I spoke to like 6-7 HLF people last week, and its crazy how gung ho they are about HLF , they were trying to breakdown the business model for it , which partly did not make sense, but a couple of these guys have been with the company for a decade plus , they forced me to cover friday and reevaluate my long term short on it. the balance sheet is looking like **** though

I think this is the play again man... There could be so many arenas for disappointment ,,

the nok buyout, msft phones not taking off, cloud , xbox ..

im looking at the nov 14 puts, (44.5,45,45.5 ), various strikes,, and will be purchasing a nice amount ..

got filled some nov 14 45's @ 135-1.36 , also short the stock at 44.50 ,, will ease into these position , as it can easily do a mini run pre earnings.

Thanks ASAP...I'm looking for potential long trades.

I'll stick w FB. It's easier for me anyway as I'm already really familiar with the details of the company. I just need to catch up on the last 3 or 4 months and see if there are any changes to their story/outlook.

Maybe; irrelevant; no, quite the opposite; irrelevant.

A longshot short term put play is a lot different to something like that. I wouldn't take that position unless you're bearish on the entire market for that period.

You really need to put in the time to understand Microsoft's business if you're going to trade it. They are solid as anything and are at least five separate companies in one, each performing very well and printing cash. The periphery is largely irrelevant except as potential longshot upside. Not saying they couldn't miss, but they are more likely not to miss big enough to make your put play +EV.

It's forgivable given how much they've gone up, however. I don't think you're losing too much EV.

What I like about FB is they're not afraid to grow via acquisition (e.g. Instagram, Oculus). Coupled with their strong growth on the mobile side, they appear a pretty solid long-term bet.

yes, the growth in azure,, is a little worrisome if i decide to fully go short , the thing is, there was a pop on this conference already .. the devil will be in the details of the 10q.

decided on the 11/14 instead of the 10/31 because it was 1.17 on the offer and 1.35 on the offer for the 11/14 .. figured the extra 2 weeks was worth the 19 cents in premium.

ya i won't comment on the current valuation, the chart is real pretty.. as such, we're both sitting on some real nice gains (him a lot more so than me, he started buying in the 30s)..

it's not so much a trade as it is a long term investment based on my expert friend's industry knowledge..

LOL

-so lets call this the Canada fade?

- who cares,it was easy money

GL

Too far too fast. Market was just looking for an excuse.

+ oil tanking

You sure crude is tanking yet bud?

It is getting there. No capitulation yet.

Yelp, more like yuck. LOL.

I still think there may be some dividend cut unwinding to do. But why I bought it is they bought back 9% the last quarter and 6% the quarter that before and with the low price this quarter may be even more. 91 million diluted. Revenue and gross profit have never been higher. What they are trying to do is put the squeeze on the shorts. As the CEO says, "We are at war with Ackman." The fundamentals are not really detioriating, they are just going all-in on the buybacks and can buy back 10% a year with fcf alone. It is very possible hlf goes to 200 within 3 years. It all depends on the SEC.

http://www.gurufocus.com/financials/HLF

I also found a replacement for msn finance.

http://www.highshortinterest.com/ Usually I try to avoid any stock on this list but hlf is just too tempting.

This.

I attribute a lot of this to certain personality types. Some people's brains work in a tunnel vision sort of way, focusing on details, and specific data. Other brain types work more intuitively with the focus on the bigger picture.

A friend of mine is classic type A. He's constantly focusing on the given task at hand and almost gets obsessed when his ducks aren't in a row, but he's constantly missing the big picture because he always has his head down in the minutia. He also has a horrible sense of direction. I think it's because his brain isn't connecting how all the streets, signposts, sun position, etc relate to each other and the big picture. He often has a hard time understanding how actions in the present can affect the future.

I'm the opposite. I'm always taking one piece of data and trying to relate it to some sort of big picture. Intuitively I just know things sometimes, but it can be hard to articulate even though, my brain has actually done the work in connecting the dots. I'm constantly getting one piece of information and inferring a ton of things about what that means about the nature of the whole. Often, I miss the details, and jump the gun though.

I think the type A brain is better for investing in the short run, and the Intuitive brain much better for long term. And both brains could use a little bit more of what they lack.

the business model of Herbalife is tricking incredibly poor people into buying products that don't work. the only reason they have any sales at all is because it's a pyramid scheme.

i don't know what the FTC is going to do, but i highly doubt they're going to be allowed to keep going as is. then you'll have the specter of lawsuits piggybacking on the FTC ruling, which could take the company into insolvency.

This.

Down 16% today, alone. Currently 36.67.

What's the coles notes on the YELP plunge? Wow. This is one a while back that I said I'd buy if it ever saw $50.

Competition is creeping in. Their reviews aren't as trusted due to a number of things. Still haven't figured out a way to make money.

For a company based on quality of reviews, when you lose public trust in that.....you're in big trouble.

Trading takes most people a long time to become competent at. I think a big reason why is it takes time to learn how all the dots even connect.

I'm not sure I agree that detail oriented is good for short term and intuitive is good for long term trading. Both are really important.

The key to trading is IMO:

1) Learning to discriminate between relevant an irrelevant information (ur detail oriented type).
2) Learning how to put the relevant information into proper context (I.e the ability to connect dots)

Lacking in either category could cause a trader to misinterpret the market, panic, and generally make bad decisions.

Also....both ILMN and URI triggered at the prices posted earlier. Trying to position myself for a move to new highs.

Current holdings ATVI, BWLD, ILMN, and URI

Interesting read right here.

http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/10/at-amaz...out-cash-flow/

Thoughts?

Definitely agree trading takes a long time to become food at, but not not as long if you only trade long positions

Its hard to know what information is relevant when you always have your head down. A lot of technical trading seems geared towards this....

I have researched Amazon to death and so this is something I understood (regarding payments received vs. suppliers paid) already. Yes this does provide a lot of free short term cash, call it a commercial paper equivalent if you wish, but it isn't that massive of a benefit to Amazon -- and by massive benefit I just mean it's not their deciding factor or what makes or breaks them, because it is clearly a benefit. It's not like they're going to use all of that to go out and take risks with it. Mostly it just provides a nice liquidity pool for operational expenses.

The article doesn't mention this, but through my own research you can find a more reasonable benefit by analyzing the growth of cash flow and splitting it over the average time delay of payment to suppliers. This growth number is essentially just extra cash that is forecasted to be there by the time anything becomes due, which actually does provide a growing investable cash base for them, without being much of a risk should cash flow stagnate or decline given the small relative percentage. Their OCF is growing enormously, like ridiculously fast, and even as the number gets larger it still doesn't seem to slow down much other than some cyclical variance.

I will add that AMZN is my most bullish stock opinion of any company there is. I never talk about it because I view it as such a long time horizon play, talking decades, and immensely risky, that it's not worth getting into. I will say that I believe AMZN has the best management team in the world right now, is best positioned for consistent rapid growth on a long term basis of any tech firm, and I actually appreciate the constant reinvesting of all cash at the pace in which they do it.

Btw I will not have a position in them for earnings FYI. Don't like being in any trades during that for them.

Interesting read, some good information but I think the author missed a lot of key points.

For the record I have no position in Amazon, I've always been tempted by Amazon's growth potential but can't pull the trigger without a significant decline in the multiple.

The cash flow improvement graph is really deceiving due to stock based compensation. The expense was $1.1 billion in 2013 and is growing much faster than cash compensation. If you remove this impact, the cash flow growth is nowhere near as impressive.

He also notes the CCC will be threatened by supplier pressure for better payment terms. While this is certainly understandable, there is also a lot of positive potential for inventory days of supply as Amazon and the supplier base expand their drop shipping capabilities and prevent the inventory from ever going through an Amazon facility. This is a significant advantage over brick and mortar that has a lot of room for growth.

I'm not sure I agree with this. Sure comp effects the numbers, as with any company, but cash flow growth is still strong. You can break it down on a per share basis to see the net effect more reasonably if you'd like. I logged into my S&P Capital IQ real quick to grab the data, which shows cash flow/share annually with 2006 as 0.93 and 2013 as 6.62.
6.62 4.68 3.72 3.77 2.51 2.28 1.76 0.93

I agree with this.