New 2007 year begins with negative news from Fed, also Apple’s big week, sell-off on Asia ETF’s?

First off the Santa Claus rally did happen ending 2006, but Fed news for 2007 this week made investors sell. Investors were not to happy hearing rates will not be cut and possibly rates to go up later in the year. I think this should be expected if the Feds are trying to balance the sheet with inflation. We are way behind on inflation. Although if interest rates rise higher and inflation goes higher that is a signal for a bearish looking market to come. The recent oil drop to $55 BBL and Steel stocks way below their 52 week lows are starting to hit support. Take OIH Oil Trust @ $129 and NUE Steel @ $54. If you expecially look at NUE charts it shows a correction is starting to take place with a reversal hammer to go up with a long stick down showing the stock being bought up in the past week. Also my Puts. NUE hasn’t gone down past $54. It went from $60 to $58 to $54 and again I was up 25% but because I didn’t sell out when I was up the option is down because it is getting near expiration date with the stock supporting at $54. I took my first loss today because if I am going to start the New Year off right then I need to sell my options not doing anything for me, which brings me to Apple. Apple’s Mac week is next week which should bring up its stock price with good news from it because it seems Apple has really gone out of its way to make a “bang” this year for customers. Even its website keeps its new products mysterious and creates excitement for Apple users. Apple earnings is January 17, 2007. Profits on iTunes downloads and new iPods are predicted to ramp up sales and show a surprise. Right now my option is down -150% and I need to bring it up to at least to break even at $1.42. The option price even with the current good news raising the price to $86 has done little for raising the price back up.

One big lesson I’ve learned with options and buying out of the money in the same month of expiration is that once you are up 10-30% in the option when you are right the first 2-3 days get out immediately with your profits and don’t wait for the stock price to move further. I was correct in my AAPL, NUE, and AMAT options but because I did not sell them immediately after I was right I’ve lost on all 3 of them. As Cramer says you haven’t made any money until you sell and it’s in your bank account.

Recently China’s ETF purely liquid fund FXI has vomated out 10% of profits. FXI hit a high of $118 and just recently in the past 2 days fallen over -13pts. If you look at the charts the stock is one huge line up from skyrocketing up with buying. Even I feel some selling is going to go on. I still think FXI is going higher, but the stock price could come down past the $90’s for now. It’s predicted that if China’s markets have a sell-off in the new year that for the next couple of months the stock will go to half its current stock price. If that was true then that would be a very profitable PUT option play on FXI. I am going to examine that charts on it to see if the sell-off reversal is going to hold and more profit taking will happen. Currently FXI is up 80% and falling. Jim Cramer says in his internet articles that since Asia’s companies are so liquid that owning the ETF fund makes it even more risky unless you can wait for it to come down and buy back into it. I even have a friend who bought FXI around $93. I asked him if he sold it when it his $112 or even $118 he said he didn’t. I would of sold for that type of profit. Now he does own the stock. I’d never buy the stock I’d buy the Call options which would of been worth a couple thousand right now even with the fall. But now with a new trend it might even be easier to play it down then to play it up.
As for the new year my first port call was Manzanillo, Mexico. It was beautiful although the surf wasn’t going off in town I heard there was surf farther north or south. I checked out 5 different properties for sale and really liked this smaller 1bed/1bath with huge lot overlooking the Santiago bay. It was actually a really nice casa that just need a bit of upgrades to make it a really great rental, but I am currently finding it very hard to get a loan that makes it profitable to own it and rent it out. I first thought mortgage of $600-700 would be okay because I’d have to get out a second loan with a mortgage of $200 around to make upgrades like new electrical, upgrade kitchen, and furniture to make it a turn-key rental that is just 3 blocks to the beach and 5 minutes from downtown shops. So now with the only loan I can receive at 20 years at 9.9% mexican rate which would be over $700 month not including all my taxes, insurances, and bank trust fees a year + my second loan over $200/m for cosmetic upgrades to make somebody want to rent it I am finding it might not be the best investment right now. Even if I could rent out easily for $1000 a month for a solid 6 months out of the year that still leaves me with $900 X 6 month = $5,400 out of my pocket a year to pay for something that isn’t rented possibly or even possibly for 1 whole year would be over $10,000 which could be saved in an account. Long-term if the property rises 10% a year because the town is growing and many projects are being built their my return on investmetn could be 30% in 3 years by the time I get out of the military I could have $30,000 in equity built up if I sold it and could cash out. I’d really like to talk to a professional about this, but don’t know who to talk to because most people do not understand investments like this. I can get this loan, but I just don’t want to struggle with payments since in 3 years I am out of the military I’d be up to $2,000 a month in mortgage and car loan bills! This is not good. It would only be good if I could sell my property for a good size gain or pay off my first mortgage and my car loan only leaving one big bill left. If I am able to rent it a solid 6 months out of the year for possible more that would help on my payments, but I’d like to live in something I own in the end.

So I still have more port calls to make. I might find a better deal somewhere else. It would just be awesome to live so close to the beach where great surfing waves are. I just want to make wiser decisions because I want to be either debt free or have great investments in 3 years. If I make wrong decisions it could bring on the pain and put me again behind schedule in retiring early and young.