Early Sunday Morning Ramblings

Rambling On A Sunday

Slow weekend in February.  Nice to be home after a hectic week.  I have a "not-so-bad" upcoming week, then I have to fly internationally next Saturday night and will not return until the following Sunday.  My blog should not be dark in that stretch,  but my posting times may be weird. I am thinking about buying the Slingbox today.  This should allow me to essentially stream my home television pretty much to wherever I am (I get tired of European TV pretty quickly). Anyone ever try it?

The other thing I am doing for the upcoming trip is downloading movies and TV shows for the trip.  I will be in airplanes for long stretches.  When I fly long flights, I like to rotate.  I sleep, I read, I listen to music, I watch a TV show/Movie on iPad and then I sleep again. This trip I I have Gran Torino, Kill Bill: Vol. 1, Pineapple Express, and There's Something About Mary. I also have 2 episodes from the TV series Sherlock.

Hopefully that will be enough.  I can always download more, though Internet speeds in some hotels leaves something to be desired.

Barron's Articles

As people know, I read through Barron's every weekend.  A couple of high end MFI stocks were discussed, TWX and MDP.  Time Warner might be an interesting one to watch for those who like very large cap stocks.   They will be spinning off their print component from their movie component.  Pretty similar to what NWS did when they spun off FOXA.  That happened June 28th.

Renewable Energy Group

I read about an interesting stock on Friday, REGI (Roundtable: 1 Stock to Buy in February). While there were some real stinker ideas in that article, REGI was interesting to me.  They were #128 in my top 200 listing in mid-January. They are "cheap" though one of the reasons they are cheap is they have been getting some government subsidies which appear to be unwinding.  It is interesting, I know there was another company in a similar position recently. Let me think... BDSI!  I am pretty sure that is the one. Hmm, that was the one I was thinking of, but it is not in the same space.  Wait, I now found it. SYNM.  And I was right, they are similar as REGI is buying them.  Ok, I have read enough. While I think this is an interesting area, it is not where I want to put my hard earned investing dollars as too much is unknown.

Runoffs and Rejects

Here is an update on my run off and rejects.  This is the August tranche.

SYMBOL	Price	SHARES	PRICE PAID	Pct Chg
DLB	40.97	580	33.04	24.0%
KFY	22.72	1,436	18.95	19.9%
MSFT	36.56	661	31.92	14.5%
NSU	3.81	5,524	3.33	14.4%
UIS	32.10	1,001	24.52	30.9%
Total				20.8%
SYMBOL	Price	SHARES	PRICE PAID	Pct Chg
AAPL	519.68	2	497.91	4.4%
ABT	37.18	30	35.03	6.1%
BAH	18.34	50	19.19	-4.4%
MSFT	36.56	33	31.79	15.0%
CVI	36.72	25	42.67	-13.9%
CYOU	29.95	33	29.83	0.4%
LO	49.52	25	42.51	16.5%
NSU	3.81	300	3.36	13.4%
ORCL	37.19	33	32.73	13.6%
IQNT	11.03	125	7.86	40.3%
STX	49.52	25	39.52	25.3%
WNR	37.54	33	31.04	20.9%
GTIV	10.71	75	13.03	-17.8%
Total				9.2%

The five stocks I sold have all continued to do very well. IQNT is the best of the stocks I rejected and I had actually bought them and then chickened out.  Of course, when I chickened out, I bought AGX which is up 80% for me.

Here are the November stocks:

SYMBOL	Price	SHARES	PRICE PAID	Pct Chg
AAPL	519.68	37	527.28	-1.4%
ABC	66.54	500	69.23	-3.9%
LPS	37.30	840	34.26	8.9%
VIAB	81.92	405	80.94	1.2%
WU	15.63	1,570	16.40	-4.7%
Total				0.0%
SYMBOL	Price	SHARES	PRICE PAID	Pct Chg
AWRE	6.43	18.08	5.40	19.1%
CALL	13.75	8	12.23	12.4%
COH	47.56	1.9	53.88	-11.7%
CRUS	18.02	5.12	20.13	-10.5%
CSCO	22.67	4.6	21.46	5.6%
DHX	6.71	13.3	7.71	-13.0%
EBIX	14.12	7.54	13.27	6.4%
GTIV	10.71	8.77	11.24	-4.7%
LQDT	24.61	3.65	27.90	-11.8%
MNDO	2.06	57.14	2.00	3.0%
MSN	2.08	52.08	1.92	8.3%
NDZ	9.61	11.89	8.41	14.3%
NOC	114.97	0.91	109.82	4.7%
PBI	25.47	4.64	22.82	11.6%
PFMT	7.76	10.58	9.75	-20.4%
RFIL	6.51	10.65	9.95	-34.6%
SIMO	16.98	7.81	13.14	29.2%
VCLK	21.00	4.6	21.29	-1.4%
Total				0.4%

Very flattish. Certainly makes me feel good about my 8.8% return. AWRE and CALL were the two that I had actually bought (pre November 15th) and then chickened out the final day.  They would have both been decent choices (so far).

February Runoff and Rejects.

SYMBOL	Price	SHARES	PRICE PAID	Pct Chg
AAPL	519.68	2	500.66	3.8%
CA	32.17	31	32.08	0.3%
GA	11.13	91	11.01	1.1%
NUS	71.83	11	85.15	-15.6%
STRZA	28.87	36	27.98	3.2%
Total				-1.5%
SYMBOL	Price	SHARES	PRICE PAID	Pct Chg
AVG	16.40	618	16.18	1.4%
NSR	34.99	288	34.74	0.7%
CSCO	22.67	458	21.85	3.8%
GSOL	6.35	1,490	6.71	-5.4%
LQDT	24.61	424	23.56	4.5%
DHX	6.71	1,429	7	-4.1%
COH	47.56	210	47.64	-0.2%
EGL	39.30	259	38.54	2.0%
DGX	50.80	192	52.13	-2.6%
BAH	18.34	550	18.19	0.8%
PFMT	7.76	1,168	8.56	-9.3%
USNA	66.03	167	59.93	10.2%
LFVN	1.30	8,153	1.2265	6.0%
GPS	42.00	264	37.83	11.0%
AAPL	519.68	20	492.52	5.5%
Total				1.6%

Just one short week thus far. My picks are up 2.1% (helped by ATVI). As I mentioned yesterday, GPS was the one I had actually bought, but then swapped out later in the day as I reconsidered KLAC. We will see if I have sellers regret on that one.

Enough rambling. Have a great Sunday everyone!