Bifurcation?

The one thing I am starting to notice, and I expect this to be a positive, is a bifurcation of companies as we head into earnings season. In the past year, I feel in many cases the baby has been thrown out with the bathwater. But recently, some companies that had decent earnings (AMZN, GOOG, FLS and WDC) are moving up, while those that disappoint (ebay, AMAT and MWW) are getting crushed. So if you picked good stocks, you might actually be seeing some gains, more than anyone long in the market could have said in q4.

TRID (no longer an MFI stock) announced earnings this evening. They were dreadful. They are living proof that you can have cash, no debt and still get crushed. The stock is down to $1.50 this evening, despite having well more than $3.50 in cash.

AHCI (I bought a small stake several weeks ago) announces tomorrow. Let us hope they're in the "decent" category.

In my mechanical portfolio, since November 21 my "new" picks are up 14.4% while the market continues its fall, down 3.4%. That is the promising bifurcation I mentioned.

Finally, the HIG article in Barron's helped a bunch today as they were up 15%. Maybe they'll do an article on cash-rich Chinese companies next.