The Epiphany Trading Blog

This blog will only be viewable on www.CapitalMarketForum.com going forward.

Capital Market Forum Chatroom

Epiphany will now be participating in the Capital Market Forum's chat room located at
http://www.epiphanycapitalmanagement.com/epiphroom1.html

Epiphany Trading Videos

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

WED. NOV. 18- Merger Activity On The Rise

“Applied Materials To Buy Semitool for $364 Million.” That in and of itself isn’t a major headline (unless you are a shareholder of SMTL!). However, that was one of the top stories yesterday and is an important part of a theme which is becoming more prevalent and likely will become predominant in the first of next year in particular assuming the market holds. Namely, very quietly, we’re beginning to see a much bigger pick-up of merger activity. M&A (mergers and acquisition) business has been devastated in the past two years with a paucity of deals due to companies being afraid to throw their hoarded capital after other businesses. As the credit freeze has thawed a bit, famed investors like Warren Buffett are doing their largest acquisitions in quite some time (in Buffett’s case, BNI is Berkshire Hathaway’s largest acquisition). As day traders, we are to take away two things from this. On a macro level, it is a bullish thing overall particularly with retail investors largely out of the market as it provides an underlying bid to many sectors. Rather than worrying about whether goods will be transported due to lack of capital, investors now wonder whether NSC or some other railroad could be a takeover target. On a micro level, all the shorts out there who try to jam stocks in say, the railroad sector, down when BNI is in play on the day it happens tend to lose. Furthermore, it causes strange moves in various stocks as people try to guess who is next which can cause some incredible intra-day moves. Be on the lookout for such activity these next fee weeks; at a minimum, be cognizant of the ever-changing environment.

Markets overnight in Asia were down overall with prices declining about 1/3% on average. Prices are higher in Europe, however, in the wake of Wall Street’s gains with the bourses ahead about ½% on average. The carry trade is in full effect this morning with the dollar down almost a full euro, oil up 1%, and gold up almost 1%. This hodgepodge oddly enough is not illuminating Wall Street with the futures down ever so slightly early on and stronger than expected CPI with weaker than expected housing data providing another shove of negative energy. For today, keep a weary eye to the dollar in case the move gets exaggerated, but the econ data seems to be ruling the roost. Look for a fairly quiet and choppy session with no huge moves and a focus on the microcaps

Watch list:
11182009Eriklist.zip

Reiterating-Please understand that if the ideas do not get to the hoped for set-ups cited below, more often than not, one should not blindly trade the symbol next to said idea. If the whole story is not there -If something is good, assume either a short thru unchanged or an A-B-A2 (preferably to the downside in a downside market and the upside in an upside market) based on direction of the market unless specified.If something is bad, assume either a buy thru unchanged or an A-B-A2 (preferably to the downside in a downside market and the upside in an upside market) based on direction of the market unless specified- Good- The following stocks have good news and/or a strong technical pattern

VVUS- positive phase III results of its Avanafil

LDK- sold 15% ownership stake in its 15,000 MT Polysilicon plant in Xinyu City for $219 million

BWS- good earnings

APWR- closed near a high after announcing a deal with a US renewable energy group for wind turbine production

MON, POT, AGU, MOS, TNH, DE, APA, DSX, NAT, FRT- featured on “Mad Money” last night

BKS- closed near a high

TRW- closed near a high

AONE- reversed its downtrend a bit in closing near a high

CIEN- closed near a high

CHS- great earnings

SOLF- good earnings

CSUN- good earnings


Bad-The following stocks have bad news and/or a weak technical pattern

CRM- terrible earnings

DRYS- did an agreement with a bank for $117.5 million for its waiver terms, but also doing a $300 dilutive convertible share offering

CNQR- terrible earnings

ADSK- terrible earnings

TEN- share offering

NLST- closed near a low in reversing the huge positive momentum of the last few days

KFS- Closed near a low after posting terrible earnings

ZOOM- major reversal in closing on a low after posting great earnings

DCP- closed near a trend low

SII- shares crushed yesterday on news of a share offering; 28 million share offering was priced at 26.50 yesterday afternoon







Earnings:

WED NOV 18 BEFORE

BJ CHS SOLF

WED NOV 18 AFTER

CSUN DCI GYMB

LTD NTAP NTES

PETM PVH SMTC


Good luck today.

Epiphany Trading, LLC
www.epiphanytrading.com

Erik R. Kolodny- Chief Markets Strategist
Brendan P. Byrne- President
Joseph R. McCandless- Managing Partner
D. Timothy Seaquist- Managing Partner

No comments:

Post a Comment