Jewish Holidays 2012

Just a reminder. During the "no work permitted" Jewish holidays, the market for equities, forex and others will significantly drop in volume. Significant drop in volume could dramatically skewed price movement.The Jewish holidays for 2012 could be found in:

http://www.chabad.org/calendar/holidays_cdo/aid/672022/jewish/2010-Holidays.htm

Cheers !

PersianCat

U.S. Market Holidays 2012

January 16 - Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
February 20 - Washington's Birthday/Presidents' Day (3rd Mon. of Feb)
April 6 - Good Friday
May 28 - Memorial Day
July 3 -  Half-day (closed at 1:00pm EST) due to Independence Day
July 4 - Independence Day
September 3 - Labor Day
November 22 - Thanksgiving Day
November 23 - Half-day (closed at 1:00pm EST) due to Thanksgiving Day
December 24 - Half-day (closed at 1:00pm EST) due to Christmas Day
December 25 - Christmas Day

- extracted from http://www.nyx.com/

Cheers !
PersianCat

The Great U.S. Debt

Perhaps, there will be numerous case studies in the next few years tackling the rise and fall of economic super powers (e.g. U.S. and perhaps the PIIGS, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain). But for now, we will just provide links to a few videos on the U.S. debt crisis. This crisis would perhaps drags the whole world in economic turmoil. Cash could be king again.

Enjoy the links:

International Impact of U.S. Debt crisis (Aug 2011)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMIR1d0RAdI

Jim Rogers on U.S. Debt Crisis (July 2011)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANMz91JmCKk

Banned U.S. Commercial on National Debt (Nov 2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYKAbRK_wKA&playnext=1&list=PL2250D382179607D2


Cheers !

PersianCat (Meow !!!)

Phone OS sales forecast - Gartner, Apr 11

Based on the forecast above, Android phones will dominant at 38.5% market share by 2011 and 49.2% by 2012. The market share for iPhones will be slightly increased from 15.7% in 2010 to 19.4%. Its' market share will then dropped slightly to 18.9%. One can assume that the growth in apps downloads from iTunes will also be curtailed. This will greatly impact on the revenue that AAPL made on iPhones.

Cheers !
PersianCat

C - How will it perform after the Reverse Stock Split

Fellow traders had been asking me about my thoughts on C after the 10-1 reverse stock split on 6th May 2011.

The facts:

• The reverse split will effectively reduce the pool of outstanding shares from 29.1 B to 2.91 B. 
• The stock should trade in the $45.50 neighborhood, rather than the current $4.55 level.

The Good:

• Most large funds can only buy stocks above a certain price level, certainly not below $5. As such, large funds are expected to buy C in the future. 

The Bad:

• The volume for C from small traders are expected to drop (though may be somewhat compensated by the volume from large funds).
• Based on the experience faced by AIG (it conducted a 20-1 reverse stock split on 1 July 2009), we can expect C price level to drop over the next few days after the split. The stock would then recover with the general market. While the general market dropped for a few days after 1 July 2009 (SPY drop range was just 6.7% off the previous High), AIG dropped by a far more significant percentage

The future:

• I am still bullish about C in the long run. However, I would only pick-up the stocks after the reverse stock split as I expect the stock to drop significantly before it mirror the general market somewhat. I have sold those C shares that I had. 
• Currently, C is at an interesting 38.2% Fibonacci retracement level. 
• A good level to pick up the stocks is near the $36.30 price level (after the reverse split) or even lower. 

Cheers!

PersianCat (Meow !!!!!)

iPad2 (as at 3 Apr 2011)

The Street estimates

• iPad sales account for roughy 7% of Apple's stock value, if pegged at $420 (about 17% ahead of market price)
• If the iPad 2 can help Apple keep competitors' tablets at bay, our forecasts for iPad unit sales could prove conservative, implying upside to our $420 price estimate for Apple
• Apple sold around 15 million iPads in 2010, and we estimate that it could sell another 24 million in 2011. We project that this total will continue its steady climb towards 54 million by the end of our forecast period. 
• According to IDC, the tablet market is expected to grow from around 45 million units in 2011 to 71 million in 2012, and Apple's market share could reach 60% in 2011. This implies an expected 27 million iPads sold in 2011.
• Although our 24 million unit estimate seems a little conservative by comparison, we believe that Google's(GOOG_) new Android operating system for tablets (Honeycomb) could pose a meaningful challenge.

PersianCat (Meowwww!!!!)

iPad Statistics (as at March 2011)

iPad 2:

• The iPad 2 ships on March 11, 2011
• Available on Verizon(VZ_) and AT&T's(T_) 3G network
• Starts at $499 for the 16GB Wi-Fi only version and goes up to $829 for 3G version with 64 GB
• Runs on iOS 4.3
•  9.7-inch LED-backlit LCD screen
• Offers 10 hours of battery life
• Available in both black and white
• Begin shipping in 26 additional countries on March 25
• Powered by a dual-core A5 chip, the iPad 2 is "dramatically faster" than its predecessor, which ran on an A4 chip.
• The A5 processor is up to two times faster than the A4 and can also handle graphics up to nine times faster.
• The iPad 2 is 8.8 millimeters thick, compared to its 13.4 millimeter predecessor
• Lighter, weighing in at 1.3 lbs compared to the 1.5 lb iPad
• Comes with both front and rear-facing video cameras

iPad:

• Apple has paid out more than $2 billion to developers selling apps on the App Store, which opened in July 2008.
• iPad will account for 80% of tablets sold in the U.S. this year - Forrester Research
• Has more than 65,000 apps designed for the iPad, compared with about 100 for devices running Google's (GOOG) Honeycomb Android operating system, according to Apple CEO Steve Jobs
• Apple should sell at least 20 million iPads in the U.S. this year. It sold nearly 15 million iPads worldwide in nine months of availability last year - Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman
•  iPads generated $9.5 billion for Apple in 2010 - Steve Jobs 

Cheers !

PersianCat

U.S. Smartphone Statistics (Nov 2010 - Jan 2011)

The smart phone market will be dominated by 3 phone operating system since Nokia will be abandoning its Symbian OS. The OS to watch for this year will be Android, iPhone OS and Blackberry. The Microsoft Windows 7 OS will only gain significant traction towards the end of 2011 when Nokia starts introducing its Windows 7 phones.

Cheers !

PersianCat

Jewish Holidays in 2011

Just a reminder. During the "no work permitted" Jewish holidays, the market for equities, forex and others will significantly drop in volume. Significant drop in volume could dramatically skewed price movement.The Jewish holidays for 2011 could be found in:

http://www.chabad.org/calendar/holidays_cdo/aid/672022/jewish/2010-Holidays.htm

Cheers !

PersianCat

A 10% correction in the making?

The general market has been on a bull run without much rest since Sep 2010. It is due for a correction. Analyst is now calling for a 5-10% correction. Looking at the charts, it looks like a good possibility that it might happen. Technically, the DOW index just tested 12,000 level (a logical resistance level) before it started the drop last Friday. Likewise, the S&P 500 index also touched the 1,300 level (a logical resistance level) before it also dropped last Friday. The drop in the markets on Friday does not mean that the markets are starting to correct. However, it seems like a good logical point to start to correct.

The political crisis in  the Tunisia, Egypt and perhaps elsewhere in the Middle-East might create the catalyst for the correction. Initially, the worries about Egypt was that shipping through the Suez canal could be disrupted because of the turmoil. The worries worsen with the scenario painted that if the turmoil spreads to the countries in the Persian Gulf, then oil supplies from the Persian Gulf might be disrupted. That is a bigger worry!

Regardless of what is going to happen, I am just playing with the flow. I have shorted ES (S&P 500 futures) on Friday. I also left some SPY Puts over the weekend.

Cheers !

PersianCat

AAPL - Analyst Estimates

iPads
(info from DigiTimes)

• iPad 2 to be released and shipped in January 2011. More than 500k units to be prepared
• iPad 2 shipment could reach 40 million units in 2011, accounting for 65% to 75% of the global tablet PC market.
• 12 - 16 million iPads shipped by end 2010.

iPhones 

• Apple upped the global shipment order of new iPhones from 19 million to 20-21 million

Cheers !
PersianCat

U.S. 2011 Market Holidays

January 17 - Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
February 21 - Washington's Birthday/Presidents' Day (3rd Mon. of Feb)
April 22 - Good Friday
May 30 - Memorial Day
July 4 - Independence Day
September 5 - Labor Day
November 24 - Thanksgiving Day
November 25 - Half-day (closed at 1:00pm EST) due to Thanksgiving Day
December 26 - Christmas (observed)

- extracted from http://www.nyse.com/

Cheers !
PersianCat

Quantitative Easing Explained

Found this - a simplified version of the explanation of the QE2. Quite comical.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTUY16CkS-k

Cheers !

PersianCat (Meoooowwwww!)