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Ackman

Time to think out of the box 💡INVESTMENT CONTEXT Equities failed to sustain May 23 uptick, with bears firmly in control of the market sending Nasdaq in the low 11k bracket U.S. retailer Best Buy (BBY) missed EPS forecasts, but downplayed recession fears S&P Global’s Composite Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), a measure of the services and manufacturing industries, fell to 51.8 in May, its lowest level since February 2021; meanwhile, new home sales in the U.S. fell 26.9% on a yearly basis At Davos, Davos, George Soros remarked that “Indeed, the Russian invasion may turn out to be the beginning of World War III, and our civilization may not survive it“ After taking a leading role in Netflix (NFLX) one-day 30% slump, hedge fund manager Bill Ackman tweeted "Inflation is out of control (...) Markets are imploding because investors are not confident that the (Fed) will stop inflation. If the Fed doesn’t do its job, the market will do the Fed’s job" PROFZERO'S TAKE Tensions in Ukraine remain high after Russia's capture of the port-city of Mariupol. As EU's resolve is being tested by the concerns of some member States (Hungary in particular) on energy security, analysts see the conflict in Donbas dragging in a protracted war of attrition. ProfZero hasn't failed to notice the regained momentum of RUB in the wake of the growing fringe of European energy companies bowing to Moscow's request of supplies being paid in its own currency - yet the catch 22 is becoming thornier by the hour now that soft commodities vehemently entered the picture, escalating the crisis to a global level Russia may in fact be nearing default, as the U.S. Treasury Department said it would end as of May 25 a waiver that allowed Russia’s central bank to process payments to bondholders in USD through U.S. and international banks, on a case-by-case basis. The first tranche of interest on debt is scheduled for May 27, when EUR 100mln are due on two bonds. ProfZero has long been reporting the eventual default of Russia as a further aggravating catalyst to the overall macro scenario - now that the moment of truth nears, ripples from the eventual default also must be accounted for, starting from the consequences to soft commodities Buffett binging on U.S. equities while Soros calling the possible end of our civilization. Coincidence? As much as Bill Ackman, ProfZero only believes in the inescapable, cold efficiency of the market. Greed has all it takes to eat inflation's lunch ProfZero is starting to feel uneasy about the prolonged range-bound trading pattern drawn by BTC. Whilst impressed by the resilience of the entire blockchain space to the broader turmoil, and even more so by the rebound after LUNA's demise, ProfZero argues the current trading structure conjures fears of sudden, major drops should bears launch a short attack on the segment (much akin to the meltdown on April 29)
CME:BTC1!
by ProfZero
Netflix 171% move coming but first...some thoughts. Netflix pulled a squid games, (look up squid games crypto if you're lost) but honestly Netflix shit the bed. But now the beds being cleaned and you can start accumulating in this area $190 - $217 to sell in the mid $500's. Reasoning: Gap fill at $198 and lots stop losses hit me thinks <$200 and then run up to the top of the Ichimoku cloud on the daily which coincides with ~540. I'm setting a tight stop just in case of future Ackman scares.
NASDAQ:NFLX
by InvestingIdeas9
3
NFLX: Bill Ackman and knowing when to quitBy now, if you haven't heard about Netflix's results then you've surely been living under a rock! The key driver of the price decline was the first decline in subscribers in 10 years in Q1... -200k But the real story here isn't Netflix's decline, but the way a one Bill Ackman has responded to the price decline. If you don't know Bill Ackman, he's the famed owner and fund manager at Pershing Square Capital Management, who is notorious for his massive short on Herbalife (which got blown out of the water, but he was absolutely right to be short that hell hole of a company). Ackman started buying shares in Netflix back in late January, and built up a position to the tune of 3.1mm shares... In a letter to his clients, Ackman praised the company's "best-in-class management team" and on Twitter, the manager said he has long admired Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and the "remarkable company he and his team have built." But as we know, things change quickly in markets. Let me preface this by saying I don't think Pershing's Netflix bet was a particularly strong one. Many streaming services have been introduced increasing competition and diluting the customer pool and with budgets constrained by inflation, demand for luxuries was always going to subside. That's the economic case, but from a market focused and portfolio basis, there was always going to be turbulence as the Fed turns ever more hawkish - higher rates lead to cash flows in the future being discounted less as the working average cost of capital increases, which is BAD for high growth companies with large price:earnings multiples (see what's happened to Zoom, Roku, and more generally, all the pandemic related memestocks with massive PE ratios which have been nicely deflated over the last 12 months or so). But that doesn't take away from how Ackman handled his Netflix position. See, the central thesis was really predicated on positive subscriber growth... Netflix didn't achieve that this quarter... So Ackman dumped the position. That's what everyone should be doing, and it is how I look at risk and management of positions... If your central thesis changes, then change your position. Now to go further on why I don't think Netflix is a good buy, and why I disagree with Ackman that management is good, you simply have to take a look at their FX hedging strategy (or lack of). In 2021, they lost $280mm due to not hedging their FX exposure globally. For a company that operates in every country in the world, this is quite frankly insanity, and shows the management that they have too much concentration on subscriber growth and not enough on where they might be bleeding revenue, especially revenue that has a relatively easy fix. But again, this is something to learn from. Work out the core thesis as to why people will buy the stock - prioritise what matters. To me, the unhedged aspect is simply alluding to the management not looking at certain parts of the biz, which then asks the question, 'what else don't they have their eye on?' But if that subscriber growth had gone up, it wouldn't matter. Prioritise your themes. The key thing to remember as well, is that although this is a big monetary loss, the position was only about 4% of AUM at Pershing. Some people lose that and more in a day! So this is simply another day for good old Bill.
NASDAQ:NFLX
by FinkPro
Is Ackman Right to Buy Netflix (NFLX)?Today we were discussing the purchases of Netflix NASDAQ:NFLX by Bill Ackman: Ackman sent a letter to investors in his hedge fund saying he had bought more than 3.1 million shares of Netflix, the video streaming pioneer whose stock had seen such vast reversals in recent days that it had been trading at June 2018 levels. At Netflix’s current price of about $390 per share, the purchase gives Ackman a stake worth more than $1 billion — and makes him one of Netflix’s top 20 shareholders. That is a pretty bold buy from one of my favorite contrarian investors but do I like the trade? I'm going to use my own Technical Analysis to see before making a decision...
NASDAQ:NFLXLong
by norok
4
PSTH: SUPERBULL BIASNothing much could be done to technically analyze PSTH given that it has a short historical data (just IPOed). However, given that it is a blank check company (SPAC) with potential to raise more capital to acquire long-term high growth companies and some hardcore value investor and highly intelligent men are behind this SPAC, we could only imagine the upside that PTSH shareholder might get. Looking forward to enter around 25 level and hold it for long term. DISCLAIMER: This is not an investment advice nor a buy call. This is just some analysis of based on some technical factors coupled with just a little or totally nonexistent fundamentals. This analysis is based on lagging (past) data (ie historical prices) thus any forward looking statement is just based on perceived highly probabilistic assumption(s) to assist personal trading decision.
PLong
by mdzulfid
Options Idea: Sell The Sep. 2020 PSTH/U Synthetic Covered CallIf you trust Bill Ackman, his new SPAC Pershing Square Tontine Holdings looks like a great candidate for a very short-term covered call position. Ackman has been on fire lately. Last year his flagship fund Pershing Square Holdings was up 58% and this year to date he’s up 46% after he turned a $27 million hedging position into $2.6 billion as markets tanked in March. What’s a SPAC? A SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company) is a blank check company used to take a private company public. Instead of raising capital in a public offering, a private company can merge with a SPAC and get a guaranteed injection of cash at a predetermined price. Transaction costs and uncertainty are much lower. Management at a company looking to go public should prefer to go public via a SPAC as long as Ackman gives them the same valuation they would get from a traditional IPO. You can do this trade by simply buying 100 shares and then selling a call against it, but we did this trade synthetically using 3 options: Bought the March 18, 2021 $20 Call @ 3.90 Sold the March 18, 2021 $20 Put @ 1.75 Sold the September 18, 2020 $25 Call @ 0.35 Synthetic Covered Call A synthetic covered call is constructed by buying an at the money call and selling an at the money put and then selling another out of the money call. You get the same profit and loss graph as a normal covered call, but with no dividends (not a problem here) and with reduced capital outlay. PSTH.U closed at $21.83 on the day of our trade, so instead of using $2183 in cash for 100 shares, we used $862 in margin and took a position twice as large as our normal position size by going synthetic for the same capital outlay. We sold a short-dated out of the money call to help reduce our initial cost basis to the current trading price of PSTH/U, since the March 2021 options don’t have much liquidity. We may sell a few more covered calls against this position to bring our cost basis down to $20, which was the price of the SPAC's IPO and the redemption value of the SPAC's cash in trust. Redemption Value : PSTH.U shareholders have the option to redeem their shares for the $20 IPO price after the merger is announced. Let’s assume the market doesn’t look favorably on Ackman’s deal, PSTH.U shareholders can redeem their shares for $20 and exit before the merger is completed. Read the full prospectus for details (including scenarios where you might get less than $20, its complex). However, for us, this puts an effective floor on PSTH.U’s value at $20. If we want to stay conservative (and we are), we’ll sell calls to get our cost basis closer to $20. However, if you are bullish on Ackman like we are, we do not recommend selling calls against this position for an extended period. If a merger announcement is positively received by the market, the price will gap up instantly as investors realize they can immediately participate in the newly merged company’s equity via a position in PSTH.U. Those of us invested in PSTH.U have looked on in envy as KCAC (another SPAC) just struck a deal to take Quantumscape (an EV battery-maker) public. Shares in KCAC closed up 87% the day after merger news. This is why you don’t want to be stuck with a short call in PSTH.U when the merger news comes out. If the news is extremely positive, you might give up a huge windfall. Since SPACs have a limited lifespan, 2 years usually, as time continues it becomes increasingly dangerous to have a short call open on PSTH.U if your ultimate goal is to have a long position in Ackman’s merger pick. Our objectives for short call income generation against this position are as follows: Initial Objective: $0.32 (Recover Liquidity Loss) Secondary Objective: $1.83 (Reduce cost basis to the Redemption Value) We completed our initial objective by selling the Sep 18, 2020 call at $0.35 and we entered this trade $0.03 below the cost of going long. Again, our goal here is simply to increase our buying power on a trade we consder low-risk due to the redemption option. We may continue to sell calls for a limited time until we get our basis to $20. We don’t want to have a long call open at the time the merger is announced. 20-PSTHU-01 Opening Date: Sep 4, 2020 Expiration Date: March 19, 2021 DTE: 196 IV: 33.29% IV Percentile: N/A (less than 1 year trading) Odds of Winning: 54.55% Odds of Losing: 45.45% Win: > 21.80 @ Expiration Loss: < 21.80 @ Expiration Reg-T Margin: $862 Chart Legend Green Area: 100% Win Zone. If we finish above or in the green area, we’ve made a profit on our synthetic covered call. Since our position has a long call that means our potential gain is unlimited after Sep 18, 2020. Up to Sep 18, we are limited in our gain by our short $25 call. Red Area: If we finish in this area we have a loss. The size of the red area is the size of our maximum loss. Since we’ve sold a naked put we have losses all the way to $0. 1 standard deviation, 2 standard deviation, 3 standard deviation projections from Opening Date to Expiration Date are included.
PLong
by OptionsCoach
🤡 Who would you like to see in your fin.the advisors?🤡 Who would you like to see in your fin.the advisors? The analyst or the trader-practice?⠀ ⠀ 🤔 In the last article, we told you about how important it is to have my personal opinion, trading on the exchange. And also showed how this can affect your account. And in this publication, we will give an example of someone who is more profitable for you to listen to, in monetary terms, for your pocket (this is important to cut, because it can also be profitable for emotional pleasure). Let's start with our hero of the publication. ⠀ ⠀ Bill Ackman is an American financier and entrepreneur, founder and CEO of the Pershing Square Capital Management hedge Fund. Ackman is characterized as a person who has a very peculiar attitude to the choice of personnel. He employed a fishing instructor, a former tennis player, and a taxi driver. Interesting choice, isn't it? But all sorts of things happen, and most likely he did not take them to the position of asset management. Now think about yourself. Who do you hire or read most often? 95% of analysts write about what has already happened. They find and describe the reasons for the past movement, and most do not even have their own lengthy trading track that they can confirm. You can hear a lot of reasons why they don't. And when you ask them to prove their competence (for example to ask in advance to pay 5-6 trading ideas), you get the same reason.⠀ ⠀ ⁉ app Question - maybe we should be more careful who you hire? What is your opinion? ⠀ ⠀ By the way, bill Ackman is also known for his attacks on Herbalife, which he called a "network pyramid". The market Commission conducted an investigation after Herbalife shares fell by 20% in one trading day, the firm's management pointed out that this was preceded by an interview with Ackman, in which he mentioned the company as the most effective pyramid of the XX century You can find the quotation chart in the article.
NYSE:HLFEducation
by ivan_gold_star_
HLF - Icahn & Ackman & an Inside CandleIt is fun to sit back and watch two billionaires take different sides of a trade. You may have your favorite between the two billionaires or you may be a little more like me and ponder which side of the trade YOU would take if you were a billionaire. Someday we will find out which of them was right. But do they want to be right? I would say they just want to lock in a profit... I don't know anything more than what i have heard in the media about this company. I am only intrigued because the billionaires are on opposite sides. I will not take the time to learn more about the company. But I will use some technical analysis to decide what may happen next... First, the "general" technical analysis. Focus on the gray horizontal line at about $72 and the green up trend line. The shaded triangle between them shows some future boundaries for the stock price. In general, you can see that HLF has reached the $72 level 3 times on this chart. If it can get above that level and stay there maybe it's going higher. It has also put in a series of higher lows (which allows me to draw the green uptrend line) so eventually it may continue above the $72 level. But at any time, HLF could cross below the green uptrend line. If this happens you could make an argument that it may be finished going higher and is ready to go lower. August and September have pretty large ranges. The range in August was about $15 and the month was a positive one. The range in September was about $12 and the month was a negative one. What does this tell us? Not much... It might be a sign of negativity but there is no clear indication that I am aware of. Now, the more "Specific" technical analysis. Notice that the September candle is smaller than, and inside of, the August candle. There are many potential reasons for the "inside candle" of September but all in all it give us a contraction of the upper & lower boundaries. It is understood that following the break of an inside candle can give you an indication of the future direction. In this case, the break of the inside monthly candle may be an indication of which billionaire is right... As I understand it, Icahn is sitting on a large profit and Ackman is sitting on a large loss at the moment. Could that change in the future? Maybe :) Here is why I say maybe. Ackman said the other day that Icahn was close to selling. Maybe it was an all out lie and maybe it was a fact that was just not supposed to get out to the media... If Icahn looks at this chart the way I do, he may be realizing he should have sold in August when HLF was close to $70. Typically, the third failed attempt at a resistance level is not a good sign for higher prices. If Icahn has a profit he could sell and move on. There is no harm in taking profits. Yea, he bought millions more shares just recently. But big deal if he doesn't actually make money on those. He would be close to even on the new shares and have a large gain on the older shares. It is still a profit no matter how you cut it. If Ackman can hold on until Icahn sells AND if the third failed attempt at the $72 level is an indication of lower prices, he also has a chance to book a healthy profit. Sometimes profits are more of a function of how long you are willing to hold. Especially when your initial purchase(s) were wrong and you didn't accept your error and exit the position. Don't count out either one of these billionaires. You can have your favorite but they may both wind up victorious. It will be fun to watch for sure! Have a great Labor Day.
NYSE:HLF
by TheTrendLineInvestor
I do not see why this puppy shuld not go higherAfter all the scandal about Herbalife and Ackman talking against this company, from a merely technical stand point of view I must say, can't see why should not look for new highs. As long as the historic of this chart let's me view, we came from a strong rally, that were severely retraced 76.4% in log scale. This means that this or is the A or 1 of a structure, which means that the price usually could rise till 1 to 1 relation-ship which should be at least to 93 per share (more or less). Besides the last stated, the last impulsive wave do not seems finished as you can see in my wave count the last structure misses a v)) wave to be completed. Even more, if the price breaks the 47 level, the retrace is more probably a new sing of extension. So this shuld not fall, at least, until it gets the 93 per share or more.
NYSE:HLFLong
by 7pasos
1