Tag Archive for AMZN short

Will Google Eat Apple’s Lunch?

February 7, 2013 Equities

Many have argued that the IOS will beat Android over the long run, but the cheaper and more standardized Android platform looks to be taking a greater share of the pie. While Blackberry certainly has some chance to re-gain lost ground, the Android phones have almost completely crushed the Canadian key-pad contender that was RIMM (now just Blackberry).

With Apple stock on the ropes (I like it better than AMZN that’s for sure) the company is facing a dilemma as David Einhorn is suing Apple in order to force the company to pay a dividend. I think this greenmail tactic will likely work to get the stock moving or at least stabilized and that paying a dividend makes a good deal of sense for Apple.

Google (GOOG), at least in my view, made a great buy when it purchased Motorola because they now pretty much own the smartphone category entirely and the integration has been smooth and solid from a user interface perspective. Certainly Google’s navigation and GPS systems are better received, and many people buy smart phones simply for the in car GPS navigation service (including me).

In the end, the company with the best products and services will win. I don’t see much room for any new entries so it’s pretty much Google versus Apple, and in my mind Google wins. That said, trading the stocks is a different animal altogether. I think a long GOOG short AMZN trade will work quite well as a pairs trade in the cloud space. I wouldn’t want to be naked long without a hedge if the market rolls over here, though I do think the economy is slowly (snails pace) improving.

 

 

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Scamazon Whiffs Earnings, No One Cares

January 29, 2013 www.hedgephone.com/network

Amazon.com (AMZN) shares are up a solid 10% in after hours trading today, even after earnings missed expectations by nearly every metric. Growth in operating earnings was enough to send shares soaring, but where there is smoke there is usually fire. To be sure, I recently covered a small starter AMZN short position for a profit earlier this week and attempted to re-short the name after the after hours pumping. Unfortunately for me, however, shares of AMZN are currently unavailable to short right now. What this means is that the gap higher likely caused many shorts to cover in a panic while new shorts cannot add to the supply of shares in the market. Meanwhile, the bulls don’t care at all about the fundamentals but only the price, so the fact that the stock is up another 10% doesn’t really influence any of them to sell. If anything, it’s a form of confirmation bias to their underlying thesis of riding the Bezos momentum as long as humanly possible.

Something tells me this all ends badly, however, because at least Apple had earnings and cash flows to buoy the stock on a fundamental basis. With Amazon, the company is incredible but the stock is a bubble.

Here are the numbers raw and un-cut — we aren’t going to spin these but simply present them without comment as we too are in awe of this modern stock market spectacle:

From Reuters:

“The company’s fourth quarter profit declined from the year-ago quarter and was below Wall Street view. Net sales increased 22 percent, but missed the consensus estimate. The company forecast its first quarter sales to grow between 14 percent and 26 percent.”

Actually, the company’s fourth quarter profit didn’t just decline, it plummeted, down from $.38 cents a share last year to $.21 cents a share this year — down 45% is the new up I guess. The company missed bottom line estimates by around 25% and top line estimates were over a billion bucks shy of consensus estimates.

Don’t tell any of these hard facts to market participants, however, as in Amazon’s case any news is bullish even if it’s bad news. One has to wonder what the introduction of state sales taxes will do to Amazon’s razor thin margins and overall business model. Growth at any cost has certainly made this e-tailer a stock you either love or hate passionately. So what do you think the stock is worth? Feel free to comment below and tell me how ignorant I am of the leap in operating earnings and the visionary leadership of Mr. Bezos.

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North Korea Talkin Smack

January 24, 2013 www.hedgephone.com/network
50973.6a00d83451b05569e20112797a607928a4-pi

Could North Korea hit the United States with a ballistic missile? Could it mount a nuclear warhead on the tip of that missile?

Kim 101: How well do you know North Korea’s leaders?

The short answers to these questions are “in theory maybe, in practice probably not” and “no, not yet.” Longer answers revolve around the fact that experts in and outside the US intelligence community have struggled for decades to understand North Korea’s weapons programs and geopolitical intent….

READ MORE:www.csmonitor.com

Somehow this is wildly bullish for pumped up Cramer stocks like AMZN and (CRM), lol…

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Does Doctor B Read Hedgephone Or What?

June 6, 2012 Equities

Like clockwork we had our great and stoic hero threaten the tape with more money printing and that seems to have shored things up. All the better for me, as I moved around half of my trading account (Jaguar Alpha) into Silver the other day after I wrote that I would rather be in silver than in stock for my anticipated Bernanke bounce.

I once actually received a nasty comment from an IP address listed in the home town that Dr. B. comes from in GA… That commenter called me a racist, which is not true. Thankfully, my comment box is so jammed up with spam that I had to disable comments at hedgephone regardless for the time being.

Other issues: I had a face to face with a 6 foot brown bear and had to hike out 15 miles because my car broke down — remember when making timber investments to have a solid, running work truck and also that mother nature rules in the wilderness!!!

I am working on some formatting issues with Apple — I know in Apple’s browser that Hedgephone looks strange and I’m on it!

In any event, we asked Dr. B to print it up and he delivered on Q — I do think it’s better to stop the slides before they violate the 200 day moving averages… Even though I hate it that our economy is now solely based on the stock market, that the stock market is almost completely corrupt thanks to bad INSIDERS in CORPORATE AMERICA and not bad stock brokers or traders as much as BOOK COOKERS, I do recognize that Americans have much of their net savings in the stock market and that many companies are ethically run despite the fact that the SEC is watching porn and not busting scam companies from stealing their shareholders’ money!

In any event, we hope that things turn around and that the SEC starts investigating public corporations, their corrupt board of directors and officers, and the supply chaain and middle management teams that suck these companies dry and leave shareholders flat broke. Just because laziness isn’t a crime does not mean that the SEC should stop investigating corporations which lose 90% of their shareholders’ capital!

THE INTERNET BUBBLE: So I have been arguing at Hedgephone that once Facebook went public the investment bankers would get their huge fees and would stop needing to use the media to pump up the equity bubble that is going on with web 2.0… Sure there is a ton of value in the new media space but that value is not being purchased by today’s equity investor on the Nasdaq — the money was already made by the venture capital and private equity investors… Now, all that buyers of many of these stocks are getting is an empty bag of permanent capital loss. Anyway, we were pretty spot on with our web 2.0 call but made some mistakes recommending AMZN as short versus directly shorting FraudBook (I mean Facebook!). AMZN is more overvalued, but the suckers like it better and the suckers are hard to bet against right now!

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Hedgephone’s Favorite Shorts:

March 12, 2012 Equities

ROYL

QLIK

AMZN

SHLD

CRM

LNKD

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Hedge Phone Track Record; Why You Should Care…

January 2, 2012 Equities

Check out these short picks from Sept. 9, 2011 at Hedgephone:

Short:

SINA: -40%

CROX: -45%

CRM: -33%

AMZN: -20%

LNKD: -40%

IWM: -15%

http://seekingalpha.com/article/292806-8-overvalued-and-broken-momentum-stocks-to-sell-short

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6 Investments to Sell or Short Now

December 19, 2011 Equities

       While the stock market is well off of the 2011 lows set in August, the market is by no means a sure bet going forward. While longer term, I believe the stock market is pretty unloved and over many decades I expect the markets to rise 5% or so per annum at the very least. In the short run, however, I see many stocks that I would consider short selling here and while bargains abound long-term investing can take, well, a very long time to pay off. By selling near-month or quarterly bear call spreads on these 6 investments, investors can make some serious money for current income needs even if a bull market should set in for stocks in the very near term, which I believe is rather unlikely given the moving parts involved in the European crisis in the modern age of global sovereign debt realities.

       With the shaky economy not showing a whole lot in the way of green shoots, investors may consider selling call spreads and buying put spreads (I would be selling near-the-money calls and buying out-of-the-money calls and would be buying in-the-money put options and selling at-the-money put options or simply selling near-the-money call options and buying calls at a 30% premium to current prices instead of directly shorting something). When shorting index funds, it often pays to do your business rather quickly. When you are sitting on profits, feel free to take them off of the table.

Read the rest of this article, at SeekingAlpha:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/314772-6-investments-to-sell-or-short-now

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Market Hanging in There… Still Risky

October 26, 2011 Equities

for now, but there is not really a compelling reason to be overly bullish on stocks compared to gold, which has markedly outperformed the equity markets for the past two sessions and for the entire year. In other words, I can’t see the averages climbing further in the short run given the headwinds, but anything is possible. For now a neutral stance is fine but the TA still looks more believable on the S&P and Dow Jones than the Nasdaq. Amazon blew up a little today so if you followed the recommendation made on the evening of October 24th, shorted the futures and then shorted AMZN, CRM, QQQ, and LNKD, you have made a sizable chunk of money. The trade may last for weeks or you can take it off with a profit. If I were still trading full time I would say take off half of your position to 2/3 depending on your risk tolerance if you haven’t done so already. Market Mode = cash and gold

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