Posts Tagged ‘AMZN’
AMZN: Tablet Market Wars Are Heating Up
- Written by Jared A Levy, Editor, Options Strategies Weekly
I remember my father telling me over and over when I was a kid, “Don’t be a copycat!” He told me to create and innovate, to be an individual and a leader.
Copying from your classmates in school was grounds for expulsion.
But in the world of technology, copying and cloning is rampant and has been for a long time. It’s quite easy to “improve upon” an existing product or idea and make it something seemingly new and unique.
Take the tablet market, for example. Its form factor has been around for over a decade. I remember using them in the late ’90s on the trading floor. Back then you had a special pen to maneuver the cursor and make selections.
Today, tablets are the new craze and just about everyone wants to be in on the action. Unfortunately, there may only be room for a select few.
The big winners in this game will be the content and software providers… the ones who can monetize the compulsive consumer and integrate many types of features into one device.
Google, Apple and now Amazon are the strongest contenders. But you won’t believe how another company is benefiting from this market.
Amazon
Earlier this week, Amazon.com (AMZN:NASDAQ) launched a new array of Android tablets aimed directly at Apple. The top-of-the-line “Kindle Fire” is meant to compete directly with the Apple iPad, which currently has Read more
How to Make Money in This Mess
| How to Make Money in This Mess |  |
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| Written by Jared Levy, Editor, Option Strategies Weekly | |||||
| Tuesday, 09 August 2011 09:10 | |||||
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Savvy investors can use volatility to make lots money in a bear market. There is a secret about the Volatility Index (VIX) that can potentially make you thousands of dollars. What Does the VIX Really Symbolize?Think of the VIX as a “fear” indicator. Most investors — and even some experts — don’t know how to actually use it. You may hear things like “if the VIX is high, it’s time to buy” or that when the VIX is high, people are scared. But the real question is, how does it affect my financial investments? Let’s first take a look at how the Volatility Index tends to react with the markets. Below you see a chart of the S&P 500 (SPY in green) compared to the VIX (in black). The two generally have an inverse relationship. When the market is rallying, the VIX is dropping and vice versa. To put it simply, the Volatility Index has a direct relationship with options prices. As people buy options and the VIX goes higher, options get more expensive. When people sell options and the VIX drops, options get cheaper. So here’s the thing… What if you bought a call option, had the stock rise, and either lost money or didn’t make as much as you thought you would? Did you ever think that a falling VIX was eating away at your profits? If so, then you have discovered part of the secret. If you’re loving this article, sign up for Smart Investing Daily to receive all of Jared Levy and Sara Nunnally’s investment commentary.
Here Is How It WorksWhile you might think that Wall Street is manipulating Read more |
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Investors are scrambling to figure out which way is up and what the market’s next move will be. The one thing that we can bet on in the near term is more volatility.
Getting an Edge on Jim Cramer
by Jared Levy on July 6, 2010
For more than a year, I took Mad Money host Jim Cramer’s investing ideas and gave them a thumbs up or thumbs down according my own technical analysis and views. Here at OptionsHouse, it’s not about telling you what to do, but rather offering some strategies for you to explore based on your own individual opinions.
We all have a right to agree or disagree with Cramer and while I have great respect for the man, I can’t say that I am in full agreement with all of his recommendations. Furthermore, as options traders, we can take his thesis and augment it into acceptable risk for our individual personalities and risk tolerances.
Watching my DVR recording of Friday’s program, I actually liked what Cramer had to say about investing after the crash (I think this was taped earlier). He talked about the difference between trading and investing and how today’s market participants perhaps need to be an amalgam of the two. I happen to agree with Cramer’s suggestion that traders learn as much as they can about a company, although even with soup-to-nuts knowledge of a company and its business, you can still find yourself in a losing position. This is due to factors beyond the quality of a company’s product or their ability to sell that product or service to the public. Cramer noted this when he talked about a company’s stock price becoming “un-glued” from its fundamentals.