Tag: Tim Melvin

How Not To Be A Patsy During Earnings Season

Posted on by admin

By: Tim Melvin

There is an old poker proverb that has been quoted by everyone from Warren Buffett and Marty to Whitman to Amarillo Slim and Whispering Saul that applies to trading around earnings season.

If you have been at the table for a few minutes and have not yet figured out who the patsy is, get up and leave. You are the patsy in the game. Every earnings season there's dewy-eyed traders rushing out to beat the market and pile up a fat stack of profits trading stocks and options based in earnings reports.

Everyone thinks the game is winnable and there will be boasts of great winners and successful trades over the next six weeks or so. You will not hear much discussion of the losers -- but then again you will probably never meet a losing poker player in your lifetime either.

The odds are stacked against the patsy in a very big way, especially those using options to make bets. Stop to consider for a moment exactly what you are trading in earnings season. The patsy is making a bet on a guess on how much the Wall Street analyst's community guess was off in either direction. Continue reading "How Not To Be A Patsy During Earnings Season" →

Will These 3 Laggard Stocks Outperform In 2014?

Posted on by The INO.com Team

By Tim Melvin

The best performing stocks in the S&P 500 in the past year have been Netflix, Micron Technology, Best Buy, Delta Airlines and Constellation Brands.

The interesting thing about these stocks is that as investors came into the year, they were not on anyone's list of top performers or even likely winners. Most of them were on the worst performing list for 2012 and with the exception of Netflix, there was very little market buzz or chatter about any of these stocks.

The rest of the top ten performers include names like Pitney Bowes and Boston Scientific, whose very existence was being questioned by many as 2013 began. Continue reading "Will These 3 Laggard Stocks Outperform In 2014?" →

How To Spot The Opportunity In The Problems For Small Banks

Posted on by The INO.com Team

By Tim Melvin

In his 2010 book, Bye Bye Banks, 50-year industry veteran Robert H. Smith outlines the obstacles and issues facing the bank industry today.

Smith points out that it is the small banks that are disappearing from the financial landscape either via failure or merger, and sees a long list of obstacles. These obstacles include the Federal government, which sees banks “as their vehicle to engineer society, thereby satisfying their political and social expectations.” Smith addresses the competitive and regulatory environment that is practically forces banks to see merger partners and become larger.

It is eye opening to see everything laid out on one place. Continue reading "How To Spot The Opportunity In The Problems For Small Banks" →

What's Happening To The Smaller Banks?

Posted on by The INO.com Team

By: Tim Melvin of Benzinga

Consider the life of a banker running a small bank today.

It used to be a great life running one of these little banks. You oversaw a network of 10 or 15 branches in smaller towns or suburbs across the country and were a well-liked business leader of your community.

More than likely you weren't just a member of the Rotary and other civic groups, you were an officer of the group.

Bankers helped people buy homes, grow their businesses, put their kids through college and even save for and fund their retirement. The employees had good jobs and made decent money and really liked the bank and the officers. The stock price was at a nice premium from the original offering price and most folks in town were pretty excited about that. On weekends, the bankers probably played golf and went to local college games with local politicians, developers and car dealers. Continue reading "What's Happening To The Smaller Banks?" →

Go Global for Profits

Posted on by The INO.com Team

By Tim Melvin, Banking on Profits

Investors often suffer from home-team syndrome. US investors are particularly guilty of looking at only the stocks located in their home markets and ignoring the rest of the world.

The truth is that while something on the order of 11,000 stocks trade here in the United States, shares of more than 50,000 companies trade around the world. More than 1,800 companies trade on one of the various US exchanges, giving us unprecedented access to foreign securities.

As value becomes harder to find in the domestic markets, it makes a certain amount of sense to cast your eyes on the international markets in search of long-term returns.

Value Investing Continue reading "Go Global for Profits" →