News & Chatter | Trading Winner

BIDU Soars 28% in Pre-Market Trading

Baidu.com (Ticker: BIDU, Market: NASDAQ) has released first quarter earnings Wednesday morning, beating estimates with soaring profits and an expanded customer base. BIDU stock price has jumped up +17.74 (28.90%), currently trading at 79.12 per share.

For the quarter through March, the Beijing-based company said it earned 35.2 million yuan ($4.4 million; euro3.5 million), or 1.02 yuan per share (13 cents per American depositary share). A year ago, the company earned just 2.5 million yuan, or 0.08 yuan per share.

Sales tripled to 135.6 million yuan ($16.9 million), compared with last year’s 45.7 million yuan.

I had previously mentioned BIDU on April 5th, in my article: Eye on China Internet Stocks, at which point BIDU was trading at 55.50 per share. Since my original article on April 5, BIDU has soared +23.62 (42.56%).

Vonage (Ticker: VG) IPO

Vonage (Ticker: VG Market: NYSE) will be traded on the NYSE stock market in a few short weeks. Vonage provides VOIP services, allowing you to make phone calls using your broadband cable modem or DSL internet connection, generally providing phone services cheaper than non-VOIP telephone providers. Vonage offers unlimited calls to anywhere in the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico, and Europe for $24.99 per month.

Here is some information regarding the upcoming Vonage (Ticker: VG, Market: NYSE) initial public offering (IPO):

Vonage Holdings (VG)
Expected Date: Week of 5/22/2006
Price Range: $16.00 – $18.00
Shares Offered: 31.3 mm
Business: A leading provider of broadband telephone services. A Voice-Over-IP (VOIP) provider.
Industry: Telecomm-Cellular
Employees: 1393
Founded: 2000

I have heard Vonage is offering its customers the ability to buy shares of the stock before it is traded in the markets. I cannot verify this information as of yet, but once I can confirm or deny this I will let everyone know. A current Vonage customer has told me this information but I have not yet seen any written documentation. I will update this story as more information becomes available.

Nymex to Open Singapore Office

Nymex to Open Sinapore Office

Wednesday May 10, 2:01 am ET

New York Mercantile Exchange to Open Singapore Office

SINGAPORE (AP) — The New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex), the world’s largest energy-futures marketplace, will open an office in Singapore on May 17, the company said in a statement late Tuesday.

My opinion: I think an office in Asia will encourage an increase in Asian futures traders. Any increase in the number of traders and capital should bring greater volatility to oil, gas, and other energies futures. More traders and capital brings more futures speculation. After the Nymex Singapore Office has a change to grow and develop, we could see greater price fluctuations in oil and gas futures prices – greater than the ones we have recently been seeing.

Silver Exchange Traded Fund (ETF): SLV

Silver Exchange Traded Fund (ETF): SLV

Introducing the new silver exchange traded fund (ETF): SLV

You can get in on the hot commodities and precious metals actions without owning physical metals such as gold and silver coins. Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) allow you to invest in commodities and precious metals, like Gold and Silver, and watch your ETF investment grow as the prices of gold, silver, and other commodities rise.

For those unfamiliar with Exchange Traded Funds, or ETFs, read my Exchange-Traded Funds – ETF on my Investing Winner blog. ETFs have many advantages and can benefit every stock trader and investor.

People have recently asked me about an exchange traded fund based on the price of Silver. One such silver ETF is the IShares Silver ETF, with ticker symbol SLV (ETF: SLV).

About the iShares silver trust etf:
Price: $138.12
Today’s Change:: +9.12 (+7.1%)

The SLV etf is sponsored by Barclay’s Global Investors and has been in the works for more than a year. Silver’s big brother gold also has an ETF in active trading, ticker symbol GLD.

Investors and traders alike have been waiting for the creation of the silver ETF. We can see their support and liking of the new SLV etf with the 7% jump in the price of the ETF, which was introduced on the stock markets on Friday, April 28, 2006.

Global investors are predicting both silver and gold will continue to rise even more than they have in the past year, due to concerns over Iran’s nuclear program, weakened dollar, gas and oil prices, and buying of precious metals by world banks.

SLV price quotes and charts

TD Ameritrade – AMTD

My online stock broker, TD Ameritrade (formerly Ameritrade – now TD Ameritrade, since the merger between Ameritrade and TD Waterhouse) has just put their newly redesigned website online last Friday. This is the first big change and big news we have seen from TD Ameritrade recently.

Big News from TD Ameritrade TD Ameritrade announced on Monday lower trading commissions! This is great for traders and investors alike. We can now save a little bit of money on each trade. TD Ameritrade’s new commission fee per trade is $9.99, lowered from $10.99. I am one happy trader! TD Ameritrade clients now save 9.10% on commissions fees – the difference between 9.99 and 10.99 being 9.10%. A $1 drop in commissions may not seem like much to the average trader, but for those placing a lot of trades, the $1 in savings adds up quickly.

TD Ameritrade: Strong Earnings TD Ameritrade also announced earnings on Monday. Second quarter earnings were $172.8 million, or 30 cents per share. Last year’s second quarter earnings were $77.4 million, or 19 cents per share. TD Ameritrades earnings have doubled from last year’s second quarter.

TD Ameritrade Stock Down 9% on Monday The earnings doubled, but the stock price fell over 9%. Why? With the 9% decrease in commissions fees, TD Ameritrade announced a weaker forecast for the coming year, due to less commissions income. My personal opinion is that traders and investors will be more willing to place more trades with lower commissions. We’ll have to wait and see how my opinion plays out during the rest of the year.

TD Ameritrade New Advertisement Blitz I’ve seen new ads for TD Ameritrade on CNBC and on various stock market websites, such as Yahoo! Finance. Once ad on Yahoo! I saw stated “TD Ameritrade – up to 50 free trades + $100 cash”. Earlier on Monday I also saw a similar ad, except it stated “+$500 cash”. I’m sure there are stipulations for receiving $100 or $500 cash, such as a minimum initial investment of $25,000 or perhaps a larger investment. I haven’t read their fine print on the free cash, but I know they’ve been giving free trades to all new TD Ameritrade members, which is still nice.

I’d like to hear your opinions on TD Ameritrade in general, and more specifically their new website, earnings, and advertisement campaign.