Stock Trading

"Shoulda, coulda, woulda" will probably be my investing epitaph. While there is no shortage of investment advice telling you that long-term investment success is predicated on developing a consistent method of evaluating stocks and sticking to your valuation guns, the consequences can be painfulA perfect case in point is Celldex Therapeutics (CLDX). I've always liked this development-stage biotech (and have written about it here and here...), but the price never seemed quite right to me. That "price discipline" has kept me on the sidelines as the stock has risen over 250% over the past year and 400% over the past two years, and the company has emerged as one of the most legitimate and interesting small/mid-cap immunotherapy biotechs. The Right Place At The Right Time Cancer immunotherapy, most often meaning the use of specially-designed antibodies or cancer "vaccines" to target cancerous cells, has emerged as one

Investors are holding their collective breath to see what Ben Bernanke will say Wednesday.They've been on pins and needles ever since he uttered the word "tapering" at last month's FOMC meeting. Since then, investor fear has spiked 24% and stocks have declined 1.6%. On the surface, it seems like a market-wide overreaction. In reality, it could be merely the calm before the storm.QE3 - the Federal Reserve's $85-billion a month bond-buying program - may be coming to an end sooner than some expected. The third round of Federal quantitative easing began nine months ago, and is barely more than half the duration of QE1, which ran from November 2008 through March 2010. As during the first two rounds of easing, stocks have risen sharply over the past nine months.Since QE3 was announced on September 13, 2012, the S&P 500 is up 11.5%. That's just

Based in Basking Ridge, NJ, Regado Biosciences (RGDO) scheduled a $75 million IPO with a market capitalization of $219M at a price range mid-point of $15, for Wednesday, June 19, 2013.Four other new IPOs are scheduled for the week of June 17th. The full IPO calendar is here. S-1A filed May 29, 2013 Manager, Joint Managers: Cowen; BMO Capital Markets Co-Managers: Canaccord Genuity; Needham & Company; Wedbush PacGrow Life Sciences SUMMARY RGDO is a biopharmaceutical company with an anticoagulant blood thinner that would, if approved, compete with blood thinners such as heparin.The company plans to use the IPO funds to fund a Phase 3 clinical trial with 13,200 subjects, but RGDO has indicated no time estimate for completion.RGDO has no on-going collaborations. Valuation Ratios IPO Mrkt Price / Price / Price / Price / % offered annualizing March qtr Cap (mm) Sls Erngs

Commercial aircraft manufacturers' revenue is expected to reach high levels in 2013 due to an upsurge in the production rate, and because of the introduction of next-generation aircraft. The seven-year moving average of production is expected to go beyond 1,000 aircraft this year.A company like Triumph Group (TGI) that supplies aerospace structures and components to its aircraft manufacturing customers like Boeing (BA), Airbus, and Bombardier will benefit from this rise. (click to enlarge) Source: 2013 Global aerospace and defense industry outlookAs shown in the figures above, there is a decrease in the number of orders the manufacturers will receive this year. However, backlogs are expected to grow continuously that will result in an uptick in production. Understanding Triumph Triumph is a global leader in manufacturing and servicing of aerospace structures and components. This Pennsylvania based company serves commercial, military,

By this point, you should need to reminder about how significant today is. This afternoon, the FOMC will come out with its latest policy decision, and perhaps Ben Bernanke will reveal some kind of hint about when the Fed might start to dial back on its monthly bond purchases, known as quantitative easing. A full preview of what's coming up can be found here. In the meantime, markets aren't doing too much. Japan rallied 1.8% to hit its highest level in a week. The bleeding there seems to be stopped for now. US futures are modestly higher. And European stocks are lower, with Germany down 0.77%.Join the conversation about this story »

Forget about the after-hours rise in American Capital Agency's (AGNC) stock price in response to the Q2 dividend of $1.05 (down from $1.25). AGNC's dividend cut is good news for mREIT investors - not spectacular news, but definitely not bad news, either - and you can easily make the case that the storm has passed. AGNC cut its dividend in early-2012 and maintained it up to yesterday's announcement so barring seismic shifts in the financial markets, it appears it is once again one-and-done on the dividend cuts.AGNC management led by Gary Kain believes in transparency and stability. While dividend stability takes a backseat to book value preservation it is reasonable to assume that management cut the dividend to a level they feel they can maintain given the recent range and forecast for interest rates through early-2014. Some analysts had been looking for an armageddon-like cut in the dividend to

Shares of Applied Micro (AMCC) have typically benefited from any and all hype surrounding the emergence of the micro-server product category for web and other dense workloads. The firm has been touting its upcoming X-Gene micro-server part, which has been delayed time and again, as the product that reinvigorated profitable growth to a business that has otherwise struggled to break even quarter after quarter. I have detailed in a series of posts (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), how management continues to misdirect the Street regarding the potential competitiveness and timing of its "wonder chip", and to this date the firm has not yet delivered in volume quantities its first generation 40 nanometer X-Gene part whose availability was promised for 2012 in 2011 (when in reality the first iteration of the design was not even finished until very late 2012). I believe that the recent

For long-term value investors, the selling process often is one of the most difficult aspects of the investing process. The family-run Investors Title Company (ITIC) hit my radar in 2011, when the stock traded in the high $20's-low $30's and I began establishing a position. At that point in time, the company traded at a very sizeable discount to a reasonably liquid tangible book value, and this didn't even factor in the two company-owned office buildings and the land below it in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, which seem to be valued on the books below current market prices. Before long, the stock rallied to the mid-$40's and I sold because I had a plethora of other undervalued opportunities, but I clearly sold way too early, as the stock now trades around $70.60. While the stock is not as attractive as it was then, the business has evolved quite nicely and

The EUR/USD continued to add to its gains, climbing another 26 pips to close at $1.3391. Volatility is likely to increase as we progress throughout the day, with the FOMC Economic Projections due out at 18:00GMT, followed by the Fed Policy Statement and press conference at 18:30GMT.Kathy Lien of BK Asset Management discussed some possibilities of what market participants can expect as we head into the conclusion of the FOMC Meeting. The Federal Reserve will be making one of its special quarterly monetary policy announcements on Wednesday and based on the price action of the currency, equity and bond markets, there is very little consensus on what is expected from the central bank. In concluding her view, Lien went on to add price action for the pair will likely be dictated by how Bernanke will phrase his view of the tapering process. Lien added, While there are

Citigroup (C) is in the Danger Zone this week and earns my Dangerous rating. Citigroup's stock has posted an impressive 20% rise thus far in 2013, but the stock's current price is simply out of touch with reality. As the market bulls continue to look to rising interest rates as a sign of future strength for Citi, they ignore the fundamentals of the market and of Citi's weak profit history. Dangerous Fundamentals Even before the financial crisis, Citi struggled to create value for investors. Figure 1 shows that Citi's return on invested capital (ROIC) has been below its weighted average cost of capital (WACC) in every year since 2000, which means Citi has not had positive economic earnings any year in this century. Citi is the only one of the Big Four financial institutions with this ignominious distinction.Since 2000, Citi's after-tax profits (NOPAT