Friday, March 31, 2006

Fidelity Contra Fund Closes

The Fidelity Contra fund has finally decided to close the fund at the end of April. I’ve been a long term holder and have a good chunk of my retirement money in this fund. The size of the fund is currently ~$64 billion. So is this too big? I don’t think so. The portfolio manager of the Fidelity Contra fund, William Danoff, is one of the best out there. If you look at the top ten holdings of the Fidelity Contra fund, it makes up ~20% of the total portfolio. He’s willing to make some big bets and he’s often correct. He's not one of those closet index fund managers. I’ll stick with this fund as long as William Danoff continues to be the portfolio manager.

Catalyst for Amgen?

There's going to be a bit of news flow from Amgen and the biotech group during the next couple of days. Amgen has already issued a press release stating that they have completed the BLA for their colorectal cancer drug. This drug has potential peak sales of over $2 billion. The full phase 3 data from the colorectal drug trial will be released next week at the American Association for Cancer Research conference. So the biotech group may start moving on the various clinical data presented at the conference. An analyst from Robert & Baird Co. has suggested that the use of Arenesp has been strong based on physician surveys. Finally, Amgen closes the Abgenix deal this weekend, 4/1.

Thursday, March 30, 2006

401K Update

I haven't done this for a while, so here's an update on my 401K. I'm currently contributing 18% of my income to the 401K. The company match is as follows: 100% of the first 4% and 50% of the next 20% of eligible compensation. In another words, you need to contribute a minimum of 6% to take advantage of the full match. My current allocation is: 10% company stock, 25% S&P 500, 20% international, 25% mid cap value and 20% small cap value.

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Apple, Again?

A nice move in Apple today (Ticker: AAPL), up over 6% on heavy volume. This move was purely technical; it bounced off its 200 day moving average. I’m considering jumping back into Apple. Everyone knows about the iPod story, but the potential for the Apple iPhone is just starting to make the rounds. Here’s an article on the iPhone from the Investors Business Daily click here. This would be another nice move for Apple. Hey, I’ll even consider getting one…

Monday, March 27, 2006

Sold Leucadia National Corp.

I'm usually a buy and hold investor, but once in a while I catch the short term trading bug. Today, I decided to sell Leucadia National Corp (Ticker: LUK). This stock was purchased on March 13th @ $55.37 and was sold today @ $59.39, generating a 6.27% return over a two week period. I may jump back in if it pulls back a bit, but in the mean time I'm going to look for some longer term holds. It's time to get over this short term trading bug!

Friday, March 24, 2006

Sold Tim Hortons

I didn't want to get greedy so I sold the Tim Hortons IPO shares. I sold at $32.10 generating a quick profit of 38.6%. Ok, time to look for other places to deploy some cash...

Got Some Tim Hortons?

I really had doubts in obtaining any IPO shares in Tim Hortons (Ticker: THI). I checked my brokerage account this morning and I was allocated a few shares of Tim Hortons. Hmm... Should I hold or just flip it? We'll see later today.

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Tim Hortons Priced

So Tim Hortons IPO just priced tonight at $23.16, which is above the initial price range of $18-20 per share. I entered the lottery to grab a few shares in the IPO, but it's very doubtful that individual investors will be allocated any shares. This is a hot IPO and 60% of the IPO shares will be reserved for Canadian investors. So we'll see late tonight if I receive any shares. Who knows... I could be one of the lucky ones.

Friday, March 17, 2006

Genentech and Biomarin

Damn, what's up with Blogger!? It keeps going down... Arg!!!

Wow, Genentech (Ticker: DNA) just gave a blow out investor presentation. They are forecasting 40-50% eps growth for this year and 25% annual eps growth to 2010, which I think is conservative. The headlines news that really caught my eye was its free cash flow in 2010; they’re estimating $12 billion. I’ll have to double check that number myself. Just seems too good… Investors obviously liked the news sending the stock up ~ 6%. Here’s a one year chart of DNA:

EDIT: Yep, that $12 billion in free cash flow is actually "cumulative" free cash flow over the next 5 years. Not $12 billion in a one year period. It's still pretty impressive.



This one is going up and up… I would load up if I didn’t already have a position in this company.

Another company I’ve been following is Biomarin (Ticker: BMRN). I call this a baby Genzyme. They primarily have focused on orphan drugs and recently generated some positive data on Phenoptin. Phenoptin is used to treat phenylketonuria. This is not an orphan drug with ~50,000 people worldwide affected by this metabolic disorder. These patients are missing the enzyme phenylalanine hydroxylase (PAH). Without this enzyme, these patients will develop brain damage. Analysts expect that the company can charge ~ $20,000 a year for this drug with potential annual revenues ~ $120 million. They are already selling Aldurazyme, which is being co-marketed with Genzyme. Although the company is not yet profitable, it’s making all the right moves. This company targets disorders in the orphan drug market. It's a small patient population, but they can charge very high prices. I don’t own this stock, but it’s certainly on my radar screen.

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Tim Hortons IPO

Ok, I'm going to try my luck in the IPO game once again. This time I'm trying to get my hands on some Tim Hortons, which is being spun off from Wendy'’s. Tim Hortons is a very popular Canadian doughnut chain. I haven't been to one myself since it's mostly located in Canada. Dunkin' Donuts rule the New England area so it'll be interesting if Tim Hortons ever makes its way into New England. Anyways, this is going to be a hot IPO, which is set to price on March 23rd with an initial price range of $18-20 per share. I didn't have any luck in obtaining any hot IPOs last year. What's up with that!? Well, I think the odds are a little better this time. TD Securities is one of the syndicates in this IPO offering so hopefully TD Waterhouse will have a good share allocation. I use TD Waterhouse quite a bit so I'm hoping they're a bit more generous this time around.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Biotech Tool Makers

Here’s a good article from CNNMoney on the biotech tool makers: Making Money in the Biotech Gold Rush. It's a good refresher for those, who aren't familar with this sector. Click here to read the article. My favorite ones from the group are Qiagen (Ticker: QGEN) and Invitrogen (Ticker: IVGN).

Note: I have positions in both Qiagen and Invitrogen.

Monday, March 13, 2006

Sold QQQQ and bought LUK and BAM

I finally decided to sell my Nasdaq 100 (Ticker: QQQQ) today and used the proceeds to purchase Leucadia (Ticker: LUK) and Brookfield Asset Management (Ticker: BAM). So why did I make a switch into these companies? I wanted to diversify my portfolio a little away from the tech sector. The QQQQ was purchased in November 2002 at $27.57 and sold today at $40.65 for a total return of 47.45%. Not bad, but not great either… Anyways, last night I was reading an interesting article from The Street.com, Like Buffet, Only Better (click: here). I usually don’t pay much attention to stock recommendations from articles, but this one was well written and made a good case for LUK and BAM. I especially liked this quote from The Street.com about LUK: “What Leucadia does is, well, basically, anything its managers think will make them money.” Of course I went ahead and did my own research by doing a quick check of the 10K’s and the chart. The management of these two companies simply likes to make money and lots of it. Both passed my initial screen and I went ahead and nibbled on some LUK and BAM. So we’ll see…

Friday, March 10, 2006

A Condo Update

Looks like progress is being made on the condo construction. Instead of a large dirt pile, there's a big ditch in the ground now. There's a lot of activity at the site. They're currently constructing 2 condos and a large apartment complex. The completion date remains on track for November 2007. I can't wait to see the finished product...

Saturday, March 04, 2006

Portfolio Update

It’s been a while since I’ve posted my non-retirement portfolio so here it is… I don’t post the actual value of the securities in my portfolio since I don’t think it’s important. I don’t trade often and like to hold for the long term. I know that’s not very popular these days, but that’s my style and it works for me. Notice some of the multi baggers (Genzyme, Invitrogen and Qiagen) those have been held for several years…

Company % of Portfolio% Return
Amgen 5.63% -1.72%
Biogen Idec 3.39% -18.82%
Boston Scientific 3.51% -17.87%
Genzyme 59.88% +246.35%
Invitrogen 4.05% +338.71%
Micorsoft 1.14% -31.76%
Nasdaq 100 1.55% +49.37%
Qiagen 14.40% +316.34%
Pfizer 5.36% -7.41%
Sepracor 1.06% -7.10%

Thursday, March 02, 2006

More Amgen, Less Qiagen

I’ve been very busy with work and haven’t had much time to check out the market. I did manage to sneak in a small transaction in my IRA today. I sold Qiagen (Ticker: QGEN) and used the proceeds to pick up some more Amgen (Ticker: AMGN). I really like the fundamentals and the chart of Amgen. Amgen is repurchasing a ton of stock and it just broke above its 200-day moving average. Qiagen was purchased in May 1999 at a split adjusted price of $9.85 and sold today at $15.03 with a ~52% gain. Qiagen really took off in the past week and it’s due for a little rest here. A 52% gain may sound good, but a 52% gain over an ~ 7 year period is not so good... Anyways, I still like Qiagen a lot. I have a nice position in Qiagen in my non-retirement account and I plan to hang onto those for a while.