Replies to post #15397 on Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[sgolds]

Elmer, HailMary, I certainly prefer discussions on how to make money. That does really include technical discussions of new products, and competitive comparisons - the meat & potatoes for the fundamentals invester. (Of course, it also includes news on other sector companies, discussions of trading strategies, discussions of financials and how to understand them, market technicals on this and other sector stocks, etc.)

I write this in the general, about the overall tone of these boards and not any particular posters:

I'd prefer a less rahh-rahh tone and more of a just the facts, mamm tone. Factually extolling the virtues and problems of your company (or competition) is useful; gloating, baiting and putdowns are not. Cherry-picking facts to bolster an argument while purposely looking away from the contrary facts is worse than useless - it is misleading.

I should probably keep tighter standards on the messages for which I reply, simply passing over those that that set a less useful or overly contrary tone for the board.

I'd really rather make money. Then I can keep doing fun stuff, like going to the Top of the Mark for our anniversary brunch & 49r pregame broadcast tommorrow. We are both looking forward to that! :)

[HailMary]

I'm doing very well, so far, although if you asked me at this time last year, the picture wasn't so pretty as I was down overall (to be expected in a down market I suppose). If AMD had gone under, I would have lost a good amount of money since I held the shares that I was assigned instead of selling them for a small loss at the time, but I believed they would pull out, and my instincts appear to have been correct. When I start to feel AMD's strength is diminishing, I will reverse the strategy by stopping put writing, and starting call writing. At any time I may just dump all the shares and buy back the covered calls if I feel something significant has changed that would severly hurt AMD stock. If AMD does skyrocket to $50 or above, I'm sure all of you call buyers and long term stock holders will make tons more money than me, but I will still have made a very good % return annualized, which is all I really care about. I'm not looking to make a fortune all at once, which with AMD is certainly possible. I'm looking to make a very good steady return, year after year.

HailAMD!

[Petz]

Speaking of trading strategies -- how about using seasonality. We are coming up on the best 6 months of the year to hold AMD, historically: http://insider.thomsonfn.com/tfn/stocks.asp?imodule=seasonal...

After seeing this, I filled in missing data from ThomsonFn and did some spreadsheet manipulation. If you bought AMD the last day of October and held it until the close on the last day of April, you would have the following % gains:
Year
Sold Gain/Loss
------ -------------
2003 21.3
2002 13.8
2001 37.0
2000 341.5
1999 -26.9
1998 20.6
1997 139.5
1996 -20.7
1995 36.4
1994 33.5
1993 70.3
1992 40.2
1991 216.1
1990 11.1
1989 -1.5
1988 25.1
1987 60.9

The average gain for these 6-month holding periods is 60%. Even if you throw away two best periods, the average gain is still 31%. Norman Fosback would be proud of this one!

Haven't checked yet if shorting the other six months would pay off or not. Nothing is guaranteed, but I think I have a possible explanation for the effect: Investors and analysts underestimate the seasonality of AMD's earnings -- blowout Q4 earnings, and meltdown Q2 earnings really affect this stock.

Petz