Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine Stock Market

So I keep an eye on the stock market, but I'm no expert by any means. So for what it is worth, here's a few updates I was sent earlier today.


Time Warner, owner of DC Comics had an increase in their share prices today, up 0.04 from yesterday. TWX


Marvel Entertainment Inc is down 0.30 from yesterday. MVL

Time Warner is at about 14.50 from its peak of $21 during the last year. Compared to the overall NYSE, that's pretty good, given the hit financial institutions have taken since January (many dropping as much as 10%). However, its really not a good comparison to compare Time Warner to the rest of the NYSE because financial institutions have taken a big hit but are more likely to recover faster and reach bigger highs (for example, Citibank is at about $24 today when it was at $50 in Oct.). Overall, Time Warner is acting pretty much in sync with the markets but at a pretty proportionate pace for what it actually does.

I suspect the majority of flux for TWX is from a decline in movie sales, which is normal this time of year, and heightened by the economic problems the country is having. Although despite movie sales always slipping, TWX normally does pretty well on the NYSE this time of year, so probably its the overall lack of confidence in the economy weighing in. After all, with gas prices up, food prices up and mortgage values down, people might not feel as apt to go see a movie for $10, possibly pay for parking ($3), and possibly buy popcorn, drinks or candy (from $5-10).

The DOW jumped up almost 400 points on Monday so TWX might be feeling an after effect of that, as mainly financial stocks were part of the 400 and its safer to move over to non-financial NYSE stocks today from a trader's perspective.

Time Warner is one of those stocks that may be effected by Congress proposed economic stimulus. $600 a person is not a tremendous amount for certain purchases (obviously, its pretty much nothing if you're going to buy a car), but its just enough to give someone the sense that its okay to go out and enjoy a movie.

What's really amazing is how little AOL affects the stock anymore, considering how AOL's supremacy has changed from 10 years ago.

I'm not an expert by any means but sometimes I feel like all I do is look at stocks all day . Mainly financial institutions.

Marvel is a stock that seems more likely to be influenced by comic book sales and TPB sales (as opposed to Time Warner/DC). So for those of us who are heavily into comics, that's probably the place to use our inside knowledge to trade. I've never considered that before.

With Secret Invasion coming up, you'd think now might be a good time to invest and share in the series invetable success. I'm not sure if that's accurate though. I'd have to check and see when Civil War actually came out. Because the stock was at a high in April 2007, and I can't recall if Civil War was over by then--very well it could have been that it was when the first trades came out (as I recall Marvel rushed out the trades). So the tough call is whether to invest now and ride out the success throughout the series itself, or all the way to the trades.

Either way, inevitably the stock seems to fall thereafter. Probably once Marvel releases estimates of the sales because of Secret Invasion trades the stock might go up a few points and that would be the time to sell it short, because it may drop down again.

I wonder if its possible to short sell Marvel shares based on Summer Crossovers? If so, that might be coolest economic experiment ever!

The stock market these days seems like a bad comic book crisis crossover itself. Dark pools, fraud, virtual value, manipulated by mighty computers and plenty of evil geniuses. It's often said that the market discounts the future, so we've got precognition in the mix, too.

Marvel's comics probably have less effect on the share price than the movie deals, but you'd have to graph the price history vs announced/anticipated events. For Time Warner, the effect of DC is probably even less, since it's more diluted.

Umm... yes?

Here's today's latest stock prices. Keep in mind, TWX owns DC, but draws a lot more revenue from publishing and other media production than from it's comic book division. I tried finding some of the other publishers, but even Dark Horse and Image aren't publicly traded...


TWX Current price $ 9.04/share Change -0.57
MVL Current price $30.43/share Change -0.68


I don't know how many shares are out there, but maybe Legion World should round up some capitol. If we buy out TWX, we can tell Dan Didio and company who we want on the next LSH title.

Well, I've done some investing lately in a hope that I'm getting in at the bottom. Of course, today doesn't make me feel any better.

TWX looks pretty low though. Any worthwhile projects they have planned in the future? Like another Batman Begins?

The bad news is that the economy has fallen into a hole. The good news is that it is a black hole, and, as such, technically has no bottom.

RE: TWX

I've got no info regarding strategic business plans to share. They have cut loose their cable division as of this past spring. The goal was to free up some capital and reinvigorate the company. Since then, their stock has done nothing but drop (like everyone else's.)


Just curious, how does an average joe like myself buy stocks? Is there a store? Should I start a rally here on Legion World?

I've met some people who've sworn by E-Trade and they've all said, basically, the same thing - you'll probably lose money until you get a feel for it. My neighbor, who works at AG Edwards, doesn't recommend going that route and says you should leave it to the professionals. So does another friend who's done very well in the market (his portfolio took a hit - but he still isn't overly concerned).

I think they'll probably be giving stocks away with Happy Meals this year.

A good way to begin investing in stocks is through a planned investment program such as Sharebuilders. In essence you put aside a certain amount each month and decide which stocks to spend them on. You can change the stocks you want each month or keep the same ones. The nice thing is that there is no minimum. You don't even have to buy full shares (you can buy a set dollar amount of a stock and end up with 1.63542 shares )

Well now is the time to buy if you're of the opinion that things will only get better from here and we've hit bottom.

I had that opinion myself about two months ago, so when I bought in I lost money for awhile. Hopefully things will get back to where they were two months ago and beyond so I don't end up taking a bath...

I recommend bathing daily, Cobie.

Please.

Well, I broke yesterday and think that banks have hit their lowest. Lots of people in the capital markets, reinsurance industry and financial industry have hit the point where they are really pulling out and chalking it up as a loss, which usually means the bottom has pretty much been reached.

So I broke down and bought tons of shares of Citibank and Bank of America. I already lost on both of them in 2008, so what the hell, I need to try to make some of that money back.

Now lets see if that was a stupid decision . But Citi is at like $1.50 a share, so I can't lose too much money, and honestly can't see nationalization as a really option. I mean, I'm liberal, but I'm not a pinko commie And if I ever make any money off BoA maybe I can pay back that freaking mortgage I have with those bastards

Citi is up to $2.50 today, I almost doubled the stock in one week! Oh, if only I were already a millionaire and actually had money to invest in the first place! Still, that's the best week I've ever had in the stock market! Yay! The question is whether I sell now with almost double my money or see if it keeps going up? Or somewhere in between?

I was also tired of getting less than one per cent on my deposits so last week I redeployed some money into a basket of dividend yielding stocks. This takes considerable courage considering I lost 40% on my investments last year. I'm pretty sure they hit the bottom and even if we don't get a bounce I'm content with the dividends.

Our Canadian banks have never cut their dividends in the post WW2 era and if one of them did they'd be the laughing stock of the other 4 Canadian banks.

I've noticed that a parade Canadian bankers have appeared on CNBC and Fox Business news looking smug and smarmy, talking up the preferreds their hawking down there.

A sure sign of the apocalypse will be when Americans get to 'enjoy' a banking system like we have up here. Though I've heard that TD Bank, Harris and RBC Bank actually try hard down there, they certainly don't really compete up here.

The market was only down slightly today. I think most people hit the same 'fed up' period at once. Probably tomorrow morning there will be more of a sell-off but thats relatively normal. I feel like things are getting back to normal.

I sold all my Citi shares at 2.40, so I made $0.90 per share. Not a bad day. I also made out on Bank of America too. If they drop off again tomorrow morning I might buy them back and do it again.

Those two damn stocks owe me for killing me last year. I won't even discuss the dreaded Fannie Mae.

Junk bonds rule!!!

I've been trading Fannie Mae stock the last two weeks like crazy. If it hits $1.50 I'll have doubled my money there too and have made up for all the losses Fannie gave me in 2008.

My new strategy is to take advantage of all the low-priced stocks for as long as they remain that way.

BTW, all the real money I've lost is from mutual funds. Y'know, the guys who are supposed to have real insight into the market. :rolleyes:

Bah! They were all holdovers from when I first starting trading on my own and when I went through a "I should do international mutual funds" phase. I always do much better when I trade my own futures.

I don't buy actively managed mutual funds anymore, except my junk bond fund. Mostly sector based ETFs and index funds now. Not true now that I think of it I still have a China Fund in my retirement savings account. They had about 5% of their fund in dairies last august. Just put the capstone on a bad year.

Took on the junk bond fund because I think credit spreads are about to narrow. If I had enough money to invest in individual stocks, I'd likely be shorting calls and buying put protections around my buy in positions.

I've been buying and selling Citi and BOA for about the last month. In the weeks since the posts ont he prior page, I bought back in to both stocks (C @ $2.52 and BAC @ $6.47). Sold all my shares of both this morning at the open.

I'm nervous the market might skyrocket today and I may miss out, but since then both stocks have gone back down. They're still up for the day, but down from their high this morning.

If they drop back down to their lows, I'll buy back all my shares and take a profit for the day. If not, oh well, I still made a profit.

I basically am specializing in these two stocks these days.