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  • What Are The Main Characteristics Of Call Options?

    What Are The Main Characteristics Of Call Options?

    What Are The Main Characteristics Of Call Options?
    Ways to use call options trading to make money

    By Guy Avtalyon

    Call options represent a deal between a buyer and a seller to buy a stock at an accepted and agreed price. This agreement lasts up until a fixed expiration date. The buyer has the right, there is no obligation, to exercise the call and purchase the stock. The seller is obliged to deliver the stock if the option is exercised.

    What are call options in stocks?

    A trader would choose to buy a call option if expects the stock is going to rise in the near future. Some traders buy options rather than to buy a particular share because the options are cheaper than stocks.
    Call options are limited by time, of course. They have an expiration date associated with them. The same comes with all options.
    What are the main characteristics of call options?
    No matter if the options is “call” or “put” the characteristics are the same. Both have three essential characteristics: exercise price, expiration date, and time to expiration.

    Call options are a kind of a derivatives contract that gives the buyer the right to buy a stock at a specific price known as the strike price of the option and has to exercise it within a defined time frame. The seller has an obligation to sell the stocks to the buyer if the buyer chooses to exercise the option to make a purchase. There is one requirement that the buyer must fulfill – such has to exercise the option at any time but prior to a named expiration date. The expiration date depends on buyers and seller agreement and may vary from three months to even one year.

    The seller will receive the buying price for the option, but the amount depends on how close the option strike price is to the price of the stock at the time the option is bought. Also, on how long is a period of time to the option’s expiry date.
    To put a long story short, the options price will vary depending on how possible or not possible is for the buyer to profitably exercise the option before the expiry date.

    What is the exercise price of stock options?

    The exercise price is the price at which stock can be bought or sold when trading a call or put options.
    For example, you own call options for ABC company with an exercise price of $50. The underlying stock is trading at $60. It indicates the call options are trading in the money by $10. So, the exercise price is lower than the current stock.

    The call options will give you the right to buy the stock at $50 even it is trading at $60. That allows you to make $10 per share if exercise the option. Your profit would be $10 reduced by the premium or cost you paid to the seller for the option.
    But if ABS company is trading at $60, and the strike price of your call option is $65, the situation is quite different. Your option is out of the money. You will not profit if exercise that option because why would you like to pay $65 by using the option if you can buy the stock at a lower price for $60.

    How many options contracts you can buy?

    Each option contract holds 100 shares of the underlying stock. Buying 2 call options contracts, for example, grants the owner the right, but not the obligation, to buy 200 shares (2 x 100 = 300).
    Suppose you think ABC Company stock is going to rise over a specific period of time. You may consider buying as many call options as your budget allows you. In other words, consider the trade amount that your account can support. This means to decide the maximum amount of money you want to use to buy call options.

    What is the expiration date?

    Options do not last forever. They have an expiration date.

    But if the stock closes below the strike price and a call option has not been exercised by the expiration date, it expires worthless. And the trader no longer has the right to buy the underlying asset and the trader loses the premium paid for the option. Most stocks have options contracts that last up to nine months. Traditional options contracts typically expire on the third Friday of each month.

    What do we pay when trading the options?

    When you buy the stock for the stock price, you buy options for what’s known as the premium.

    Premium is the price to buy options. In 100 XY call options example, the premium might be $4 per contract. It means the total cost of buying one XY 100 call option contract would be $400 ($4 premium per contract x 100 shares that the options control x 1 contract = $400).  If the premium were $6 per contract, instead of $4, the total cost of buying 2 contracts would be $1,200 ($6 per contract x 100 shares that the options control x 2 total contracts = $1,200).

    What orders to use when trading options?

    Options prices are constantly changing, like stocks.

    So, you may choose the type of trading order with which to purchase some options contract. There are several types of orders, including market, limit, stop-loss, stop-limit, trailing-stop-loss, and trailing-stop-limit.

  • Costa Coffee sold to Coca Cola!

    Costa Coffee sold to Coca Cola!

    1 min read

    Costa Coffee sold to Coca Cola!

    Whitbread, a leisure group taking in coffee shops and hotels, said earlier this year it would spin off Costa Coffee and list it as a separate entity, following pressure from activist investor Elliott.

    Whitbread has agreed to sell Britain’s biggest coffee chain to Coca-Cola in a £3.9bn deal. On Friday the company said a sale of the business is now “in the best interests of shareholders”.

    Whitbread’s stock rose more than 18% in early trading on Friday.

    Leisure group Whitbread says sale ‘in best interests of shareholders’.

    Profit of this deal will be used to pay down debt and increase the pension fund. Whitbread said it intends to return a majority of net cash proceeds to shareholders.

    Earlier this year it was reported that Whitbread has been got close to a potential buyout of Costa Coffee.

    The company said the sale of the coffee chain will allow it to focus on its Premier Inn hotels business.

    Hospitality group Whitbread is cutting hundreds of management roles, two months after confirming plans to spin off its Costa Coffee business, The UK Independent revealed earlier in July.

    The company will let at least 250 managers go as part of a restructuring of its restaurant business, which is held under the Premier Inn brand.

    Employees were told about the redundancies but were given no further detail at that time.

    But on Friday everything became clear.

    Workers have been concerned that job cuts were appearing since the Costa spin-off was announced, and feel that the process has not been handled well by Whitbread, according to a source close to the company.

    Chief executive Alison Brittain said: “This transaction is great news for shareholders as it recognizes the strategic value we have developed in the Costa brand and its international growth potential, and accelerates the realization of value for shareholders in cash. This combination will ensure new product development, continued growth in the UK and more rapid expansion overseas.”

    Whitbread bought Costa Coffee, which is now the UK’s biggest coffee chain, for just ÂŁ19m in 1995. when it had only 39 shops and now has more than 2,400 UK coffee shops, as well as some 1,400 outlets in 31 overseas markets. Costa Express has 8,237 vending machines worldwide.

    Costa Coffee sold to Coca Cola! 2For Coca-Cola, the transaction represents a leap into the global coffee market, where it has little presence, allowing it to diversify away from fizzy and sugary drinks, which have declined in popularity among increasingly health-conscious consumers.

    Coca-Cola chief executive James Quincey told investors on a conference call that Costa was “a winning company that can go global”.

    He admits that retail sales were a new area for Coca-Cola, but said Costa already had “a strong management team” and that Coca-Cola intended to “make it attractive for them to stay”

    Think the Coca-Cola dividend, its stocks provide a remarkable wealth to investors like Warren Buffett.

    Risk Disclosure (read carefully!)

  • The Barriers to Learning About Stocks and how to avoid them

    The Barriers to Learning About Stocks and how to avoid them

    The Barriers to Learning About Stocks and how to avoid them
    Be objective, don’t expect the success overnight, have reasonable expectations, think in all probabilities.

    By Guy Avtalyon

    First of all, never base your decisions on emotions, rumors, or rush to the next hot opportunity.  This is one of the most influential barriers to learning about stocks.

    You will end up losing money as a result. Some investors despite their problems, continue with the same actions and keep getting the same bad results.
    Investors have to remove barriers on their path to success. Otherwise, success will never come. All investors must seek to continuously remove new barriers as they appear.

    What kind of barriers to learning about stocks you may have?

    Emotions

    The fear and greed! Many investors experienced the obscure of ability to rationally consider through an investing opportunity. This leads to poor investment decisions and a loss of money.

    For instance, it is in an investor’s best interest to sell high and buy low, investors hate to sell winners and are unwilling to buy out-of-favor stocks. Why so many investors hold winning investments too long? When they fall back, they continue to hold on to them, hoping they will return to their previous highs. They even lie that they will sell if the price returns to the level at which they bought it.

    Also, there are investors who hold on to losing investments! Okay, they might be in love but why to hold for so long? They have some hope. If they wait and hold longer, their shares will recover. That might happen never.

    They can sell to at least break even, very often such investors become losers. Because their capital is tied up in a losing investment and is unable to produce a return. This reduces account balances and expands stress levels.

    Most investors admit that holding investments too long is the mistake that was most detrimental to their success.

    Less knowledge

    Some investors think if you just buy and sell the right stock, you will always make money.

    That’s wrong! Totally mistake! Barriers to learning about stocks!

    Sometimes, investors can have less understanding of how markets work. That drives stock prices and successful investing performance.

    Also, so many investors tend to overestimate their strength to beat the market. As a result, they take on unnecessary risks. People are often drawn to powerful performance, even when it’s not sustainable.

    Many investors follow the hottest sector and don’t have a sufficient understanding of the risks involved.

    For instance, investors realize they should not overweight their portfolios with too much money in one investment,  but they continue to do so. It isn’t rare that people buy too much stock in the company where they are employed, because the company’s available retirement funds and use of options as a part of their compensation package makes this easy.

    Barriers to learning about stocks may leave investors with a portfolio that lacks diversification.

    Some other investors don’t understand how bonds work, and they avoid them. Few of them realize that bonds hold a preferred position should a company declare bankruptcy.

    Many others don’t realize that when interest rates rise, bond prices go down. When it comes to understanding important concepts such as how a central bank sets interest rates and the yield curve, even fewer investors have sufficient knowledge to make rational decisions.

    And more interesting, most investors do not know when to sell a stock that has substantially appreciated. They continue to hold the stock instead of selling part of their position.

    In that way, they could capture some of the profit and make capital convenient and available for other investments. They can’t realize that as the price of the stock goes up their portfolio becomes even more unbalanced.

    The market has the ability to balance portfolios for investors, sometimes to their astonishment. Many investors are confused by the idea that rebalancing entails selling some of the investments that have performed best and buying more quality stocks that have lagged.

    Losing the Bigger Picture

    Despite many investors like to say they invest with a long-term perspective, they continue to make decisions based on short-term movements and ideas. Most investors believe that setting long-term goals for such things as buying a home or providing for retirement are important. But still, they fail to establish viable financial plans to do so.

    Without these plans, their decisions are decaying. Basing decisions on unpredictable market fluctuations can be very dangerous because there is a good chance that these investors will make the wrong decision. That can obstruct their ability to achieve their long-term goals.

    When the investors realize that the market has risen, they pour cash into stocks and mutual funds, trying to grab part of the profit the professionals have realized. When the market puts in a decline, some investors panic and sell close the bottom. And very often, this pattern continues, causing such investors to lose much of their capital.

    How to remove barriers to learning about stocks

    No matter what your barriers are, it is important to put together and plan to remove them. Here are some steps you can take to eliminate these barriers to your investing success. Experts advise doing this.

    * Learn to monitor your performance: Measuring your performance creates a record of what has worked and what has not. This can help you to recognize problems that you repeat. You should record the overall market trend, the sector trend, the reason for making the trade, the exit target, and the trailing stop. Do this for each trade no matter if you sell or buy. This record is very useful in evaluating your investing activities and can be used to identify what barriers you are meeting that obstruct your success.

    * After you have measured your actions, you can identify what you have to change: Inspect your past tradings and find patterns that show to barriers to success. Maybe you impulsively buy the next stock without thinking? Does your explanation prove to be wrong most of the time? The key is to identify the investing behavior that inhibits your performance.

    Stay focused and avoid barriers

    * Stay focused on what you need to change. Like any effort to change behavior, you must remain focused on the actions you take to reinforce the investing behavior you wish to have. If you think you are not focused on how to change your behavior, then take a break from your investing until you recover your focus.

    * Determine how you will understand your losses. Keep in mind that losses are part of investing. Learning how to deal with them is one of the most important pieces of successful investing behavior. You have to define what your loss looks like through your stop loss and reasons for the trade. You must accept the loss as part of the trading. Accepting a loss is a trading skill that is a crucial behavior. Making a losing trade ahs to be an acceptable process in your trading strategy, you’ll eliminate the emotion and fear that comes from a loss. You’ll jump to the next opportunity without fear.

    * Become an expert at one investing strategy: There are many ways to evaluate the market and select stocks that offer good investment opportunities. Don’t try to understand every perspective on a stock. It is best to get to know one reliable investing strategy. In that way, you will gain confidence in your investing access. This knowledge will form a valid base for your investing. And when you become an expert you can expand your knowledge base by adding a new approach.

    Think twice to avoid barriers 

    * Think in probabilities: The market is in permanent movement. It forces the investor to continually evaluate the risk-reward ratio of each opportunity. You can’t move the market, that’s why you need to rate what is the greatest possibility that will move the market, key sectors and the stocks you are watching. Evaluating what is most possible to happen in the sense of probabilities could help you to make a valid investing estimation.

    * Learn how to be objective: Many investors want to believe that the market will do what they think it should do, rather than what it actually does. Any limits you place on the market will usually turn out to be wrong. The market does what the market does. Investors are best served if they maintain an objective perspective. If you are neutral, then you will not feel any pressure to move quickly. You will not be afraid to make an investment decision. And the most important, you will not force your opinion on the market, but rather sense what the market is trying to tell you.

    Do not expect this to happen overnight. Removing the barrier is a long-term process. But if you have a defined plan, you will be able to create a program to remove the barriers that keep you from achieving success as an investor.

  • How To Start Trading?

    How To Start Trading?

    How To Start Trading?
    Trading the stock market is easy if you know how to start.

    By Guy Avtalyon

    How to start trading? First of all, never do it on your own. Ask to be advised by some experts. It is always best to access a financial advisor who will tell you how you should invest or trade, established in your financial situation, and risk appetite. Talk to others who invest.
    Read books, journals, and newspapers for recommendations. You can talk to your stockbroker for advice but don’t listen to everything he says.
    Always take a second opinion as brokers might have vested interests. In the beginning, it is best to go for known brands and big companies that have a good business status.

    What do you need to know before you start trading?

    Without knowledge, you may feel lost. Let’s make clear the basics because you’ve decided to join the crazy world of trading stocks and shares.
    You have to know that shareholders usually have a right to vote at company conferences.

    Of course, if you own just one of the three billion Facebook shares don’t expect Mark Zuckerberg to listen to your ideas!
    Another thing you need to know is that a company’s shares are indivisible.

    You cannot buy fewer than one share.

    Shares were pieces of paper that shareholders kept in a safe but since the ‘90s, this all changed to virtual shares. Before you start trading stocks, you have to buy them! You can do this in many different but easy ways.

    Some companies allow you to buy their shares directly from them but If you can’t purchase the shares directly or you’re not sure which company to invest in, ask your bank. Also, banks offer an online trading service connected to your existing accounts.

    Ask your bank to see if this option is possible. If your bank doesn’t offer a trading service, you can buy shares through a brokerage company. You can find many of trusty brokerages, just do a search. But be cautious. Never pick the first you find, read some reviews, ask around, visit forums.

    Brokers buy and sell securities in exchange for a commission. You can set up a simple brokerage account online or hire a so-called ‘full-service broker’ who will trade stocks on your behalf. They can be a consultant or advisor for you. This will cost a little more but it is worth it because you know nothing about shares or stocks or trading or investing.

    How to start trading?

    So, you want to start trading  stocks or CFDs, but you have always remembered three things:

    1. Never invest more money than you can afford to lose. With shares and CFDs, there is a risk of losing all the money you have invested.
    2. Follow your head, not your heart. Your heart will always pull you towards certain stocks. Stop and think. Only invest in companies that seem able to grow their profits, despite your emotions.
    3. Never invest your savings in just one company. ‘Never put all your eggs in one basket,’ as the mantra goes. Place your investments across many different companies.

    This way, you’ll significantly decrease the risk of loss, and increase the chance to multiply your investment.

    When you set up your online broker account, simply take the leap and make your first trade.

    Start with small, 1, 10, or 20 shares that will serve its purpose and bring you in the game.

    If trading with real capital isn’t viable, start with a simulator for virtual trading. Numbers of different online brokers offer virtual trading for practicing and learning.

    It’s too easy to lose money in a stock exchange, so start with a virtual where the money is virtual, but the stocks, stock prices, are real. Maybe the best way is to start your trading journey with virtual money, understand how they are performing, recognize when you can sell them, is it the right time, etc.

    Before you start putting your real money, you would learn the tricks of the trade with virtual money. Take it slow. You’ll need time to understand everything. Not even the most experienced traders know everything. Most important for beginners in trading is to have a trading plan, trading strategy, and to stick to them. Also, never forget to keep up your trading journal. That is an amazing tool. Add to it all your entries, exits, price of assets you trade, at which price you bought it, and at which you sold it. That will provide you a full picture of how successful your trades were. Do it with virtual trading in a demo account, also. 

     

  • Call options -How to sell & write

    Call options -How to sell & write

    4 min read

    How to sell & write options? 6

    Call options are an investment contract in which a fee is paid for the right to buy or sell shares at a future date. When we are talking about writing a put or call option we are speaking about an investment contract in which a fee is paid for the right to buy or sell shares at a future date.

    Put and call options for stocks are typically sold in lots of 100 shares.

    A little review of history.

    The origins of writing an option date back to ancient times. Don’t think it is something new. Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, recorded an early example of options trading in his ”Politics”.

    The philosopher and mathematician Thales of Miletus studied astronomy as a way to predict olive harvests for his region. Thales believed there would be a coming bountiful olive harvest. But did not have the money to buy his own olive presses. So instead paid a fee for the right to access the olive presses of others.

    Do you see? This was the first options contract.

    So, writing a call option means that you are selling a call option. If you sell a call (also known as a “short call”) then you are obliged to sell stock at the strike price.

    Typically, a call is sold against long stock.

    When you buy some option $400 call option that you have the right to buy 100 shares of some company at $400.

    And maybe you asked yourself the question “who exactly am I buying it from?”

    To have the right to buy the stock at the strike price, somebody has had to take the other side of that transaction and agreed to give you the right to buy it.

    The ones that take the opposite side of the call option buyer are the “call option sellers.” And sometimes they are known as “call option writers”.

    When you BUY call options, you bought it from someone.




    That means that someone is giving you the rights to buy the underlying stock at the strike price by selling you that option.

    The act of CREATING and SELLING that call options contract to you by that person is the act of WRITING a call option.

    In execution, this means opening a call options position using the SELL TO OPEN order.

    When you do that, you create a new call options contract for trading in the options market and that is known as “Write” a call options contract because you are exactly “writing it up”.

    Selling options, whether Calls or Puts, is a popular trading technique to increase the returns on the portfolio.

    Selling Premium can prove successful when performed on a selective basis. But, if you don’t follow some specific guidelines, your long-term prospect of profitability is doubtful.

    Selling options for Income can be debatable because you don’t know are you making money with your options trading. When you take a look in your overall portfolio it can be difficult to measure each transaction success.

    But in this environment is yield-seeking, and selling options is a strategy designed to generate current income.

    Selling options is a bit more complex than buying options.

    That can involve extra risk. If sold options expire worthlessly, the seller gets to keep the money received for selling them.

    To be clear with more details.

    There are two types of call option selling.

    If you bought a call option and the price has gone up you can always just sell the call on the open market. This type of transaction is called a “Sell to Close” transaction because you are selling a position that you currently have.

    If you do not currently own the call option, but rather you are creating a new option contract and selling someone the right to buy the stock from you, then this is called “Sell to Open“, “Writing an Option“, or sometimes just “Selling an Option.”

    How to sell & write options? 1How to sell & write options? 2Writing or selling a call option is when you give the buyer of the call option the right to buy a stock from you at a certain price by a certain date. Simpler, the seller (also known as the writer) of the call option can be forced to sell a stock at the strike price. The seller of the call receives the premium that the buyer of the call option pays. If the seller of the call owns the underlying stock, then it is called “writing a covered call.” If the seller of the call does NOT own the underlying stock, then it is called “writing a naked call.” A covered call enables you to own a stock with unlimited downside risk and collect a premium for the call you sold.

    When you sell a covered call you are actually selling a synthetic put.

    If you are not comfy selling naked puts, then you should not be comfy selling a covered call. It is exactly the same as selling a put.

    If you are comfortable with the covered call, then there are numerous factors to analyze when entering any options position.

    Now, it is convenient to look at what factors can make a trade more likely to be profitable than another.

    At the top of any list is liquidity or the percentage of the difference between the bid and ask.
    If you are giving away too great a percentage to the market-makers or algorithms, then the costs of entering the transaction are too high.

    You should look to trade an options contract that has a bid/ask spread of less than 1.5%. Always consider that the more you give away to the bid/ask spread, not only entering but exiting the transaction.

    Well, this may prove difficult at times, but it isn’t easy to make money.  

    Besides this, all trade evaluations must consider the cost of commissions. While all of these costs make profitable trading that much more difficult, they must be included in your analysis.

    You should consider the relative strength index of the underlying, extreme conditions tend to provide more interesting trading opportunities.

    A seller is obligated to buy or sell an underlying security at a specified strike price if the buyer chooses to exercise the option.

    There must be a seller for every option buyer.

    There are several resolutions that must be made before selling options:

    1) What security to sell options on
    2) The type of option (call or put)
    3) The type of order (market, limit, stop-loss, stop-limit, trailing-stop-loss, or trailing-stop-limit)
    4) Trade amount that can be supported
    5) The number of options to sell
    6) The expiration month

    When all this information is collected, a trader goes into the brokerage account, select security and go to an options chain. Once an option has been selected, the trader goes to the options trade ticket. Then enter a sell to open order to sell options and makes the appropriate selections to place the order.

    Here are the key things you should remember with respect to buying and selling call options.

    You buy a call option only when you are bullish about the underlying asset.

    Upon expiry, the call option will be profitable only if the underlying has moved over and above the strike price. Buying a call option is also referred to as ‘Long on a Call Option’ or simply ‘Long Call’. To buy a call option you need to pay a premium to the option writer.

    The call option buyer has a limited risk (to the extent of the premium paid) and a potential to make an unlimited profit. The breakeven point is the point at which the call option buyer neither makes money nor experiences a loss.

    How to sell & write options? 4P&L = Max [0, (Spot Price – Strike Price)] – Premium Paid
    Breakeven point = Strike Price + Premium Paid
    When you sell a call option (also called option writing) only when you believe that upon expiry, the underlying asset will not increase beyond the strike price.

    Selling a call option is also called ‘Shorting a call option’ or simply ‘Short Call’.  

    When you sell a call option you receive the premium amount. The profit of an option seller is restricted to the premium he receives, however his loss is potentially unlimited.

    The breakdown point is the point at which the call option seller gives up all the premium he has made, which means he is neither making money nor is losing money.

     
    Since short option position carries unlimited risk, he is required to deposit margin. Margins in case of short options are similar to futures margin.


    P&L = Premium – Max [0, (Spot Price – Strike Price)]
    Breakdown point = Strike Price + Premium Received
    When you are bullish on a stock you can either buy the stock in the spot, buy its futures, or buy a call option.

     

    When you are bearish on a stock you can either sell the stock in the spot (although on an intraday basis), short futures, or short a call option.

    The calculation of the intrinsic value for the call option is standard, it does not change based on whether you are an option buyer/ seller.

    You sell a call option when you are bearish on a stock.

    When you sell a call option you receive a premium.

    Selling a call option requires you to deposit a margin.

    When you sell a call option your profit is limited to the extent of the premium you receive and your loss can potentially be unlimited.

    Nothing more, nothing less.

    Risk Disclosure (read carefully!)

  • Steve Wozniak will join a cryptocurrency startup called Equi Capital

    Steve Wozniak will join a cryptocurrency startup called Equi Capital

    1 min read

    Steve Wozniak will join a cryptocurrency startup called Equi Capital

    Apple Inc. (AAPL) co-founder Steve Wozniak, according to some media, will join a cryptocurrency startup called Equi Capital, concentrated on investments in the digital token collection. Coindesk, www.coindesk.com, reported: ”Speaking to Null Transaction, the bitcoin proponent said this is the first time he has worked with a blockchain company in his career, adding that he ‘was amazed at the technology behind [cryptocurrency]’.”

    Equi aims to act as an investment firm, Wozniak said.

    According to the startup’s Twitter page, it hopes to help both retail and professional investors purchase equity in companies in an effort to replace traditional investing firms.

    Steve Wozniak said:

    “Our approach is not like a new currency, or something phony where an event will make it go up in value. It’s a share of stock, in a company. This company is doing investment by investors with huge track records in good investments in things like apartment buildings in Dubai. We have one person in our group who has listed out a whole apartment building for bitcoin.”

    Wozniak did not provide details on what his role would be at the startup but he did indicate that the company may register in Malta. Malta is a well-known area which has been working to develop a friendly regulatory environment aimed to attract firms in the blockchain and cryptocurrency space.

    Steve Wozniak will join a cryptocurrency startup called Equi Capital 1Continuing to promote the potential use cases for blockchain technology, Steve Wozniak said, “I’ve encountered people working in real estate avenues, types of Uber systems, everything we’ve got in our life, especially involving transactions – retail sales, car sales, manufacturing of goods … working on bitcoin applications … and they all have value.”

    The tech guru’s choice of first crypto project is a bit surprising.  

    As reported by The Next Web, Equi has had a pretty rough path so far. At first, they were launching its token via ICO. But because of lack of interest, the sale was canceled and pre-sale investors were refunded.

    A follow-up bounty scheme to reward users with tokens for publicizing the project also saw major issues when a partner marketing company soon walked away,  indicates the news source. Going the bounty route also raises the thorny issue, according to CoinDesk, that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has indicated that even giving away tokens may break securities rules.

    Note: During the weekend, Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency leader, was trading above $6,700 at the time of this writing. The most popular and largest cryptocurrency in the world, the past week showed signs of upward impulse and return to the stability at this price point. Other digital currencies were trading laterally.

    Ethereum reached $280, Litecoin was a trading bit under $58 per token.

    Risk Disclosure (read carefully!)

  • Apple is charging their batteries with Tesla’s employees

    Apple is charging their batteries with Tesla’s employees

    2 min read

    Apple is charging their batteries with Tesla's employees 1

    The personnel flow has been going from Tesla Inc to Apple Inc, the iPhone maker has poached at least 46 employees from Tesla in 2018!

    Elon Musk called Apple ”Tesla graveyard”, as his employees are being poached by Apple.

    Dozens of current and former Tesla employees have left for Apple since late 2017, according to research conducted by CNBC.

    Back in 2015, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that Apple serves as the “Tesla graveyard” for staff that left or was no longer needed. “if you don’t make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple.”

    But Apple Inc seems to have decided to show him that it is a furious playground.

    According to several current and former Tesla employees and LinkedIn data, manufacturing, security and software engineers, and, more recently, supply chain experts, are now at Apple.

    The Tesla employees that have left Tesla have joined various departments at Apple, not only Project Titan, Apple car development endeavor. And, they are reportedly working on “display, optics, and battery-tech” for the myriad of mobile devices that Apple makes. Apple seems to have employed no less than 46 people that used to work for Tesla since the beginning of 2018.

    According to a current Tesla employee who kept in touch with former colleagues, Apple appears to be placing renewed emphasis on manufacturing processes and equipment, the report said.

    The company outsources production to firms like Foxconn, but still offers input on new processes and techniques, as well as other areas of manufacture.

    Apple is paying bigger salaries than Tesla

    Apple can afford to pay 150% of the salaries that Tesla doles out. Multiple sources told CNBC that Apple pays about one-and-a-half times the salary for technicians, software, and manufacturing engineers compared to Tesla. That might be one of the reasons that high-profile talent like Tesla’s VP of engineering Doug Field is now back at Apple, after a few years at the electric car-maker. Apple has hired former Tesla Autopilot, QA, Powertrain, mechanical design and firmware engineers, and several global supply chain managers too. Some employees joined directly from Tesla, while others had been dismissed or laid off before joining Apple.

    One Tesla engineer, as their spokesperson, commented on Apple’s poaching that Tesla must be comparatively poor, but work is more meaningful:

    ”We wish them well. Tesla is the hard path. We have 100 times less money than Apple, so of course they can afford to pay more. We are in extremely difficult battles against entrenched auto companies that make 100 times more cars than we did last year, so of course this is very hard work. We don’t even have money for advertising or endorsements or discounts, so must survive on the quality of our products alone. Nonetheless, we believe in our mission and that it is worth the sacrifice of time and the never-ending barrage of negativity by those who wish us ill. So it goes.”

    Runaways from Tesla to Apple

    And CNBC reports that the company from Cupertino is on a hiring spree, poaching “scores” of ex-Tesla employees for a variety of projects, citing better pay at the iPhone giant.

    All sources come from LinkedIn profiles. Doug Field, a high profile executive who oversaw engineering for the Tesla Model 3 hasn’t updated his profile at that time. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year he planned to take a “six-week sabbatical.” But this month it came out that he took a job at Apple. That means he is returning to the company he had worked for before Tesla. How things look now, Field is working on Project Titan, Apple’s car project. Apple has a team of at least a few hundreds working on autonomous vehicles, with test vehicles driving on streets of California these days.

    Tesla’s employees say that, even before Field left, they saw more colleagues voluntarily leaving than they had in prior years at Tesla.

    Tesla disputes that more people are leaving than in recent years and says the data does not back it up. The company told CNBC that voluntary attrition has decreased by one-third over the last twelve months, and noted that it has recently added talent from Apple and other companies.

    But the truth seems to be somewhere else.

    A former Tesla vehicle engineer who was laid off by the company in June said that stock options at Apple would probably be more attractive than they are at Tesla during a rocky time. Many employees at Tesla already sell their options as soon as they are able to in order to make up for the relatively average salaries and the high cost of living around Silicon Valley, he said.

    Maybe the panic caused by a large number of employees leaving Tesla and going to Apple has caused Musk to tweet on August 7th that he is considering taking Tesla company private at $420 per share buyout and that he has secured the funding needed to do so.

    Tesla has had a turbulent year, with controversies on daily bases, and the stock options that Tesla employees receive may be less desirable given the stock’s volatile price. Compared to Apple, which became the first company to be valued over $1 trillion earlier this month, Tesla is not giant.

    Risk Disclosure (read carefully!)

  • Is Elon Musk In Trouble?

    Is Elon Musk In Trouble?

    1 min read

    Elon Musk Trouble Must?

    Short of it would be that Elon Musk is in trouble. Long, that he’s really really in trouble.

    It all started on August 7th when he tweeted that he is considering taking Tesla company private at $420 per share buyout and that he has secured the funding needed to do so. From there the things just snowballed. First, the price of Tesla stocks sharply raised to $379 from $341, then short-sellers started voicing their concern that Musk has attempted to manipulate the price of stocks of his company in an effort to hurt them financially and the USA Security and Exchange Commission has started an inquiry into his tweets.

    Elon Musk Trouble Must? 4

    Elon Musk – The naughty guy in the world of white collars

    But the Musk’s troubles do not end here. In a bit longer Instagram story, of which post is now deleted, rapper Azealia Banks claimed that she witnessed over the weekend after 7th August, while visiting her Canadian colleague and Musk’s girlfriend Grimes, entrepreneur’s meltdown and him being scolded by Grimes for tweeting about the buyout while under the influence of LSD. That tale continued with a bizarre string of posts made by Banks in which she demands from Musk to return her phone so she could retrieve her “quality nudes” and go home. A phone which allegedly Musk’s lawyer blackmailed her and paid off her lawyer into handing over to “delete evidence”.

    Elon Musk Trouble Must? 3

    The tweet is a trick?

    Elon Musk is known for taunting short-sellers on Twitter, and many of them observe the situation with that knowledge in mind. In the light of that fact they are seeing the tweet about taking Tesla private, and some have decided to file a class action suit against Musk as they see this tweet as a securities fraud. Such also may be the conclusion of the SEC investigation, but with the regulators being customarily tight-lipped about their investigations we may wait up to a couple of years before finding out whether they will take any legal actions against Musk or not. For now, the only thing which can be concluded about it is that SEC is under great public pressure to take legal action against Musk.

     

    Elon Musk Trouble Must? 1
    Whole this time Musk did not sit idle. He has already given a lengthy interview to the New York Times defending his actions. Going as far as to claim that he just added customarily 20% premium on top of the then current price and that he just rounded it up and came up with $420 per share. And that it has nothing to do with marihuana and drugs sub-culture iconography. He self-effacingly lambasted own over-reliance of automatization of production as the reason for not meeting the production goals. Also in recent days, there was a deluge of articles and op-eds written in big financial media glorifying Musk’s work ethics and lamenting about his pains of having to work on his own birthday. Alas, Musk might be an entrepreneurial genius but the math is not his stronger suit as 120% of $341 is not $419 as he claims.

    What will happen with Elon Musk and Tesla we will find out in the future, for now, one can only see this tale as a cautionary one.

    Kids do not do drugs, and if you do them do not mix them with social networks.

    Risk Disclosure (read carefully!)

  • Are we witnesses of the historical period on the stock market?

    Are we witnesses of the historical period on the stock market?

    1 min read

    What are basic types of Forex trading? 1

    Is this really the historical period on the stock market?

    Longest Bull Market in History? 

    Media reports that the US stock market broke the record for longevity on August 22, 2018. And some portals were ecstatic with this information and published articles about this ”historical record”.

    This would be quite a success if it is true. But, many experts claim it is not.

    The true fact is that the longest run belongs to the 12 1/2-year periods running from October 1987 through March 2000. The present bull market started in 2009, will need to wait till 2021 to beat that record.

    According to some media and experts, bull markets are rallies that go beyond 20 percent and are never interrupted by a 20 percent fall. By the rules of Wall Street, that means the S&P 500 rally that began in March 2009 will surpass all that went before it on Wednesday.

    Historical period on the stock market?

    ”It may be peaking”, said Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Leuthold Group.

    Here’s the problem: the rules aren’t made from stone. They’re not laws and even they are, people make them. So, that means the rules are not perfect and they are changeable. The 20 percent threshold people understand as arbitrary, false, an creation, fake. Experts disagree on everything and that’s good.

    “If you round the data, you’re going to get a certain number of bull markets. If you don’t round, you’re going to get a different number,” Justin Walters, co-founder of Bespoke Investment Group LLC, said by phone. “If you want to do that, that’s fine, but it’s not using the standard 20 percent definition.”

    If you want to start a fight on Wall Street just ask how old the current bull market will be on Wednesday.

    “Hold the champagne! This is not the longest bull market on record or since WWII as the current buzz on the Street would have you believe,” wrote Jeff Hirsch, editor of the Stock Trader’s Almanac, in his blog post.
    As Hirsch’s post shows, that calculation doesn’t sit well with some analysts, though not always for the same cause.

    For instance, Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA, noted objections that argue the current bull would have to run until April 3, 2021, to claim the crown. In this case, the rub doesn’t have to do with dating the start of the bull market back to March 2009. Instead, it hinges on the contention that the 1990s bull market actually ran longer than it is widely credited.

    What is historical here?

    ”Using Ned Davis rules the longest bull began on October 11, 1990, and ran for 2836 calendar days until July 17, 1998. The current bull that began on February 11, 2016, would have to run until November 17, 2023, to beat it.” wrote Hirsch.

    So what conclusion we can have if this bull may be younger than we think?

    What we should focus on is performance. If we take this is indeed the longest bull market in history, let’s focus on returns. Through that point of view, the current bull market has returned just over 320 percent, while the bull market of the 1990s gained nearly 420 percent. To break that record would really be an achievement worth celebrating.

    It is impossible to prevent anyone from celebrating or drink champagne, but do it when you have the real reason based on irrefutable facts.

    Till then: Markets go up, markets go down.

    Risk Disclosure (read carefully!)

  • How to research and choose stock?

    How to research and choose stock?

    How to research and choose stock?
    Here you’ll find a full explanation on how to research stock.

    By Guy Avtalyon

    This is the main question: how to research stock? Investors have a name for all types of research, one of them is fundamental analysis. Fundamental analysis involves looking at numbers and other measures in a company’s financials as well as assessing the less tangible aspects of a business.

    This approach can help you decide whether a stock deserves a spot in your portfolio. Pick a company you’re interested in. Read current and past annual reports and letters to shareholders. Collect the numbers and financial ratios and compare the company’s performance history to the industry and its rivals. Then work through the list of qualitative questions.

    How to perform a technical analysis

    Technical analysis is a way to understand market psychology or what are investors’ feelings about a company, which are manifested in the stock prices. Also, technical analysts are mostly short-term holders, concerned about the timing of their buys and sells. If you can identify a pattern, you could have a chance to predict when stock prices will fall and drop.

    This is useful in how to research stock because it can inform you about when to buy or sell certain stocks.

    The technical analysis makes use of moving averages to track security prices. Moving averages measure the average price of the security over a given period of time. This helps traders to easily identify trends

    Use patterns as a tool on how to research stock:

    Patterns include known price boundaries in the market price of a stock. The high boundary is known as the “resistance.”

    The low boundary is called “support.”

    Recognizing these levels provide a trader to know when to buy (at resistance) and when to sell (at support). And there are some specific patterns that are also noticeable in stock charts.

    The most usual is  “head and shoulders.”

    This shows a top price then drops, followed by a higher peak then drops. And eventually follows a peak alike in height to the first. This pattern indicates that an upward price trend will end.

    There are also inverse head and shoulders patterns, which mark the end to a downward price trend.

    What is the difference between a trader and an investor?

    An investor search for a company with a competitive advantage in the marketplace that will provide sales and earnings growth over a long period. A trader tries to find companies with a price trend that can be utilized in the short-term.

    Traders typically use technical analysis to identify price trends. Investors typically use fundamental analysis, because they are focused on the long term. The decision, will you be a trader or investor, will determine you how to research stock.

    What orders do traders use?

    Orders are what traders use to describe the trades that they want their brokers to make for them. There are a lot of different types of orders.The simplest type of order is a market order, which buys or sells a set number of shares of a security at the prevalent market price. A limit order buys or sells a security when its price reaches a decision point. For instance, placing a buy limit order on security will order the broker to only purchase the security if the price fell to a some defined level.

    This allows a trader to specify the maximum amount willing to pay, a limit order guarantees the price the trader will pay or be paid, but not that the trade will happen.

    Stop order tell the broker to buy or sell a security if the price rises above or falls below a certain point. But, the price that the stop order will be filled at is not guaranteed because it is the current market price.

    What is short selling?

    Short selling is when a trader sells shares of a security that they do not yet own or have borrowed.

    It is typically done with the hope that the market price of the security will fall. As a result, the trader can buy the shares at a lower price than sold them for in the short sale. Short selling is useful to exit a trade in profit or to hedge against risk. But it is very risky.

    This should only be done by experienced traders who understand the market thoroughly.

    What matters is developing greater self-confidence and knowing the limitations of what you can really learn and find out.

    Also, there is a combination of stop and limit orders called a stop-limit order. When the price of the security passes a certain level, this order specifies that the order becomes a limit order rather than a market order as it does in a regular stop order.