rovo's Market Journal -- 2011

[rovo]

Yclept, The only real risk I see with TSTC is the potential for bogus financials. If the numbers are correct or even nearly so, the stock will rise at some point. I don't usually play with Chinese stocks but this one is a growing segment and I think the potential reward out weighs the risk. I put a sell order in at $7.77. My buy-in price was $6.67 per share.

[rovo]

SBS mentioned Ford on the POTW thread as one I should have picked for the week. Ford is looking pretty strong the last couple of days after being pummeled for a miss on earnings last quarter.

Ford is in a good position at this time because it has quite a few good looking vehicles with high gas mileage, beat GM last month on sales in the USA, is expanding production in China, and has received two upgrades in the last 3 or 4 days. Also, it doesn't appear to be as severely affected by part shortages as the competitors.

I'm still very positive on Ford for the longer haul. My target was $30 for the end of this year and I still believe this is doable. A more realistic target is $25 by year end but even this represents a gain of 56% from the current price. The next earnings report is due on or about 25 April and they have to meet or beat the estimates of $0.48 for Q1 in order for the share price to rise further. Another earnings miss and they are toast.

[yclept]

Way off topic, but does anyone know what happened with the avatars? I notice some folks have their old avatars back. I got rid of my avatar because I didn't like the randomly assigned thing I'd been given. I tried to find info on the general thread (now titled April's fool), but the latest posts are all about a bunch of crap about pretty people versus ugly people, and the middle posts (where the thing is probably explained) all generate a warning from my browser Chrome that an avatar site referred to therein is known to circulate viruses -- so I haven't gone there. I notice my machine is getting slower to boot and am wondering if that temporary avatar implanted on my user id did something deleterious. Reckon I'll have to run a deep scan, not that I have time for it right now.
If some SOB really did all of this as a joke -- he/she ought to be shot, or better yet, hung, drawn, and quartered. I'll be more than happy to make the time to serve as torturer/executioner.
If we can again chose our own avatars, I might spend the time to try to find my beaver skeleton again -- for some (probably demented) reason, I liked that picture. I thought it was a good reminder to me of what can happen in the markets if one doesn't do what one knows needs to be done. I saw it as an example of the natural result that will happen to me if I hold on to losers in a "buy and hope" strategy.

[rovo]

If some SOB really did all of this as a joke -- he/she ought to be shot, or better yet, hung, drawn, and quartered. I'll be more than happy to make the time to serve as torturer/executioner.

Yup. It was a joke and the responsible person is Virgil.

[yclept]

Thanks Rovo,
So I assume we can go try to find our former icons and reinstall them if we want to. Does anyone know if there really were viruses associated with whatever the avatar site was that he installed on us? Anyone else experiencing slower boot times as I am?

[rovo]

You can put your old avatar back up. The old ones were reinstalled automatically but since you deleted your "fake" one it probably passed you by. I don't know anything about the virus stuff. My machine seems about the same as it was.

[yclept]

I'm getting responses (though nothing yet very satisfying) over on the general board. I assume they are from folks who know a lot more than I do about this stuff, though so far none of them seem to use Chrome as their browser, so cannot duplicate the virus warnings Chrome is giving me regarding some pages containing avatars from a site suspected of distributing viruses.
Sometime tonight I'll do a deep scan to see if it finds anything. I'm getting more worried about using this site. It obviously allows a lot of programmatic fiddling around by non-employees, which is probably a dangerous thing for other users. This computer is very important to my economic well-being. Unless I can satisfy myself that there's no risk posting here, I might have to leave. But I won't do so without saying good-bye.

[mtntigger]

yclept - I would PM Virgil about your questions/concerns.

[livinincali]

F looks better technically but the big test comes at the 16.50 area. It's managed to burn off the oversold conditions and still hasn't recovered to the 50% retracement level. One of the things I've been looking at lately to signify trend changes is number of days for prices to get back to even. Often you'll see primary trends recover losses quicker than those losses were formed. I.e. if a 10 day corrective move down is recovered in less than 10 days then you can assume the primary trend will continue. If it takes longer than 10 days to recover than the primary trend is in jeopardy.

Looks like bullish sentiment quickly recovered after the Japan selloff which gives me some suspicion. I really think the bull cycle may be nearing an end as everybody seems really confident the market will continue heading up. I've really started believing the market can only go up and that's making me nervous at this junction. The whole nothing matters everything is good feeling that always seems to show up when nobody expects the market to top. Bearish sites have basically given up completely at this juncture and nobody even seems to care anymore except for the diehard permabears. It definitely wouldn't come as a surprise to me if the market started selling off in the most bullish month of the most bullish year of the presidential cycle. Although it would for just about everybody else.

[rovo]

I don't agree with Cali about a sell-off in the market. The market is at about a fair value if you consider PEs. We have witnessed a huge bull market and I don't think we will see much more of a general market rise. From here on out I expect it to be more of a stock pickers market with good stocks rising and the poor ones falling. Overall I expect a relatively flat market as we grow into the over bought condition.

For sure things can change rapidly, especially to the downside, depending on geopolitical events.

[mtntigger]

OT - I didn't get to remind you to change the title this time, rovo.

[yclept]

SBS,
From what Rovo says above, it was Virgil who caused this problem to begin with. That being the case, I don't think he's a person I want to believe regarding any possible malware threat. I think I'll take the word of the programmers at Google, whose Chrome software is warning me there is virus danger in the middle of the General thread now titled "April Fool". No one who's addressed the issue I raised on that thread seems to be using Chrome, so they don't see the Chrome warning, and the replies I got were of the nature "you might have a virus", but since none of us have it, you must have gotten it somewhere else. They seem to discount that one browser might not pick up something that another does. Again, I think I'll trust Google. I did deep scans with my regular virus program and with a free one that Moonbeam suggested -- both found nothing, so I feel a bit better about the status of my machine.
The more I think about it, the less comfortable I feel about using this site. I had, of course, seen the hacks he put on that other investing board (can't remember the name right now, but the one that used to be Jubak's at MSN). I was duly impressed with the charts and such that he could put at the top of the board. I didn't really think much about it beyond that, but now that I do, I wonder if the code that was displaying those hacks was running on Proboards machine or had been downloaded to ours and was running on ours. I don't know, so I shouldn't mess with it. I have noticed that if one right clicks on the board, it brings up a window, one of whose choices is "view page source" that has a whole bunch of HTML (a language I've never bothered to learn much of). I haven't messed with it, but it's definitely code that's running on each of our machines to display the web page. I guess there must be a way to alter that code and backload it to Proboards, in which case anyone downloading that page will have the altered code. Feels dangerous to me.
Maybe Virgil harbors no evil intent, but if he, as a user/outsider to Proboards, can hack the board like that, there must be several million other people who can do likewise -- not all of whom I trust to have lofty intent -- for that matter, the bs with the avatars I do not see as a demonstration of lofty intent. In fact his inserted code (if that is indeed what it is) probably facilitates hacking for others by giving them exemplars. Whatever Virgil did, it apparently affected each of our Proboards accounts, as the avatars for everyone changed.
One of my best friend's son (actually, though I first saw him when he was one day old, he's more than old enough that I should now just identify him as a friend as well -- gotta stop thinking of him as "little Tommy") is finishing his PhD in computer science and works part time at Mozilla/Firefox. I'm sure he can tell me whether I'm worried over nothing and I might think to ask him the next time I see him -- though the last time I saw him was at his wedding last summer. Maybe his dad will have an inkling to host a big barbecue sometime this summer.
Poor Rovo, his thread catches everything that floats down the river! At least I think he got about back to even on that TSTC we both bought the other day, as I think he bought it cheaper than I did and I'm almost even on it.

[mtntigger]

I would hate for you to stop posting because of a prank. I still would tell Virgil your concerns; I know he didn't mean it maliciously and it was all just part of an April Fool's joke. I only know of one person (outside the Moderators) who would want to or has the knowledge to hack into this Proboard forum.
I understand your concerns, though, as I delete my browsing history and run scans far more frequently when I use this board than I did on MSN. I hope your friend says that you are overreacting.

ETA: It looks likes someone else with Chrome is having issues on another Proboards thread.
notmsnmoney.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=finance&action=display&thread=5961

[rovo]

yclept:

At least I think he got about back to even on that TSTC we both bought the other day, as I think he bought it cheaper than I did and I'm almost even on it.

Even? Get real ! I'm 2 cents to the good. Just rolling around in the money from this puppy. ;D Joking aside, it is better to be slightly green than slightly red. I've been holding this TSTC for 3 days. It should have doubled by now.

[clarkrl2]

McAfee site advisor at this point has no problems with this site but I am very concerned with yclept's recent posts. If someone can change someone's personal settings, even something as simple as an avatar that is a very significant security risk.

[rovo]

Chip stocks rise to take tak sector spotlight9:45a ET April 5, 2011 (MarketWatch)
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Semiconductor stocks were in the tech-sector spotlight Tuesday following Texas Instruments Inc.'s plan to acquire National Semiconductor Corp. for $6.5 billion. The deal, announced late Monday, values Nat Semi at $25 a share, and sent the analog chipmaker's stock up 71% to $24.06 Tuesday. TI's shares were down 88 cents, or 2.6%, at $33.23. Other chip stocks on the rise included Semtech Corp. , which rose $1.66 a share, or 7%, to $26.06, and Intersil Corp. , up $2.56, or 13%, at $13.68. The Nasdaq Composite Index shed 1 point to 2,787, but the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index was up 1.7%.

Interesting merger / buyout on this puppy. National Semi is one of the oldest semi firms in existence. If my memory serves me correctly, they were started by a couple of guys from Fairchild Semiconductor. I believe they are credited with the invention of the integrated circuit. A couple of mavericks who thought they could combine several components onto a die and thus reduce the amount of discrete components on a printed circuit board. A side benefit of integration was component matching and this benefit turned out to be a major advantage integrated circuits over discrete designs.

I remember toying with some LM101s op amps back in the early 70s and thinking these were the components of the future. <<LM indicated Linear Monolithic>> These devices were the first commercial ICs and were quickly designed into anything requiring low quality amplification. These early devices were very "noisy" and were not suitable for precision applications. Also, external compensation was required to tailor bandwidth to the application.

Fast forward to just a few years ago when National Semi introduced a little known part for high quality pre-amplification designed to be used in ultra-high quality audio applications. The "noise" is so low in this device that a new technique had to be devised to accurately measure the noise / distortion.

Over the years I have designed-in thousands of part numbers from NSM resulting in the purchase of 10s of millions of integrated circuit components from NSM. Most recently NSM has been making inroads into the power supply market with ICs for power conversion. It doesn't sound too exciting but has allowed low cost voltage shifting in about 1 square inch of printed circuit board space and actually allowed voltage shifting to be a viable technology as compared to having separate power supplies.

I hope TI is smart enough to keep the iconic National Semiconductor brand because it means modest cost for high quality integrated solutions.

[rovo]

Nasdaq 100 to cut weight of Apple on index10:24a ET April 5, 2011 (MarketWatch)
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Apple Inc. shares fell about 1% Tuesday, to $338.13 a share after the Nasdaq OMX Group said it would rebalance the Nasdaq 100 Index to reduce the weight of Apple on the market gauge. The new rebalancing, to take effect May 2, will cut Apple's share of the Nasdaq 100 to about 12% from its current level of more than 20%. The move is being made because of the rise in Apple's share price over the last two years. Ticonderoga Securities analyst Brian White said in a research note that despite the rebalancing, "we believe the stock will reach new, all-time highs" during the year due to new product releases and market opportunities.

For sure a non-event in my book generating an opportunity to pick up Apple (AAPL) at a slight discount for a short period of time. This is probably good for QQQ as it now reduces the effect of Apple on the Qs. The fundamentals of Apple are so compelling at the current price, that this one time reduced demand for AAPL will be counter balanced very quickly.

Disclosure: I own a few shares of Apple.

[rovo]

I exited my small position in GLL this morning at $26.00 as it was getting to painful watching it decline. GLL is an ultra-short gold ETF. I still have no faith in gold's rise but I'm tired of fighting the market. The percentage loss on this play was about 15% but, fortunately, the amount of $ involved was minor.

[mtntigger]

I sold my CMG this morning for 8% profit. I didn't really plan to, but the market doesn't look like it's going anywhere significant for a while and CMG reached another high. Now, it just needs to come back down to $220/240 so I can buy some more.

[ModE98]

This article may be worth a good read. Many industries are affected and may be spelling trouble.
www.bellinghamherald.com/2011/04/06/1954879/disaster-in-japan-exposes-supply.html

[yclept]

Anyone who was concerned about the security of using this message board should probably read Virgil's reply to me on the General Board in the thread titled "April Fool" -- notmsnmoney.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=5763&page=11
By the way, links here are fairly safe, especially if you know and trust the person who provided it. About the worst a link can do (and we can all insert links) is send one off to a malodorous website where so long as one doesn't click on anything, one should be able to safely go back or close.
As it turns out, there are potentially greater risks here than there are at most websites. It all depends upon how much one trusts the 13 administrators and whomever else might have access to their machines and passwords. In any case, careful browsing habits should preclude anything horrible happening as a result of reading or posting here. I don't think this is a site where one can let his/her guard down and just click on any old thing, but then, personally, I wouldn't do that anywhere.
Guess I'll have to go try to find my skeleton beaver again.

[burger]

Apr 6, 2011 19:43:41 GMT -5 @yclept said:

Guess I'll have to go try to find my skeleton beaver again.

That's probably the first time that phrase was ever typed...

[rovo]

I sold off another 500 shares of HI today at $21.93. Buy-in was 20.00. These are still part of the extra 5K I bought with the expectation of a quick profit on 12 Nov. NOT. I still have 1K remaining from this buy and they are out there at $21.97 and $22.03. Looks like I'll net about 10% on this trade.

[rovo]

Something is going on with HI. Average daily volume is 200K shares traded per day but yesterday and the day before the volume was around 400K shares. Today, after two hours of the market being open, the volume is 1,262K shares. The price is holding steady or rising slightly during this higher volume period so it tells me there is someone out there buying up shares.

I kicked up the sale price on my two sell orders of 500 shares each to $22.20 and $22.25.

I've been unhappy with the performance of HI since I bought into it and I will probably be exiting this stock shortly. The dividend is fair at 3.49% but I'm looking for growth and this company isn't growing. Well, at least the share price isn't growing. It will be a bit dicey getting out of this position and I'll have to spread out the sell orders so as not to affect the share price.

[yclept]

According to Yahoo insanity boards, Cramer hyped it recently: messages.finance.yahoo.com/Stocks_%28A_to_Z%29/Stocks_H/threadview?m=tm&bn=8530&tid=15102&mid=15102&tof=1&frt=1

It never fails to amaze me that people actually react to that clown, let alone waste the time to watch him. If you want to some shares of this, this is probably a good time.

[Driftr]

I've still got my smidge of HI. Holding it just for the dividend. No plans to sell.

Rovo, you still have any of that TBT laying around in your portfolio? Seems Bill Gross is getting on board the short Treasuries bus. I've always wanted to have some of that. Might be worth a look with some dividends I've been waiting to re-invest until the next market correction.

[IPAfan]

I've not liked tbt because of the time decay issues. I think it would be more appropriate to short indiidual bonds or do a credit steepener trade with interest rate swaps. Personally I don't have enough of a portfolio to deal with stuf like that but I know some of you all do.

[rovo]

I sold off the last of my HI which was a trade play. Sold 500 at $22.20 and 500 at $22.25. This trade was initially a 5K buy at $20.00 and I've sold it all off for a gain of 10.57% not including a couple of dividends. I'm still holding 15K shares of this puppy but they are on the auction block with 5K pieces at $26, $27, $28.

TBT: Yes, I'm still holding a chunk of TBT and all of it is under water. I have 2K in my taxable account at a cost of $39.75 and 5K in my IRA at a cost of $47.71. I may be delusional but I still expect it to be profitable at some point.

[rovo]

PSTR is acting strange as it is, and has been for a while, increasing in price. It hit $7.95 earlier today. I only have a small piece of PSTR, 2,400 shares at $7.63, and it is currently showing green.

[IPAfan]

rovo,

I played PSTR so wrong. I ended up selling off at a loss in disgust after being diluted. Turns out that was a horrible idea as the stock has almost doubled from there even after being massively diluted. This is how undervalued the PSTR assets were. Making it through investments like this defines a good investor. Last year I had some excellent returns from outstanding winners, but losses from EGMI and PSTR wiped out a lot of my profit for the year. Even with the EGMI/PSTR debacle I was profitable last year, and have been fortunate enough to make excellent returns over the last 3, 5, and 10 years.

My portfolio is still concentrated in commodities trading/iron ore royalty/merchant banking (TTT), insurance (ENH and FRFHF.PK), and tobacco (PM, MO)

Tobacco stocks are performing great. Wish I'd been able to buy more. I was hoping to create a bigger position on a pullback (which hasn't happened.) I was able to invest about 12% in PM/MO and am up about 10% on that position. I may continue to add more.

I'd like to get some money together to invest more in my portfolio, but I don't want the flexibility to increase my positions on a market pullback. I really am quite bullish on TTT, ENH, FRFHF, PM, and MO and would like to own more for the longer haul on all of these. I'm strengthening my financial position by paying off debt, saving some cash for emergency funds (and now paid off credit lines), hoping to put some cash aside for a business or investment opportunity. I'm fighting the temptation to add more to my investment accounts (almost exclusively ROTH accounts) until I can get 3 months of personal expenses + business expenses.

Without cash reserves I don't feel comfortable aggressively expanding business overhead. I think I can make more by increasing business expenses (e.g. more advertising and hiring employee(s)) than by investing in stocks. This means if I want to hire an assistant for $3,000 a month (who would hopefully make me a 50-100% return) I'd need to increase my cash position by $9,000 before hiring the assistant.

I should probably carry more like 6-9 months of cash, but I don't think I've even had 3 months cash at any time in the last year. I'm perpetually under-capitalized, but am hoping to start following the 3 month rule. I'm about $8,000 short right now so I better get working. (the obvious problem is the only way for me to go make money is to advertise first to get prospects.)