Search results

THURS. DEC. 9- Monitoring The Tax Policy Debate If you have a choice of selling a stock you’ve owned for a very long time and paying 15 cents on the dollar or 20 cents on the dollar, what would you do? If you’re near death and have an estate for $50 million and want to leave a nest egg...

WED. DEC. 8- The Great Equalizer Last night, the U.S. Treasury announced its intention to sell the rest of its Citicorp shares at 4.35. The final offering was titanic- about 2.4 billion shares. There are lots of things to be taken from this, but I want to touch upon the impact this had on...

TUES. DEC. 7- Don't Drive Too Fast... I love driving. Once upon a time a long long time ago, I'd take miscellaneous car trips by myself or with friends if for no other reason that I enjoy travel much less being on the open road. Well, I like most people have driven enough to know that a...

MON. DEC. 6- Trying To Figure Out The Figure One of the most common questions posed to me is as such: if a stock has an offer at a whole number (say 90) with its high of the day being that number, how do you know when you’re wrong and when you’re right in buying a stock at that price...

FRI. DEC. 3- Mistakes...In Context Yesterday morning, I had a fairly good trade monetarily yet my focus was on the fact that I made two pretty big mistakes and what I could take from it as well as exactly how “big” the mistakes were. First, the trade. With Netflix (NFLX) trading in the...

THURS. DEC. 2- Listening To What The Market Tells You As a kid, I like most other kids loved the week just before school ended. It was the anticipation…the good feeling that all kinds of summer activities, and well, freedom was about to start. What got short shrift particularly in middle...

TUES. NOV. 30- The Bailout Imagine if you will somebody who is in their mid 50's to mid 60's age-wise. This person has been very well-off for a number of years in running a series of businesses in a mid to larger-size town- probably the 2nd or 3rd wealthiest person in the town. Stable. Not...

MON. NOV. 29- Cyber Monday The brick and mortar retailers and on-line sellers alike are arguably in more focus today for day traders than any other day of the year. The reason for this is that Black Friday is often an indication for how the entire holiday shopping season will go. Black...

FRI. NOV. 26- Children on The Floor Last year on the Friday after Thanksgiving, I wrote this piece: http://epiphanytrading.blogspot.com/2009_11_27_archive.html Everything from that post stands. Today is a day that is typically either very busy with a lot of movement- particularly in...

WED. NOV. 24- Be Thankful Our forefathers lived in the Stone Age about a billion years ago. One billion months is about 82 million years. If you sat down to count from one to one billion and did at an average pace continually, it’d take 95 years to do it. A billion inches is about 16,000...

TUES. NOV. 23- Financial Trouble On Friday night around 8:30PM, a seemingly noxious story broke. The story gained traction over the weekend to the point that when I had a chance to get an update in between a myriad of some other major personal happenings, I looked at it. It was on the...

Mon. Nov. 21- Muni Mess For those who follow municipal bonds, the first half of last week was quite startling. For those not familiar, municipal bonds are financial instruments used to finance the debt much less operations of a city or state. Many investors like to purchase these financial...

FRI. NOV. 19- Reacting To GM One of the most misquoted lines in American history is “What’s good for General Motors is good for America.” What was actually said occurred in a 1953 hearing. President Eisenhower nominated then-GM CEO Charles Wilson to be Secretary of Defense. During the...

THURS. NOV. 18- Stability Vs Gambling Has anyone ever gone to Vegas or Atlantic City and placed a $100 bet on, say, red on the roulette wheel? Let’s say you lose. You decide to double down by betting another $100. And lose again. Now you’re down $200. You double down again. You lose...

WED. NOV. 17- All The World's A Stage In his inaugural address before commencing his presidency, Thomas Jefferson noted his commitment to “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.” By that last phrase, he lent credence to the isolationists...

TUES. NOV. 16- Tackling Takeovers On Monday mornings in bull markets like the one we’ve had for the last two years or so, there are oftentimes a number of deals announced. The mergers tend to take place more frequently on Monday than any other day of the week because companies and the...

MON. NOV. 15- Love That Lilliput One of my favorite books out there is Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift. In the book, Gulliver loves to travel. How appropriate. He comes across two lands. The first is Lilliput. On this ill-fated voyage, Gulliver is washed up on shore somewhere after a...

FRI. NOV. 12- Irish Eyes Are Not Smiling These Days Imagine if after the market’s huge rally of the last 1 ½ years, Citicorp was trading around 2 while Bank of America (BAC) hovered just below 1. Not fathomable after the QE pumping? Such is the case in the Emerald Isle. My mother was just...

THURS. NOV. 11- Style Points Don't Count...But Know Your Style Sorry for being New York-centric here in the start to this, but I’ll do my best to broaden out my main point. A few days ago, I was in midtown Manhattan after having taken my kids to the Big Apple Circus. We’d eaten...

WED. NOV. 10- Focusing On The Big Picture On May 14, following several discussions the previous day, I wrote a piece about a topic that seems to be very cut and dry from a pure logical standpoint. I literally pleaded for anybody who disagreed to comment and never heard any feedback- negative...