WSO Poem: The Street Before Christmas 2012

Courtesy: Google Images

I'm in retirement mode, but that's no excuse for not spreading some Yuletide cheers to all of you, courtesy of our friend Patrick Curtis from Wall Street Oasis. He called our attention to Eddie Braverman's posted poem at WSO titled "The Street Before Christmas 2012."

Composing an ordinary poem is difficult enough; to be able to string together verses about the scandals and fortunes of the big players on Wall Street during a "strange year" in a witty tongue-in-cheek way is nothing short of genius!

Check out Eddie's  Christmas poem on this link: http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/blog/the-street-before-christmas-2012

Happy Holidays!

Penny Stocks 101 [infographic]

Investing in stocks is not for risk-averse individuals. But for those with high risk thresholds, the stock market can be a place where really huge returns can be made. Sure, it takes courage to risk hard-earned money in the stock market but there are ways to minimize the fear factor and gradually build our confidence level.

One way is to enroll in the "kindergarten" for stock trading--penny stocks. Penny stocks are great for first time traders because of the low cost involved. Low cost means a first time trader can minimize the risk of losing much on the downside. While that is a very negative way of putting it, betting on penny stocks could gradually increase one's confidence level and refine one's ability to pick winning stocks.

On the upside, of course, since penny stocks are cheap it's easy to accumulate many shares, which could generate much profit if the stocks chosen hit the provervial jackpot. This is best explained by the infographic below:
  

Via: StockRockandRoll

StreetofWalls: 1Q 2012 Hedge Fund Intelligence Report Update

StreetofWalls.com (SOW) has released its "Hedge Fund Intelligence" report update for 1Q 2012 on the individual portfolio holdings of the top 22 Hedge Funds. As in the previous SOW reports posted on this blog, the basic inputs for the current update were drawn from SEC form 13-F filings.

Here's SOW's Quick Takeaways from the current report:

• The most crowded new ideas during the quarter were AAPL, GOOG, WYNN, and HCA. Other new positions shared among hedge funds but with less overlap were PCLN, DTV, LBTYA, SHW, ANV, NFLX, VRSN, SHW, TRIP, and SIRI;
• Excluding large allocation from Hayman, Financials saw a -2.0% decline in sector exposures. Low rates and mortgage related put-back problems in Financials may have led managers to trim and exit positions within the space throughout 2011 and into 2012;
• A majority of hedge funds largest positions were shared amongst the hedge funds in our universe. AAPL was by far the most crowded position in the top 12 holdings for hedge funds: Greenlight, Lone Pine, Appaloosa, Maverick, Passport, Blue Ridge, Coatue, and Tiger all have AAPL as one of the largest position in their holdings. Other large crowded positions include GOOG, ESRX, DLPH, QCOM, and C; and
• On average the funds listed below bought companies with a 2012 forward price to earnings ratio of 17.5x vs 18.6x last quarter. Appaloosa and Viking bought into the higher valuation stocks at 47.4x and 27.9x respectively while Glenview and Hayman bought into much lower valuations at 12.4x and 11.8x, respectively.

You can download the full FREE report here.

Resource: Free Downloadable Business eBooks

How many eBook publishers do you know that focus 100% on free books? Two days ago, I stumbled upon  the first book publishing company in the world to have done just that. Bookboon.com, which was originally established in Denmark in 1988 and now headquartered in London, has made it its mission to support students and business professionals by giving them access to free education.

Towards this end, they offer a range of over 250 free business books along with 500 textbooks for students and 250 travel guides, in seven languages, on their website. Bookboon.com is constantly expanding its book collection to new countries and languages.  Just to give you a flavor of the titles available from its website, here are just some of them:

Finance Books:  "Portfolio Theory and Investment Analysis"; "Corporate Finance: Part I"; "Corporate Finance: Part II"; "Enterprise Risk Analysis"; "Break-Even Analysis."

Economics Books: "Econometrics"; "The Stochastic Growth Model"; "Business Cycles and Financial Crises."

I enjoin you to check out their huge eBook collection here and download the books that you want or need (in PDF format) for free without registration. Good Luck!