The investment..speculation, out right gambling thread

[Iglooo]

<p>I am wondering if munis are still worth for us now that we keep our income on the low side. Is there a rough guideline about what tax rate you should be at to benefit from tax exempt bonds?</p>

[dstark]

<p>You look at the after tax return of other asset classes and compare them to munis. Risk is also a factor.</p>

[Iglooo]

<p>Thank you. Are munis supposed to be less risky than other bonds?</p>

[dstark]

<p>Depends on the bonds. Treasuries are safer for the most part. Historically, munis risk of default is something like 1 percent or less. That is low. However, as the muni market expands, the risk of owning munis may also increase. </p>

<p>There are bonds tied to Stockton, San Bernadino, Detroit, etc that may take hits.</p>

<p>Are you in California?</p>

<p>You own munis so you do understand how interest rate changes affect muni bond prices?</p>

<p>Do you own individual munis or muni funds?</p>

<p>You have interest rate risk with bonds.</p>

<p>You can bring up a MUB chart and see what has happened this year.</p>

[dstark]

<p>[Default</a> Rates of Municipal Bonds - MunicipalBonds.com](<a href=“http://www.municipalbonds.com/education/read/77/default-rates-of-municipal-bonds]Default”>Default Rates of Municipal Bonds - MunicipalBonds.com)</p>

[NJres]

<p>Are there any brokers that let you trade in smaller increments than .01 ? I can either bid 13.75 (full bid) or pay 13.76, for example. I can’t bid 13.752, and yet I can see all the trades going through at 13.7501 and 13.7522 which I know is all the high frequency stuff stepping in front of the bid. Just wondering if any retail brokers allow that. If I am bidding 13.75, typically the only way I get filled is if 13.75 becomes the offer, although occasionally I have bought what appears to be on the bid.</p>

[dstark]

<p>Not really… Unless you consider something like this.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.interactivebrokers.com/download/salesPDFs/pdf0662_midpoint_match.pdf[/url]”>http://www.interactivebrokers.com/download/salesPDFs/pdf0662_midpoint_match.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>" If I am bidding 13.75, typically the only way I get filled is if 13.75 becomes the offer, although occasionally I have bought what appears to be on the bid."</p>

<p>Yeah…and?</p>

[dstark]

<p>Ok… I found this…</p>

<p>I dont know how this works or how datek avoids regulations. Maybe this is just for nasdaq stocks.</p>

<p>[Datek</a> Introduces Trading In One-Tenth-Of-Cent Increments. - Free Online Library](<a href=“http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Datek+Introduces+Trading+In+One-Tenth-Of-Cent+Increments.-a075602631]Datek”>http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Datek+Introduces+Trading+In+One-Tenth-Of-Cent+Increments.-a075602631)</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nanex.net/aqck2/3542.html[/url]”>http://www.nanex.net/aqck2/3542.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[BCEagle91]

<p>$compq is up 300 points in three weeks. That’s 9%!!!</p>

<p>What a ride! Yeah, I’m worried about the pullback and retrace.</p>

<p>On INTC - that thing about their processors being vastly superior to ARM chips on the AnTuTu benchmark - there was a difference in the code base. I think that the results changed sharply when an apples-to-apples comparison was done.</p>

[dstark]

<p>“On INTC - that thing about their processors being vastly superior to ARM chips on the AnTuTu benchmark - there was a difference in the code base. I think that the results changed sharply when an apples-to-apples comparison was done.”</p>

<p>What are the results in an apple to apple comparison?</p>

[razorsharp]

<p>AT&T bought leap wireless. I don’t see why they did that. What the heck is leap wireless?</p>

[dstark]

<p>Well… You probably read this…
<a href=“http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/07/12/att-to-buy-leap-wireless-for-1-2-billion/[/url]”>http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/07/12/att-to-buy-leap-wireless-for-1-2-billion/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>On munis…</p>

<p><a href=“Barron's | Financial and Investment News”>Barron's | Financial and Investment News;

[dstark]

<p>Ahhhh… I found the intc story…</p>

<p>I am pretty happy to read that story. </p>

<p>I should be short 100 shares. (I dont know. I meant to sell calls against long stock one to one and I forgot how many shares I had). :)</p>

<p>Of course… Last week the 24 calls were in the money and I didnt get assigned… The bas… :)</p>

<p>This story is a little more positive…</p>

<p><a href=“http://gigaom.com/2013/07/12/intel-media-tv-service-oncue/[/url]”>http://gigaom.com/2013/07/12/intel-media-tv-service-oncue/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[dstark]

<p>This is a score. </p>

<p>A little suspicious. Ok. A lot. </p>

<p>[Unusual</a> Leap options trades before pending deal raise eyebrows](<a href=“Unusual Leap options trades before pending deal raise eyebrows | Reuters”>Unusual Leap options trades before pending deal raise eyebrows | Reuters)</p>

<p>Making 78 times your money in a couple of hours…</p>

<p>$13,000 speculation… Over 1 million bucks in a couple of hours…</p>

[razorsharp]

<p>

“It indicates that a single trader may have been trying to hide his large trades by breaking it into smaller sizes,” Gottlieb said.

</p>

<p>I wonder who the people are behind the insider trading. insider trading on a takeover seems always to be found out since their is an obvious record of trades.</p>

[EMM1]

<p>This looks like a case where someone should be in jail, in the cell next to Jon Corzine.</p>

[Iglooo]

<p>dstark, thank you for the link on munis. </p>

<p>Jon Cozine in jail? Don’t you wish!</p>

[EMM1]

<p>I have a friend who is an expert on securities law and said that it would be difficult to get Corzine on criminal charges. But at the very least, the SEC and the IRS should quietly let it be known that anyone who has any dealings with him can expect to have very close scrutiny of any transaction they have been involved in for the last ten years.</p>

<p>The Amish have it right; someone who hurt as many people as Corzine did should simply be shunned by society. But we know that’s not going to happen.</p>

[dstark]

<p>[Regulators</a> File Charges Against Corzine Over MF Global Debacle | New Hampshire Public Radio](<a href=“http://nhpr.org/post/regulators-file-charges-against-corzine-over-mf-global-debacle]Regulators”>Regulators File Charges Against Corzine Over MF Global Debacle | New Hampshire Public Radio)</p>

[Krlilies]

<p>Regarding the suspicious LEAP July $9, Aug $9, Oct $8 calls, I expect freezing of assets just like the following recent “lucky” trades:

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced it had obtained an emergency asset freeze of nearly $5 million in illicit profits realized through suspicious trading just before the announcement of a rejected acquisition offer in the pharmaceutical industry. Just days before Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced it had received and rejected an unsolicited purchase offer from pharmaceutical behemoth Amgen , Inc., several unknown individuals located or trading through accounts located in the Canary Islands and Beirut purchased over $300,000 in call options that would profit through a swift increase in Onyx’s share price in a short period of time…

In this case, the unknown traders utilized omnibus accounts at Barclays and Citigroup to amass their position in Onyx call options. An omnibus account was present in a similar action earlier this year when the Commission froze nearly $2 million in trading profits preceding Warren Buffett‘s acquisition of H.J. Heinz Co. There, while the suspected account was a Goldman Sachs account, the banking behemoth told regulators that it did not have ‘direct access’ to the identity of the account’s beneficial owner. While regulators will likely succeed in forfeiting the trading profits, the traders’ identities may not be so easy to obtain.
….
Indeed, as long as it remains difficult to ascertain the ultimate beneficial owners of these accounts, this method seems to offer little risk and significant upside.

[SEC</a> Freezes $4.6 Million In Insider Trading Profits Tied To Attempted Pharma Acquisition - Forbes](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanmaglich/2013/07/03/sec-freezes-4-6-million-in-insider-trading-profits-tied-to-attempted-pharma-acquisition/]SEC”>SEC Freezes $4.6 Million In Insider Trading Profits Tied To Attempted Pharma Acquisition)</p>