Thursday, May 31, 2007

The Bad (Sears) And The Good (J. Crew)

So how did my trades from yesterday work out? I guess it worked out ok, but it could have been better. Sears Holding Corp (Ticker: SHLD) reported not so impressive numbers, which sent the stock down 1.7% today. I’m going to hang on and bet on the magic touch from Eddie Lambert. This guy knows a thing or two about maximizing shareholder value. The other stock I purchased, J. Crew Group (Ticker: JCG), blew away the numbers. The stock is up and up… J. Crew is just starting to make its move so I would hold tight and enjoy the ride up.

Looking back, it looks like I sold Apple Inc (Ticker: AAPL) a bit too soon, but you can’t be greedy. This stock is getting extended and the parabolic rise scares me. Like I said yesterday, if you have a 20% + gain, take some profits.

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Sold Some and Bought Some

I sold my shares in Apple Inc (Ticker: AAPL) today at $114.20 generating a net return of 20.51%. One of my rules in trading is to consider taking profits at ~ +20%. Everyone knows the story about Apple Inc and that worries me a bit. What else will make this stock go up? They will need to totally blow out the iPhone sales estimates. Who knows? That might happen, but there is risk in this stock. Absolutely no room for disappointment. Anyways, I deployed the cash into J. Crew Inc (Ticker: JCG) at $ 41.60 and Sears Holding Inc (Ticker: SHLD) at $180.21. Both of these companies will be reporting tomorrow, so we’ll see…

Ok, back to some biotech talk. The biotech companies are buying back stock hand over fist. Amgen recently did a convert and is using most of the proceeds for share repurchase. Yesterday, Genzyme Inc (Ticker: GENZ) and Biogen Inc (Ticker: BIIB) announced pretty big share buy backs as well. This is big news as biotechs rarely do share buy backs. These biotech stocks are cheap, cheap and cheap...

Monday, May 28, 2007

More Master Card, Please...

It’s been very quiet on my end as you can see from my lack of posts. Master Card International (Ticker: MA) continues to be one of my favorite and best performing stock. Just looking at the scale of this company amazes me. Here’s a company that processed nearly $2 trillion in gross dollar volume in 2006 and they’re just really scratching the surface. The major growth in the credit card biz is Asia. Here’s a recent article from CNN Money: “China's ICBC: Credit cards to double in '07 State-owned bank says it will likely issue 20 million cards by year's end; spending will top $18 billion.” Click here to read the article. I’m looking to add to my position.

Thursday, May 03, 2007

Portfolio Update

I haven’t done this for awhile, but here’s an update of my current holdings in my non retirement account. As you can see, it’s still heavily weighted towards the life sciences sector. My favorite holding right now is MasterCard (Ticker: MA), which just demolished everyone’s numbers. This one has a long ways to go on the upside and is a global growth story. In the US you can go anywhere and they will accept credit card, but if you travel to Asia you better carry cash since many places do not accept credit card. I would buy more MasterCard on any pullback. I’m a firm believer in the buy and hold strategy. If you want a multi bagger, you need a strong conviction or else you will get shaken out of a multi bagger. All my multi baggers were buy and hold.

Ticker % of Portfolio% Return
Amgen (AMGN) 4.60% -16.67%
Apple Corp (AAPL) 2.3% +6.36%
Biogen Idec (BIIB) 3.39% -16.15%
Genentech (DNA) 4.50% -3.69%
Genzyme (GENZ) 51.56% +279.04%
Invitrogen (IVGN) 3.66% +320.61%
MasterCard (MA) 3.13% +25.76%
Melco PBL (MPEL) 0.65% -18.93%
Microsoft (MSFT) 1.25% -21.12%
NYMEX (NMX) 0.88% -10.78%
Qiagen (QGEN) 15.97% +374.93%
Pfizer (PFE) 5.38% -5.14%
Sears (SHLD) 2.73%+7.52%





TOTAL UNREALIZED GAINS = +106.62%