recent posts

no-cover
January 13, 2014
Other

Is Blackberry Back in Favour or Just Getting Squeezed?

Jason Ayres

Blackberry (TSX:BB) has enjoyed a fairly impressive snap back over the last few weeks. Since the beginning of December, shares have climbed from $6.00 to $10.00, or a whopping 66%. The turnaround can be attributed to a couple of things. John Chen took over as CEO back in December , signing a manufacturing agreement that set the...

1585
0
Like
11 years ago
no-cover
January 06, 2014
Other

New Year Optimism?

Richard Croft

The North American economies got an early Christmas present when, in uncharacteristic fashion, cooperative efforts in Washington took the debt debate off the table and pressured some high profile programmers to fix the healthcare.gov website on time. Newly appointed Federal Reserve (Fed) Chairman Janet Yellen eased into power...

2200
0
Like
11 years ago
no-cover
December 16, 2013
Other

Bond Risk

Richard Croft

We are witnessing a major shift in risk allocation across asset classes. As the bond market prices in tapering, medium and longer term rates are rising. With short term rates at or near zero, and likely to remain there for some time, the yield curve is steepening. As these price adjustments work their way through the system, we...

2227
0
Like
11 years ago
no-cover
December 10, 2013
Other

Canadian Banks Topping Today’s Most Active

Jason Ayres

After demonstrating how to take a confident stance on Toronto Dominion Bank using a protective put in last weeks blog titled Repositioning Using Puts , we see that a number of Canadian banks are starting the week off strong, occupying 6 of the 10 spots on today’s Most Active Options list: If an investor had a specific...

2402
0
Like
11 years ago
no-cover
December 09, 2013
Other

Could the Economy be Better than Expected?

Richard Croft

Let’s assume for a moment that the North American economies are performing better than expected. Not a real leap considering that most analysts think the broader North American economy is walking on air, with looming US debt ceiling and sequestration debates and their fast approaching January 15th deadlines notwithstanding....

1981
0
Like
11 years ago
no-cover
December 03, 2013
Other

Repositioning Using Puts

Jason Ayres

One of the challenges with the current market is that stocks have been extending gains on a month over month basis with very few pull backs. This is great if you had the foresight to position yourself early. However, the probability of a correction increases everyday that the market pushes higher, diminishing the near-term...

2109
0
Like
11 years ago
no-cover
December 02, 2013
Other

Investment Advisors using Options

Patrick Ceresna

Over the years, no topic has been more controversial then the use of options by investment advisors for unsophisticated clients. This has now reached levels where a number of Canadian wealth management firms have placed compliance restrictions on advisors, limiting them to using only the simplest strategies for their clients....

2027
0
Like
11 years ago
no-cover
November 26, 2013
Other

Understanding Synthetics

Jason Ayres

Despite sounding somewhat complex, a synthetic option strategy simply refers to combining an option contract with the underlying security to arrive at the same risk/reward profile of a specific options only position. It is not always the intention of the investor to implement a synthetic position. More often then not, the...

2317
0
Like
11 years ago


Scroll Up