Category: Stock Option Trading News

Scientists with the International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) plan to unveil a prototype chip today that uses optical connections to increase the speed of moving data among chips to eight times that of previous technologies, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Oil has reached a year-high of nearly $63 a barrel as Iran and Venezuela are continuing to raise international tensions with their political positions. In this blog entry, we will take a look at Jim Cramer’s position on what this means for the long-term profitability of the energy sector and where investors can look for covered call trading positions.

In article, “Subprime Lenders Are In the Bear House”, we outlined a bear call credit spreads stock options strategy for the subprime mortgage lenders. All four bear call credit spreads positions selected were profitable with an average return of +10.9%. Signup now for PowerOptions free 14-day trial The news on the subprime front is still gloomy. Mortgage lenders are tightening lending standards and many potential homebuyers are not able to find a mortgage lender willing to lend them the money to purchase a house or the borrowers now find the interest rates and/or required down payments unsuitable for their budgets.

IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) raises the stakes as it placed a competing $9.9 Billion bid for the Chicago Board of Trade (BOT). The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) had been talking of a merger since last October. The CME was prepared to pay $8.96 billion for CBOT.

In the James Bond movie From Russia with Love a Soviet defector plans to sell the evil SPECTRE organization a decoder device allowing them to acquire Russian state secrets and the ability to destabilize the world order. But in the end James Bond prevails and the world is saved from catastrophe. After the collapse of the iron curtain and the breakup of the Soviet Union, the world order truly was destabilized with the Russian economy left in shambles. But the Russian economy is starting to gain some traction as denoted in a recent Wall Street Journal article (online.wsj.com).

The U.S. trade deficit declined 3.8% from December to January. The trade deficit decline was mostly a result of higher exports. While imports did decline, it was only slightly. The trade deficit with China continues to widen — clocking in a 12% change from December to January.

The stock prices of companies manufacturing and selling fertilizer have been blasting off over the previous year. When most people hear about fertilizer they think about the smelly byproduct stuff from animals. But a large majority of fertilizer is manufactured from natural gas and the price of natural gas is cheaper than it was a year ago. Fertilizer manufacturers have benefited from the lower prices for natural gas.

In a move widely seen as an attempt to aggressively weaken rival SAP AG’s market position, Oracle announced today it would by Hyperion (HYSL) for $3.3 billion in cash.

Lance Inc. (LNCE) released its fourth quarter earnings Monday in a report showing profit more than tripling over the same period one year ago. But higher commodity prices, such as flour and corn, as well as less than anticipated sales of cookies and crackers slightly decreased results in the fourth quarter causing the stock to be below Wall Street estimates.

Subprime lenders are in the business of lending money for mortgages to borrowers with poor credit. During the heyday of low interest rates, the loan requirements of many subprime lenders were too lax as many of the subprime loans made during that time period are in default or behind in payments. The subprime mortgage industry will be in the bear’s house for some time to come, as there will probably more fallout from poor loan quality and interest rates won’t be coming down for a while, maybe a long while, so we’re bearish on the subprime mortgage lenders.