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.
The first trading day of the week has investors keeping a close eye on events in Greece and Spain. Good morning, this is Sayoko Murase with the Week Ahead Market Report for May 28, 2012.
Spanish debt yields jumped and shares in fourth-largest lender Bankia SA plunge to record lows, highlighting a lack of confidence in government efforts to stabilise the finances of Spain and its ailing banks.
By CountingPips.com
The latest Commitments of Traders (COT) report, released on Friday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), showed that large futures speculators raised their overall US dollar long positions last week for the third consecutive week as risk aversion dominated the markets.
Non-commercial futures traders, including hedge funds and large speculators, increased their total US dollar long positions to $35.14 billion on May 22nd from a total long position of $28.52 billion on May 15th, 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 plummeted for the euro currency again last week as euro net short positions or bets against the currency increased to 195,361 contracts on May 22nd from the previous week’s total of 173,869 net short contracts on May 15th. Euro short positions have plunged to the highest level on record for a second straight week and surpassed the May 15th level when short contracts totaled 173,869.
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 for a second consecutive week after rising for four straight weeks and reaching the highest level in over a year on May 8th. British pound positions saw a total of 11,340 net long contracts on May 22nd following a total of 25,021 net long contracts registered on May 15th.
JPY: Japanese yen speculative contracts improved last week for a sixth consecutive week. Yen positions totaled 18,015 net short contracts reported on May 22nd following a total of 34,315 net short contracts on May 15th. The improvement in the Japanese positions has coincided with heavy risk aversion in the markets and the US Dollar falling against the yen in the spot price forex market. The USDJPY pair currently trades under the 79.50 level.
CHF: Swiss franc speculator positions decreased sharply for a second consecutive week last week. Speculator positions for the Swiss currency futures registered a total of 34,851 net short contracts on May 22nd following a total of 26,694 net short contracts as of May 15th.
CAD: Canadian dollar positions declined last week for a third straight week after reaching the highest level of the year on May 1st. Canadian dollar positions declined to a total of 38,555 net long contracts as of May 22nd following a total of 51,005 long contracts that were reported for May 15th.
AUD: The Australian dollar long positions dropped sharply for a third consecutive week and brought Aussie positions to a negative number for the first time in years. Aussie positions declined to a total net amount of 16,898 short contracts on May 22nd after falling to 4,734 net long contracts as of May 15th. AUD speculative positions are now at the lowest level since at least 2009 and two weeks ago surpassed the previous low level of the last 12 months that was a total of 5,167 contracts on September 26th of 2011.
NZD: New Zealand dollar futures speculator positions declined for a fifth straight week as positions for the Kiwi turned negative. NZD contracts decreased to a total of 1,509 net short contracts as of May 22nd following a total of 2,597 net long contracts on May 15th. This is the lowest level for New Zealand Kiwi contracts since March 15, 2011 when contracts were negative by 2,809.
MXN: Mexican peso speculative contracts continued lower for third consecutive week. Peso positions decreased to a total of 16,116 net short speculative positions as of May 22nd following a total of 14,445 long contracts that were reported for May 15th. This is the lowest level for Mexican peso contracts since January 17, 2012 when contracts were a total of 17,328 short positions.
COT Currency Data Summary as of May 22, 2012
Large Speculators Net Positions vs. the US Dollar
EUR -195361
GBP +11340
JPY -18015
CHF -34851
CAD +38555
AUD -16898
NZD -1509
MXN -16116
NBCUniversal wants its website back. According to Reuters, the media company, owned by parent company Comcast Corp. (NASDAQ:CMCSA), is in talks to buy out Microsoft’s (NYSE:MSFT) 50% stake in joint venture MSNBC.com. NBC and Microsoft started the cable news channel and online news operation back in 1996. MSNBC then became its own entity, separate from the news website.NBCUniversal hopes to bring consistency between the news channel and the website with this buyout of Microsoft’s stake. MSNBC has been moving towards more liberal programming in recent years while MSNBC.com has focused strictly on straight news coverage.Sources say NBCU plans on having the partnership with Microsoft dissolved by the summer.
Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX) is expanding its business this morning. The hard-drive maker is buying a controlling stake in French consumer storage company LaCie for $186 million. Seagate announced they will be buying shares held by LaCie Chairman & CEO Phillippe Spruch and his affiliate. The shares represent 64.5% of the outstanding shares of LaCie, giving Seagate a controlling stake in the company.They are offering 4.05 Euro per share, a 29% premium to LaCie’s average closing stock price over the 30 days ended May 22. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of 2012, pending regulatory approvals. Seagate says the deal with accelerate their growth in the expanding consumer storage market. Currently, Seagate shares are down on this news, almost 2% lower to $25.90 in early trading.
Talbots (NYSE:TLB) reported Q1 EPS of $0.09, exceeding estimates for a loss of $0.02 a share. Revenues in the quarter came in at $275.9 million, also beating estimates of $272.6 million, citing improved merchandise margin. The company reported Q1 comp sales slipped 3.8% and still expects to close 110 sites in total as it has already closed 90 locations since March. In a separate report, Talbot said it didn’t reach a pact for the Sycamore merger before expiration.Despite the excellent earnings, investors are focusing on the company’s weakness on sales. Currently, Talbots is down over 34% to $1.68 in early trading.
Frontline releasing some goods news this morning. The company reported its first quarter earnings this morning, posting an EPS of $0.09, beating analysts estimates of an earnings loss of $0.10 a share.Revenues in the quarter fell 28.7% year-over-year to $167.2 million., well above estimates of $91.35 million.With this very unexpected earnings report, Frontline is seeing a lot of growth in the beginning of the trading session. Currently it’s up close to 10% to $5.45 a share.
This twenty first trading week of 2012 comes to a close with investors assessing the deteriorating situation in Greece, and assessing the fallout from the disasterous Facebook (FB) initial public offering. Hi.
Salesforce. om (CRM) was upgraded today by Oppenheimer (OPY) from perform to outperform with a price target of $180, as the company has been experiencing fast organic growth.
