Boiler Room: The Official Stock Market Discussion
Domingo Halliburton
Handmade in USA
What will my next short be?????
Doing my research and should have something to share in the next couple of weeks.
Hard to short this market man
Domingo Halliburton
Handmade in USA
Selling weekly vix calls at 14 has worked for something like 12-13 weeks in a row.
Domingo Halliburton
Handmade in USA
...
Domingo Halliburton
Handmade in USA
Markets need buyers and sellers...i.e. liquidity. You should see it in weird, tight, opaque markets like CDS or commodities no one trades in. They need short sellers to provide liquidity...it's nothing like a major stock or bond market.
This isn't some new concept. The Dutch were doing this like 400 years ago.
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JahFocus CS
Get It How You Get It
I fukkin' love dividends 
whyI fukkin' love dividends
JahFocus CS
Get It How You Get It
good answerI'm not sure how it isn't obvious...
Clark Wayne
Superstar
Haven't posted here in a while. Market been pretty boring.
BushidoBrown
Superstar
OAKVILLE, ON, and ATLANTA, GA, Feb. 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — Restaurant Brands International Inc. ("RBI") (NYSE/TSX: QSR, TSX: QSP) and Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, Inc. ("Popeyes") (NASDAQ: PLKI) announced today that the companies have reached an agreement for RBI to acquire Popeyes for $79.00 per share in cash, or $1.8 billion.
The acquisition of Popeyes will add a successful, highly regarded brand with strong customer loyalty to RBI, one of the largest global quick service restaurant companies with two of the world's most iconic QSR brands — Burger King and Tim Hortons.
Founded in New Orleans in 1972, Popeyes has 45 years of history and culinary tradition and is the franchisor and operator of Popeyes restaurants. Today Popeyes is one of the world's largest quick service restaurant chicken concepts with over 2,600 restaurants in the U.S. and 25 other countries around the world and its global footprint will complement RBI's existing portfolio of over 20,000 restaurants in more than 100 countries and U.S. territories.
Following the closing of the transaction, Popeyes will continue to be managed independently in the U.S., while benefitting from the global scale and resources of RBI. Building on the momentum of recent years, RBI plans to continue developing the brand at an increasing pace in the U.S. and international markets in the years to come.
Daniel Schwartz, chief executive officer of RBI, said, "Popeyes is a powerful brand with a rich Louisiana heritage that resonates with guests around the world. With this transaction, RBI is adding a brand that has a distinctive position within a compelling segment and strong U.S. and international prospects for growth. As Popeyes becomes part of the RBI family we believe we can deliver growth and opportunities for all of our stakeholders including our valued employees and franchisees. We look forward to taking an already very strong brand and accelerating its pace of growth and opening new restaurants in the U.S. and around the world."
Cheryl Bachelder, chief executive officer of Popeyes, said, "I am proud of the superior results the Popeyes team has delivered in recent years; they have served all stakeholders well. As Popeyes enters its 45th year, its success reflects the amazing brand entrusted to us by founder Al Copeland Sr. and the unique high trust partnership that we enjoy with our franchise owners. RBI has observed our success and seen the opportunity for exceptional future unit growth in the U.S. and around the world. The result is a transaction that delivers immediate and certain value to the Popeyes shareholders."
Structure and terms
Under the terms of the transaction, Popeyes shareholders will receive $79.00 in cash per share at closing. This represents a premium of 27% based on Popeyes' 30-trading day Volume Weighted Average Price as of February 10, the last trading day before media speculation on the potential sale of Popeyes.
RBI will finance the transaction with cash on hand and a financing commitment from J.P. Morgan and Wells Fargo.
The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including receipt of certain regulatory approvals and receipt of a majority of Popeyes shares on a fully diluted basis in a tender offer to Popeyes' shareholders. Following the successful completion of the tender offer, RBI will acquire all remaining shares not tendered in the tender offer through a second-step merger at the same price. The transaction is expected to close by early April 2017.
http://www.businessinsider.com/burger-king-owner-restaurant-brands-to-buy-popeyes-2017-2
The acquisition of Popeyes will add a successful, highly regarded brand with strong customer loyalty to RBI, one of the largest global quick service restaurant companies with two of the world's most iconic QSR brands — Burger King and Tim Hortons.
Founded in New Orleans in 1972, Popeyes has 45 years of history and culinary tradition and is the franchisor and operator of Popeyes restaurants. Today Popeyes is one of the world's largest quick service restaurant chicken concepts with over 2,600 restaurants in the U.S. and 25 other countries around the world and its global footprint will complement RBI's existing portfolio of over 20,000 restaurants in more than 100 countries and U.S. territories.
Following the closing of the transaction, Popeyes will continue to be managed independently in the U.S., while benefitting from the global scale and resources of RBI. Building on the momentum of recent years, RBI plans to continue developing the brand at an increasing pace in the U.S. and international markets in the years to come.
Daniel Schwartz, chief executive officer of RBI, said, "Popeyes is a powerful brand with a rich Louisiana heritage that resonates with guests around the world. With this transaction, RBI is adding a brand that has a distinctive position within a compelling segment and strong U.S. and international prospects for growth. As Popeyes becomes part of the RBI family we believe we can deliver growth and opportunities for all of our stakeholders including our valued employees and franchisees. We look forward to taking an already very strong brand and accelerating its pace of growth and opening new restaurants in the U.S. and around the world."
Cheryl Bachelder, chief executive officer of Popeyes, said, "I am proud of the superior results the Popeyes team has delivered in recent years; they have served all stakeholders well. As Popeyes enters its 45th year, its success reflects the amazing brand entrusted to us by founder Al Copeland Sr. and the unique high trust partnership that we enjoy with our franchise owners. RBI has observed our success and seen the opportunity for exceptional future unit growth in the U.S. and around the world. The result is a transaction that delivers immediate and certain value to the Popeyes shareholders."
Structure and terms
Under the terms of the transaction, Popeyes shareholders will receive $79.00 in cash per share at closing. This represents a premium of 27% based on Popeyes' 30-trading day Volume Weighted Average Price as of February 10, the last trading day before media speculation on the potential sale of Popeyes.
RBI will finance the transaction with cash on hand and a financing commitment from J.P. Morgan and Wells Fargo.
The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including receipt of certain regulatory approvals and receipt of a majority of Popeyes shares on a fully diluted basis in a tender offer to Popeyes' shareholders. Following the successful completion of the tender offer, RBI will acquire all remaining shares not tendered in the tender offer through a second-step merger at the same price. The transaction is expected to close by early April 2017.
http://www.businessinsider.com/burger-king-owner-restaurant-brands-to-buy-popeyes-2017-2
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With No Frills and No Commissions, Robinhood App Takes On Big Brokerages
By JANET MORRISSEYFEB. 18, 2017
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By JANET MORRISSEYFEB. 18, 2017
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- Robinhood Markets is taking on the big brokerage firms with its commission-free trading app, and appears to be making headway. Since its introduction in December 2014, the app has attracted a million users and executed more than $30 billion in trades, up from $2 billion in 2015.
Despite the app’s hype and surging popularity, some industry experts question if the free-trades business model can survive, or if it will wind up joining other start-ups that have crashed and burned. The company currently makes money primarily from interest on customer cash balances.
At Robinhood, there is no minimum deposit to register an account, and there are no trading fees for customers who buy and sell United States-listed stocks and exchange-traded funds. To keep costs down, the company, in Palo Alto, Calif., takes a no-frills approach. It has no storefront offices. It does not provide research reports, analytical tools, stock screening gizmos or options trading on its platform.
“Uber opened our eyes that if you could hail a car off your phone and watch movies, why can’t I trade 10 shares of Facebook or a thousand shares?” said Howard Lindzon, a general partner of the Social Leverage Fund and a founder of StockTwits, a financial communications platform. His fund holds an equity stake in Robinhood.
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Chase Kaye, a 21-year-old Manhattan resident, signed up for Robinhood over a year ago after he grew tired of paying the $7 commission on trades at the Vanguard Group.
“The interface on the phone app is way better,” said Mr. Kaye, a marketing management student at Baruch College. “It’s simple, not as intimidating and very intuitive.” Today about 70 percent of his assets are with Robinhood, Mr. Kaye said.
Still, nothing is truly free in the world of finance.
“The illusion of being free encourages frequent trading, which is well known to be a cause of lousy investment returns,” said Tad Borek, an investment adviser at Borek Financial Management. “Is this just handing some free chips to gamblers?”
Even the name conjures up images of a firm helping the poor, when it may actually be doing the opposite, he contends.
Robinhood’s founders dispute these concerns. Their goal is to make investing accessible to everyone, not just the superwealthy, which is why the name Robinhood was chosen, said Vladimir Tenev, 30, a founder.
“We have active investors who are moving their trading over from other brokerages where they have paid thousands to tens of thousands of dollars in trading commissions,” Mr. Tenev said. “We also have younger customers who are accumulating stocks and building mini diversified portfolios over time.”
A customer could buy one share in a stock or ETF today and five more shares next month to slowly build a portfolio. The fees at larger firms would make such a strategy cost prohibitive. Big brokerage firms like TD Ameritrade, Schwab, Fidelity and E-Trade typically charge $7 to $10 a trade.
Robinhood’s bare-bones business model has led to complaints about its customer service, with long waiting times by phone and emails that are not answered. Internet blogs are also filled with complaints about lengthy waits — up to eight days — to transfer money from a Robinhood account to a bank or vice versa. Mr. Tenev said the company was looking to solve these problems.
And some customers are frustrated that the company doesn’t offer options trading, a website trading platform or automated transfers from other brokerage accounts. Mr. Tenev said that would change. “If you look down several years, we’ll offer all of these things,” he said.
Robinhood is the brainchild of Mr. Tenev and Baiju Prafulkumar Bhatt, Stanford graduates who shared a passion for math and physics. In 2009 they moved to New York, where they began Celeris and Chronos Research, which made high-frequency trading software for hedge funds and banks.
Inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011, they rethought their priorities. “The financial services industry should serve all people, regardless of net worth,” Mr. Tenev said. In 2012, they moved back to California, hired engineers and spent the next 18 months building Robinhood.
Photo
The mobile app Robinhood does not charge trading fees.CreditAaron Wojack for The New York Times
In late 2013, Robinhood set up a beta version and invited people to test the app. When the sign-up page was posted on Hacker News and Reddit, the site was flooded with requests.
“We had almost 50,000 people that signed up that first weekend,” Mr. Bhatt, 32, recalled. By the time the app began in the App Store in late 2014, it had a wait-list of a million people, most under the age of 30.
The company has raised $66 million in start-up cash from such high-flying investors as Andreessen Horowitz, GV, Index Ventures and New Enterprise Associates, as well as entertainers like Jared Leto, Snoop Dogg and Nas.
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In addition to cash balances, the company makes money from “payment for order flow,” which refers to the money it receives for selling its orders to market makers to be executed.
“These revenue streams alone are not enough to sustain an online broker providing $0 trades — not even close,” said Blain Reinkensmeyer, the head of broker research at StockBrokers.com.
Recently, Robinhood introduced a Gold program, which offers margin accounts and after-hours trading, for a fee.
“Robinhood Gold is where we anticipate the bulk of the revenues to come from in the future,” Mr. Tenev said. Robinhood charges Gold accounts a fixed monthly fee that works out to 5 to 6 percent interest on margin accounts, whether the customer uses the credit line or not. At larger firms, like Schwab, customers are charged interest only on the margin amount that’s used.
“I got the email to sign up for a free month trial of their new Gold account, but it’s not something I’m interested in,” Mr. Kaye said. “I’ll probably stay with Vanguard for margin accounts.”
Another firm, Zecco, attempted a similar “free trades” model in 2006. Despite raising more than $35 million in financing, the company struggled to get off the ground, and eventually merged with TradeKing in 2012. It now charges $4.95 a trade.
“Zecco couldn’t find a path to profitability without charging for commissions and evolving into a traditional online broker,” Mr. Reinkensmeyer said. “It’s amazing how quickly history is forgotten.”
Mr. Lindzon, the Robinhood equity investor, noted that Zecco operated when smartphone use was in its infancy.
“With a couple billion people now on smartphones, it’s a very different market today,” said Aaron Levie, a founder of the cloud company Box, and another of Robinhood’s equity investors.
Other start-ups have entered the territory to challenge Robinhood. They include Ustocktrade, which charges a $1-a-month membership fee and offers $1 trades, and Loyal3, which offers no-fee trades on a limited number of stocks, partial shares and initial public offerings. There’s also Bank of America’s Merrill Edge, which offers 30 free stock and ETF trades each month for customers with a balance of at least $50,000 and 100 free trades a month on balances of at least $100,000.
So far, the big brokerage firms do not appear concerned about Robinhood. Kim Hillyer, a spokesman for TDAmeritrade, said investors value a full-service firm that offers free education, webinars, research tools and investment consultants in addition to a full trading platform that includes futures and options. She noted that TDAmeritrade accounts have continued to grow since Robinhood’s introduction, rising to seven million in fiscal 2016 from 6.3 million in 2014. “The growth in new accounts is a validation for the value proposition that we have,” she said.
Erin Montgomery, a spokeswoman for Schwab, agreed. “We know that investors and traders alike are looking for value from their brokerage firms, and our clients find that here,” she said. The firm’s investment services and products include financial planning and research as well as a full trading platform and commission-free ETFs.
Still, the two firms said they are always looking for ways to stay competitive, and sometimes offer low-fee and no-fee trading promotions.