Greetings From Switzerland

Live From Zurich

Typing on a Swiss computer. Pretty normal, though the Z and Y switch places on keyboard. I am also using Excel in German, it is a struggle.

Today is final day in big city. Tomorrow, I head into the mountains for a few days.  Things should start to chill out by then.

Tuesday was my first up day in a while. It was really assisted by strong earnings from CAMT. I sold CAMT early in the day, and at least for one day that was a good move.  My sale price was 4.20 (which was a 4% gain), but the stock actually finished the day at 3.94. I also began to sell my TUBE, but only sold a few shares at 10.15 (I had bought at 9.40). I will try to sell more today.

GTAT was down another 3.4% and is now down 30% since July 2nd.  It is no wonder I am struggling this month when largest holding down 30%.

My second largest holding, GNW, reported earnings last night. While they were ok, it seems that they are trading off problems.  The mortgage side is now making money (hooray), but the LTC side is struggling (boo). My key metric is book value per share.  And is went up in past year from 29.76 to 32.68. So that is about 10% growth. Excluding AOCI it went from 23.39 to 24.31. A smaller increase, but anyway you slice it, well in advance of 16.26 price.  It may take great patience for a catalyst to move GNW towards BV, but I have plenty of time.

RPXC, another very large holding for me also announced last night. To me, it was more of the same. They really seem stuck in neutral gear.  The issue to me seems it is costing them more and more dollars to support their business, so even when revenues increase (as they did this time), earnings dropped.  I am no longer much of a fan. I will hold for my one year proscribed period, but do not intend to re-enlist.

KLIC reported earnings on Tuesday morning, like CAMT they were very solid. This is another discretionary stock I will continue to hold until a catalyst comes to unlock the value of all their cash on balance sheet.