PowerOptions WeBlog

Americans may be turning to their favorite discount retailer for savings as the oil producing nations of the world extract more money from their pocketbooks. Wal-Mart (WMT) announced today its 3rd quarter profits rose nearly 8% and the company upwardly adjusted their earnings predictions for the year.

Finland is a land of many lakes, trees, endless days in the summer and a period of 51 grueling sunless days in the winter. It has been rated the freest nation in the world, according to international groups who rate such things, and has twice provided the world with the winner of the Miss Universe [...]

Costco Wholesale (COST), perhaps benefiting from consumers hoping to save money as gas prices rise and the specter of inflation looms on the horizon, saw its profits rise 4.7% in the fourth quarter.

There have been widespread news reports suggesting the end of the rather short-lived ethanol boom. Ethanol was originally sold as a cure-all because it was renewable, good for farmers, great for midwestern cargo-rail, and brought jobs to rural interior communities.

September was a good month for bear positions on the housing sector (this is where we potentially returned 61.3%) and for Biotech and automakers. Daimler Chrysler and GM have seen over 10% in stock price gains over the past month.

If you ask someone who has visited Europe recently, they will tell you it isn’t nearly as cheap as it used to be. The weak US dollar may put a strain on our foreign travel budgets, but it has meant domestically produced goods and services are looking less and less expensive to the global market.

There has recently been a spate of media reports detailing the danger of chasing Jim Cramer recommendations. Ignoring this potentially sage advice to stay away, we dive headlong into the sometimes-erroneous hyperkinetic world of Jim Cramer to look at potential covered call trades on stocks he has recently plugged. (Note: Jim Cramer does not endorse [...]

News reports on Thursday stated mortgage lender Countrywide Financial (CFC) has siphoned off an $11.5 billion credit facility to fund its operations as they are having an increasingly hard time raising money. This news prompted Fitch (a stock rating agency) to lower Countrywide’s long-term default rating from A to BBB+.

Throughout May and June the PowerOptions blog reported on industry news and potential covered call trades with July expiration dates. Many of our ideas would have yielded a 0-6% return, but the proposed trades shown in the table below would have potentially returned 6-15.8%.

On Monday, a 6.8-magnitude earthquake hit northwest Japan knocking out the production lines of a large auto part manufacturer. Reports suggest this could affect as much as 70% of Japan’s domestic auto industry.