Feb

12

Daily Market Wrap 12FEB08

February 12, 2008 | 5 Comments

Key economic data: retail sales for the week up 0.6% Y/Y

Key market moves: Dow up 1.1%, S&P up 0.75%, Nasdaq unchanged; oil down 81 cents to $92.78; gold down $15 to $911; lumber down 2.3% to 228

Commentary: As far as the equity markets go, we’re still just sort of sputtering along with modest volume and a tendency to sell rallies. Looking at the internals and the slow drift downward in the VIX, there are definitely some positive signs out […]

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Feb

12

Sold HZO puts, adding more CHCG

February 12, 2008 | 1 Comment

This morning I decided to sell my remaining position in HZO puts at a premium of $1.95. After seeing this quarter’s results and the reaction to the numbers, I’m beginning to think that while the fundamentals remain bad here, the bulk of the downside is already priced in.

Additionally, I continued to add to my position in CHCG, increasing the position by about 30% at $2.69. I’m now beginning to really stake a claim here, simply because […]

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Feb

6

Cutting exposure to the inflation trade and switching to value

February 6, 2008 | 1 Comment

Today I spent the bulk of the trading day cutting my exposure to the inflation trade that I’d put on. My baseline reasoning is that oil has been the key driver behind inflation, but today’s oil inventory report was very bearish for the market and resulted in some technical damage as oil dropped below the $87 support level intraday. Although oil barely managed to climb back above $87, I believe that the technical damage has been done, and […]

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Feb

4

Adding to CHCG position

February 4, 2008 | 1 Comment

This afternoon I decided to add further to my position in CHCG, increasing the position by 20% at $3.01. This still isn’t a huge part of my portfolio, but I continue to see weakness in the stock as an opportunity to buy ahead of Q4 earnings. I’m comfortable holding this stock longer term barring some unforeseen change in the fundamentals.

Jan

28

Sold 10% of RIC, increased CHCG position by 50%

January 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment

This afternoon I decided to sell just a bit of my position in RIC at $3.24. After taking a harder look at my portfolio, I was getting a bit overzealous with position sizing, and felt that cutting the position down slightly would give my portfolio a bigger margin of safety against volatility. It continues to be my biggest holding and I continue to like the stock into fourth quarter earnings, which I expect will take the market by […]

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Jan

15

Today’s trades

January 15, 2008 | 1 Comment

I made a number of mostly small moves today, so I’m going to go down the line and quickly go over the changes to the portfolio.

GLD–I shorted a moderate amount of the GLD today at $90.00. I was looking for gold to open up again to play the fade that I talked about yesterday. It opened pretty much as I scripted it, and so I entered a short that at the moment appears to be very well executed. […]

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Oct

4

Taking profits in CHCG

October 4, 2007 | Leave a Comment

This afternoon I decided to use the impressive strength in CHCG shares to book my profits and exit my position in the stock at $4.77. While the stock remains an impressive grower and very reasonably priced, I have made very significant gains by buying the stock down in the $3.80 level over the past few weeks. Given the large size of my position, I believe the best course of action is to book the gains and increase my […]

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Oct

3

Taking some profits and cutting exposure in CHCG

October 3, 2007 | Leave a Comment

This morning I decided to take some profits and cut my exposure by 45% of my position in CHCG at $4.50. I continue to like the company and believe it is a solid long term holding, but with the stock up about 20 percent from where I increased my position last week and given the fact that it is my largest holding, it is best to be prudent here and pare back the position into the recent strength. […]

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Sep

26

Portfolio rotation: AVAV, GS, CHCG trade alerts

September 26, 2007 | Leave a Comment

This morning I decided to significantly alter the composition by making a few quick moves. First, I added a sizeable position in AVAV early this morning at $22.97. I will withhold my comments on the stock for a later post, but this is a very interesting defense play that is showing very strong action of late.

Additionally, I decided to sell my entire stake in GS and rotate the position into CHCG. This was simply a case of […]

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Sep

20

Market overreaction on China3C creating an opportunity

September 20, 2007 | Leave a Comment

Investors in China3C (CHCG) have been taking it on the chin in the last few weeks as the company announced that financiers decided to abandon a recently agreed upon PIPE in the company. However, the recent conference call to discuss the issue provided some justification for the cancellation on the basis of market conditions. Specifically, the turbulent market dropped CHCG’s stock price to the point where the investors were no longer receiving a substantial discount for the PIPE, […]

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