G-O-O-D M-O-R-N-I-N-G F-O-L-K-S and welcome to another rip roaring adventure through the pages of Barrons magazine in search of the elusive greenback. Lets take a look back at a few of our past week's picks- If you missed the SEVEN dollar move in Apollo called here first that's OK. Merryl Witmer's pick of KALU really ripped from the mid $60's to $71. Stoney's pick of Texas industries did you right $69 to $75! Topdown's spot of ANAD brought mega-hefty returns, for a while the biggest, but in the end it was the pick of Insider Trading spotlight bio play BioMimetric That REALLY brought home the bacon- plus $3.69 or 25%!!! What now? How is the new issue? It SUCKS! This will be the ultimate test folks! At first read absolutely nothing popped out at me. Let's read it again slowly together.... First Idea* A follow up piece on CIT Group. I don't doubt this is a great business I have sent many a check to CIT factors through my rapidly crumbling retail store. But I'm not biting. Lots of paper space wasted with tax advice. A big spread on Costco, Yawn. Didn't they just miss last week? Talk about bad timing. A big piece on United Health. I uses Oxford which according to the paperwork they have sent me is being swallowed by United so I have no doubt this is a powerhouse. I will have to do a quick scan of the political climate- but suffice is to say I send $20K a year to these bozos, forget to mail in all my receipts and get next top nothing back except piece of mind. Not a bad business plan if you ask me. This will be a possibility for investment. Theres a drug testing at the workplace piece highlighting OraSure & Medtox but it's a half hearted endorsement from barrons and i've already lost my shirt on a pee pee test stock in the past. Well folks we are motoring along with nada could this be the first Barrons game shutout? Since we have started this game we have made money on every issue the lowest being $400 the highest being $7,000... could this be the end of a great run? Wait What's this? Opnext a IPO next week, a spinout from Hitachi. Goldman is the underwriter, good pedigree it's priced nice... In the 9 months ended December 06' they pulled in $157 million vs $105 the year before period. Good growth. In 2005 they lost $27 million now they are posting a profit... this all looks good. The symbol OPXT. Dangerously close to openText if that's still around. Priced to move @ $14 this looks like an open let sag and grab set up for us- the " common " investor. Some interesting ideas pop out in the seldom read " speaking of dividends column " Apollo Investment (AINV) a lender to mid size companies with a 9% yield! Expected to boost revenue 33% this year. A China/India play Diana Shipping (DSX) yielding 9.45%! Yikes! And that's it! AVLI! A Very Lame Issue. UNH // OPXT (ipo) // AINV // DSX......
here is a contrarian play ... on page 19 the continue to pan "VG" maybe it is time to nibble ? on the other hand ... with VG having earnings this week ... yikes !
Well the earnings is a plus we need a catalyst to make the game pay out and it certainly is a contrarian call. From their last earnings report. On the quarter, Vonage posted a loss of 40 cents a share on more than double revenue from the same period last year ($160.7 million vs. $73.9 million). The company's rate of customer turnover rose in the quarter from 2.3% to 2.6%. Average monthly revenue per line also fell in the quarter by 30 cents to $26.33. The company added 205,000 customer lines, for a total of 2.06 million at the end of September - nearly double the year-ago tally of 1.06 million. However, the company was forced to lower its forecast for subscriber growth in FY 2006, saying it expects to end the year with between 2.2 million and 2.3 million after earlier setting an end-of-year target of between 2.3 million and 2.45 million subscribers. The company none-the-less reaffirmed its full-year revenue projection of $600 million to $615 million. Shares of the Holmdel, NJ., company were down 55 cents, or 7.4%, to $6.90 as of 4 p.m. composite trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Vonage shares debuted at $17 in May and have continually declined since then. >> It's a lot to ask but you see they can double rev qtr over qtr and they may have done some deal with Circuit City that boosted subscribers. Could they come in with a hot subscriber number due to the promotion (still have to work that angle-it's in the back of my mind they did that). This looks like it wants to spend the rest of it's stock life trading between $6 and $8. But we are under $6 now and I bet you are right- this could very well pop. It's an interesting and risky idea....
Folks we are in desperate trouble. There isn't an idea worth investing our money in the new Barrons. I've run everything through the " system " and nothing checks out. we face a dilemma: can we go back and flush out an idea from an old game? If history is precedent we can once before we reached back to find GIGM on a cold day but that was just for an investment not as a representative of the Barrons Game... For this important decision I have convened the Stonedinvesting Board Of Directors at this late hour on a saturday....
It has been a terribly contentious board meeting filled with accusations and intrigue. As of now it is STILL going on - although supplies are running low! Our board members. Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Bill Walton, Harrison Ford & Ryan Phillippe are split at the moment with Kareem & Bill voting yes to allow CBLI into this weeks game and Harrison & Ryan voting no at this time....
Those in the "yes" camp wonder if a mid week bet might pay off due to two potential catalysts- Feb 14 Co presents in NYC. Feb 22 at Roth conference.
That was one of stoneys jokes. That means I drank a lot of wine smoked a bit and spent a saturday night immersed in research ignoring my family completely. and through exhaustive effort found a hole in each and every investing premise.
They really touted the Costco. might be good to keep an eye on pullbacks for the long term trend. PCAR 8 insider sellers...HOLX 6 sells, MAT 7, LYO 9 sellers like the high yield plays too. BTW look for MET earnings on Tuesday, Pru was up big last week on earns...maybe buy some otm calls.