The National Association of Home Builders

With a gradual recovery in the overall economy, the homebuilding industry is finally looking better in 2012. The downturn during 2006-2007 had hit the homebuilding sector hard. Some traders believe that the housing market is starting to benefit from an increase in employment rates and higher consumer confidence.  Houses are more affordable now as mortgage loans come with relatively low interest rates while renting becomes more expensive. Many homebuilding companies are showing better year-over-year growth in revenues, driven by an increase in new home orders and average selling prices.  Backlogs  number of homes under sales contracts at the end of the year  and homes delivered are also climbing year over year. Also, improving homebuilding revenues combined with tight cost control by most homebuilders are helping margins. The large discounts and incentives offered in response to declining demand and an oversupply problems are gradually being eliminated.

Home Building Stocks

Hedging is a good options strategy

How do you hedge a short stock position? Simply purchase a long call. By buying to open a call option on the stock you've shorted, you gain the right to purchase the stock at the strike price of the contract. For example, say you shorted Stock XYZ when it was trading at $30. The shares have since declined to $18, proving your theory correct. But, unfortunately, the equity surged to $24 after a positive earnings report, and your profits are dwindling rapidly.

In order to hedge your position, you could buy to open an out-of-the-money call option -- in this case, the $25 strike would work. Then, you could lock in a profit of $5 on the trade, because you've obtained the right to purchase the shares at $25 each. Even if XYZ rallies up to $32, which would have placed your unhedged short sale at a loss, you can still come out victorious. In summation, there's no limit to the number of ways you can hedge your bets with options. Be sure that you're not hedging when you should be closing out a losing position. It's always a good idea to re examine your thoughts for the trade, and make sure your trading plan is still sound. before choosing your next move.

How to hedge stocks

Head and shoulders Conversion chart

Let's examine a head and shoulders pattern. This is a very popular pattern to signal trend reversal. Prices in an uptrend rally to a point and correct, forming a left shoulder. Price rallies again to a higher high continuing the uptrend before correcting once more. This has formed the head. Finally, prices try to rally again, but are not able to reach past the high of the head before starting to fall. Most traders looking for the Head and shoulder pattern would trade this pattern short as soon as prices break the neckline that connects the two lows between the shoulders. You need to learn a couple chart patterns and stick with just them. In the case of the head and shoulders pattern, the right shoulder failing to reach higher than the head gives the chart a lower high. While that does not in itself break the uptrend, it is closer to the downtrend definition. Once the neckline has been broken, a lower low has been completed.

Conversion chart

Morgan Stanley sees the USD/PHP

[Dow Jones] Morgan Stanley sees the USD/PHP in a corrective decline towards the 200-day moving average (last at 43.42). The bank notes that the Philippines' balance of payments is positive despite the equity market outflows that have led to peso weakness since May 2013. "This makes Philippines better positioned to withstand capital outflows compared to its EM peers. The BSP has turned more hawkish on inflation too, and expectations of future rate hikes should also provide yield support to PHP," the bank says.

Best growth stocks

 Growth stock are something all investors should be looking for. Earnings growth is the heart of a great stock. When the earnings are going up the price of the stock will move accordingly. If the earnings are going down then the price of the stock will fall. Traders know that they can short a stock if it is falling. Stock brokers will have stock screeners that can be set up to screen growth stocks.
 There are no set guides to what a trader can look for but a company that is having a twenty percent growth a year is outstanding. Another definition of a growth stock is that investors want to see earning increase each quarter. Traders want to see consistent earnings growth over each quarter. Remember not ever quarter is going to show some growth. Growth stocks at the end of the year will show a ever increasing growth of income.
 Many investors that invest in growth stocks will use a price earning multiple. They might compare two companies that produce the same product and compare which company is growing more. If the two companies show about the same P&E then they might not be the ones to buy stock in. Many growth stocks like Wall-mart, Coke-Cola are great examples of growth stocks. Many stocks have proven there worth and have made money for there investors. The best way is to compare companies using a stock screener is set the screener for five to ten percent returns each quarter.

High growth stocks

Groupon (GRPN)

Groupon (GRPN) went from nothing to a $13 billion valuation, rejecting a $6 billion buyout offer from Google (GOOG), going public within three years, and sparking an epic gold rush in the daily deal space. Almost overnight, more than 900 clone sites launched around the world, serving virtually every imaginable niche and local market. Groupon appears to be rebounding from its post-IPO days as Wall Street's whipping boy after its stock plummeted to $10, half of its IPO price. Quarterly earnings beat consensus as the company reported revenues of $559 million, four percent above analyst estimates of $530 million. Earnings per share came in at $.02, double analyst forecasts. More good news for Groupon, it has been reported that mobile accounted for fifty percent of transactions, a positive development as the world shifts increasingly to mobile, especially in emerging markets.

Groupon (GRPN)

Gold prices Silver prices Precious metals

Fear of high inflation. Central banks around the world have been aggressively expanding their balance sheets. When this started in late 2008, the consensus view was that this would cause inflation, and perhaps hyperinflation. This led to a surge in the interest in precious metals, and to many high-profile hedge fund managers buying gold to protect against it. The list is long: John Paulson, David Einhorn, George Soros. Fear of flat currencies gold as an alternative currency. "All currencies are in a race to zero" seemed the mantra for much of 2010-2011. The belief seemed widespread that in a desperate quest for growth there would be a  currency war, with the US as the instigator. If everyone was going to debauch their currencies, the word was holding gold which many have come to view as an alternative currency would be the natural area for your money.
Diversification and the dollar overhang. The global financial system has been massively dollar-centric for the past 60 years. Two things, around 2002, catalyzed a major diversification wave away from the dollar. The first was the plugging-into-the-grid of emerging markets . Brazil came back from the brink, China joined the WTO. The newly found growth and macro-economic stability in these countries led to them trusting their home currency more, and needing the dollar in which they were all heavily loaded a lot less. Dollar denominated funds joined the BRIC party, intensifying the decline in dollar demand.

Gold prices Silver prices