Friday, July 29, 2011

RIMM = PALM or Apple?

When I was a young boy (back 15 years ago give or take) I remember my dad coming home from work with this weird  looking device. He told me that it was a phone that also let him read his email. I thought it was pretty cool and so did he until he started actually getting work email while he was at home. This was the beginning of a long run of business world dominance for Research in Motion. My dad would go on to bring home a blueberry and possibly a strawberry, huckleberry or something else, I'm not quite sure. I just know that when he would take it out I would give him a raspberry. All joking aside (at least for the next 10 seconds) Research in Motion had it made. They were recognized as the only company that had an email system for cell phones that was safe (encrypted properly) for big businesses to use. Completely ignore the wildly popular (at least in the past) retail users for a second and think about how many businesses there are all over the world. Now stop ignoring the retail users and realize that his was a vast empire not just a cell phone manufacturer.
     Before the term smartphone was fashionable people were using Blackberrys to check and send email messages as well as surf their favorite websites. Research in Motion was first to market and enjoyed the benefits that came along with it. Adults were amazed at the capabilities of the devices that they were putting out and kids wanted to be the first to have them. Despite the fact that the service was expensive, and kids really had no use for the device, every phone that was made was sold. Research in Motion was doing great. Too great.
     There are two types of successful companies. Company A is the company that regardless of past success continues to be innovative and forward looking. This group contains Companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, etc. These companies will remain successful because even when they are doing well they are still coming out with new and better products/services.
      Company B is the company that fell from grace. For the purpose of this article the best example of one of these companies would be Palm. Palm came out with a completely new way to track every day activities. The Palm Pilot enabled you to keep your calendar + a note pad in your pocket without worrying about tons of clutter. As the years went by Palm would add a few bells and whistles but basically kept the product the same. They also decided that it would be better to focus most of their energy on this one product leaving little time/budget to work on other products. As time went on Palm started to bleed market share to other companies who began to compete both directly and indirectly with their Palm Pilot. By the time management decided it was a good idea to diversify their portfolio of product it was too late. The walls were closing in, the share price was dropping, and there was nothing that could be done. The once multi-billion dollar company was bought for just $1 billion dollars and not even for their main product. Palm had developed an operating system for their smart phones that was considered to be one of the best (if not the best) available at the time. The problem was, in another magnificent blunder, Palm signed an exclusive agreement with Sprint who had considerably less users than AT&T or Verizon. By this point the Palm phones were also competing with the I-Phone and Blackberrys (this was before droid phones). Everyone was watching the stock price drop down to  $15...$12...$10...$8...$5 and finally HP had seen enough.
        Now let's consider Research in Motion. They had an innovative product that both businesses and consumers were buying by the boat load. They put out new phones periodically that had some random bells and whistles, but they never really went out of their way to develop new and different products. They have a great service called BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) that allows people to chat in a way that is more efficient than SMS. This service would be valuable to any cell phone company.  The stock price has gone down by about 65% in the past 6 months and it doesn't show any signs of stopping. This sounds a lot like company B to me. The most dangerous words an investor can say is "this time is different". So let me ask you, is Research in Motion more like Apple or Palm?


Full Disclosure: I do not have any position in Apple, Hewlett Packard, Google, Facebook, or Research in Motion. (Especially Research in Motion!!)

Monday, July 25, 2011

Bubbles aren't just a toy for children

In order to have a market it is necessary to have people. Whenever you have a large group of people it is necessary to understand psychology. If I am sitting at my desk, and I hear from one of my friends that they just saved a ton of money by switching their car insurance to a different carrier what would my first reaction be? I would be on the phone calling that carrier to change my own car insurance without even looking at how much the new carrier is charging (if I was like most people). Retail investors are no different. If someone hears that so-and-sos uncle just made 50% in two weeks by investing in some small bio-tech company then this person is likely to go invest a large amount of money in bio-tech stocks (that he or she likely knows nothing about). This is relatively harmless to the overall market (though very often particularly harmful to that individual investor), the problem is when this process occurs with a popular idea that is somewhat unique. If everyone wants to get a piece of the popular idea, despite an ever growing valuation, eventually there will be a tipping point. The saying goes like this "If you pull up to the gas station and the attendant tells you that you should buy xyz company stock, then you know it's time to sell xyz company stock". This is Scenario 1.


Now lets say that we have one very successful unique idea (similar to scenario 1), but now 10,000 people copy your idea. Everybody wants a piece of the original idea (that is very successful), but unfortunately there are not enough equity shares to go around. Instead of sitting idly by and missing out on that great market (and lots of supposed profit) people start investing in the knock off sites. As the valuation of the original site increases so does the valuation of the knock offs. Eventually there are so many knock off sites that the market is flooded and valuations of all sites (including the original) deflate. This is Scenario 2.


Lastly lets say that you are entering a charity raffle for a brand new 60 inch tv (msrp $2500 lets assume unkown to the members). The raffle tickets are $1 each and you buy 10 figuring you will take a shot. The organization has 1000 members and each member besides you buys 5 tickets. The organization looks at the money generated 3 days before the raffle and is a little disappointed so they try to come up with a way to increase their revenue. A wise board member suggests selling the raffle tickets as buy 1 get 1 free for the last 3 days until the raffle will end and a winner is picked.
     Now for the next raffle lets complicate matters and say that you have 2 choices when you buy your raffle tickets. You can either buy the original tickets for $1 a piece or you could buy coupons for a meal (burger, fries, and soda) at a local burger joint for $4 (a $3 discount). Let's say that there is a finite but large amount of these burger coupons and an finite amount of raffle tickets to be sold. As you could probably guess most of the members of the charity decided they weren't going to be a fool again so they bought the burger joint coupons. They not only bought coupons for themselves they also made the business decision of buying extra tickets so they could sell them to other people. This model seems to work great at first as the market seems to be willing to pay $5.50 for these coupons. The charity is making money, the charity members (reselling) are making money, and the people buying the coupons from the members are making money. One day the restaurant catches wind of what the charity members are doing and decides to run a $5.00 meal promotion until the coupons expire. The secondary market for the coupons goes from $5.50 to $4.00 overnight, and what's worse is that the charity members bought so many coupons they don't know what to do with them. The next day charity members start panicking and sell the coupons for $3.50... $3.00... $2.50.  This is Scenario 3


End Note:  Obviously if you follow investment news on a somewhat regular basis these analogies should be quite clear to you, but for everybody else: Scenario 1 is Facebook, Scenario 2 is Groupon, Scenario 3 is gold. I am not saying that you need to avoid investing in these ideas. I am not even saying that there necessarily will be a bubble bursting but it is inflating at a pretty rapid pace. DIAYOR (do it at your own risk)

For The Record: I am long Gold.

Friday, July 22, 2011

In Case of Default, Buy Treasuries?

In life there are many things that do not make sense. Why does it sometimes rain when there is nothing but blue sky and sun? Why would the U.S. government ban online poker when they are seriously in need of revenue? Why do dogs hate cats? Why would Treasuries go up in price if/when the U.S defaults on its existing debt? (Read this again in case you were busy drinking coffee/reading other articles/playing a game/playing two games while drinking coffee.)
      I read an interesting article today (@CNBC) that proposed that exact, seemingly ludicrous, (not the rapper) idea. Before you close the blog page and write me off as a loony let me explain what amounted to two valid arguments made in the article.
        First, There is an insatiable desire for U.S. treasuries. China, Japan, Europe, Money Market funds, and large corporations all hold U.S. treasuries for security and yield (however minimal it is) because they are considered the same as cash except with a yield. Imagine for a second that I told you that money you put under your mattress earned X% interest annually. Now stop imagining and by treasuries because that is how the global market place views them. When the U.S. hits the debt ceiling (I keep saying when so you obviously know how I feel about the likely hood of compromise occuring between politicians.) it will no longer be able to issue new treasuries. In Economics 101 we all learned that when supply goes down and demand stays the same price goes UP.
       Second, Whenever people get spooked by anything they always run from risky assets and fly to safety. The flight to safety is generally U.S. Treasuries. I'm sure all you amateur Sherlock Holmes' and Cam Jansens' (#childhoodmysteryprotaganist) can see where I am going with this. Where do you run if what you are running from is what you normally run to? The answer is simple (is it?) you run to your broker and buy some Treasuries. I have to admit I find this argument to be a little more suspect than the first, but it does bring up a valid concern. If the whole world is collapsing around you then where do you go for yield? I suppose you can argue that if the whole world is collapsing around you that yield is not as important as a supply of food and weapons, but for the sake of discussion lets say that just the European and U.S. bonds are in default. You aren't going to shove your money in stocks because they are termed "risk assets" and you aren't going to put your money in the bank because you need to earn some return. I'm sure everyone remembers the classic cure for a hangover in college? A beer when you wake up. I guess when people say that Investment Firms are like fraternities they really aren't far from the mark.
      I will not say that I completely agree or disagree with this article but I will say that it is intriguing. How would you allocate your investments in the event of a U.S. debt default?

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Interested in an IPO?

Nothing is more exciting, interesting, nor mysterious than the IPO (at least in the investing world). Everyone and their brother wants to get shares of this "next big thing". Is it worth it? Can you get shares during the IPO? If you get shares should you hold on to them for an extended period of time (30 days, 90 days, 2 years)? Why are these IPOs so sought after by new and seasoned investors alike? This seems like a good start, but if anyone has any other questions or comments feel free to comment on the bottom or hit twitter (@SellStraddles).

Why are IPO's so sought after by new and seasoned investors alike? Have you ever been sitting on the couch watching t.v. when a commercial for the newest best thing comes on. For argument's sake lets say that you see a commercial for the IPAD 2 while you are sitting watching t.v. holding your original IPAD. Even though you have an IPAD that has very similar functionality you desire the new IPAD 2 because it is the "next best thing". Hype breeds more hype and there is no bigger hype (in the stock market) than an IPO.


Can you get shares during the IPO? Those of you that have read my other posts (shame on you if you haven't) are aware that I did work in the finance industry for approximately 2 years before taking some time off now to finish my MBA. One of the great injustices that I came across while working at a big investment firm was the way IPOs and secondary offerings were handled. For those of you who are not aware how the process works, you can only get shares at the IPO price if you broker/financial advisor works for a financial institution that has taken part in the underwriting. This means that if you do not use a big brokerage house that does underwriting (Wells Fargo Advisors, Merill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, etc.) you do not have access to the shares during the IPO. Now let's say that you do have a brokerage account at one of these major investment firms you are still not guaranteed to get shares in the IPO that you desire. Investment firms hand out the shares that they are allotted in the IPO to their best brokers/advisors who in turn sell these shares to their best clients.

If you get shares should you hold on to them for an extended period of time? If you get involved in a good situation you should hold onto it as long as possible right? Not exactly. If you look at two companies that had their IPO today they are excellent examples. Skullcandy the maker of headphones, apparel, accessories priced their IPO at $20.00 per shares.  When the market opened skullcandy was trading at $23.11 per share, (a nice profit for those lucky enough to be part of the IPO), but by the end of the day the stock was trading exactly where it started at $20.00 per share. Zillow, a company that helps people estimate the value of their home, also had their IPO at a list price of $20. This company ballooned at the open of trading to $57.00 per share. By the end of trading for today the stock was trading at $35.77. This is a hefty profit for one trading day, but both of the IPOs illustrate the same point. You don't make money using a buy and hold strategy for IPOs. Hype is followed by an inevitable exhaustion of the hype, and when hype leaves it tends to leave all at once taking the share price with it. If you are lucky enough to get involved in an IPO it is generally better to sell the shares the morning of the IPO, let the share price settle down, then buy the shares back at a lower price if you believe that the company has a bright future ahead of it. Never buy shares of an IPO the day it is listed if you are not buying it at the actual list price.


End note: It amazes me that this process of dealing out IPO shares can continue to go on the way it does. Supposedly the market is fair for small and large investors alike; whether you own one share of disney or manage an $8 billion hedge fund you are supposed to have equal access and execution for all investment vehicles. (There is a joke in there somewhere) I guess we can only hope for changes in favor of the individual investor at some point in the future.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Who doesn't love stock brokers?

Long ago and Far away there was a land where people would invest in pieces of paper called stocks. These stocks would give them partial ownership in a large company. The only way to obtain these stocks was by calling your "trusty" stock broker. This stock broker would give you a price to buy whichever stock you desired and you would tell him how many shares. After processing the order you would hang up feeling content that you bought ownership in a company that you believed would increase in value over time. The broker laughed all the way to bank. At this point nobody realized how much the stock broker was marking up the stock because this was also a land that did not have real-time stock quotes. (Gasp! The Horror)
     Fast forward to the 1970's and you will see a shocking new development. People were starting to get curious why they were working their whole lives to save whatever they could for retirement (with meager returns) while their stock broker is eating lobster and fillet on their 40 foot yacht. Thus the discount broker was born. It was a tough road for the discount broker in the beginning. Everybody had their stock broker who they spoke with on the phone or in person. He knew their name and their likes or dislikes (keeping extensive notes doesn't hurt). If you asked your broker about these discount brokers they would try to convince you that they are: scams, frauds, bed wetters, murders, etc. They would tell you that the discount broker doesn't love you like they do and that you are not going to get the same "attention" as you do with the full service broker. At this point the full service brokers were winning but the tide was ever so slightly starting to change.
      Fast Forward to the 1990's. The introduction of "real-time" quotes (most sites have quotes that are 20 minutes delayed) blew a lot of peoples' minds. It also caught a lot of full service brokers with their pants down. People wanted to know why the stock that they see quoted at $25.00 was sold to them for $26.00 by their broker. At this point this discount broker did something incredibly smart. All trades were done at the same flat rate. Come to us and we'll charge you $20.00 a trade. Trade 1 shares or trade 5,000 shares we will charge you one low flat rate. As more and more information about how the market truly worked was made available to the everyday person they decided that they didn't need some overpriced buffoon charging them for what they could do on their own. Like any other competitive market the discount brokerage market had a big pricing war. $20 dollar trades became $18 dollar trades. $18 dollar trades became $15... $12... $9.99...
$5... $3.
      Who doesn't love a bargain? $3 dollars a trade is insanely cheap for executing a trade. If you are an active trader who does 100 trades a month you would be paying $300 dollars vs. $1000+ that you would be paying at a full service broker. Case closed use the discount broker right? Not exactly... Discount brokers have cheap transaction prices for a reason. You get no frills service (I was never one for frills anyway), they don't know my name (that's fine computers are easier to deal with people anyway), the customer service is questionable (STICKING POINT). I need to know that when I have a problem I will be able to get somebody on the phone who is interested in helping me resolve the problem. I don't want to hear that their market maker had a problem so they weren't processing transactions (as I watch my Microsoft calls that I am trying to sell deteriorate as the market starts tanking) . I don't want to hear that the platform is down during pre-market trading (as I am trying to sell my shares in a biotech company that released positive binary news). I need to know that if I am trying to perform a transaction, during the times that are specified by the discount broker, that it will get done properly. (If you want advice on which discount broker NOT to use private message me and I will let you know)
    So discount brokers are terrible and full service brokers are crooks; I guess we just shouldn't trade stocks at all, correct? Incorrect. Not all discount brokers are terrible and there might be a full service broker in some of the far reaches of the world who is not a crook. The point is that you have to make sure you do your research before you trust anybody with your money. If you have the time to do the research necessary to properly allocate your money into diverse investments then by all means use a discount broker. Just PLEASE make sure you do your research so that you don't end up arguing with customer support (who has no interest in helping you) after waiting for an hour and a half on hold. If you do not have the time/desire to do the research necessary to manage your investment portfolio then use a full service broker. Just PLEASE do not take the fees that they give you at face value. There is always wiggle room in those fees, but you are not going to get a discount unless you ask for it. Remember you do not need the broker. You may need A broker but you don't need THAT broker. So when are going in for an initial meeting make sure you go in with that attitude and watch them cut basis points off the fees and dollars of your transaction costs. You can thank me later.


Monday, July 18, 2011

Moody's Suggests US Eliminates Debt Ceiling (@CNBC)

In a suggestion that can only be categorized as ridiculous Moody's chimed in with a way for the United States to maintain the AAA rating on it's debt. Don't raise the debt ceiling... ELIMINATE IT. You can't default on your debt as long as there is a sucker out there who is willing to invest new money in you. (Reminds me of someone who is currently spending the next 150 years of his life in jail). In all seriousness though let's compare this to a real life situation. Let's say I am 45 years old (I'm not), Let's say I have a 19 year old son (I don't), and Let's say that said son has run up $10,000 of credit card debt which for our purposes is his credit limit. Option A: I tell my son that he has dug a pretty deep hole and I would recommend that he gets a job / saves money from his current job to pay down that debt. Option B: I tell him to get a new credit card before the fact that he isn't paying his old one hits his credit score and to spend as he wishes. The fact that the spending of the United States of America can so easily be compared to that of an immature teenager is the root of our problem. At this point 40 cents on the dollar of what we borrow is being used for debt serivce.
    So where does this leave us? Again we have options: A: Raise the debt ceiling, B: Unilateral debt ceiling raise from the president C: Don't raise the debt ceiling, D: Raise the debt ceiling while at the same time agreeing to budget cuts. The options are ranked from most likely to least likely to happen. Only in a democratic society like the United States would compromising and agreeing to a resolution be the least likely outcome to a situation.  I enjoyed Warren Buffet's suggestion for cutting down on the deficit, " You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election." We would have a lot of unhappy congressmen trying to figure out how to get from 60% to 3%. 
    While this is going on you have the U.S. Stock market acting like a child in a messy divorce proceeding while Mommy and Daddy scream at each other. Even if both sides come to some type of an agreement the child still has lasting effects of the battle. We are staring down the barrel of debt downgrades that will forever make it more expensive for us to borrow in the open market. It's time to do what we learned in 2nd grade. COMPROMISE. That is... Unless we just remove the debt ceiling. The easiest way to solve a problem is to remove it correct? Not exactly... What if we remove the debt ceiling and then hit the de facto debt ceiling (100 cents on the dollar used for debt service). I can see the headline now, "Bernie Madoff sues U.S. governement for wrongful imprisonment".   

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Kick Off Post

There are a million people out there who would like to give you the next hot investment tip. They want to make you the next penny stock millionare, the next oil billionaire, or they want you to buy Lithuanian dairy farm bonds at 50 cents on the dollar because they know a secret that nobody else knows. You know, I know, and everybody else knows that there are plenty of ways to make a quick buck but many more ways to lose it.
     My name is Andrew Morgasen and I am a 25 year old MBA student studying Finance at Hofstra University. I have my license  to sell investment products (series 7. series 63, series 66, life accident and health insurance) but I would prefer to talk about something (anything!) else. In many ways I am the same as you and in some ways I may be different: I make money trading stocks and options, I lose money trading stocks and options, I trade on solid fundamental information, I trade on technical analysis, I trade on emotion (read: stupidity), I follow my own rules, I break every rule I set, I strive to gain new knowledge everyday.
     If you are looking for someone who is going to tell you exactly what to buy at exactly the right time now is the time to exit this blog and never return (actually never is a really long time especially for someone who is just starting up a blog and would be grateful for any and all interested readers). My point is that I will not be your Mad Money or Fast Money  because these shows do a disservice to their viewers. An excellent trader doesn't follow the herd; the herd follows the excellent trader.
    In Summary, If you are interested in commentary relating to top financial news you have come to the right place. If you like the commentary to be quick witted, amusing, often times sarcastic, and most times playful, I would ask you, kindly, to grant me your attention for a tiny fraction of your day, and you might learn something or even crack a smile. I look forward to people posting opinions both on the topics I address and on my commentary. You can tell me I'm wrong (I have been once or twice in my life), but please do so in a way that fosters communication rather than destroys it (response A: I disagree because blah blah physical silver blah) (response B: You @#$%%$  #!#$%#$ @##$%). I look forward to learning from everybody. 

-Andrew