Here's another longwinded ramble that I typed in the wee hours of this morning, but didn't publish till now. I didn't have time to proofread or edit it down, so please forgive my usual ramblings!!
So, I did my first slightly advanced option play, a "long straddle" I think. I did the daring deed of buying (gasp!) both a call and a put on MSFT yesterday before the earnings call. I almost just bought a put, but for security's sake, I bought the call too. Anyway, I bought at the $27.50 strike price, and had about $130 invested in the call and put. Before I went to bed, I put a $1.75 strike price to sell the put. I knew I should probably put a high price, but I just wanted to be sure that I made a profit, and a $45 profit (25%) profit overnight seemed reasonable. If I had held on a little while longer, I could have picked up $200 for the put (for a $70 profit), but well, that's what I get for sleeping late. --A "long straddle" is an option play that bets that there is going to be high volitility on a stock, so a trader buys a call and a put on the same expiration day, for the same strike price. Either way, if there's a dramatic change in the stock price, you're likely to make money. I felt like earnings season was the perfect time for this sort of play, and it worked out ok pretty well.
Here's a few bits of news that I came across in my technology readings:
AMD making changes to what they produce/don't produce (quitting handheld and digital television business. They also reported a $1.2 billion dollar loss.
EU slaps Intel with three more antitrust charges. -- Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm under the impression that the EU commission just loves dishing out these suits to huge tech companies and raking in a pile of cash on fines. They've sued Microsoft and got a $1.35 billion fine, and even sued Nintendo in 2002, a case which recently settled for $149 million euros. They've sued various other tech companies too (including Sony) and won. In each case, the fine seemed very high. --I mean, I have no complaints against keeping monopolies out of business, but I often think the EU commission is just a bunch of money grubbers.
The serious news and stock talk stops here. Below are my usual ramblings with only a few stock thoughts thrown in.
In other technology readings, I came across a few interesting articles. First of all, if Al Gore wants us all to use clean energy, scientists have finally came up with the answer. Here's all the clean energy you could ever want.
If you're into video games, the custom drum controller for Rock Band 2 is going to make you go crazy. Here's a picture. Of course, you've gotta buy that "custom set" seperately, but at least it will work with a "real" digital drum setups. Anyways, which brings me to more video gaming news. EA/Bioware have let it slip that they're making a Knights Of The Old Republic MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online) game. Let me be clear, this is a Star Wars game, with a very good developer handling the game, and the two previous games have been great fun. This will be a license to print money. Also, EA are going to launch Rock Band 2 in September, which will again be a HUGE seller. Translation: I'm not sure when the KOTOR MMO is coming out, but if EA are cheap right now (I'm not sure) I would consider picking up a few shares, 6 month options, or LEAPS in preperation for the January earnings season. I'll be doing more investigation into ERTS, leaps, long term options, etc.
Now, I'm going to ramble a bit about games, so please forgive me. I'm a gamer, but not a "raving mad dog gamer" like some of my friends. From my reading, statistics show that your average gamer is a 28-32 year old male, but there's been a huge movement to expand gaming beyond that demographic. Games like Wii Sports (by Nintendo), Guitar Hero (Activision/Blizzard), and Rock Band (EA) are really helping games grow outside of the normal demographic. Now, in case a few of you don't play games, and I imagine that a lot of you 40+ year old people don't (no offense!), let me try to explain what the "hoopla" is behind a game like Rock Band or Guitar Hero.
First off, I can actually play guitar - pretty well actually. So, for the first few times I tried "Guitar Hero", I felt pretty stupid and didn't really like the game. I kept thinking "but, I can *really play* this song on guitar," so mashing buttons on a fake guitar felt pretty stupid too me. Still, many of my guitar playing buddies loved the game, so eventually, my wife and I gave into the hoopla and bought "Rock Band" on the spur of the moment at Wal-Mart one night. I had given the "Guitar Hero III" demo a try for a while that night, and for the first time I actually had a little fun playing the game (I think trying Pearl Jam's "Alive"...I think). My wife tried it too, and chuckled a little. We don't game much together (she hates all the "killing" games and first person shooters), but we do play a few cooperative games together...usually games involving some cute bunny, plumber, or hedgehog of some sort, cause that the stuff that she usually likes. But, anyway, Rock Band comes with a guitar (with usable whammy bar!), a microphone, a drum set (including foot pedal) and game disc. You can even add another guitar for the bass player if you want. Since I'd never "really" given Guitar Hero a chance till that night, and the kit came with a drum set (which I thought was a cool idea, since I thought it might train me to play drums a little...at least teach me a little drum rhythm skills that might carry over to a full set eventually), we decided to pick it up. Well, and a few months later, let me tell you, that is a stinking FUN game. You can play four players at one time, and we'll have these bar-b-ques with all my friends. We'll take turns singing and playing the instruments, and have a ridiculously fun time. If you do well, the crowd cheers and sings along with the song. If you do poorly, the crowd boos you off the stage. Each instrument let's you adjust the level of difficulty, so even newbies can play along with experienced players. If one of your bandmates is struggling, missing notes, you can do a "solo" by swinging the guitar up in the air or freestyling a fill on the drum set and distract the crowd for a moment, thereby saving your bandmate from being booed off the stage. If you don't know how the games work, there's a series of colors that come down that correspond to buttons (on the guitar) or drum pads. You have to click the buttons (and the pick) or hit the drums pads and footpetal in rhythm to the corresponding color (basically, play the songs note for note by pressing buttons and picking a "pick" on the guitar). It all sounds ridiculous, but it actually re-creates the feeling of being in a band more than one would expect (this is coming from a guy who was in a band in college and played to crowds of 100+ people before.) It's not the same, obviously, but I finally understand why those games are so popular. Some of my friends get into the game to the point that they start doing guitar poses and dances with the guitar. One guy even snapped my drum pedal in half he was drumming so hard, so I had to order a metal one off of ebay. My wife's mom can play the drums a bit in real life (how many drumming mother-in-laws can you name? heh), and she even played a little Credence Clearwater on the drums. The game creates the illusion (in some weird way) of playing an instrument for people that can't play instruments, and it gives people that can play instruments some sort of curiosity to try the game just so they can compare it to a real instrument. (And admittedly, the first few times I tried it, I was too focused on how I could "really" play guitar instead of just trying to enjoy the game.)
It's really, really fun with four people. In fact, if you search for "family rock band" or "christmas rock band" or "drunk rock band" on youtube, you'll come up with a whole slew of crazy stuff. On the game, drums are my favorite instrument to play. Now, here's a guy playing drums, but he's not really demonstrating the real "fun" of the game...but you can get the idea of how it works.
Boston's "Foreplay/Longtime" (Boston songs are so freaking fun to play).
Boston's "More Than A Feeling"
Metallica's "Enter Sandman"
Metallica's "Blackened" (This one is incredible)
Rush's "Tom Sawyer"
The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again"
Deep Purple's "Highway Star"
To be clear, those clips are from the game "Rock Band". Guitar Hero is coming out with their own game that includes a drum set later this year.
They've also got Aerosmith, Molly Hatchet, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Weezer, Jimmy Buffet, etc, all sorts of bands on there. My wife is aggravated that they don't have country music on there. hehe.
Now, think about having a singer and two guitarists. It may sound crazy, and Guitar Hero had gone through three games before I gave these music games a decent chance, but they are really very fun, especially with the more people. My dad, who HATES videogames and can play real guitar very well even tried the drum set and liked it. --I didn't really mean for all this to be a plug for the Rock Band/Guitar Hero games, so much as I wanted try and explain the appeal to people that have never tried them. (I don't actually own any Guitar Hero games though, I only own Rock Band.)
