Jim Cramer on Hedge Funds Manipulating the Market

Some good stuff from an interview with Jim Cramer here on YouTube. I think we have a few months left on our TheStreet.com subscription. I might check out their TV offerings a bit more. I hear that WallStrip is over there now too.

Review of FinanceMarkets.co.uk

The following is a paid review…

Finance MarketsFinance Markets is a blog written by some folks across the pond. Despite an understandable bias towards European news and posting prices in British pounds, the blog is applicable to investors everywhere.

The Finance Markets blog is updated a lot. There are about 3-6 posts every day, most of which come from one Elaine Frei. The posts cover a familiar range of finance topics from “Economy” to “Investments” to “Property“. There are also some “personal finance topics” like “Insurance“, “Loans“, and “Banking“.

The writing is generally good and much more professional than your typical blog. In fact, I might say that the posts are a bit too professional. There is a bit of a lack of character to the entries. The lack of a way for users to comment on a post don’t help this.

Still I’d say the site is worth a look. Browse around for topics that interest you and you might learn a thing or too. This blog would be especially useful if you are interested in getting a European view of the market. There are daily recaps of the action in the US markets, with citations from some sources that might not be on your reading list.

What a Day!

On days like these, it’s good to be 100% cash. I am holding some mutual funds in my IRA, but that was only down a little under 1% today (The only real loser was an S&P ETF I have 25% of my holdings in). However, my personal trading account was sidelined through this mess today. (more…)

AMD – It’s in Your Phone

Well not yet, but that is the plan. And I wonder if investors realize the potential. My guess is that Advanced Micro Devices (really their recently bought ATI division) is poised to make a bunch of money putting graphics processors into mobile phones, and this fact is not fully priced into the stock.

I wonder if investors are able to see past the PC market, when they think about AMD. It seems that all of the focus is on their competition with Intel. Meanwhile, the graphics card market is still ripe for growth. People, I think, finally realize that ATI and Nvidia supply chips for gaming consoles, and that part of the business is priced in. But what about the cell phone market? And the cell phone market is much bigger than the gaming console market. It may even be much bigger than the PC market, and with faster turnarounds.

Savings-Accounts.com

Money Money Money. Money.The following is a paid review. See the notes at the bottom for more information.

Looking for a place to store your hard earned (or not so hard earned) money? Savings-Accounts.com is site that shows the interest rates available at the most popular US banks.

According to the list, HSBC is the best bet with a 6% rate on “new money”. But hurry, you only have until April 30th to get the “promotional rate”. Bank of America and E*Trade are also decent with 5.1% and 5.05% repspectively. Your corner banks like Wachovia and Wells Fargo are offering just 0.25% and 0.50% respectively. The worst offer on the list is Key Bank, with a pitiful 0.15%.

Some Notes from My Watchlist

Here are the notes I wrote about some stocks on my watch list this morning.

KRY
– Wait for consolidation. $2.80-$3.50.

AMGN
– Fill the gap $71.50-$74. 200dma support at $69.50?

AMD
– What’s the next news catalyst? Value analysts’ upgrade? At what price level? Check Morningstar.

ERTS
– Upgrade wave may be in effect. MA gap from $50-$53. What’s the news catalyst for this? Check game sites.

Six Quick Book Reviews

I was going to write an individual post reviewing in depth each of the six books listed below. But since I’m a bad citizen and have given in to the fact that I will never find enough time to do so, I’m going to give a quick review for each of them here. So in the order I’ve read them…

Included are reviews of:

Forums Down Until Spam Problem is Fixed

I’ve been trying to stay on top of the spam problem with the forums, but the spammers are fighting harder and harder every day. I delete 25 spam posts and 50 more spring up right away. The last 500 or so posts have come from spammers. And I understand why there haven’t been many legit (more…)

Short Seller Whining

I’m at an interesting position in my Crystallex (AMEX:KRY) trading. I’m thinking of making a $3 to $3.50 trade on the stock. I still own a core position, which is sitting tight until permit time.

Okay, I’ve setup the trade. Bought 1500 shares at $3.02 with a tight stop at $2.96. With a target of $3.40, I’m risking 6 cents a share with a chance to make 39 cents a share, or 6.5x my risk.

Spam and Porn in the Forums

I want to apologize for the porn spam that has taken over our forums. I just finished clearing out all the bad posts I could. It took me over one and a half hours. Painful stuff. And the worst thing is that most of the links (or at least the few I checked) didn’t even (more…)