Finance Trends Letter

Global macro investor, Jim Leitner of Falcon Management was interviewed for Steven Drobny's book, Inside the House of Money . I've included one of my favorite quotes, on the importance of following up on investing ideas, below. "Learn to love to listen to people and when you hear something interesting, follow up on it. Don't just think, "Well that's an interesting idea" only to find out a year later that the company you could've bought shares in is now up 500-fold. You never want to say woulda, coulda, shoulda."  This is an especially relevant quote, as I've struggled with regrets over missed opportunities after I failed to pull the trigger on some of my best investing ideas ( click through for more on this trading phenomenon ).  During the course of this bull market, I've also made errors of omission when it came to following up on unique investing and trading ideas gleaned from other smart traders. Maybe you've faced the

Earlier today I tweeted about Alibaba (BABA) and the stock's plunge after its 3Q earnings update. Since we'll also see earnings from Google (GOOG) and Amazon (AMZN) after the close today, it's a good time to review some leading tech stock charts and follow up on some of my past posts and recent tweets. 1) BABA . As I mentioned this morning, BABA's plunge came after weeks of decline. Despite a few rallies, BABA has been making lower highs and lower lows since peaking at $120 in November. Today's move down was the second consecutive day lower on above avg. volume, and the stock sank through the psychologically important $100 level.  While there may be an upcoming relief rally, I am avoiding BABA as a long trade until the stock can find support and put in a strong base to move higher. For now, the stock remains in a downtrend.  2) AMZN . Amazon, America's great e-commerce giant (and provider of hosting, e-payments, etc.). Last time we checked in with A

Altisource (ASPS) and Ocwen Financial (OCN) are on the rocks.  What were the early warning signs? We'll examine the stock charts of these two mortgage finance companies to see what went wrong. First, let's provide a little background on the firms and the lead-up to this recent mess. Here's a quick summary from Housing Wire on the how and why of this interrelated financial unraveling: " To say that Ocwen Financial  ( OCN ) took a beating on Wall Street Tuesday would be the understatement of the century...Ocwen's stock closed Tuesday at $7.78, a loss of more than 36% for the day. One year ago today, Ocwen’s stock was trading at $55.20. ...Ocwen was under fire for most of last year, especially from the New York Department of Financial Services , which reached a settlement with Ocwen last month for failures in its mortgage servicing practices. As part of the settlement, the NYDFS  forced Erbey to resign  from his position as chairman of the board of direct