No April’s fool post today, just our stock picks contest Q1 results… I thought of writing something weird to make you laugh but didn’t come with something better than my Primerica post from last year… I promise to be original and come up with something good for next year

In the meantime, I can’t tell you how disappointed I am with my stock picks for 2010. I’m obviously not in a good position to date as many of my fellow bloggers are enjoying better returns. On a positive note, none of my stock picks are negative and I am really proud of this!

RIM is regaining investor confidence as they are showing better results of late and many industry analysts believe the best is yet to come from the Blackberry maker. I just can’t help it, I’m a sucker for this small phone. I consider it as my 3^rd child now

Manulife did a great job too and investors have started to think that investing in an insurance company is not a bad idea. The company was also wise enough to stay away from more bad news which bodes well for Q2.

Goldman Sachs is showing strong numbers but the US market is still shy. I guess we will have to wait until the second half of the year to see the stock climb.

Emerging markets are have gone sideways for a while with small fluctuations. International concerns regarding Dubai World, Greece, Portugal and Spain didn’t help more fragile economies either. Let’s hope to see some strong numbers coming out of China and India!

Here are the overall results for everybody. Since I had a few readers that were kind enough to contribute, I have decided to include their picks and returns in the second chart. If you want to learn more about other blogger’s stock picks, you just have to click on their name and you will go directly to their stock pick descriptions:

And Congrats to Bryan who is beating everybody here with a marvelous 76%! (thx to ISCO which is up by 288%!)

Looking to trade other stocks ? Try these introduction videos about:

How to trade Crude

How to trade Futures

How to trade Stock

How to trade Forex

How to trade Gold

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As you might already know, a heated debate about Primerica has raged on this blog for quite some time now. This is why I am actually covering this IPO (since I usually leave stock picks to our other blog; Intelligent Speculator). So if you want a stake in Primerica, the controversial but surely profitable company, their stock is going to be offered to the public this morning!

A few numbers on the Primerica IPO

Shares are deemed to be offered at a price range between $12 to $14 at the beginning.

At the middle of this price range, Primerica stocks would sell at 6.74 times earnings.

The US median is 9.52 times, so it’s 29% less.

Its per share income as of 2009 would be $1.93.

Primerica (owned by Citigroup) hopes to raise 252M$ today with its first IPO since they were bought by Citi.

Primerica is selling 24% of the company today. So the control will remain in the hands of Citigroup.

Primerica reported an income of 495M$ in 2009 as its revenue rebounded after taking a plunge of 72% back in 2008.

My Opinion on Primerica, the stock, not the business opportunity

I actually think that Primerica will sell at the opening for a very reasonable price and it could be interesting to see how the stock will fluctuate throughout the year. At $13, I would have probably considered it for our 2010 stock picking contest (update tomorrow!).

It seems to be a solid company based on a huge, humongous, incredibly large number of salesmen (more than 100,000!). Since people will always need insurance, good or bad, insurance reps should continue to make a  good buck down the road.

How can I buy Primerica Stock?

Well, first you need a brokerage account and then, you need to know what the Primerica ticker is… drum roll……

Primerica Ticker: PRI

That’s it! You are set to buy a few shares of Primerica!

Will you buy Primerica stock?

Hey, I want to know if you want to jump in the boat with me? I am seriously thinking of giving it a try, any thoughts?

Looking to trade other stocks ? Try these introduction videos about:

How to trade Crude

How to trade Futures

How to trade Stock

How to trade Forex

How to trade Gold

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I am waking up this morning with a big smile as Team Canada just won the Gold Medal for both Men and Women! Congrats to them! YOU ROCK!!!!

As we do every month, here is the TSX 60 dividend yield and ex-dividend date for March:

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After a bad month of January, it is now time to look at what happened with the TSX 60 dividend yield. Since most stocks went down during the last month, we can find great opportunities with high paying Canadian dividend stocks.

Dividends issued by Canadian Banks should be used to cover the inflation, most bank stocks offer a much interesting dividend yield than inflation! We have CIBC (CM: 5.45%) and BMO (BMO: 5.38%) offering over 5% and National Bank (NA: 4.39%) and Scotia Bank (BNS: 4.37%) offering more than 4%. Those picks would be great if you are trying to build a dividend portfolio .

Even after a dividend cut in late 2009, Manulife still offers a 2.66% dividend yield. I wish they can pick up in 2010 so it can help me with my 2010 best stock picks contest .

So here is the chart of the TSX 60 dividend yield and ex-dividend date:

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Last week, I did a brief introduction to an options strategy that can be used to get additional returns with little downside risk. Today, I will take the time to look at another very popular strategy, the protective put. As discussed in the introduction to options, these derivative instruments can be used in most portfolios if they are used in a smart and disciplined way. Like almost any product, if options are used without a clear and disciplined plan, things can go awry.

What is a protective put?

This strategy involves holding shares of a specific company, index or basket of stocks and also holding a put option on the underlying position. This put option will make money if the stock(s) lose value and becomes a ‘hedge’, that will be able to offset a loss on the holding. It is in fact a type of insurance in case of a declrease in value for your position.

When can it be used?

It can be used in many circumstances. The general reasoning is that the investor wants to keep his stock and is concerned about a possible decline in the stock. There could be a few reasons behind this situation. Here are some examples:

• Belief that the market will rise but that there is a smaller probability of a major decline from which he wants to be protected
• The investor believes there is a good chance that the stock will decline but does not want to sell them because it will create capital gain and thus important tax implication.
• The investor wants to keep the income flow from dividends without assuming too much risk if the stock price declines
• An investor holds some stock that he believes in but he determines a maximum amount he can afford or is willing to lose given a decline.
• An investor wants to protect against downside risk without selling his entire portfolio of stock (thus incurring major transaction costs)

In all of these cases, the protective put would be a very good strategy for the investor involved.

How do I determine what put to buy?

If you want to implement this strategy on a specific stock or portfolio, then you can simply buy a put option with that underlying stock. However, if you hold many stocks in your portfolio, it might be more effective (although imperfect) to hedge through one or two puts. For example, if your portfolio is heavily invested in financials as well as in the general stock market, you could buy put options on XLF (financials) and SPY (S&P500).  This would give you protection on these broader indices.

Positive impacts

Depending on the reason behind your trade, the protective put can give you upside potential if your stocks climb and a limited loss if the stocks decline.

Negative impacts & risk involved

Like any other insurance, there is a cost associated to this strategy. The cost of course is the premium that you are paying when buying this insurance.

Earlier, I also discussed how you could hedge your entire portfolio with one or two put options. The risk involved is mainly if something “exceptional” happens to one of those stocks in your portfolio. If the company was involved in a fraud or had negative earnings while the industry in generally was still performing, the ‘protective put’ would not be of much help.

Conclusion

I believe that as a portfolio grows, the potential use of a protective put becomes greater as there are many different uses for it. There are many different aspects to consider before entering into this strategy but it can be a very effective and cost efficient way of hedging downside risk for a limited period of time.

Please feel free to ask any questions regarding this strategy or options in general:)

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