YOUR FRIENDS' ACTIVITY

    • Stocks are within 2% of their all-time highs. The front page of USA Today just touted the bull run's solid footing, and new analysis shows a huge uptick in the word ''bubble'' appearing on Twitter. It has to mean we're doomed, right?

      Wrong, says economist, author, actor and dog lover Ben Stein.

      "This is not a bubble," Stein declares in the attached video. "There could be a substantial correction if the Federal Reserve purposely tries to raise interest rates. But bubble is defined by the ratio of price-to-earnings, and by that ratio, this is not a bubble."

      In fact, he argues that stocks aren't even at all-time highs by most metrics, including price-to-earnings, price-to-book and inflation-adjusted.

      "They are high, to be sure, and they could easily correct, but it's not a bubble in the classic sense," he maintains. "This is a stock market that is very well priced, very fully priced, but bubble doesn't really apply to it."

      Related: The Argument for a Stock Market Bubble Is Flawed, Says New Yorker's Surowiecki

      As for those who are looking for hints in social media or the ill-timed headlines of major publications, Stein contends short-term predictions are just too hard to make. "If you believe sincerely that you will learn how to get rich by reading USA Today, you need to have a very long rest out of the sun."

      Read More »from This Is NOT a Stock Bubble! Says Ben Stein
    • With the Sell in May mantra seems to be in shambles, and investors have proven for a seventh consecutive month that no dip is too shallow to purchase, the debate du jour has switched to "Now what?"

      More specifically, what awaits us on the other side of the mountain following an uninterrupted 23% rally in stocks since mid-November?

      "When we do get that eventual decline, and it will come, it will most likely be a pullback rather than a correction or a new bear market," says Sam Stovall, chief equity strategist at S&P Capital IQ, in the attached video.

      For clarity's sake he characterizes a pullback as a 5% to 9.9% decline, a correction as a 10% to 19.9% retreat, and a bear market as anything worse than 20%.

      "I think what investors forget is that we have had a pullback basically every year since World War II and we've had a correction once every less-than-three years, on average," Stovall says. "So to have a decline of five to twenty percent is really not a strange thing."

      That said, as the chart below shows, the probability of a crash is actually lower, the larger the preceding run-up has been, which in the current case is about 23% and counting.

      Read More »from Crash, Correction or Pullback: What Follows a Seven Month Rally?
    • Zynga's (ZNGA) all-in bet on legalized online gaming just might pay off after all.

      As discussed on Breakout last month, the former kings of Farmville are hoarding the more than $1.5 billion in cash in hopes of surviving long enough to get a seat at the table of the huge potential market for online gambling in the U.S. With UltimatePoker.com up and running in Nevada and similar sites on the way in New Jersey, Zynga's move may not be as much of a long-shot as it once seemed.

      The U.S. gambling market is estimated to be $380 billion, of which only $3 billion is legalized. The government is going to figure out a way to tax the rest. The question is whether or not Zynga will capture its share as gaming is slowly legalized.

      Jon Najarian, co-founder of OptionMonster.com, says Zynga's track record and management gives it an edge. "Anybody that can get people to buy virtual farm animals can probably get a piece of that $380 billion," he says, adding "I like Zynga's chances."

      Maybe. So far Zynga got aced out of online poker in Nevada and has put up a poker site in the UK that's virtually indistinguishable from dozens of others. As Najarian concedes, the company has to step up its game to distinguish itself from other table gaming and sports books that will be online as more states follow New Jersey and Nevada.

      Read More »from Double Down on Internet Gambling? Zynga Could Buck the Odds, Says Najarian
    • On Wednesday morning BlackRock (BLK) chairman and CEO Larry Fink took an indirect swipe at the options industry. Speaking to CNBC's Becky Quick, Fink noted that "most players in markets make money on the velocity of money and so they are trying to talk about quick trades and options trades and these other things which all studies show have negative outcomes for most people."

      Perhaps not surprisingly Jon Najarian, co-founder of OptionMonster, takes vigorous offense to the sweeping generalization and suggests Fink check his homework.

      In the attached video, Najarian makes his case for options with the help of independent studies from Duke University, UMass, Russell Investments and others. "I think investors are very much helped and can generate significant income in a zero interest rate environment as well as protect their portfolio using options."

      Najarian has posted his work on the Option Monster web site. The data he's laid out suggests a strategy of selling calls on stocks in their portfolio can mute the realized volatility of a portfolio without dramatically limiting upside potential.

      For example, if you own 100 shares of XYZ and it's trading at $10 per share; selling a single call option with an $11 strike price for $1 would generate $100. The $100 is the shareholder's money to keep regardless of what happens prior to the option expiration.

      Read More »from Options Can Reduce Risk (No Matter What Larry Fink Suggests): Najarian

    Pagination

    (2,410 Stories)

    About Breakout

    Breakout is Yahoo! Finance’s daily all-out, roll-up-your-sleeves, dive-in, interactive investing show, offering fresh segments throughout the trading day. If you love making money, if you want to protect what you have, if you’re passionate about understanding these crazy markets, you’re in the right place.

    Investing 101

    Breakout Profiles

    DON'T MISS

    Subscribe and RSS

    [X]

    How to subscribe

    Roll over each section to subscribe using Add to My Yahoo! or RSS Feed feeds.

    Yahoo! News offers dozens of RSS feeds you can read in My Yahoo! or using third-party RSS news reader software. Click here to find out more about RSS and how you can use it with Yahoo! News.

    DISCLAIMER

    Merrill Lynch is not responsible for any content on this site.
     
    Recent Quotes
    Symbol Price Change % Chg 
    Your most recently viewed tickers will automatically show up here if you type a ticker in the "Enter symbol/company" at the bottom of this module.
    You need to enable your browser cookies to view your most recent quotes.
     
    Sign-in to view quotes in your portfolios.