Vinayak

Interesting that you've downgraded it so much. I did some extensive analysis on AAPL on another site that I want to share here. I promise to do something along those lines on this awesome thread that has well over 700 views already. Until then you'll have to refer that AAPL post. Here it is again: Take Another Bite Out Of The Apple? It's pretty special!

This is such an awesome thread, I must say. Many thanks to tams and Obsidian for your wonderful insights. I am a sell side analysts who does a lot of trading on the side on my personal accounts of course. I am actually hoping to do more trading and may be even become a full time trader (I am talking like 6 years from now). Its great to hear what expert traders have to say on what is a very tough decision. The reason why I feel full time trading which is what hedge funds do really is good is because it allows you to cover the stocks you wish to and you have more time on your hands now to really cover the market and do some keen analysis. Nothing beats that.

I have had success with US major indices and equities along with currency pairs that features the USD. So I thought why don't I share them here with you. You guys probably remember from my other thread Tech Picks from the Valley Trader. I also have plenty of strategies that I am willing to share. I really love the Floor Trader Strategy for Futures Trading Anyway, getting back to the subject of this thread. The sources I use are Forex Factory, DailyFX, Bloomberg/Reuters. I am not going to waste anytime here and will go ahead and share my first tip for you. It is the US Advance Gross Domestic Product that will be announced as you start your day Wednesday. Then there is also the US FOMC Statement and the Federal Funds Rate. The GDP is an important gauge of economic health as you guys already know. Watch out for the Advance GDP released Wednesday as it has the highest impact on the markets. This is because it is the first of the three versions (Advance, Preliminary and Final). Look for a figure higher than 2.2% and then buy a Call on the Dow and one on the S&P 500. As for the FOMC Statement and Federal Funds Rate, they create a lot of two-way movement and I will wait until a clear direction can be perceived after the market settles down.

The problem with Facebook is that most investors believe that its mobile ad revenue will not be able to sustain and justify the social media giant's high P/E. It is difficult to show that you are indeed growing when the monthly active users (MAU) in developed countries like the United States and Canada continues to fall. Source: socialbakers.com It is vital for developed countries like the US to have increased presence in a social media site that hopes to make its money through ads since the Cost Per Click (CPC) is highest in these countries. The key takeaway after extensive research on an effective tool that I use on a daily basis (Facebook), I feel that its growth will not be able to match its expensive valuation. I am looking forward to seeing what its earnings report looks like after trading closes Wednesday.

I took a pretty sour bite of what turned out to be quite a rotten apple!:doh: Wall Street's reactions to the revenues which actually hit $54.5B in the last quarter for crying out loud was in the negative. It was a pretty good earnings report for me and I understand the trouble that most market participants have with AAPL seeing less demand for its 'innovative' products. The Cupertino, CA based firm didn't have much by way of sales of the iPhone 5 and the iPad 4 to convince investors that it is doing the right thing with its product life cycle that keeps getting shorter. Not to mention the R&D costs. But the thing is that there is significant opportunity to expand Apple's worldwide market share with the outcome of the "Samsung Patent Trial" being positive for the Cupertino, CA based firm. Additionally, the large share that Nokia (NOK) has right now should reduce giving Apple a better chance at its last frontier (Asia) for more market penetration.

So we are headed for another eventful week with many more fourth quarter earnings reports out. As the Valley Trader, I am going to keep my eyes on Facebook (FB) which has its earnings release as trading closes Wednesday. FB is panning out to be like AMZN, but at least in AMZN's case I see some viability in its objective of making big profits as it conquers the still maturing internet in the future. Its been all over. Source: Daily Finance Source: Daily Finance The MACD bodes well for the social media giant that has been quite the disappointment in 2012. The encouraging sign is the more focused monetisation moves by the Palo Alto, CA based tech giant.

Fundamental analysis and technical analysis. I mean the Swiss central bank enacted a price floor on the currency pair at the 1.20 level. As for the technical analysis, it is plain and simple to see the chart action with the surges that the exchange rate has been experiencing.

Alright guys, so I made a poor call on AAPL and I'll clear that up later. I'm still long AAPL, by the way. Today, I want to talk to you about a great trading system that I utilized to bring me gains in futures trading. It is called the floor trader strategy and you can read more about it right here: http://www.trading-naked.com/FloorTraderMethod.htm There are 3 things to remember with this method: 1. The first is to watch out for retracements; a minor rally in a downtrend and a minor decline in an uptrend. I have always loved retracements as they are so easy to identify and trade on. 2. Exponential Moving Average (EMA) is vital and it involves the 9 and 18 EMA lines. 3. Identify entry level or trigger.

I made a giant post on AAPL on my 'tech picks.." thread and you should check it out to see why you want to keep your eyes on AAPL all day long!. I do this for a living by the way, so heed my words!

Do not even think of selling AAPL!! I made a giant post on AAPL on my 'tech picks.." thread and you should check it out to see why I suggest this.

Hey guys, I made a giant post on AAPL on my 'tech picks.." thread that is really quite hot! I mean all the tips there have worked out great and you want to check it out. Wall Street is bullish on the stock and so am I. Its consensus price target of $745 gives it an upswing of almost 50%. Its pretty incredible. I expect a lot of volatility tomorrow and I've already capitalized by shorting and going long on the stock a few times. I have gone long about 90% of the time, though. Regards, Vinayak - The Valley Trader.

Why Wall Street loves Apple I am going to take a big bite out of the Apple tomorrow; actually on Thursday with Apple earnings being out after trading closes Wednesday. Apple stock may be on a downtrend, but is clear that Wall Street loves the tech darling and you should too. Source: Daily Finance The fundamentals of this tech giant look fantastic. Valuation When it comes to the valuation, Apple appears to be trading dirt cheap even at $500 a share! The P/E ratio of 11.3 is much lower than the average over the past 5 years of 17.8 and Apple even had a P/E ratio as high as 37.9 during this length of time. Its market cap of $469.86B is as intimidating as the stock price, but investors should know that even this is trading at a discount when looking at metrics like the P/B ratio which is currently 3.99. Even the P/S ratio of 3.02 makes it all the more attractive for value investors given that it is lower than its 5-Year average of 3.517. MACD tells a different story Source: Daily Finance Technical Analysis warns us to be cautious. Take one of my favorite tools, the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) for instance, on the chart the MACD line has fallen below the signal line. To its credit, there has also been a lot of volatility. The Price Target and why Apple is a "buy" The consensus price target is still in the mid $700s. Apple is undervalued with an upside of 49%. Furthermore, investors love the relatively low multiples that APPL is trading at. One figure that I will keep my eye out for will be the quarterly EPS which is estimated to be 13.47 down from 13.87 a year ago. I am going to base my APPL trades based on the EPS that I see on the report tomorrow and although the whole report is crucial, this one figure will be the trigger.

The EPS of GOOG and IBM will be magic number to watch for tomorrow. I am looking at calls on both of these stocks if the EPS manages to rise over the consensus forecast. The EPS is a great metric to gather whether a stock is overvalued or undervalued. And this is especially so for a large cap tech stock like Google that is trading at a high stock price of $704ish. Google Inc. (GOOG) investment idea For up-to-date news and analysis on the GOOG earnings release head to either Bloomberg, NASDAQ or CNBC. There are obviously other aspects of the earnings release that I should take into consideration. But the EPS will be the crucial one tomorrow and this is how I am going to approach trading this giant tech stock. The consensus EPS forecast is 8.61 and this value is already higher than the Q4 2011 EPS of 8.22. If the EPS beats analyst expectations, I will look to buy the stock. And this could be with objective of a speculator and also as a long term investor in GOOG. I will do my due diligence on the parts of the report too to be on the safe side. The technicals don't really mean much since I am basing this trade of fundamentals, but I thought I'd put it up here anyway for those chartists out there. Source: Daily Finance The MACD indicator and the candlesticks paint a bearish picture! International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) investment opportunity The consensus EPS forecast is 5.25 for this large cap tech stock. The EPS estimate this time around is up from 4.71 in the same quarter last year. I will be looking to trade IBM the same way I did GOOG above and look to buy if the EPS>5.25. P.S. The Dow and the S&P 500 are also good places to make calls depending on the outcomes of these two earnings releases.

I know its reached a high of 1.2451, but I am still pretty bullish on the pair. Moreover, even the USD/CHF is worthwhile to keep an eye on due to the weakening Swiss currency. If the exchange rate were to fall to 0.9290 in the coming week, it would good time to buy the pair.

Haha. I think the drop in the UofMich consumer index wasn't big enough to really affect the Dow this time around. Anyway, I am still going to be watching the Dow closely with APPL earnings being released on Wednesday. APPL is pretty strong fundamentally despite the pullback that the stock price experienced over the last few months. The other thing is that the Cupertino, CA based firm made some pretty high component purchase commitments back when they were preparing for the holiday season. I think AAPL will beat analyst expectations come Wednesday and so I am going with calls on both the Dow and the S&P 500. There about 80 earnings reports coming this week along with GOOG as well, so it should be a pretty big week for US equities.

Very beneficial. Here is something called the "Fractal Guru" strategy that I want to share with you. It is a strategy that is very effective for high probability trades. A currency analyst named Navin Prithyani introduced this strategy that is all about riding the trend by correctly identifying it. Open up the Meta Trader 4 platform which has both Fractals and Average Directional Index (ADX) indicators built in. To display the Fractals, go to Insert – Indicators – Bill Williams – Fractals. Then for the ADX indicator, go to Insert – Indicators – Trend – Average Directional Movement Index. Bullish and Bearish Fractals The chart above is of a bearish Fractal which is basically the middle candle having the highest high and then two higher highs on either side. The bearish Fractal is when the middle candle has the lowest low and is surrounded by two candles with lower lows on each side. How to use the Fractal Guru Strategy? Actions steps for a call entry: The chart above shows the ADX blue line rising steadily in the ADX chart at the bottom of the above chart. In the instance of a call entry, the green dotted line has to be above the red one. In the chart above, it never does but there will be instances in reality when it will. When this occurs, a bullish Fractal (the ones in the chart with the Fractal arrow pointing down) should be already locked in. Keep in mind that a long wick must be in the Fractal arrow direction and a short one on the other side. Likewise for a put entry: The first step again is to ensure that the ADX is rising steadily. As can be seen from this particular stock chart, the green dotted line is below the red one. Traders should then ascertain that the bearish Fractal has been established. The candlestick has to be examined to see if the bearish Fractal has a long wick pointing in the direction of the Fractal arrow and a short one down below. Conclusion It is a nice strategy especially for expert Forex traders out there who don't have trouble identifying the ADX indicators. Some of the instructions that Prithyani gives regarding what traders should watch for in the ADX to make money with this strategy are rather vague. The other thing is that most traders agree that the ADX is not the best indicator of a trend that is so crucial in making this "Fractal Guru" strategy. One thing is for sure: expert traders have made lots of money with this tool. P.S. - The fractals used here and in trading generally differ from the fractals you might have heard about in mathematics.

Today I was pretty sure that the Dow would tumble after the University of Michigan Consumer Confidence Index turned out to be disappointing. It was a very unexpected turn of events and it actually hit a one-year low. But, guess what? The Dow has actually continued to rise throughout the day and this has made me somewhat skeptical about purchasing any put options on this index or any of the other US ones. The S&P 500 did fall with a 0.1 percent decline to 1,479.47. These markets are so erratic and hard to predict sometimes! I wonder what you guys here feel the long-term effect of the UofMich survey will be? It hasn't made much effect on equities since the news broke, but I have found that the survey can have lasting effects. I wonder if this spells doom for the Dow.

I know this is a bit unusual, but I have decided to put up an "Intro" to this thread in the 3rd post here. I was looking around at some of the other threads by successful traders here and felt that it was appropriate. Better late than never, I guess. So here goes. I've basically been trading in the financial markets for a little over 2 years now. I am in my mid-twenties, but that does not mean I lack expertise or even experience for that matter. Being extremely passionate about tech and finance, I thought it was appropriate to start this thread to give insights on tech stocks that appear to be great investment ideas. At the investment firm I work for I cover the tech and finance sectors, so a lot of the stuff that I post here will be building off of research that I do there. Additionally, I do invest in these specific sectors on a personal level and you will stand to gain from these tips too I assure you. Investing in tech is hard and most people shy away; a famous example is the Oracle of Omaha Warren Buffett. I want to demystify some of that with this thread. I’ve been covering tech stocks for about a year now (MSFT, HPQ, AAPL, GOOG, EBAY, IMN, etc). I’ve even posted articles on sites such as NerdWallet and Seeking Alpha. Yup! People pay big money for my two cents. So pay attention and you will gain. The Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) is something that I like to use to identify trends. When the MACD crosses the signal line, it will indicate what I need to with a stock. And so is the 20-, 50- and 100-Day moving averages. In my previous post, I analyzed Amazon (AMZN) stock and talked about why I feel the low profit margin model will actually work wonders for the online retailer giant. Investors have gotten behind Bezos’ idea as illustrated by the appreciation of the stock in 2012 (52.39%). There will be more of these types of analysis and I will try to make posts lengthy enough so that you are very well-informed as a speculator. My aim with these posts is to give you a few things that can’t be found with a simple Google search. I want to give you the type of insights that comes with lots of research behind it (Capital IQ, Bloomberg). That’s what I am here for! For now, here was a video that I came across on the Motley Fool that suggests the coming era where PCs will slowly start vanishing. I was actually going through LaGuardia and I saw iPads being used at the gate. There will be more threads coming up from me; I’ve done everything from commodities to Forex with a lot of options trading.

I do get a rush out of trading that is a great stress buster, but I agree with your point. I am not a full time trader by any stretch of the imagination. However, I see it happening in 5-10 years. Its important to have a long term perspective; like reading though a lot of the content on great trading sites such as this one:cool:. This forum has helped me greatly in relieving stress as I can talk about trades here and share with others and read about what they did too. I also make sure never to rush into a trade and take a good look at the fundamentals and technicals all the time before I enter a position on a security. And trust me, there have been occasional instances where I've made $1000 in one day (a real rarity). I don't trade a lot, but when I do I make it count. In a nutshell, that's what I do. I've had losses, but right now I haven't set the bar too high. Right now, I am happy with a monthly trading net income of $600. The more I do this, though, I will want to make more money and that's when the real test comes.

I'm loving this. Technical analysis is a place that I greatly need to improve on!

If you can have a 20 percent return on investment on your trading capital in a year that would make you a highly successful trader. I think anywhere from 10-15% returns will classify someone as an average successful trader.

A market event to watch out for tomorrow afternoon will be the US Core Retail Sales figure which can be monitored on Bloomberg/Reuters. It will be released at 1:30PM GMT and a low figure means that the EUR/USD will appreciate. The opposite is true for a high value since the USD is in the denominator here.

Wells Fargo had a strong earnings report on Friday. Unfortunately, for bulls (myself included) who were long on the stock it has fallen. :doh: The market has reacted negatively even though WFC has been given an "overweight" rating by quite a few Wall Street analysts. The current trading price of $34.75 could actually be a long term support level as WFC is posed to have increasing growth given its cost management and core business growth. Price targets are up with many expecting it to hit $50 per share in 2 years time. WFC.bmp

Apple has been having a tough time after traders reacted to the bad news that it has cut orders for iPhone parts. This obviously signifies decreased demand and so traders have decided to exit their positions on the stock or look to short it which driven it down further. So low in fact that it is touching the $500 mark. While this does not bode well at all for the Cupertino, CA based firm, the bulls have contented that is a long term support level for the stock and now is the time to buy shares of the world's most valuable company. Price targets of a lot of Wall Street sell side firms is still in the $700ish region.

Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) has a low profit margin business model for a reason. Don't let the low profit margins and ROE affect you, Amazon is in this game for the long haul. CEO Jeff Bezos stated recently in an interview with Harvard Business Review how he was going after more market share in the global e-commerce market that is expected to grow considerably and be valued at around $1 trillion in 2016. ;)It is this expectation that has Bezos excited about Amazon's future and not bothered about the fact that the e-commerce giant is not making money right now. The P/E ratio of 3581.13 is an indicator of the extremely high growth that is to come. And what's more, investors got behind the stock in 2012 with AMZN giving nearly a 50% return for those who bought at the start of the year. It has continued its ascent in 2013 reaching $270 and laying waste to valuations that put it in the $200-$240 range. Bezos is bothered about one figure and that is the free cash flow which is expected to soar in the next five years. This brings me to my investment idea for the stock. We all know it has tremendous value in the long-term, but what about making money in the near term. The good news for bulls is that analysts at Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch have set the price target at the $300 region. Moreover, Morgan Stanley rates AMZN as an "overweight"!