Bought Some Smokes

Lots of people are still smoking regardless of the high price of cigarettes and health concerns. The big growth is of course international such as Asia. Phillip Morris International (Ticker: PM) spin off started trading yesterday. I picked up a few shares at $53.56 and sold a bit of Genentech (Ticker: DNA) to pay for this transaction. I still like Genentech a lot and have a good position in it, but I couldn’t pass up on the opportunity to pick up a cash generating machine.

Other news…

The Navteq (Ticker: NVT) transaction is still stuck as the Euro regulators raised additional concerns. I’m still looking for this to close, but it’s going to take some time.

With Merck (Ticker: MRK) and Schering Plough (Ticker: SGP) taking a big hit over their cholesterol drug (Vytorin and Zetia), could this be the catalysts for a Pfizer rebound? I think so…