Aflac (AFL) is a truly amazing company. I mean, a duck, for crying out loud! I though insurance was a serious business, but apparently their marketing folks have the American public pegged (I admit I love the commercials, along with William Shatner for Priceline). Although the stock has not been a stellar performer, at least I can rely on it for pretty consistent income. I did a NOV Iron Condor and a DEC Bear Call – all were successful. Today I opened a potentially very profitable JAN Iron Condor (see In Play for details). I mean this is going to return 43% if it’s successful – and the charts certainly suggest that.
The big news today is the Doug Kass’ highly visible list of 2010 Surprises (click here if you want to see them). His record is not too good with previous annual ‘surprises’, but you wouldn’t know that by the way the media treats his predictions. I watched him this morning on CNBC – trying to detect a little tongue-in-cheek. As usual some make sense while many make me wonder how he ever came up with these ideas.
One that I really like is Goldman Sachs going private so they can pay any bonus amount they desire – and with Warren Buffett’s assistance to boot! Here’s one that seem entirely possible: Gold pulls back to $900 – if it does, it will only be temporary. Then there’s #19 – Tiger Woods makes a comeback. I have a lot to say about that but it wouldn’t be proper in this blog.
In my last post I talked about markets topping – the DOW seems to be stuck at 10500. A breakout of a pullback is in order – only time will tell. I hinted in a earlier post that I was still Bear-biased. With that in mind there are some stocks and indices that are definitely on a Bull run and I am feeling very comfortable doing Bull plays on the likes of: AAPL, AMZN, GOOG and RUT. I have been watching the Russell 2000 index (RUT) continue it’s climb since its bottom in November. This may be the first sign of a genuine recovery. So it is possible the DOW will break out of its current resistance, but I really feel we have to wait until after everyone comes back from the holidays.
If I don’t write again this year, Happy New Year!
- Jeff
