Investing into Stocks - Hello Suckers!

Posted by Martin May 20, 2016
No Comments

Oaktree Capital newspapers News Corporation Times Tribune Gannett

Newspaper Industry is Not Dying; Just Not Investable?

The newspaper industry has experienced steep declines in sales over the past few decades, causing them to be less attractive in the eyes of investors.

Many newspapers have merged, or have been acquired, while others have simply gone out of business. I took a look at a few of the larger companies, and came away with mixed feelings. While their efforts to improve are positive, their financials still are worrisome.

Let’s take a look at some of the happenings in the industry right now.

· Gannett

First up is Gannett (NYSE: GCI), the publishing company that owns USA TODAY. Look no further than the buying binge that it’s been on to see that it is well capitalized as a force in the industry.

Gannett has completed several impressive acquisitions of newspapers throughout the country. They include buying Journal Media Group, which owned the Knoxville News Sentinel, The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, and 13 other newspapers in Tennessee.

Now Gannett has set its sights on Tribune Publishing Company (NYSE: TPUB), which owns the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angles Times and the Orlando Sentinel. Gannett is facing a problem in acquiring Tribune Publishing, however – Tribune Publishing has declined several offers.

The latest offer is $15 per share, which represents a 99% premium to the $7.52 closing price of Tribune’s common stock on April 22, the last trading day before Gannett publicly announced its initial offer for Tribune Publishing. That values Tribune Publishing at roughly $864 million.

On Friday, Gannett sent Tribune shareholders a letter asking them to send a “clear and coordinated message” to their Board that “they expect superior and certain value for their shares and that the Tribune Board should substantively engage immediately with Gannett regarding Gannett’s offer to acquire Tribune for $15.00 per share in cash.

Tribune shareholders will meet on June 2.

When Gannett reported its first quarter revenues for 2016, operating revenues for the quarter were $659.4 million compared to $717.4 million in the prior year, a decrease of $58 million or 8.1%.

It was able to boost digital-only subscriptions by 37%. The company is also enjoying revenue from diversified businesses. That it has acquired and that includes Cars.com and CareerBuilder.com

As far as guidance, the company said it expected full year revenue trends to improve over 2015 driven largely by growth in digital. Advertising revenues were expected to decline in the 5% to 7% range and circulation revenues were expected to decline in the 2% to 4% range.

So while I think Gannett is among the strongest in the business considering its ability to make acquisitions, it will be important to pay attention to how these efforts affect its top and bottom lines.

· Tribune Publishing

On Friday, Tribune Publishing said that Gannett’s statements are misleading. On that same note, Tribune says it is studying the $15 per share offer.

Tribune Publishing boasted $398.2 million of revenue during Q1 2016, which was flat compared to $398.3 million of revenue generated during Q1 2015.

It did suffer from a slip in advertising revenues, which were down 4.4% to $215 million. Circulation revenues of $122 million were up 11.4% in the quarter compared to the prior-year quarter and increased 1.7% from last year. Total digital revenues for Q1 2016 were $55 million, which was an increase of 15% from the prior-year quarter.

Tribune CEO Justin Dearborn said the first quarter results were driven by good momentum in digital and increased circulation revenue offset by a decline in advertising revenue.

To deliver value to shareholders, Dearborn noted that the company was at the “very early stages” of executing its plan to transform the company by increasing monetization of its “important” brands, capitalizing on the global potential of the LA Times, and significantly accelerating the conversion of content to revenue through an enhanced digital strategy.

However, of note is that the company’s second largest shareholder, Oaktree Capital, disagrees with that strategy. The company’s vice chairman, John Frank, noted in a letter, that the turnaround plan is risky and far behind those of competitors in the media business. Saying that the turnaround plan could destroy shareholder value, Oaktree wants Tribune to accept Gannett’s offer.

· News Corporation

News Corporation (NASDAQ: NWSA), which owns The Wall Street Journal, also suffered from a decline in advertising revenues.

It reported its Q3 2016 earnings for the quarter ending March 31 on May 5. Its revenues were $1.9 billion compared to $2 billion for the same period in 2015.
I’d keep an eye on News Corp. because I think its diversification of revenue streams will help mitigate the effects of lower advertising revenue. At the forefront for it is are efforts to improve and expand its digital properties.

· In conclusion

Companies that own newspapers, but that also have diversified products, should be viewed more favorably than those that simply own newspapers. Depending solely on the revenues from newspapers (that are more likely to be used to line bird cages) is a recipe for more disaster for publishing companies. If you sample the newspapers that have gone by the wayside, you’ll likely find that they relied heavily on subscriptions and ad revenue.

Relying on subscriptions is very dangerous considering consumers are cancelling them in droves as they can find their news online. Take the dust up over Facebook this week from critics saying the social media site was blocking conservative news. Newspapers don’t have to be a dying breed. Their owners just have to find other revenue streams, such as those from digital products, and even other businesses, to deliver the best in shareholder value.

We all want to hear your opinion on the article above:
No Comments

Posted by Martin May 19, 2016
No Comments

T-Mobile Sprint wireless communications Charter Communications Comcast Apple Google MVNO

Charter Eyeing MVNO Launch After Time Warner Buyout Closes

Charter Communications (NASDAQ: CHTR) this week officially closed its deal in acquiring Time Warner Cable and Bright House. The natural thought is on how this deal will affect the cable industry. However, there is another benefit that Charter considered in buying Time Warner and it is called an MVNO, and it could be just as profitable than the cable business.

Companies in the wireless space know that investors in their stock are curiously interested about MVNOs and how companies will maximize their use of it. Considering how crowded the wireless space is, anything that a company does to make their services more attractive will add to their bottom lines. That is why investors are looking at MVNOs, or at least they should be.

· MVNO defined

An MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) is a mobile service that operates without its own licensed spectrum, and it may not have the infrastructure to provide mobile service to its customers, according to Webopedia. So basically MVNOs do not own the network on which they provide voice and data traffic. MVNOs lease wireless capacity from pre-existing mobile service providers and establish their own brand names that are different from the providers.

Think Virgin Mobile, which uses Sprint (NASDAQ: S) as its underlying carrier. Virgin Mobile is the MVNO.

Back in 2011, Verizon (NYSE: VZ) saw that there were players in the market that had a high-quality radio spectrum called AWS-1, which is used for data, voice, video and messaging. Those companies included Bright House Networks, Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA), Cox and Time Warner. The companies teamed up and Verizon entered into an agreement to purchase their spectrum.

It is clear that Charter, and any other player in the wireless space that’s worth their salt, understands the value of spectrum. According to FierceWireless, Charter’s CEO Tom Rutledge said at a conference this week that his company can now potentially offer a nationwide wireless service because its Time Warner acquisition gives it access to the same Verizon MVNO agreement as Comcast.

· Comcast working on MVNO

Now that we’ve gotten all of the technical stuff out of the way when it comes and spectrum’s importance, let’s take a closer look at how getting it can help these companies take more market share in one of the most competitive industries around.
All eyes are on Comcast right now as it is expected to introduce its own mobile service, perhaps by the end of the year.

In some circles, Comcast is the industry darling in terms of launching an MVNO service right now because it can largely fulfill the main thing that investors want – capital efficiency. It is estimated to have more than 13 million WiFi hotspots. Other contenders may have considerable costs to incur in developing that many WiFi hotspots to compete with Comcast.

· And then there’s Charter

One of the things I found interesting about Charter’s $66 billion acquisition of Time Warner and Bright House is how it positioned it to be able to make its move into the wireless market…right alongside Comcast. While the company has not outright said it will enter the space, documents from the Federal Communications Commission about the acquisition, which were released May 10, tell another story:

“The applicants contend that the transaction would enable New Charter to be a new entrant in the mobile wireless market by offering mobile products through increased WiFi deployment, the deployment of licensed spectrum or a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) arrangement – and likely through some combination of these.”

As an investor, I would definitely keep an eye on Charter as another player in this growing, and potentially area of wireless offerings. If it does enter the arena, it could effectively compete with Comcast. This is especially the case since the acquisition gives it a considerable number of Wi-Fi hotspots.

At the meeting that I noted above that FierceWireless covered, Rutledge said this.
“In my view, we’re already a wireless company,” adding that a good amount of data is already transmitted wirelessly by customers to Charter’s network.

· Others to watch

The market had anticipated last year that Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) would launch its own MVNO, but it denied it then and seems to still have no intentions of launching one. Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) has launched an MVNO service. It leases network capacity Sprint (NYSE: S) and T-Mobile (NASDAQ: TMUS).

We all want to hear your opinion on the article above:
No Comments

Posted by Martin May 19, 2016
No Comments

Janet Yellen interest rates bond ladder retirement portfolios bond maturities coupons steady cash flow retirement savings

Protect Your Nest Eggs With a Bond Ladder

On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said that interest rates could be raised next month depending on a wide range of factors that can show whether or not the nation’s economy is improving.

In the meantime, investors continue to look for the best ways to spend their money, especially people who are tucking away money for their retirements. While stocks are the most popular investment, especially when it comes to making fast money, if you have patience to watch your nest egg grow, consider bonds.

For this article, I’ll go over bond ladders. I’ll discuss the details of putting them together as an investment strategy. But of course, as with all strategies, check with your financial advisor about whether this is best for you. Stock investments can be tricky, but bond ladders can be particularly tricky, especially for novice investors.

· What’s in a name?

Yellen’s announcement gave a better, sooner indication idea of when interest rates may rise, but it is clear that there is a lot of uncertainty surrounding the future of interest rates and the outlook for bonds. That’s one reason to consider a bond ladder.

As noted by Charles Schwab, “investors often build bond ladders to help generate predictable cash flow and help reduce some of the volatility resulting from rising or falling interest rates.”

Bond ladder portfolios contain bonds with different maturities bonds and coupon payments. They can be reinvested according to the “rungs” that make up the ladder. For example, bonds that are reinvested in the longest rung of the ladder offer higher yields than those bonds that are reinvested in the shorter rungs.

For example, if you had $50,000 to invest in bonds, you could use the bond ladder like this: Buy five different bonds each with a face value of $10,000. In the bond ladder approach, each bond would have a different maturity. One bond may mature in five years, and another may mature in 10 years, but each bond would represent a different rung on the ladder.
Here are some tips to build your bond ladder

· Dealing with falling interest rates

As you know, when interest rates rise, bond prices fall, and when they fall, bond prices rise. So you may wonder how this could affect a bond ladder. In this case, you wouldn’t make as much income as before with the same amount invested.

A bond ladder gives you a framework in which to balance the reinvestment opportunities of short-term bonds with the potentially higher yields that longer-term bonds typically offer, says Richard Carter, Fidelity vice president of fixed income products and services.

And consider this. By using the bond ladder approach and staggering the maturity dates, you won’t be locked into one particular bond for a long duration. A problem that can arise when you lock yourself into a bond for a long duration you can’t protect yourself from interest rate risk, notes Investopedia.

· Here are some tips to build your bond ladder

Try to include only callable bonds
Avoid the highest-yielding bonds; at any given credit rating
Include high credit bonds; avoid junk bonds
Build your ladder with high-credit-quality bonds

We all want to hear your opinion on the article above:
No Comments

Posted by Martin May 18, 2016
1 Comment

Microsoft Nokia HMD Global smartphones tablets

What’s Old is New Again; Nokia Hopes So

Remember when the hottest cellphones in the market were made by Nokia (NYSE: NOK). We watched it go by way of so many others in the wake of the iPhone made by Apple (NASDAQ:APPL) and devices powered by Android from Google (NASDAQ: GOOG).
(Google is now Alphabet and its ticker is GOOGL)

Well, you may be seeing Nokia devices back in the market, thanks to an agreement announced on Wednesday. Through a strategic brand and intellectual property licensing agreement, HMD global will be allowed to create a new generation of Nokia-branded mobile phones and tablets.

HMD global is a newly founded company based in Finland that is charged with providing the focus Nokia needs to start making devices again. Under the agreement, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is selling the low end phone unit for $350 million. In 2014, Nokia was acquired by Microsoft for $7.2 billion. It took just a year for Microsoft to write Nokia off of its books, costing it to take a $7.6 billion charge.

The change is expected to be complete this year. HMD intends to invest more than $500 million over the next three years to support the global marketing of Nokia-branded mobile phones and tablets, funded via its investors and profits from the acquired feature phone business. Nokia will receive royalty payments from HMD for sales of Nokia-branded mobile products, covering both brand and intellectual property rights.

Nokia will need this help. While it dominated the smartphone market in the 1990s, it began to lose steam with the introduction of the iPhone and Android devices.

However, its troubles ran deeper than that, especially with rolling out products that consumers were not attracted to. Also, it failed recognize the importance of software, such as apps that run phones. It also didn’t accurately estimate how dominant smartphones would eventually become. While smartphones with apps were growing in demand, Nokia seemed to want to stick to developing phones with touchscreens, which were all the rage, was best. We see where that got the company.

Nokia was only cleared to enter the smartphone business at the beginning of the year. At that time, it answered rumors that it would deliver a smartphone this year through a brand-licensing model. It noted that the right path back to mobile phones was to allow that partner to manufacture and provide customer support for a product.

The question now becomes whether this deal will pay off for Nokia. Of course it boils down to whether HMD can actually pull off devices consumers will like? Consumers are so enamored with the mobile device leaders, it may be difficult.

For its latest quarter, Q1, Nokia reported an 8% year-on-year net sales decrease.
In reporting those earnings, it was that while the revenue decline was disappointing, the shortfall was largely driven by Mobile Networks, where the challenging environment is not a surprise. The company noted in its Q4 2015 earnings release that it expected some market headwinds in 2016 in the wireless sector.

After the announcement on yesterday, during intraday trading, Microsoft’s stock was up about .5%, while Nokia’s stock was up roughly 3.52%.

We all want to hear your opinion on the article above:
1 Comment

Posted by Martin May 17, 2016
No Comments

NASDAQ Osiris Therapeutics biotech regenerative medicine

Regenerative Medicine Company Faces NASDAQ Delisting

After being given roughly a month to show that it had gotten its financials in order, Osiris Therapeutics (NASDAQ: OSIR) has failed and faces a real chance of being delisted.

On Monday, the company provided an update regarding the status of its compliance with the Listing Rules of the NASDAQ.

In March, Osiris received a notification from NASDAQ indicating that, as a result of the company not timely filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 2015 Osiris had failed to comply with the periodic filing requirements.

On May 12, the company received an anticipated letter from NASDAQ noting that it had still filed its quarterly report for the quarter ended March 31.

Osiris has submitted to the NASDAQ listing qualifications staff a plan to regain compliance with NASDAQ’s continued listing requirements. The NASDAQ staff has discretion to grant up to 180 calendar days. That would put the maximum date at Sept. 12, 2016.

The question is whether Osiris work to complete its previously announced accounting reviews, restatements of prior period financial statements, transition to a new independent registered public accounting firm and 2015 audit will be enough to put it in a position to bring its SEC filings up to date.

Founded in 1992, the medical device company managed to carve out market share and a strong reputation for its research, development, manufacturing, marketing and distribution of several regenerative medicine products. Those products, Grafix, which are cryopreserved placental membranes that are used to treat hard-to-treat acute and chronic wounds. Grafix and its two other products, Cartiform and Bio4, have helped it grow its revenues; and they helped it go public in 2006. Back then Osiris’ stock opened for its first public trade around $10. It peaked at $23 last year, and now it is trading just under $6 and faces delisting.

Then there was some bad publicity that the company faced that raised some eyebrows surrounding its hiring of Todd Clawson, who was the head of the company’s national sales department. Prior to going to Osiris, he worked at Advance Bio Healing. Federal prosecutors are now looking at him over his work while at Advance Bio due to allegations that he gave doctors several perks in exchange for them doing business with Advance Bio.

There has been no evidence presented that Clawson did anything corrupt while at Osiris. Clawson was credited with the company’s sales jumping substantially when he was hired. Sales went to $60 million in 2014 from $24 million in 2013.

So as we wait for the final outcome for Osiris and its NASDAQ possible delisting, I advise to stay away from this stock.

We all want to hear your opinion on the article above:
No Comments

Posted by Martin May 17, 2016
No Comments

Department of Labor fiduciary rule insurance companies investment advisors MetLife AIG Prudential Finan

The DOL Fiduciary Rule is Here; Now What for Advisors and Insurers

If you invest in variable or fixed annuities, you will see some changes in the commission costs soon. That’s due to the Department of Labor’s new fiduciary rule that will begin taking effect over the coming months.

The investment advisors who sell the products and the insurance companies that employ them are all on alert about how much of an effect, or difference will make.

· The need for the rule

The thought behind the rule is that many advisors have promoted products with high commissions knowing full well that the product may not be needed by the client. This has especially been the case for annuity products, which are notorious for being complex for the average client. The rule is hoped to discourage advisors from pushing these high commissioned, products, and promote products that will best suit their client’s news, not just supply the advisor with high commissions.

That’s great for the client, but for advisors, it may lead to less money for them, and less money for the companies they work for. The chief of enforcement for Finra, the securities industry watchdog, has noted that variable annuities are complex and expensive products that are routinely pitched to vulnerable investors as a key component of their retirement planning.

Over the past few years, Finra has stepped in when clients were charged on an annual basis for holdings that would have been free of the trade costs.

For example, in 2005, Finra fined Morgan Stanley a reported $1.5 million and ordered it to pay $4.6 million in restitution to clients to make up for inadequately supervising its fee-based brokerage business.

Two years later Finra fined Wachovia Securities $2 million for a similar violation. Baird, SunTrust and Raymond James were also dinged by Finra for poor oversight of their clients’ fee accounts. So there was a need for the rule. Annuities are offered as variable or fixed in a client’s retirement account.

Generally, variable annuities charge explicit fees, while fixed annuities tend to embed their costs in the interest rate or income payout amount, according to Fidelity Investments. Under the new rule, advisors are expected to scale back their offerings of variable annuities, which can have high upfront commissions.

Annuity providers are expected to find ways to deliver products that meet both client needs and the new DOL standards. Some advisers are thinking about changing their account minimums, presenting new investment solutions to their clients, or transitioning appropriate clients from brokerage to advisory under the rule.

· Choices for Advisors

What is clear is that if you provide advice pertaining to retirement savings, qualified plans, IRAs or IRA rollovers, this issue will affect you, and you will likely need help.

According to a study called “The Economics of Change,” the majority of advisers surveyed currently recommend annuity products in retirement accounts — nearly two-thirds use variable annuities, and two-thirds also claimed to use fixed annuities — products that, due to cost and complexity, will be thrown into flux in the coming years.

While researching the choices advisors have under the rule, I found the following from Think Advisor.

They can serve as a fiduciary under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) without conflicts. While serving as an ERISA fiduciary is the more restrictive of the two options, it is also the clearest as to what is allowed and what is not. I predict that many advisors will take this more conservative route.

The advisor can serve as an ERISA fiduciary with conflicts under the Best Interests Contract Exemption (BICE).

The contract exemption, while allowing advisors to make relatively minimal changes to their existing business model, comes with many uncertainties. Questions such as what is “reasonable” compensation, what fees must be disclosed and how, and what other forms of payment must be disclosed will be debated by every financial institution. I suspect many of the answers to these questions will not be known until the lawsuits are filed after the next bear market.

· The Insurers

Among the affected companies are MetLife (NYSE:MET), AIG (NYSE: AIG) and Prudential Financial (NYSE: PRU).

In December 2015, those companies were among those in the annuity industry that authored an opinion editorial, claiming the DOL’s proposed rule would have a “potentially devastating impact” on Americans’ access to annuity products, particularly for low and middle-income earners.

The sum includes a $20 million fine and $5 million to be paid to customers for “negligent” misrepresentation and omissions, according to Finra. It has among those who have been increasing scrutiny of variable annuities, which can combine securities investments with guaranteed income, an arrangement that may generate attractive fees for insurers.

· In Conclusion

Now, variable annuities and fixed indexed annuities have lost their coveted exemption. Advisors and insurers are now subject to the requirements of BICE. Compliance risks come into play, which means litigation could come into play. That should be considered if you decide to invest in a distributor of annuities.

We all want to hear your opinion on the article above:
No Comments

Posted by Martin May 17, 2016
2 Comments

put selling options trading

Rolling in the money puts to repair a trade

Repair man You know it. You sell a put option and the trade goes busted next day. If you have never experienced this, then you are still going to. That I can guarantee.

In the past, I tried to predict the market/stock direction so I could be on the right side of the trade.

Today, I laugh at such effort. It’s futile and you will never be right. At most, you may get 50% chance to be right. But that 50% is nothing to spend an effort for.

TD Ameritrade has on its website a tool called “Predict Wall Street”. If you decide to play it, you will find out that the community is 40% right (sometimes even 55%). My score of predicting stock movement is 50%.

I can flip the coin and get the same result.

So, don’t bother predicting stocks or the market.

Rather, learn techniques which help you when you are wrong.

When you sell a naked put and the trade heads south you have two ways how to react:

1) You are still bullish on the original trade and you consider the price drop just temporary.
2) You doubt your first assessment (you are probably no longer bullish) and want to improve your odds right away.

Next, I try to describe several situations which may happen and how I would react to them based on the above mentioned classifications.

We all want to hear your opinion on the article above:
2 Comments

Posted by Martin May 12, 2016
No Comments

Investing for higher returns in peer to peer lending platforms

People who are new to investing often prefer to invest in one of the savings products offered by banks, but investing in a bank is never a profitable exercise. Interest rates are at an all-time low – plus banks never have been one to share their “fortunes”.
These days anybody who is into investing must have heard of Peer to Peer (P2P) lending. It has gained a lot of popularity in recent years.
Peer to Peer lending is not something new. P2P started in 2005 with the launch of Zopa, the first peer to peer lending service. Though Peer to Peer lending was the signal of the financial revolution, it was the 2008 recession and the ensuing “credit shortage” that showed the chinks in the bank’s armours and pushed peer to peer lending into the limelight.
At its inception, peer to peer lending was quite simple. The P2P platforms were simply a place for borrowers who were looking to refinance existing high-cost debt facilities and on the other hand were people who wanted to earn higher interest on their savings.
Peer to peer lending has now grown into a worldwide industry. The size and number of lending platforms have rapidly grown. P2P platforms have now evolved and do not just offer loans for consumer lending. Peer to peer lending platforms is giving banks a run for their money by offering tailored products for home financing, students loans, franchise financing and loans to SMEs to name a few.

What are the risks of investing in peer to peer lending platforms?

No business is without risks and the same holds true for banks and peer to peer lending. The 2008 crash made it very clear that even giants can fall, however having said that, it is important to remember that reducing risk to acceptable levels is one of the prime objectives of any successful business.
So is peer-to-peer lending a risky business? Should you invest your savings in peer-to-peer lending?
There are many platforms for investing in Peer-to-peer lending. Each platform has its own way of conducting business and therefore a different approach to managing and mitigating risk.
Let us delve into greater detail of how risk is managed with examples.

Zopa

Zopa lends money for personal loans to “reliable investors”. Zopa checks all of its investors by checking their credit histories, personal income and Zopa also has a requirement, making it mandatory that the borrower should have had a UK address for a minimum of three years. This is the first stage in risk minimization. Lend money to people who are very likely to pay back.
The second stage of risk minimization is figuring out how to minimize the impact of a bad debt.
Firstly, any investment made is divided into microloans and only a maximum of 2% of investment is lent to one single borrower. This ensures that a bad debt will not wipe out a major chunk of investment.
Secondly, what happens if a major default does occur? Firstly it is Zopa’s responsibility to chase down bad debts. The bad debts are assigned to “Safeguard trust”. First priority is to chase down bad debts. If the debts are truly irrecoverable then Safeguard maintains a fund to cover bad debts. The fund is generated by contributions from members. Currently, Zopa’s fund has a 10% buffer meaning the fund has 10% more money than what Zopa expects to pay out.
Investing in Zopa is quite low risk. Their actual bad debts have always stayed lower than their predicted percentages. And it is not that the predictions have a buffer built in them. For 2015, Zopa estimated 2.88% of the loan value to go into default, however, the actual percentage was only 1.01%.

Rebuilding Society

Rebuilding Society is at the other end of the spectrum from Zopa. Rebuilding society lends out to businesses. Rebuilding society does not have a provision fund. However, to cover risk it has two operational policies in place. They are:

All loans are to be backed by securities. Businesses applying for loans under $50,000 have to give a personal guarantee. Loans at $50,000 or above are secured against assets.

You cannot provide more than $2,000 to one business.

We all want to hear your opinion on the article above:
No Comments

Posted by Martin May 06, 2016
No Comments

long term investment Microsoft Oracle Amazon Salesforce cloud computing IaaS PaaS SaaS Larry Ellison

Oracle Making Strong Entry Into Cloud; Is It Too Late to Grab Market Share

“What the Hell is Cloud Computing?”

That was the question posed by Oracle founder Larry Ellison about eight years ago when he spoke to a gathering of financial analysts.

Since then, it seems Ellison, now chief technology officer, of Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) has been enlightened. That, or Ellison has adopted the policy of, “if you can’t beat them, join them.” This is reflected in the company’s recent spending spree in buying small cloud computing businesses.

For investors, if Oracle’s acquisition efforts can help it carve out a significant portion of the cloud computing market share, this is great news. So far this year, the worldwide public cloud services market is projected to reach $204 billion, according to Gartner. That represents a 16.5% increase over last year’s market size of $175 billion.

Gaining market share in the cloud services business won’t be easy and breezy for Oracle. Despite its dominance as a tech player, the cloud business has some pretty dominant players. That includes Salesforce (NASDAQ: CRM), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN).

· So what is cloud computing; think layers

Back in 2008, when Ellison questioned cloud computing, he said this:
“I don’t understand what [Oracle] will do differently in the light of cloud computing, other than change the wording on some of our ads.”

If you share Ellison’ questions about what is cloud computing, to put it simply, cloud computing is a kind of Internet-based computing. It entails applications, servers and storage services that are accessed via the Internet by a company’s computers and devices that employees use, such as their smartphones.
Cloud computing consists of three segments, or layers: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

IaaS allows businesses to eliminate the costs associated with buying and maintaining servers in house. Instead, they outsource such needs to cloud providers. This allows businesses the ability to run their applications and access their data anytime on devices connected to the Internet.

With PaaS, businesses use a platform to develop, run and manage applications without having to build the infrastructure used to develop and launch applications. Google’s App Engine, Microsoft’s Azure and Saleforce’s Force.com, are examples of PaaS platforms.

SaaS allows businesses to eliminate the costs and time of installing and maintaining software. Businesses can access that software via the Internet. Among the companies that use SaaS applications are ADP, Citrix (Go To Meeting) and Cisco (WebEx).

· Acquisitions paying off

Considering Oracle is a relative newcomer to the cloud services business that is already dominated by some pretty strong competitors, it is good that it set out on acquiring smaller businesses that already offer the services. It now provides all of the platforms explained above.

The following is a list of Oracle’s most recent acquisitions:
Maxymiser; August 2015; undisclosed amount
StackEngine; December 2015; undisclosed amount
AddThis; January 2016; $200 million
Ravello Systems; February 2016; $500 million
Textura; April 2016; $663 million
Crosswise; April 2016; $50 million
Opower; May 2016; $532 million

The acquisitions made during prior to the end of Oracle’s third quarter of 2016 seemed to have contributed positively to the company’s revenues. SaaS, PaaS and IaaS totaled $737 million, which represented a 43% increase from last year. Also, the Q3 gross margin for SaaS and PaaS was 51%, up from 43% last quarter. The company expects to see further improvement in Q4. After that, Oracle will be targeting 80% over time.

This is positive news, but Oracle should give as much focus as possible to its IaaS segment. That’s because the IaaS segment is, and is expected to remain, the fastest-growing segment in 2016. According to Gartner, IaaS is projected to grow 38.4% this year.

Gartner pointed out that the growth in the IaaS’s segment is due to enterprises moving away from data center build-outs and moving their infrastructure needs to the public cloud. Furthermore, it would behoove companies like Oracle to focus on differentiating their products because several market leaders have built a significant lead in this segment already.

Oracle is on the right track, expecting IaaS revenue to grow from negative 1% to positive 3% for Q4. However, Oracle CEO Safra Catz said the company’s IaaS revenue growth will be more moderate for now as it is currently dominated by its hosting business.

Also on guidance, Catz said, “Looking further out for Q1, SaaS and PaaS revenue growth should be higher than the 59% midpoint of my Q4 guidance. SaaS and PaaS gross margin are expected to be higher than Q4 gross margins. Q1 non-GAAP EPS growth should be very solid. I will revisit Q1 with you as part of the Q4 earnings call in June.”

We’ll see how Oracle has continued to grow its revenues from cloud computing in June when it reports earnings for Q4 and the full year. Oracle’s commitment to the cloud through the acquisitions, and its ability to embrace it despite the early on misgivings of its founder are positives. Consider Oracle as a long-term investment play.

We all want to hear your opinion on the article above:
No Comments

Posted by Martin May 01, 2016
7 Comments

dividend investing options trading trading results in April dividend investing results in April

April 2016 trading, investing, and dividends results

April 2016 was a positive month to me. Both account – trading account and my ROTH IRA dividend account grew well and nice.

Surprisingly nice! There are a few patterns I start seeing which makes me happy.

I hope, that it will stay like this in the coming month although last day of trading in Wall Street put a little blow to my trading account.

Nevertheless, my options trading account ended up 32.60% in April and I made collected $938.00 dollars in premiums.

My dividend investing was slower than that (but I do not expect any fast and huge profits) yet it ended up by amazing 7.96% and I collected nice $84.49 dollars in dividends.

I also do options trading in my ROTH account and I collected additional $90 dollars premium.

Let’s take a look at the details!

· April 2016 trading results

April trading ended great with nice profits. I traded options against dividend stocks and I traded aggressively selling ATM puts collecting premiums. This aggressive trading put a few stocks in a heat.

I accepted assignment of Ensco (ESV). I didn’t have to and I could roll the option, but I wanted to accept it and keep the stock and trade against it. I continue selling puts and covered calls. Hopefuly, I will also collect dividends.

The biggest heat I got was from STX. What at first looked like a good trade ended bad. First, the company lowered its outlook and the stock tanked making my puts in the money. Then it started recovering and you could see the short selling squeeze. The stock rallied and I decided to cover my naked calls by buying shares of the stock.

I also sold a few more puts. Then earnings blew the stock out of the water and it tanked 20%. Another over-reaction from the market. I think we need to get used to it that investors and traders will react like this. It will be a reaction from one extreme to another.

But the most important thing is, that if something like this happen a trader must know what to do and not to panic. Always have a plan. Always have a plan for every situation in the market. Always know what steps you want to take to mitigate the loss or eliminate it.

To my STX trade such plan is to stay the course, roll the puts lower and continue selling more calls and puts. I opened my first trade at 33 strike. I could lower it down to 32 strike and I plan lowering it more down to 31, 30, and so on. And if I get assigned early, I’ll take the stock, keep it, collect dividends, and continue selling covered calls.

Here is my trading result for the month:

April 2016 options trading income:	$938.00 (36.93%)
2016 portfolio Net-Liq:	$3,039.46 (32.60%)
2016 portfolio Cash Value:	$429.69 (-87.47%)
2016 overall trading account result:	19.68%

My cash value dropped because of purchasing equity. I was assigned to ESV and purchased STX this month. That’s what the cash was used for.

Here are the results of my options trading:

(Click to enlarge)

Here are the results of my options strategy:

(Click to enlarge)

The table above shows a good strike of winning trades in the first quarter. I hope my next quarter will be as good as the last one.

My average trade holding time is currently 19 days, average P/L 3.11% and 111.27% annualized return.

Not bad results for only two months of trading after I returned back to this strategy.

I knew trading SPX spreads wasn’t for me and I should have stayed with my original strategy (this strategy) in the first place. I could have been a lot further ahead, closer to my retirement. But we are human, we make mistakes and we are here to correct them, start over, and move on.

Here are results of the individual trades:

PSEC

ESV

ABBV

LULU

KMI

TRGP

COP

ETE

MOS

PSX

STX

If you like these trades and want to be informed when I place them and trade them in real time, you can join our closed Facebook Group. The group is a closed group and there are other traders posting their trade ideas too. We learn from each other, eventually ask questions, get answers, but most importantly you can see what we trade and how. You can follow those trades.

Here is the entire account value from the beginning of tracking it up to today:

· April 2016 dividend investing results

After dividend cuts my portfolio stabilized and is steadily growing again. I liked a lot seeing my DRIP purchasing, seeing that I am purchasing more and more shares and those shares are producing more and more dividends every month.

Just recently I was looking at some of my holdings and I saw them bringing in more dividends. It is most visible in monthly paying stocks that every month I get slightly more dividends. And I can see this process speeding up significantly.

What do you think?

To me, this is very motivating to continue building my dividend portfolio although I am more into options rather than being passive, working hard, putting money into my account and waiting.

I want options trading doing this job. I want to trade options, take all proceeds and invest them into dividend stocks. Then I do not have to work hard skip vacations because I am saving money.

I am lazy, and I want my money not to be lazy.

For this reason I created three sub-accounts in my ROTH account.

Those accounts are mental accounts. Physically they do not exist.

I keep it only in my spreadsheet and keep track of it.

So I created a “fund” of a “great opportunity”, a fund for “options trading” and a “stock purchase” fund. As of now, I plan to keep $2,000 for trading options (and slowly increasing this “account”, $1,000 dollars for great opportunity (if any good stock suffers from an irrational selloff, I want to have some cash ready for this event), and stock purchasing “account” will be an account which I will use to buy stocks out right. Once filled with cash, I use it right away to buy a stock of my interest and then continue saving new money.

And guess which account would make money for those two other accounts?

You got it, it is my options trading account. Here is a picture of my ROTH IRA account spreadsheet I keep track of these sub-accounts. Now I am in a re-filling or building those sub-accounts:

(Click to enlarge)

As you can see, my “options trading account” is almost funded. Once funded, I will continue trading options using this money, but all proceeds will be allocated into “great opportunity” fund. After that fund is funded, I will be allocating all proceeds and savings to “stock purchasing fund”.

I will also be increasing goals in those funds as my options trading will be growing.

(Click to enlarge)

My annual dividend income this month is up from $887.98 to $897.17.

Dividend stocks added or removed from portfolio:

April 2016 dividend stock buys:	none
April 2016 dividend stock sells:	none

To purchase stocks I use trailing stock order strategy OTO trade order (one triggers other) and I described this strategy in my post about purchasing stocks in falling markets.

I also invest into dividend paying stocks using Motif investing which allows me to buy all 30 stocks I want in one purchase using fractional investing, similar to a mutual fund.

You can actually build your own mutual fund with Motif investing.

Here is my Motif Investing account you can review:

I continue reinvesting my dividends using DRIP program. I love how my holdings grow when reinvesting the dividends and when the stock prices are going lower. As I believe we are heading into a recession I will be able buying more shares for a lot cheaper.

Dividend stocks DRIP:

April 2016 DRIP:

Reynolds American Inc. (RAI)
PPL Corporation (PPL)
American Capital Agency Corp. (AGNC)
Realty Income Corporation (O)
Prospect Capital Corporation (PSEC)

Here are my ROTH IRA trading/investing results:

April 2016 dividend income:	$84.49
April 2016 options income:	$90.00
2016 portfolio value:	$19,156.99 (7.96%)
2016 overall dividend account result:	26.53%

The account grew by 7.96% from last month, overall I am up 26.53%. Dividend income was also up from last month. All dividends were reinvested back to the companies which generated them.

Here is my dividend income:

Annual dividends since the beginning:

Here is the entire account value from the beginning of tracking it up to today:

· All accounts

Besides trading and dividend accounts I also have 401k account, emergency savings account, etc., which I do not report in detail. You can review those accounts in my “All Accounts Value” table at the bottom of My Trades & Income page.

My accounts increased from previous month and are making 16.58% (up 5.69% from previous month) for the year.

Remember, if you like trading options and want to have trade ideas for free, join my Facebook closed group and follow my put selling trade ideas in real time, comment, ask questions, and interact with other members. Other members of the group can also post their trades so you can learn from them too.

You can join the options trading group here

What do you think?

How about your investing or trading results?

Do you have any question? Need help to start trading or investing? Shoot me an email or let me know below in comments how I can help you.

We all want to hear your opinion on the article above:
7 Comments

· Gannett

· Tribune Publishing

· News Corporation

· In conclusion

Share this:

· MVNO defined

· Comcast working on MVNO

· And then there’s Charter

· Others to watch

Share this:

· What’s in a name?

· Dealing with falling interest rates

· Here are some tips to build your bond ladder

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

· The need for the rule

· Choices for Advisors

· The Insurers

· In Conclusion

Share this:

Share this:

What are the risks of investing in peer to peer lending platforms?

Zopa

Rebuilding Society

Share this:

· So what is cloud computing; think layers

· Acquisitions paying off

Share this:

· April 2016 trading results

· April 2016 dividend investing results

· All accounts

Share this:

Follow Us

Manage Subscription

Pages

Categories

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Calendar

Links

Investing Links

Personal Finance

Money Making

Options Trading

Log in