Posted Jun 30th 2009 1:40PM by Sheldon Liber
Filed under: Options, BHP Billiton Ltd ADR (BHP), Anglo Amer ADR (AAUK), Stocks to Buy
This is a continuation of a theme I have been writing about this year involving stock options referred to as naked puts.
This allows investors to take a position in a stock, most often below its current price, but depending on market sentiment. That sentiment remains relatively negative so the spreads are attractive.
I have been following BHP Billiton Ltd ADR (NYSE: BHP) the largest mining company in the world, with headquarters in Australia, for a while but I do not own the stock today. I view all mining companies as an opportunity because I think the diversified raw materials they control are the best hedge against inflation. I do not think inflation is imminent, but with the extreme increases in money supply and debt being created I do not think it will be avoidable a few years out.
Continue reading Chasing Value: Favorite trades -- BHP Billiton
Posted Jun 22nd 2009 9:40AM by Sheldon Liber
Filed under: International markets, Competitive strategy, Market matters, BHP Billiton Ltd ADR (BHP), Rio Tinto plc ADS (RTP), Bargain stocks, Serious Money, Commodities, Anglo Amer ADR (AAUK), Aluminum Corp of China ADS (ACH), Stocks to Buy, Best Stocks for 2009

It was reported on Sunday, June 21, that Anglo-Swiss mining company
Xstrata has proposed a merger of equals to the board of
Anglo American ADR (NASDAQ:
AAUK), hoping to create a new, more competitive mining giant. Rumors have been milling about for a while.
Together, Anglo American and Xstrata would have a market capitalization of approximately $68 billion, (AAUK's $35 billion + XTA.L's $33 billion) and be larger than
Rio Tinto plc ADS (NYSE:
RTP), which ended the trading day last Friday with a capitalization hovering over $42 billion.
Continue reading Serious Money: Anglo American - Xstrata merger?
Posted Jun 5th 2009 8:00AM by Tom Taulli
Filed under: BHP Billiton Ltd ADR (BHP), Rio Tinto plc ADS (RTP)

It was certainly a big-time bet: Chinalco agreed to invest a whopping $19.5 billion in
Rio Tinto (NYSE:
RTP), which is the #3 ore miner. However, over the past couple months, there was some doubt as to whether this transaction would come to fruition.
Well, this week, we got an answer. That is, Rio decided to dump Chinalco and instead
form a joint venture (JV) with
BHP Billiton (NYSE:
BHP), which is the #2 player in the global ore industry (keep in mind that both firms had a buyout deal that blew up last year).
Now, the JV has lots of merit. For example, there will be huge cost synergies, which could amount to more than $10 billion.
Continue reading Rio Tinto passes on $19.5 billion
Posted May 27th 2009 10:00AM by Jim Cramer
Filed under: Google (GOOG), Apple Inc (AAPL), General Motors (GM), Market matters, Citigroup Inc. (C), Research in Motion (RIMM), NIKE, Inc'B' (NKE), QUALCOMM Inc (QCOM), BHP Billiton Ltd ADR (BHP), Freep't McMoRan Copper (FCX), Wells Fargo (WFC), Cramer on BloggingStocks
TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says you may hear reasons why the rally shouldn't have occurred, but you can't deny it did happen. On Tuesday I wanted to shoot myself, as always when I woke up and went online to see what was going on. Here's a partial list of the beautiful data points that were in my purview in the first hour of looking over the market:
1. A trenchant note from a major strategist at a bank I trust who is talking about why the market must be avoided because private-equity valuations are collapsing, so what's the point of owning equities.
Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: Believe it, there's money to be made
Posted Apr 30th 2009 11:00AM by Eric Buscemi
Filed under: Analyst reports, Analyst upgrades and downgrades, Analyst initiations, Barclays plc ADS (BCS), BHP Billiton Ltd ADR (BHP), Goodyear Tire and Rubber (GT)
Analyst upgrades:
- Stephens upgraded Arris (NASDAQ: ARRS) to Overweight from Equal Weight following the company's Q1 results and raised its target on shares to $15 from $8.
- Goldman upgraded Goodyear Tire (NYSE: GT) to Neutral from Sell and raised their target to $11 from $7 citing better earnings prospects and stabilizing volumes.
- KeyBanc upgraded Parkway Properties (NYSE: PKY) to Hold from Underweight citing the company's improved balance sheet and valuation.
- Digital River (NASDAQ: DRIV) was raised to Perform from Underperform at Oppenheimer.
- Barclays (NYSE: BCS) was raised to Buy from Sell at Royal Bank of Scotland.
- First Potomac (NYSE: FPO) was upgraded at RBC Capital to Sector Perform from Underperform.
Continue reading Analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations: GT, BCS, PAS, UPS, HSBC ...
Posted Apr 14th 2009 11:10AM by Daleela Farina
Filed under: International markets, Products and services, Next big thing, Nokia Corp. (NOK), BP p.l.c. ADS (BP), BHP Billiton Ltd ADR (BHP), NASDAQ
While stocks listed on the over-the-counter bulletin board (
OTCBB) and the
Pink Sheets, a privately held daily quote service (not a stock exchange), are known to be lacking in SEC filings, liquidity, and easily obtainable financial information (some have been delisted from major exchanges so brokerages actually make customers sign additional forms recognizing the added risk if they choose to trade in this niche), they actually are fully audited. In the last few years, Pink OTC Markets Inc., which owns these quotation systems, has aimed to bring extended transparency to this little known niche through the introduction of
OTCQX.
The OTCQX, now a few years old and with 55 stocks listed, is a premium area of Pink Sheets -- which is littered with over 9,000 companies, most of which are penny stocks that don't trade very many shares or very often -- that provides a new level of disclosure not required outside of any major stock exchange, such as the AMEX, NYSE, or NASDAQ.
Continue reading Credibility and transparency in the Pink Sheets market?
Posted Apr 7th 2009 2:00PM by Connie Madon
Filed under: International markets, Analyst reports, China, BHP Billiton Ltd ADR (BHP), Commodities
Let's look at the explosive jump in the price of copper, and then examine the underlying factors that could signal the beginning of a sell off:
- From December 24, 2008 to April 3, 2009, copper rallied 51%.
- Global stockpiles tripled to about 567,000 tons since July.
- Hedge funds and other large speculators increased their net short positions in New York copper futures by .6% in the week ended March 31.
- Prices have been rising because of China's buying for stockpiles.
- Beijing's State Reserve Bureau (SRB) took advantage of the declines in 2008 and agreed to buy 300,000 to 400,000 tons. China may increase its stockpile to 936,000 tons in 2009.
- Jose Pablo Arellana, CEO of Santiago, Chile-based Codeleo, the world's biggest copper miner, said the December lows are "in the past" and Chinese demand rebounds.
- The 82-member Bloomberg world mining index led by BHP Billiton Ltd (NYSE: BHP) plunged 56% in the twelve months through April 3.
- Peter Sorrento, who manages Huntington Asset Advisor, said: "we think we could see a pretty significant sell off in the next quarter."
- A Bloomberg survey of 13 analysts estimates that copper will average $3,000.00 a ton this quarter, 21% below the April 3 closing price of $4,301.00 per ton.
- Copper and home building tend to go together. With confidence among U.S. home builders near record lows in March, there isn't much to spur the copper market much further to the upside.
Continue reading Are you a bull or bear on copper prices?
Posted Apr 6th 2009 9:50AM by Jim Cramer
Filed under: Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Coca-Cola (KO), PepsiCo (PEP), Home Depot (HD), AT and T (T), Johnson and Johnson (JNJ), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Abbott Laboratories (ABT), Alcoa Inc (AA), Best Buy (BBY), Hershey Co (HSY), Corning Inc (GLW), Research in Motion (RIMM), Goldman Sachs Group (GS), General Mills (GIS), Yum Brands (YUM), NIKE, Inc'B' (NKE), Lowe's Cos (LOW), Verizon Communications (VZ), QUALCOMM Inc (QCOM), BHP Billiton Ltd ADR (BHP), Cramer on BloggingStocks
TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says if you don't want to wait for a pullback, look abroad for the next leg or find values at home.
What do you do when everyone knows we have come up too far, too fast; no one knows who is actually buying; and we are going into earnings season?
What do you do when the animal spirits are taking up the market and yet other than a handful companies -- Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) (Cramer's Take), Xilinx (NASDAQ: XLNX) (Cramer's Take), Corning (NYSE: GLW) (Cramer's Take), Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) (Cramer's Take) and Taiwan Semi (NYSE: TSM) (Cramer's Take) -- almost all companies that have spoken during the "off-season" earnings reports have been dismal?
Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: So you missed the recent run -- now what?
Posted Apr 1st 2009 11:15AM by Eric Buscemi
Filed under: Analyst reports, Analyst upgrades and downgrades, FedEx Corp (FDX), BP p.l.c. ADS (BP), Analyst initiations, BHP Billiton Ltd ADR (BHP), Raytheon Company (RTN)
Analyst upgrades:
- Morgan Stanley upgraded CNOOC Ltd (NYSE: CEO) to Equal Weight from Underweight to reflect higher crude oil price estimates.
- Goldman upgraded VMware (NYSE: VMW) to Conviction Buy from Neutral and raised its target to $29 from $27 following positive checks that indicate strong business actively. The analyst expects VMW's revenue growth to be up 9% in 2009 vs. expectations for overall IT spending to be down.
- UBS upgraded ON Semiconductor (NASDAQ: ONNN) to Buy from Neutral and raised its target to $5 from $3.80 based on positive Asia checks that indicate an improving demand outlook and that the company could beat near-term expectations.
- Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) was lifted to Buy from Neutral at Goldman and to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley.
- Ashland (NYSE: ASH) was raised to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan.
Continue reading Analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations: VMW, VOD, BP, BHP, RTN, FDX ...
Posted Mar 23rd 2009 12:00PM by Eric Buscemi
Filed under: Analyst reports, Analyst upgrades and downgrades, Aetna Inc (AET), Agilent Technologies (A), Corning Inc (GLW), Analyst initiations, BHP Billiton Ltd ADR (BHP)
Analyst upgrades:
- Citigroup upgraded shares of Corning (NYSE: GLW) to Buy from Hold as it believes LCD glass production and sales have bottomed and will pick-up in Q2. The firm raised its target price to $16 from $11.25.
- Thomas Weisel upgraded Celera (NASDAQ: CRA) to Overweight from Market Weight based on valuation and its strong business model.
- ThinkEquity upgraded Varian Semi (NASDAQ: VARI) to Buy from Accumulate and raised its target to $32 from $20 based on valuation and weakness at its sole competitor.
- Sanofi-Aventis (NYSE: SNY) was upgraded to Hold from Underperform at Jefferies.
- Agilent (NYSE: A) was raised to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse.
- Liberty Interactive (NASDAQ: LINTA) was upgraded at JP Morgan to Neutral from Underweight.
Continue reading Analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations: GLW, A, BHP, MJN, AET ...
Posted Mar 20th 2009 10:10AM by Jim Cramer
Filed under: Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Coca-Cola (KO), PepsiCo (PEP), Intel (INTC), Market matters, Johnson and Johnson (JNJ), Kellogg Co (K), Goldman Sachs Group (GS), General Mills (GIS), Oracle Corp (ORCL), Nucor Corp (NUE), QUALCOMM Inc (QCOM), Texas Instruments (TXN), BHP Billiton Ltd ADR (BHP), Freep't McMoRan Copper (FCX), Cramer on BloggingStocks
TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says this market is short-term overbought -- any other reasons to buy can wait. The playbook says, "Buy weak-dollar plays." But does that mean only weak-dollar commodity plays, as in flee-out-of-dollar-into-oil plays? Or weak-dollar plays like
Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:
JNJ) (
Cramer's Take) and
General Mills (NYSE:
GIS) (
Cramer's Take)? Or weak-dollar plays like gold? Or tech plays because
Intel (NASDAQ:
INTC) (
Cramer's Take) and
Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:
HPQ) (
Cramer's Take) are hugely international?
Or do you bother doing anything at all up here because we are plus-seven on the oscillator and every time we have gotten this overbought in this market, we have come crashing down?
Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: Lock in some profits
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