Monday, January 28, 2008

Winners & Losers

WINNERS

AQI.TO.....+9%
PNP.TO.... +16%
NTRZ...... +100%

Detroit Red Wings W 37 L 10 Pts 78 First Place NHL (Ottawa 2nd Place 66 Pts)

LOSERS

Jim Cramer's Portfolio -8% YTD (But he's ahead of S&P, -9%)

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Dines Buy Signal

At about 11:20 MT today (1:20 ET) Jim Dines issued a Buy Signal via an email to his Interim Warning Bulletin subscribers. He said, in relevant part,

"But on a deeper level, the Mass Psychology is so negative
that it activates DINOPA into the counter-intuitive
conclusion that when the news is at its worst is when the market
delights in reversing to the upside."



Whether or not today's rally will have any carry through or not is yet to be seen. But the timeliness of this signal, even for a day-trade, was pretty damn impressive.

A

Rick Santelli Takes Down Jim Cramer

From my friend Kirk Lindstrom's web site, Cramer caught lying through his teeth by Rick Santelli:

Rick Santelli Takes Down Jim Cramer

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

What Happened

From my friend Tom Drake's very fine web site, his analysis of what just happened in the markets and what it portends for the weeks and months ahead:

It's 1998 all over again...

A

Two Speculative Metal Stocks

AQI.TO - Aquiline Resources

According to Jim Dines, Aquiline has, "One of the greatest silver deposits on the planet: 453 million-contained oz and 153 million contained oz inferred."

There are about 52MM shares outstanding, trading at $8.90/share. Silver is trading at $16.10/oz. Let's assume they are sitting on 500MM oz of silver. You do the math, I'm already in.

PNP.TO - Pinetree Capital

"Pinetree is a diversified investment, financial advisory and merchant banking firm focused on the small cap market. Pinetree's investments are primarily in the resources sector: Oil & Gas, Uranium, Precious Metals and Base Metals."

PNP is selling at about $3 a share, down from a 52 week high of $16.15. It is essentially a play on uranium, owning a collection of geographically diversified uranium companies and mines across the globe, i.e. Nuclear Power, but also has exposure to other metals and commodity interests and like Aquiline, is another favorite of Jim Dines.

As with Aquiline, I already own some Pinetree.

A

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

I Come To Praise Cramer, Not To Bury Him

Watching Jim Cramer's TV show today, it is only fair that with all my past criticism of him in this blog, that I give credit to him where credit is due. He opened today's (Tuesday) show with an excellent diatribe against Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve for fiddling on their collective academic phalanges (my metaphor, not Cramer's) while the stock market crashes and burns.

Cramer's condemnation was spot on, as this market topped in mid October, about the time the credit crisis became apparent to everyone, that is everyone except Helicopter Ben and his merry elves. Those of you who took my advice and read Alan Greenspan's, The Age of Turbulence could not help but realize that with all his faults and oblique rants filled with murky economic theory, a/k/a Greenspeak, Greenspan knew his number one responsibility was preserving economic growth in our economy and not treating it like chips on a craps table as a side bet on a random roll of the dice.

Cramer is calling this a bear market, a Bernanke directed bear market. I am not so sure as market internals are at levels seen at major market bottoms, implying that 3, 6 and 12 months from now stock prices will be higher, maybe much, much higher. But I do agree with my friend Jim, that the carnage we have seen since mid-October can be placed at the feet of the one keeper of our economic lifeblood that is charged with keeping the patient alive, the very unworthy and now discredited successor of Alan Greenspan.

So for this moment, I come to praise Cramer, not to bury him. That will come later.

A

Cramer bailing on Citigroup

Jim Cramer is finally throwing in the towel on his Citigroup shares. He purchased C earlier in 2007 for an average cost basis of $53.47. Holding the shares all the way down, today he has finally seen the light and is recommending it's sale. At about $27 a share, that would be a realized loss of about 50%. Mad Money, indeed.

A

Monday, January 14, 2008

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

This has been a difficult market for me, so I am assuming it has been just as if not more difficult for other traders. Still, we have had our small victories sprinkled amid the carnage. But today, in addition to the rally, there was another sign of hope that things may be turning around.

With a little less then 2 hours left in the trading day, I received a Buy signal on CVP, then trading at $10.84. By the close of regular trading, CVP had hit as high as $12.00.

This is a significant move for two reasons. First, it was a move of about 11% in less then two hours. More importantly (yes, more important then 11% in two hours!) it marked a return to day-trading signals playing out in the manner to which they should. CVP is not stock on the everyone's trading list, in fact, it was until this signal, virtually invisible. The pop played out as it was supposed to, price, volume, pop, and strong close, as close to perfect as I have come to expect from these plays and a far cry from the struggles of the past few weeks and months.

One successful day trade does not an "all clear" make, not in and of itself. But if things are indeed turning back to normal, we are going to have a great few months ahead.

I'm looking for DEPO to gap-up tomorrow (subject to pre-market news, from Citibank in particular). If it does, it will be another step on the path to normalcy, which for my trading is short and sweet pops in selected stocks throughout the trading day.

No change in positive opinion on our recent longer-term selections, NTRZ, ACTC, FRG, ARWR and AGEN.

A

Saturday, January 12, 2008

AGEN

Several years ago I co-authored a book named, "Confirmatory Analysis," in which I presented some simple ways to buy stocks that go up. One way is unfolding in the shares of Antigenics.

First, significant insider buying at a premium to current shares prices (with warrants to buy even more at the same premium prices);

Second, a very nice bottoming pattern on the daily chart, followed by a price break-out.

I was buying AGEN on Friday and will look to add more this coming week.

A

Friday, January 11, 2008

Advanced Cell Technology

ACTC's market cap is about $20MM.

Other biotechnology companies that represent what ACTC could be valued at because they are similarly tied into stem cell research:

(1) STEM - Market Cap $110MM

(2) GERN - Market Cap $400MM

(3) Industry Average Market Cap = $141MM


Rough back-of-the-envelope analysis, I know, but sometimes you need this kind of perspective to ask yourself why you are buying a 20-25 cent stock.

A

Thursday, January 10, 2008

ACTC

Advanced Cell Technology Announces Creation of Human Embryonic Stem Cell Lines Without the Destruction of Embryos


-Breakthrough Approach Improves Efficiency to Levels Reported in the Conventional Stem Cell Derivation Techniques-

At about 20 cents a share, a worthy speculation.

A

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

FRG

FRG has about doubled since I wrote it up in this blog, a little over one year ago. FRG was then ostensibly a play on uranium, which is itself a play on nuclear power, which is in turn a play on world economic growth, global warming and peak oil.

But the recent relative strength in FRG is probably related to the recognition that it is also a play on gold.

FRG is one of my few buy and holds for 2008.

A

Friday, January 04, 2008

NTRZ

Now up 120% in about two weeks, with the market tanking the whole time.


The Anti-Cramer

Thursday, January 03, 2008

Undiscovered Solar Play

In early 2006 I wrote up Arrowhead Research about 25% higher then current prices. This one has been a disappointment, so far. That may be changing and here's why:

One of the hottest sectors in the current market environment is Solar. Just about anything Solar has been red hot lately. So what does Arrowhead have to do with this sector?

Solar Cells

It is not unusual for the major players to lead a move, but for the bullishness to eventually ripple into the smaller cap names in the sector that may be flying under the radar but have a lucrative franchise just waiting to be discovered.

Additionally, Arrowhead has an R&D pipeline across a wide spectrum of biotechnology and nanotechnology applications.

At a modest market cap just under $140MM, Arrowhead Research is worth holding if you are still in and worth doing some due diligence if you are not yet a shareholder.

A

I'm Back

Google had temporarily frozen this Blog while they were investigating a complaint about content. Someone or something apparently didn't want me publishing my opinions, thoughts and/or the truth about some of my favorite subjects. They accused AllAllan as being a "Spam" blog. Kind of like Cramer spams his charitable trust to generate subscription revenue for his company, you know, the one where he is the majority shareholder.

It took Google 24 hours to "investigate" and restore posting privileges. But their practice of shooting first and asking questions later doesn't make any sesne. They could have read the Blog first and realized it did not violate any of their definitions of spam.

Who would want to silence The Anti-Cramer and who would have enough status and power to bully Google to act first and ask questions later?

It doesn't reflect well on Google, but is certainly consistent with a certain little Napoleon, who in the words of Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men, "Can't handle the truth."

Well, I am back and more motivated then ever.

A