Free Investing

Max Starkov submits:Background: Back in December 2003, Smith Travel Research published a much discussed article titled, “The Billion Dollar Leak - The Impact of The Merchant Model on US Hotel Profits.” In this article the authors attempted to quantify the financial impact of third party sites on US hotel industry room revenues and profits. To describe this loss, they coined the term “leakage,” i.e. revenue "leaked" from the hotel industry to third party sites in the form of abnormally high merchant commissions of 25% and higher.Complete Story »

Trader Mark submits:Each time the market goes through a material selloff, I always like to bring out charts of "the generals," i.e. the leaders of the recent move.These are usually names I try to focus on in the long side of the portfolio as their relative strength is among the best. Most are either the last vestiges of secular growth (either domestic, international or some combination) in America in a very stagnant era -- hence, they get sometimes spectacular valuations -- or are special situations. Until recently, Apple (AAPL) was the most prominent general, but it has fallen by the wayside already. (Click charts to enlarge)Complete Story »

Kapitall submits:Here is an overview of the weekly performance of stocks listed in the S&P 500 index. We've analyzed weekly performance by sector, and have also highlighted the top winners and losers over the last week.Sector Overview: Average Performance Over The Last WeekComplete Story »

Market Folly submits:While we typically cover investments hedge funds make in public companies, we like to keep an eye on investments made in private companies as well. The reason? A potential lead to secular themes that investment firms are targeting. Case in point: hedge fund Tiger Global and its portfolio of web properties. According to Russian newspaper Vedomosti, Chase Coleman's hedge fund has paid $10 million for a 40% stake in Anywayanyday.com, an online ticket booking site in Russia. The site is owned by an affiliate of Valars, a grain trading company also based in Russia. The website currently garners around 3% of the Russian online airline ticket sales market and sees yearly revenue of around $5 million. The company is also planning to 'revitalize' its presence in the hotel booking segment as well.Complete Story »

Hickey and Walters (Bespoke) submit:
Below is a list of the best performing Russell 1,000 stocks since the July 2nd correction low. As shown, Hewitt Associates (HEW) is up the most with a 40% gain, followed by MBIA (MBI) (26.56%), Anadarko (APC) (24.01%), priceline.com (PCLN) (22.37%), and Marshall & Ilsley (MI) (22.37%). Hewitt and a few other stocks on the list are trading in overbought territory, but most are not. This shows just how oversold stocks were before we got this bounce.click to enlargeComplete Story »

Joshua Hayes submits:Priceline.com (PCLN) was once a great leading stock of the 2009 uptrend. However, it is one of a few leaders that has definitely put in a top and after a very lame rally looks to be ready for a move lower. Investors who focus on fundamentals will argue that the numbers are fantastic for Priceline.com. Facts and 130 years of stock market history prove that fundamentals are the best at a stock's top. Now this is not to say that after a downtrend that Priceline.com will not be a good stock to go long once again. I am more than willing to revisit on the long side, once the market favors leading stocks to the long side again. I mean this stock has great fundamentals. Sadly, for those that believe higher prices are in order, right now, technical analysis is not on your side.Complete Story »

Market Folly submits:(This post is part of our series on tracking hedge fund portfolios. If you're unfamiliar with tracking investments they disclose via SEC filings, check out our series preface on hedge fund filings.) Next up is investment guru and legend Julian Robertso,n who founded one of the lauded hedge funds of the era, Tiger Management. He grew the fund from $8 million at inception to over $22 billion at its peak. Between 1980 and 2000, Tiger compounded a gross rate of 31.5%, but after losses of 4% in 1998 and 19% in 1999, Tiger shut down. For more information on Julian, check out Daniel Strackman's book entitled, Julian Robertson: A Tiger in the Land Of Bulls And Bears.Complete Story »

My call to get long materials and energy at the beginning of the week was looking pretty spot on by Wednesday afternoon, and then, it got completely blown out of the water by the close on Friday as the dollar surged off the 50 day moving average. The OIH got slaughtered Thursday and Friday as crude CL_F pulled back from the $83 level. Crude and gold aren’t going anywhere with a rising dollar. Complete Story »

Hickey and Walters (Bespoke) submit:
While the dollar price of a stock has nothing to do with its valuation, lots of investors out there let price influence their investment decisions. Some investors stay away from high-priced stocks because "they're too expensive" and like to buy low priced stocks because "they're cheap." For some reason, buying 500 shares of a $2 stock seems more appealing to them than buying 5 shares of a $200 stock. For most investment purposes, this is foolish, but it happens. Below we highlight the number of stocks in the Russell 3,000 that are currently trading over $100/share and under $10/share. We also highlight what the numbers were on the day of the market's all-time high (10/9/07) and the day of the bear market low (3/9/09). As shown, there are currently 45 stocks in the Russell 3,000 trading over $100/share. There are 766 trading under $10/share. At the market's peak in 2007, there were 81 $100+ stocks and 340 stocks under $10. On the day of the bear market low, there were only 15 stocks trading over $100, and there were 1,519 trading under $10!Complete Story »

Danny Furman submits:I recently wrote a brief explanation of why I believe Ctrip.com (CTRP) is significantly overpriced, citing most importantly the herd mentality of investors from the United States and Europe who had pushed the company's market cap to over $5B, 20X sales and 55X earnings. This enormous herd obviously saw parallels between CTRP and Priceline.com (PCLN), which dominates the market it created for discounted travel in the US. CTRP does provide the same services as PCLN, however it is an entirely different business. China's travel industry is a baby and consumers make purchases at Ctrip.com because it's the only way they know how. American consumers accept Priceline.com as the cheapest way to travel, which it often is, and happily purchase there what they remember paying much more for in the past. Basically, CTRP is a retailer in a new industry and PCLN is a discounter in an established one.Complete Story »