Bargain hunters are wise to pay careful attention to insider buying, because although there are many various reasons for an insider to sell a stock, presumably the only reason they would use their hard-earned cash to make a purchase, is that they expect to make money. Today we look at two noteworthy recent insider buys.
Showing relative strength on Tuesday are aerospace & defense shares, up on the day by about 1.3% as a group, led by Aercap Holdings (AER), trading up by about 12.9% and Triumph Group (TGI), trading up by about 1.8% on Tuesday. For MarketNewsVideo.
The Daily Ticker’s Aaron Task talks to Josh Brown about the fiscal cliff tax implications.
Chip maker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) announced that it expects second-quarter revenue to fall by 11% from the prior quarter. The company blames the slowdown on softer-than-expected sales in Europe and China, and had previously expected sales in the quarter to increase by up to six percent.
By CountingPips.com
The latest Commitments of Traders (COT) report, released on Monday instead of the usual Friday release (due to a holiday), by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), showed that large futures speculators reduced their overall US dollar long positions last week while traders decreased their number of short bets against the euro currency.
Non-commercial futures traders, including hedge funds and large speculators, decreased their total US dollar long positions to $23.58 billion on July 3rd from a total long position of $26.73 billion on June 26th, according to the CFTC COT data and calculations by Reuters which calculates the dollar positions against the euro, British pound, Japanese yen, Australian dollar, Canadian dollar and the Swiss franc.
Individual Currencies:
EuroFX: Currency speculator sentiment for the euro improved last week after decreasing the previous week. Euro net short positions or bets against the currency fell to 146,177 contracts on July 3rd from the previous week’s total of 159,880 net short contracts on June 26th.
The COT report is published every Friday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and shows futures positions as of the previous Tuesday. It can be a useful tool for traders to gauge investor sentiment and to look for potential changes in the direction of a currency or commodity. Each currency contract is a quote for that currency directly against the U.S. dollar, where as a net short amount of contracts means that more speculators are betting that currency to fall against the dollar and net long position expect that currency to rise versus the dollar. The graphs overlay the forex spot closing price of each Tuesday when COT trader positions are reported for each corresponding spot currency pair.
GBP: British pound sterling positions decreased last week after improving for two consecutive weeks. British pound positions fell slightly further on the short side to a total of 5,353 net short contracts on July 3rd following a total of 758 net short contracts the previous week.
JPY: Japanese yen speculative contracts declined for a second consecutive week. Yen positions edged lower to a total of 4,542 net long contracts reported on July 3rd following a total of 4,542 net long contracts on June 26th. Japanese positions have now continued to be positive on the long side for a fifth consecutive week after crossing over on June 5th.
CHF: Swiss franc speculator positions increased following a sharp decrease the previous week. Speculator positions for the Swiss currency futures registered a total of 19,060 net short contracts on July 3rd following a total of 23,836 net short contracts as of June 26th.
CAD: Canadian dollar positions edged lower after rebounding slightly the previous week (that followed a decline for seven consecutive weeks). Canadian dollar positions edged lower to a total of 8,690 net long contracts as of July 3rd following a total of 9,277 long contracts that were reported for June 26th.
AUD: The Australian dollar positions improved for a fourth consecutive week to crossover into positive territory for the first time since May 15th. Aussie positions improved to a total net amount of 9,348 net long contracts on July 3rd after rising to 2,159 net short contracts as of June 26th.
NZD: New Zealand dollar futures speculator positions improved for a fourth consecutive week and continued higher on the long side. NZD contracts increased to a total of 4,320 net long contracts as of July 3rd following a total of 576 net long contracts on June 26th. The kiwi contracts are now at their highest level since May 8th when contracts equaled 6,224.
MXN: Mexican peso speculative contracts increased for a fourth straight week and crossed over into positive territory. Peso positions rose to a total of 17,475 net long speculative positions as of July 3rd following a total of 7,647 short contracts that were reported for June 26th. Mexican peso contracts on June 5th were at their lowest level since November 28th 2011 when positions equaled 36,240 short contracts and lately have made a turnaround higher.
COT Currency Data Summary as of July 3, 2012
Large Speculators Net Positions vs. the US Dollar
EUR -146177
GBP -5353
JPY +4175
CHF -19060
CAD +8698
AUD +9348
NZD +4320
MXN +17475
Cabot Oil & Gas (COG) was upgraded today by Goldman Sachs (GS) to buy from neutral, as the company should benefit from future higher natural gas prices. Shares are higher by about 1.4 percent.
Bargain hunters are wise to pay careful attention to insider buying, because although there are many various reasons for an insider to sell a stock, presumably the only reason they would use their hard-earned cash to make a purchase, is that they expect to make money. Today we look at two noteworthy recent insider buys.
As the saying goes, there are many possible reasons for an insider to sell a stock, but only one reason to buy — they expect to make money. So let’s look at two noteworthy recent insider buys.
In trading on Monday, hospital & medical practitioners shares were relative leaders, up on the day by about 2%. Leading the group were shares of Centene (CNC), up about 18% and shares of Wellcare Health Plans (WCG) up about 13.6% on the day.
By Zac Storella, CountingPips.com
Today, I am pleased to bring you a new forex interview with forex trader, blogger and trading teacher Casey Stubbs. Casey is an active trader and founded the forex website WinnersEdgeTrading.com in 2009. His site focuses on educational tutorials, insightful blog posts and forex trading tools.
Q: How did you become involved in the forex trading world? Was there something specifically attractive to you about the fx markets?
I got involved in the forex markets in 2008 after trading Stocks for since the early 90’s. I moved to Forex because of the great trend trading and also because of the leverage and great price action movement.
Q: What markets do you mostly trade and do you have any preference on the currency pairs you trade?
I mostly trade forex and I mainly trade dollar based pairs but will also trade some of the yen crosses.
Q: How did you get your trading education? Did you learn by demo trading, did you have a mentor?
I got my trading education from purchasing several forex courses and reading tons of free stuff online. Also from attending live forex training available at the trading expo’s I have made friends with many traders that I like to discuss my trades with. I recommend all traders should develop relationships with other traders.
Q: How often do you trade, are you a full-time trader? Do you trade longer or shorter times?
I make one or two trades per day I am not a full time trader as I also spend a great deal of time running several businesses. I only spend a few hours a day trading and the other times working. I base all of my trades on the weekly and daily time frames. I find entries on the lower time frames.
Q: Do you use more technical analysis, fundamental analysis, and/or sentiment analysis in your decision making for trades?
I use mainly technical analysis because I believe that the charts will tell you when sentiment is changing if you look at the longer time frame trades,
Q: Do you have any favorite economic indicators or favorite technical indicators that you feel are most reliable?
I believe that the Price is the best indicator available and use it in conjunction with the trend and support and resistance levels.
Q: Is there any market(s) that you generally feel is important to keep an eye on, maybe that are outside of the ones that you trade?
I dont watch any other markets.
Q: Do you have any advice to anyone that may be just starting out in forex trading? Is there anything in particular that you wish you had learned when you started out?
Yes I do my advice is that traders must manage risk at all times. The key to profits is managing risk, which means taking a trade and attempting to gain as much as you can with as little risk. It is easier said than done but if you can do that you will be successful.
Q: Thank you very much for participating in this interview with me. For those out there who may have not heard of winnersedgetrading.com, could you give us a little summary of what it is and the best way for our readers to find out more?
We provide free fundamental and technical analysis on our blog and we also have some great tools for traders in our tools section. The forex power indicator gauges a currencies strength and pairs the week and strong currencies together. I highly recommend traders check them out.
Thank you Casey for taking the time to answer my questions. To see more of Casey’s blog posts and forex trading tools be sure to visit his site at winnersedgetrading.com.
See more of our past forex interviews here.
