

Thanks Mr. President, Finally caving in does feel sweet

Extension of Bush tax cuts for 2 more years
Preserving capital gains and dividends tax rate
Estate inheritance upto 5M no tax
Support for small business
Last but not least - reducing FICA to 4.2% - a 2 %r reduction
Is this too good to be true,
If parts of this passes before the congress breaks off i would be extremely happy -
This is a good sign and a setup for a STRONG JANUARY in 2011
2010 has been a blessed year with the volatility and corrections in February, June/July and Late August yet at a YTD double digit returns its been a good ride,
I would take a 10% year like 2010 with the bumps in the road any day over a 2009 or 2008
Hopefully the market keeps healthy volatility in 2011 and provides opportunities for all segments of investors
I still honestly feel the broader Equity market is undervalued with the Tech bell weathers still trading at 10-20 P/E, tons of cash on books, strong cash flow, earnings growth, certainly feel there are under valued segments in the market vs over heated segments such as Cloud, virtualization, boutique niche product providers in consumer space may it be a Burrito, Ugg Boots, Streaming video inverstors are cheering these segments shying away from companies like CSCO or INTC

The three domestic US sectors i would like to research for the next year
are

Financials - XLF
Health Care - XLV
Tech - XLK






Tuesday, October 5, 2010

SuperStar Super Movie -

Endhiran Vizha -
Finally the most awaited movie of the year is on screens
the movie more than any thing is an experience the whole shabangs of prepping going and watching the movie, Great feeling --
Check this article -
http://www.slate.com/id/2267820/
Hope you all enjoyed it, never seen this kind of crowd for a tamil movie in the US , have to say first time ....

Friday, October 1, 2010

Run in India

Markets in India

Have you been witnessing the phenomenal run in india compared against any emerging market country since 3rd quarter the run in india is unstoppable
the main reason is not retail investor participation, infact retail investor has a next to nothing participation.
a telling sign is ALL indian banks are CASH RICH RICH and trading at record high levels with very high reserves and ton of cash common people are having money in bank
FIIs are FLOWING money like crazy into india,
the big question is WILL the retail investor come out and start moving money from Banks into equities after this run or are they going to be cautios form the 2008 burn and stay out
if they participate we are going to see a run all the way up to 25,000 BSE by mid 2011.
Your thoughts ?

Sada

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Emerging Markets - India and ETFs - is this the way to go ?

Emerging Markets
We understand the emerging markets have run up a lot talk about BIC, are second satellite emerging countries , i try to call them the EMERGING Small Caps such as Austria, South korea, South Africa, Turkey etc have also run up a quite a bit
Given such a scenario, with the US domestic market in a Head and shoulder pattern are there real opportunities in Emerging markets on a PULL back or minor correction
Certainly i think so, watch for a decent 10% correction to come before end of calendar year on the emerging front may be driven by China and entering into a good blend emerging ETFs would be a very good approach

FOllowing are some of the good ETFs we are looking at
VWO
EEM
DGS
EDC
BKF
BIC

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

SKY High Analysis - Satellites and Retail Trending by Hedge and Wall St Funds -

Recently i was watching my morning CNBC routine and caught this on my radar which i thought was cool
http://www.cnbc.com/id/38722872/New_Big_Brother_Market_Moving_Satellite_Images
Hedge fund and Analysts are now using Satellite, Geo Imaging to trend parking lots of large box retailers where the observe number of cars and trend quarterly earnings, consumer activity
I think it was a very cool idea
now we can predict where and when the consumers are going, next thing we can predict
What kind of cars go to Costco, -Macys, Walmart, Best Buy etc and correlate economic demographic to stores and create patterns of usage and predict earnings.
Google earth after all not seems to be bad idea now
Historically there have been many methods
Number of Trailer trucks in I81 or other interstate corridors which showed movement of goods
this just takes to a new level
Before you know there might be drone satellites surveying expensive, affluent high income earning ZIP CODES , thanks to Loudoun,Fairfax, Montgomery,Prince Williams,Howard we can expect many more drone satellites trying to analyze and sell services or study behavior for consumer activity.
Interesting ~~~~~~


Sunday, June 13, 2010

Support and Resistance levels

Support and Resistance levels and Rangebound trading
We hear every one talking about this, what does this mean, is there some element behind these numbers, i was skeptical so i began to watch how the market behaves around these levels
Currently lets assume the range for SP500 is between 1040 to 1110
what we need to watch is to see how the buyers get into the market when SP 500 is at 1040 and how sellers / institutions get out to book profits when it flirts around 1110
If thats how we are going to be until end of the year it presents opportunities to book to 20 to 30% returns in a calendar year if we have 3 cycles such corrections
So far in CY2010 we have had 2 .
Feb 2010 - first week
April 23-26th 2010
Im not sure the current correction we are in is over and we are headed towards 1110 SP500 and 11,000 DOW ( thanks AA DOW 30 is a drag now)
But when we do there is a great opportunity to make use of range bound market activities.
Since MARCH 2009, we have had 4 such corrections - July 2009 , Oct/Nov 2009, Feb 2010, May 2010
So its a matter of PURE PATIENCE and not getting swayed by market movements

Thursday, May 6, 2010

WHAT A DAY ---- DID YOU USE THE OPPORTUNITY

What a day guys
amidst all the technology trading companies my little SHAREBUILDER - thanks to costco
ROCKED, every one of my trade went through fine
what about you guys ?

Monday, May 3, 2010

Flirting at Highs and Searching for Value

Overpriced Equities and Searching for undervalued picks
I guess this is a constant struggle for any investor, looking at the current trends and politics beating stocks down, im beleiving that the following equities are good 6 month long plays
GS
BRKB
BP
C
I was talking about the line up refresh in CROCS for this summer /spring - already up today by 6% so i add that to my watch cluster
CROX
Any body any reads on ANF ?
the high brand maker is a good flirt when the economy rebounds just like people craving to buy Estee lauder perfumes

Also i was looking into REDBOX and see numbers behind it
CSTR that owns redbox already shot up, i was looking into Netflix/nflx and hping to catch a wind in coinstar but the wind is blowing very very hard
Just watch it closely
GS
BRKB
BP
C

Activity players
CROX
ANF
UA
CSTR
NFLX

Pls share your thoughts --

Monday, April 5, 2010

Flirting with 11000 and marching towards 12000

Are we going to hit the 11000 mark today and march forward ?
Speaking of emotions i posted i liked Panera and Chipotle food , look at where they are today
Emotions , Instinct and Gutt are some times good some times bad

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Crossing 11000 - Is there a 10-15% pullback ahead?

Easter Break
Heading into a 11,000 breaking streak in the markets , i think the snow storm of early february in midatlantic was a good gift from nature.
With streets piled on snow and nothing else to do, it gives some time to research, Feb 8,9,10 were good days to getback on feet into allocation exposure in equities into the market
With that said, are we going into the cherry blossoms and should trim equity exposure say by 25% across the portfolio ?
I think it may not be a bad idea after all,
The only predictable route to make money today is selling puts on AAPL i guess !!!
i dont subscribe to the ITAB hype, but the market seems not to care about it and rides on emotional attachments.
I strongly the beleive the consumer casual dining market will have a good run in the next 3 to 6 months, brands that interest me are -
WEN
PNRA
CMG
MCD
BKC
YUM
Panera and chipotle i think are overbought but i like their food - damn emotion plays in again !!!!!

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

How are we doing a year later from the bottom of the market

Sorry i have been on the hiding for a while - just been generally doing nothing but always calling busy like most of us :)
So from March first week 2009 till date March 2010, what and how are we doing ?
US Economy
Global economy
Asian macro and micro economies
I want to hear from you all - what your strategies in the past 1 year has been, how have you fought the crash of 2008 , have you recovered, any strategies to share ?
What to plan for 2010 ? - Chopppy year no question, Opportunities abundant - i think so --
we are down 2 months and 10 more to go, major indexes are in red still amidst recent rallies,
Are you catching correction dips in July 2009, November 2009 and January 2010,
Was there good returns on those catches ?
throw some thoughts to brainstorm --

Im interested to hear from you all --