Posted Jun 30th 2009 12:00PM by Sheldon Liber
Filed under: Rants and raves, United Parcel'B' (UPS), Options, Chasing Value, Stocks to Buy, Best Stocks for 2009
For those of you who are able to trade options, I have been writing more and more about naked puts, "selling to open" stock options that I have been doing all year with great returns due to an overabundance of fear.
Yesterday I reviewed one example in Chasing Value: GE -- maybe not eating out of trash cans after all, and today I review some of my favorite ways to make money and improve my portfolio.
Let me start with United Parcel Service Inc. (NYSE: UPS), a company with a great balance sheet, strong management, and trading 29% off its 52-week high, about where I sold it last year. I bought it earlier this year at the bargain basement price of $44, and now wished I had bought more.
Continue reading Chasing Value: Favorite trades -- UPS
Posted Jun 17th 2009 4:30PM by Steven Mallas
Filed under: Earnings reports, FedEx Corp (FDX), United Parcel'B' (UPS)
FedEx (NYSE:
FDX), the delivery company that competes with
United Parcel Service (NYSE:
UPS), issued its Q4
earnings report on Wednesday. At first glance, it's scary. On a
GAAP basis, FedEx said it lost $2.82 per diluted share during the quarter. You say to yourself, "Man, has the recession gotten worse!" Then you take a breath and see that the loss is sourced back to goodwill charges related to the Kinko's and Watkins Motor Lines transactions. Therefore, adjusting for those elements, FedEx earned $0.64 per diluted share.
You feel a little better as a shareholder when you realize the loss has some accounting context surrounding it. The bad feelings return, however, just like a package that you forgot to put postage on, when you check the results achieved in the year-ago period. You find out that FedEx earned $1.45 per diluted share at that time. Is there any saving grace now?
Continue reading FedEx packages better-than-expected profit
Posted May 8th 2009 4:00PM by Jon Ogg
Filed under: Google (GOOG), General Electric (GE), McDonald's (MCD), FedEx Corp (FDX), United Parcel'B' (UPS), Activision Inc (ATVI)

Today's news was entirely about financial stocks. There is no denying it. We ran a full
summary bank by bank showing the needs or lack thereof that Uncle Sam was going to require. But because those have all been read about over and over, today's closing bell piece revolves around some of the other winners that are outside of financial stocks. You would have never thought that
8.9% unemployment could look so good. Here are the unofficial closing bell levels:
Dow 8,574.81 +164.96 (1.96%)
S&P 500 929.21 +21.82 (2.40%)
Nasdaq 1,739.00 +22.76 (1.33%)
Top Analyst UpgradesTop Analyst DowngradesContinue reading Closing Bell: It ain't just financial stocks (UPS, FDX, ATVI, GE, GOOG, MCD)
Posted May 7th 2009 1:30PM by Melly Alazraki
Filed under: Apple Inc (AAPL), Cisco Systems (CSCO), Ford Motor (F), General Motors (GM), Market matters, Citigroup Inc. (C), FedEx Corp (FDX), Oracle Corp (ORCL), United Parcel'B' (UPS), DJIA

No one can deny the horror that was
General Motors' (NYSE:
GM) first quarter financial results . . . even if it did
beat estimates. The automaker reported its eighth consecutive quarterly loss today -- this time in the amount of $6 billion. It also burned $10.2 billion in cash, its sales plunged 40% and it lost market share pretty much everywhere.
On that note, it's not surprising the guardians of the Dow Jones Industrial Average,
The Wall Street Journal editors, despite trying to keep to a minimum any changes in the component stocks, are finally considering removing the lowest priced stock on the index.
John Prestbo, the editor and executive director of Dow Jones Indexes, said in an
interview with Bloomberg Wednesday: "There are two choices for GM: bankruptcy or increased government ownership. Definitely the trend is in the direction that would force us to remove it."
Continue reading Will GM finally be kicked out of the Dow?
Posted May 5th 2009 10:30AM by Jim Cramer
Filed under: Microsoft (MSFT), Apple Inc (AAPL), Cisco Systems (CSCO), Intel (INTC), Market matters, Bank of America (BAC), Black and Decker (BDK), Research in Motion (RIMM), United Parcel'B' (UPS), U.S. Steel (X), Freep't McMoRan Copper (FCX), Wells Fargo (WFC), Cramer on BloggingStocks
TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says it's hard not to capitulate when your clients demand irrationality. When I was weighted short and we would have these seemingly endless days of rallying, it was the mornings that would get me. The mark-ups of the futures, the refusal of Asia or Europe to go down, the "tone." It was relentless.
Then I would get to the office and, after a long period in which all I heard were downgrades, I would be greeted by upgrades, where I would always scream, "Now? Now they upgrade
Intel (NASDAQ:
INTC) (
Cramer's Take)?" Or, "He's putting
Research In Motion (NASDAQ:
RIMM) (
Cramer's Take) on the list now, after this run?" Or, "
Wells Fargo (NYSE:
WFC) (
Cramer's Take) goes from hold to buy? After it ran up 4 points? What is he thinking?"
Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: The pain of being rational
Posted Apr 25th 2009 3:40PM by Trey Thoelcke
Filed under: Earnings reports, Yahoo! (YHOO), eBay (EBAY), Coca-Cola (KO), PepsiCo (PEP), Amazon.com (AMZN), International Business Machines (IBM), 3M Corporation (MMM), Caterpillar (CAT), Schlumberger Limited (SLB), Netflix, Inc. (NFLX), Bank of America (BAC), United Parcel'B' (UPS), Merck and Co (MRK), Hasbro Inc (HAS)
Here are some highlights from this past week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:
Continue reading Earnings highlights: Bank of America, Amazon, Coke, eBay, UPS, Yahoo!, IBM, and more
Posted Apr 23rd 2009 4:00PM by Jon Ogg
Filed under: Apple Inc (AAPL), eBay (EBAY), General Motors (GM), United Parcel'B' (UPS), EMC Corp (EMC), JetBlue Airways (JBLU)

Today was another one of those days that if you did not look up at the closing bell or at the numbers in the last hour of the day where there was no clear feeling of a direction. By 2 O'clock we had switched directions six times today. Weak housing data and
more job erosion than expected failed to define any trends. And the US Treasury planning more than $150 billion in auctions next week has failed to make any impression either.
Here are today's unofficial closing bell levels:
Dow 7,957.06 +70.49 (0.89%)
S&P 500 851.92 +8.37 (0.99%)
Nasdaq 1,652.21 +6.09 (0.37%)
Top Analyst CallsContinue reading Closing Bell: Trying To Find Direction (AAPL, EBAY, JBLU, GM, VMW, UPS, EMC)
Posted Feb 17th 2009 12:25PM by Sheldon Liber
Filed under: Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), Johnson and Johnson (JNJ), United Parcel'B' (UPS), Options, Bargain stocks, Chasing Value, Stocks to Buy, Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNI), Best Stocks for 2009

In reading recent stories that
Warren Buffett continues to increase his stake in
Burlington Northern Santa Fe (NYSE:
BNI) -- now standing at 22.4% -- I started to wonder if some day the name might be changed to
"Berkshire" Northern Santa Fe RR?'My pal Warren' is no doubt looking long term, and for most of the past two years has been up on
Berkshire Hathaway's (NYSE:
BRK.A) BNI investment. However that is not the case today as his most recent purchase at $75.00 per share (not bought in the open market) is under water; the shares closed at $66.04, down 12%. He is losing even more on his average purchase price.
Continue reading Chasing Value: Has BNI become 'Berkshire' Northern Santa Fe
Posted Feb 17th 2009 11:30AM by Sheldon Liber
Filed under: Other issues, Competitive strategy, Johnson and Johnson (JNJ), United Parcel'B' (UPS), Options, Stocks to Buy, Best Stocks for 2009

Right or wrong, I have been buying stocks on dips for the last five months, and the past two weeks I started adding naked puts to the mix on down days.
In short (no pun intended), I am opening
an option to sell a stock I do not own. These "naked puts" pay me cash on the first day to accept an obligation to buy a stock in the future at a predetermined price. If the stock is one cent or greater below the strike price, it gets "put to me" and I have to cover the position by buying the shares pledged.
Continue reading Investor fear puts me 'naked' on Wall Street
Next Page »