Bought J. Crew

I was not allocated any shares in the J. Crew (Ticker: JCG) ipo so I purchased some shares @ $24.98. It’s just a small position, but I intend to add to it on any weakness. I’m following the Peter Lynch philosophy on this one. I really like their products and spend quite a bit of my $$$ there so they must be doing something right. There’s plenty of room for store expansion in the US and abroad. This is really a long term growth story. Just take a look at the Gap (Ticker: GPS), which currently has over 3,000 stores compared to only 200 stores at J. Crew. The company plans to open 25-35 stores per year so it’ll be a nice consistent growth.

Currency ETFs

The Street.com has a good write up on some new exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Several currency ETFs just started trading. A good way to speculate or hedge currencies without messing around with the Futures markets. Click: here for the article. Time to be a currency speculator? Nope… not me, well maybe…

Boston Scientific... Ouch...!

How do I spell pain? B! S! X! Yup, this has got to be one of my all time bad trades. I originally purchased Boston Scientific (Ticker: BSX) in January 2003 based on the expected FDA approval of the drug eluting Taxus stents. Everything went according to plans; the company received FDA approval and rapidly gained market share against Johnson & Johnson. The stock took off, but like Nelly Furtado’s song: All Good Things Come to an End and sure enough BSX stock rise came to an abrupt end. They had to recall their stents due to manufacturing defects and Johnson & Johnson started to regain market share. Now the company is facing problems with the Guidant acquisition. I did one of those very bad things in investing, not cutting one's losses. Sometimes, you need something like this to wake you up. I'm wide awake now...

Thumbs Down For TD Ameritrade

Anyone experience poor service with TD Ameritrade? There were problems early this week with former Waterhouse customers unable to log into their TD Ameritrade account. I was also one of those affected and the service was simply horrible. I was unable reach customer service because of the long hold times and couldn’t get any trades through. They gave me a couple of free trades for the trouble, but I’m considering moving my account to Fidelity Investments. I already have an account there and I’ve never had a single problem with them. I've also heard good reviews about Scottrade so that's another possibility. Reliability is a must in this industry.

Sepracor?

Hmmm... Looks like something is brewing at Sepracor (Ticker: SEPR). The stock gained 9.35% today on very heavy volume. There are takeover rumors surrounding the stock. I would never ever buy a stock based on takeover rumors. Anyways, I purchased this stock in June 2005 at $61.28 and I’m currently down -11.64%. This is on my list as one of the not so good investments, but I like the fundamentals of this company. I’m patient so we'll see...

J. Crew IPO

Looks like the next hot IPO will be J. Crew, which is expected to go public in two weeks. They’re doing the dog and pony show right now. TheStreet.com has a good write up on the J. Crew IPO; click: here for the article. I’m going to try to get my hands on a few shares.

Charge It!

They say: Will that be Cash or Credit? I always say: Credit!

Yes, I use my credit cards for just about everything. I always wanted some financial exposure in my portfolio and MasterCard looks like a very good candidate. I decided to purchase a few shares of MasterCard International (Ticker: MA) today at $45.70.

Retirement For Generation X?

Damn, is it over for my generation? Here's an article from Marketwatch.com talking about retirement obstacles for the Generation X'ers. Click: here for the article.

The Fed Correction

The Fed governor, Mr. Bernanke, smacked the market around pretty hard today. I didn’t expect the market to react as violently as it did. I’m putting on my trading cap once again. I’m looking for stocks with strength (stocks that refuse to decline or even going up in this correction). The strong stocks usually are the first ones to take off when the market recovers. I still think the market will go down a bit more from this level. I’m just patiently waiting… Not enough fear in the market yet. In this environment, you need to focus on market psychology. Buy when you feel sick to your stomach.

I Like It

I really like the tone of the over all market and especially the large cap biotech and big pharma. There’s the perception that the economy is starting to slow down and “safe haven” stocks such as healthcare generally do well in that kind of environment. The weakness in the US dollar will also benefit these companies. The biotechs are emerging out of their recent correction and there’s been good news flow from big pharma with several drug approvals. I like everything! Simple as that… Oh, the ASCO conference just started so there should lots of market moving news over the weekend.