Category: General

Short McDonald's Now

Posted on by admin

By: Melvin Pasternak of Street Authority

I have to admit it: McDonald's (NYSE: MCD) is not one of my favorite fast-food restaurants.

As I age, I am increasingly concerned about the effect diet has my health, so I try to eat lots of fruits and vegetables and avoid foods high in salt and fat. True, you can find some relatively healthy options at McDonalds if you choose wisely. However, if you indulge regularly in high-fat, sodium-rich hamburgers and fries, it can lead to an increased risk for Type 2 diabetes and heart disease, among other things.

My beef with the chain goes beyond its food, though. The company also uses way too much packaging from my point of view -- a sin it shares with many of its fast-food brethren. For anyone with a sensitive environmental conscience, what gets dumped into the trash can at the end of a McDonald's meal causes added distress.

My complaint with McDonald's stock goes beyond my dislike for the restaurant. With the broader market reeling from the effects of the Greek debt crisis and the massive sell-off in Chinese stocks, I believe McDonald's may be on the brink of a major correction. As a result, it is setting itself up as a highly profitable short trade. Continue reading "Short McDonald's Now" →

Hello Europe, Life Goes On

Posted on by The INO.com Team

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."

How true that quote is! It comes from prize winning Pulitzer poet, Robert Frost.

I think the same can be said about markets and countries: they go on.

This morning, there is hope that something can be hammered out with Greece before the week is out. I am not sure how many weeks we have been looking for a resolution to this European drama, I've just lost count. It is time for the Greeks to make a deal and for life to go on.

Let's put that all aside today and look at six stocks that I talked about last week. All six of these stocks ended up in the plus column for the week. Continue reading "Hello Europe, Life Goes On" →

China: What Deflation Looks Like

Posted on by The INO.com Team

By: Elliott Wave International

The Shanghai Composite fell another 8% at the open on Wednesday (July 8). Trading was soon halted by the authorities. (But for a different reason that the trading halt on the NYSE the same day.)

From its all-time high on June 12, China's main stock index is down 32%. Using the word "crash" is becoming appropriate.

"At the moment there is a mood of panic in the market and a large increase in irrational dumping of shares, causing a strain of liquidity in the stock market," said China's Securities Regulatory Commission on Wednesday (bold added).

But the "dumping of shares" is not the only type of selling that's going on in China right now. Bloomberg reports that (bold added), Continue reading "China: What Deflation Looks Like" →

Weekly Futures Recap With Mike Seery

Posted on by The INO.com Team

We've asked Michael Seery of SEERYFUTURES.COM to give our INO readers a weekly recap of the Futures market. He has been Senior Analyst for close to 15 years and has extensive knowledge of all of the commodity and option markets.

Michael frequently appears on multiple business networks including Bloomberg news, Fox Business, CNBC Worldwide, CNN Business, and Bloomberg TV. He is also a guest on First Business, which is a national and internationally syndicated business show.

Gold Futures

Gold futures in the August contract are trading below their 20 and 100 day moving average settling last week at 1,163 while currently trading at 1,160 down slightly and traded as low as 1,146 in Wednesdays trade hitting a three month low as I’ve been recommending a short position and if you took that trade place your stop loss above the 10 day high which currently stands at 1,188 risking around $28 or $1,000 per mini contract plus slippage and commission. Continue reading "Weekly Futures Recap With Mike Seery" →

Q2 Produced Double-Digit Returns For The Internet Portfolio

Posted on by The INO.com Team

The Internet Portfolio managed to produce a gain of 11.8% for Q2. The big winners in this portfolio when Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) and Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN).

What is all the more remarkable is the fact that the NASDAQ was practically flat during Q2 with a modest gain of a little over 1%.

You can learn more about MarketClub's Internet portfolio here.

Here are the five stocks that are tracked in the Internet portfolio:

Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB)
Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX)
Yelp Inc. (NYSE:YELP)
Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO)
Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)

Out of those five stocks, there were gains in three and losses in two for a 60% winning edge.

How this portfolio works, we track and publish a model $50,000 account that you divide into five buckets of $10,000 each. Depending on the value of the share that determines how many shares you buy rounded down. For example, Facebook trading at $82.50 would allow you to buy 120 shares. It's entirely different when you look at a stock like Netflix trading at $441.69 you would've just purchased 22 shares of that stock. The idea is to keep the portfolio balanced percentage wise. For example, a 1% gain in Netflix would be the same as a 1% gain in Yahoo based on a $10,000 bucket. The idea is not to bet big on any one stock or to try to pick the big winner for the year. The reality is no one knows and this approach is conservative and has produced outstanding results in our research.

Here are the actual number of shares traded and the recent gains and losses. Continue reading "Q2 Produced Double-Digit Returns For The Internet Portfolio" →