MoneyMiser Picks

A trader's market leaves me clueless

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Oil whipsaws the market up and down like a teeter totter. This is a market for traders, not investors.

Which leaves me pretty much down and out. We have to hold too many stocks for my liking in this contest, in a volatile market where day to day changes favor those who move quickly.

I'm just not experienced enough to see beyond 2 or 3 opportunites currently, while the top players have the foresight.

Persoanlly, I'd rather only have about 4-5 stocks in my portfolio right now (GRMN, ISRG, KWK, DKS, KSS), if I had to start from scratch today. All are undervalued, and have promise if their growth falls within analyst expectations.

Stocks I'd keep on my radar for attractive entry points: GS (Below $165), CSCO (Below $24), INTC (below $21), V (when it falls below $80 again), USB (When I figure out why a so-called conservative bank is getting knocked down).

I've pretty much proven that I don't understand certain stocks as well as I thought. TSO, MSFT, NVDA, GE, PFE, NTRI, and NYX all fit that bill. Of course this is all relatively short-term reuslts (4 months is hardly conclusive), and I may turn out to be correct with a longer time-frame. However, within the confines of this game, I did not perform well enough. I have no one but myself to blame.

What I find intriguing is that my longer term portfolio I'm also running on Marketocracy, is positive. For that one, I sold half of my AAPL position when it broke $185 back on May 12th. I then got out of AAPL all-together at $188 the next day. I also sold part of my EMC and CSCO positions on May 13th. I made large bets on all three stocks, and did well on them.

Now I'm mulling whether to dump my CVX position when it goes above $100 again, and whether to dump JEC. Both positions are up 23%+ since I bought them.

Just goes to show I have a lot more to learn.

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2 Best of breed stocks in bargin bin

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Amazing what falls in the stock market sometime. What if I told you that two best of breed companies we're offering you a more than 50% discount on what their fair value estimated prices were?

Well we've got such a situation, thanks to the fears being force fed to us about the economy going down the toilet.

They are Garmin and MGM Mirage.

The case for GRMN:

The premiere name in GPS devices. They put competitors like Tom-Tom to shame. And really, who believes those God awful commercials from Tom-Tom actually helps Tom-Tom's bottom line. Forget Tom-Tom, or Sue-Sue, or whatever name you want to double... give-a-give a Garmin. Makes it much simpler to get your idea across.

Garmin won't be dragged into a price war because of the quality of their product. The company also makes money off of selling its GPS technology to cell phone makers.

Then there's the financial side. And boy does Garmin impress. Book value per share has climbed from 78 cents per share in 1998 to $10.83 per share in 2007. And Return on Equity has never dipped below 22% in the past decade. Garmin's ROIC in the past 5 years average is 34.5%, which is more than four times the industry average, and more than three times the S&P 500 average.

With numbers like that, Garmin can't be trading below fair value can it? Oh Mr. Market is having another one of his manic depressions over this GPS giant. Current fair value estimate, given it's current earnings, projected average growth rate, and an average past P/E for 10 years is approximately $116. It's selling at $50 per share as of end of Friday trading, and that's AFTER an $8 per share move from Monday!!! So yes, it's up nearly 20% in a week, but it has a lot more room to grow.

The case for MGM:

Fair value estimates for this stock given it's current earnings, projected average growth rate, and an average past P/E for 10 years is approximately $111. From that level, it should hit a target price of $444 in 10 years, averaging about 15% compounded ROI (minus expenses of investing and taxes).

Then you've got the properties. Macau, the Bellagio, the MGM Grand, and several new international hotels/casinos including a new Middle East venture. This company can thrive when the U.S. market slows down thanks to its international exposure.

Then there's the book value and Return on Equity story. In the past ten years, book value per share has increased from $4.63 per share in 1998 to $20.63 per share as of 2007. In five of the past six years, Return on Equity has been more than 10%, and increased the past five straight years.

MGM's longer track record and success as a public company, makes it a more stable name to invest in than it's bigger competitors Wynn or Harrah's.

Both GRMN and MGM have three key technials in common:

1. Both recently crossed above their 30 day moving average
2. Both of their Stochastic oscillators are surging. MGM above 50, and GRMN crossed above 80.
3. Both MACD divergences are approaching 0. And the trend looks positive.

So I'm buying both for my SLO2 account and my longer term Marketrocracy account.

Other new positions:

Citibank's drop back below $24 per share has me buying in. This is purely for a value TRADE. I predict at least a 15% return within a month.

Pfizer dropped below $20 per share. The last time this happened, Prizer shot up above $22 quickly (like it was injected with Viagra or something... lol). I don't see why it won't do it again. Heck PFE below $20 is a great long term investment for both the dividend, and turnaround potential.

I added more to my Visa position on the dips this past week. I still feel Visa has tremendous long term potential.

Holding on to: WDC, YUM, BHI, INTC, BUD, MSFT, NTRI, CSCO, DNA, VZ, GE, SIRI, TSO.

Selling HUM, AMAT, MO, PM, ESLR, MRK to free up cash to buy GRMN & MGM. Also, because I just don't understand these stocks enough.

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Freeing up some cash

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Buying Visa on pullback today, over "credit card crackdown." People are still paying with plastic more and more, and Visa will still get its transaction fees from it. This stock continues to go up, and I see it following Mastercard's lead all the way to $150+ per share.

Taking profits in several stocks:

Selling all of my ACI. It's up 24% since I bought it. Dollar getting stronger may impact it.

Trimmed positions in PCP, CSCO, INTL, and BHI to free up cash.

Sold off half of my position in PCP after 17% advance. Still like them long term.

Sold off 1,000 shares each of Cisco & Intel, after they finally turned positive. This equals about ¼ of my position in both. CSCO of course had a wonderful rally Friday, making it up 10% overall for me. Intel, I was a bit late selling into strength, but it's still up 7% for me since I bought in.

BHI, I sold about 1/3rd of my position due to the drop in the oil services sector. I had a funny feeling that when BHI crossed 20% gains for me that it was going to fall. I should've acted on that feeling. BHI still up 14% for me since I bought it though.

Dark times for my solar picks:

LDK the only one of the 4 stocks in the black, up 4% since I bought in.
--AMAT, down 2%
--SOLF , down 12%
--ESLR down 21%

Overall, I think I poorly timed my entry into these.

What I bought into recently:

Got long some bio-pharma. Genetech (DNA) is nearing support level. Building a position between $65-70.

More MO. Altria dropped a bit recently, so I bought in. MO has got get up and go.

KALU. Kaiser saw some retracement, and it's a Karen Finerman favorite on Fast Money. It's got the commodities play, and airline backlog story going for it.

GE. I bought $50,000 worth on the day it got obliterated by the earnings news. Guess what, it's back up. Gee, who didn't see that coming.

WDC. PC sales up equal good news for the hard drive maker. I'm up 5% since my buy-in. I think it has room to go higher with the shifting of money from commodity plays to Tech.

Holding on to:

YUM - Still yummy, but not moving much. Still up 17% since I bought in, and that's damn good.

VZ - Verizon starting to gain some momentum. May sell this soon to take profits. Up 11% so far.

NTRI - I told you Nutri-System would rebound. Wish I had bought in at $14. Still up since I got back in it though, and it has A LOT of room to go higher. Heck, they've even got Larry the Cable Guy doing ads for them now. Get 'er done!

BUD - The king of beers is grinding away higher. Up 6% since I bought in.

HUM - Slowly starting to rebound from the health stock obliteration in March.

TSO - I think it can, I think it can, I think it can... Summer driving season approaching, crack spreads narrowing a bit more this week, and Lenny Dykstra even saying it a value play! Come on folks, like Citi at $20, Tesoro at $25 is a STEAL!!! You're looking at a likely double, and even more likely 50-75% advance from current levels within 12-18 months.

MSFT - Wow, a roller coasted for Mr. Softy. Late today it came out that Microsoft will more than likely RAISE its price for Yahoo! We'll see what this does next week, but short-term I think it's more beneficial for YAHOO! Shareholders than MSFT. Still, MSFT below $30 is a lead-pipe lock BUY

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Bet on Black (Coal), Solar Goes Dark

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Sold ICO because it reversed its run, still gained me 20% plus. Looks like profit takers killed the price action today (Wendesday).

Holding on to my stake in Arch Coal. A 6-month chart shows strong technicals (higher highs) to go along with the fundamentals and forecasted higher earnings projections. But we're approaching the 52-week high. Will Arch Coal see a pull back within the next month, giving us another entry point to buy into, and surge past its old 52-week high? I think it will surge past the current 52-week high.

Holding onto to BHI, YUM, MSFT, CSCO, INTC.

BHI up 20%+ since I bought it. As long as oil keeps going up, and BHI has backlog of work, it should say strong. I bet some profit taking will happen soon though.

YUM remains yummy, up 17%+ since I bought it. Got to love the international growth story here.

MSFT finally starting to power up. Stock finally got back over $30 mark, then above $31 in intraday trading Wednesday. More than 14% of my portfolio is in MSFT, and I'm happy with the big bet for now.

CSCO also starting to turn around. I had to keep dollar cost averaging this one, and ended up with about 11% of my portfolio in it. I may trim a bit to take some profits, but feel tech's resurgence is coming. The global wireless internet story is too compelling for CSCO not to get a big boost from its router biz for it.

INTC I may also trim a bit here, as it's at 10.5% of my portfolio. I'm not certain on the short-term (meaning for the contest) direction for the stock price. Long-term (1-5 years) I believe Intel will gradually climb, with a price target of between $35-40 by 2012. Chips will rebound when the next big tech breakthrough happens, and Intel is generally at the forefront of it.

Apple - I was correct and incorrect about Apple. I was correct when I sold it around $155, because of the short-term decline to $148. I was incorrect in how much Apple shares would fall. So far, about $10-13 per share wrong. By the end of this year, I see Apple spiking and falling between the $180 and $120 mark it set. I think we have a 3-month or so trading range forming, barring some type of strong catalyst (I.E. iPhone getting legally into China, or a massive sales surge of Macs and iBook/MacAir laptops)

Refiners (TSO) - OK, if a fundamental story for the refiners is NOT setting the table, then I don't know what is. Gasoline inventories down 3+ billion, RBOB selling at $3+, refining capacity at 85%, and SUMMER DRIVING SEASON IS NEARLY UPON US!!! Americans will drive, no matter what happens. The obliteration of Tesoro's stock price make no sense whatsoever to me. The last time Tesoro was this low was in the 2nd half of 2006, and it did not stay below $30 for long. You half to go back to the first half of 2005 before finding an extended trading range below $30 for TSO. This stock was a $60+ stock less than six months ago, before sliding down a vertical knife-edge drop (think Jon Stewart and the Daily Show's "Crisis in the Chartland" graphic). A P/E of 6.66 may be a devilish sign though. Long term, I'm EXTREMELY bullish on TSO.

Valero has not suffered quite as poorly as Tesoro, but a 33% drop in stock price may cause a few double takes. Others will argue that VLO is now trading near its bottoms from late 2006 and early 2007. Their P/E of 6.80 is slightly higher than TSO's, but VLO is more integrated. I'm not sure if I would put it in the same category as Hess or Conoco Phillips though.

Solar goes dark? - Well, my 4 solar plays have not done so well since I bought them. LDK, SOLF, AMAT, ESLR are all down, with ELSR being the poorest performer of the group. Perhaps I mis-timed the purchases. Long term, solar is a real story. And I agree with much of what has been written about the challenges of making solar wafers thin and cheap enough that collect enough energy to make it profitable. Short-term, I more than likely mistimed the volatility. Perhaps they will rebound soon with oil nearing $120 per barrel.

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Apple ripe for a worm; FCX to get shafted

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After making 25% on my shares of APPL and FCX, I'm selling them all. I got out of Apple before the close Monday, and I'm sellng my Freeport on the open Tuesday.

Why sell Apple? Too much hype over 3G iPhone has driven the price up quickly. I'm taking advantage of that speculation to cash in. I expect Apple to trade back down to an entry point of 125-130 in a month or so, and then I may think about getting back in. Jeff Macke also made a good point on CNBC's Fast Money, when he said (paraphrasing) a little pullback in Apple would be good for all of us.

Why sell FCX? Look at the technicals. A 6 month chart shows FCX is nearing or at a quadrouple top just below $110. Now some may interpret this as a potential breakout signal. To those folks, I say look at Monday's price action. FCX open spiked a few % above it's Friday close, and it became a slow profit-taking sell off. If the 6 month chart technicals hold (barring some outside event), I think FCX will churn for a while in the range of $92-108. I'm not certain what will cause a breakout higher, aside from massive inflation, devaluation of the U.S. dollar, or a world copper shortage. All of the good news is probably priced into FCX stock price for the near term. I think we'll see a slow pull back, maybe to 100 within the next 2 weeks.

I wish I could sit on the sidelines with a bunch of cash right here, but the rules of the game don't allow me to do so.

So I bought into two sectors that saw mostly a slight sell-off Monday. Solar and Coal.

Solar I targeted LDK, ESLR, SOLF, and AMAT. With Applied Materials I added to an existing small position that's so far been a loser. I think with oil increasingly hovering around $110,a nd realistically threatening to break through soon, Solar could be set to breakout. Both LDK and SOLF just reported big, good news. ESLR has seen positive momentum in the options market, according to Pete Najarian on CNBC's Fast Money. Both ESLR and AMAT have not received the recent momentum surge though that other solar names got last week. So those 2 are more of a laggard play.

In the coal names, ACI saw a sell off today. I think it was just slight trader profit taking, and Arch Coal should rebound on the dip. Then there's ICO. Carter Worth made a strong technical argument for ICO getting ready to make a breakout on a taped segment on Fast Money Monday. Since this is a game, it's worth taking a $10,000 flyer on. Not much risk, and one can further cut that risk with a tight stop at $6 from the current price of just under $7.

YUM continues to be a solid performer for me. Up 12% since I bought the stock. International growth and sales staying strong. China loves the Colonel's chicken. Who can blame them?

Baker-Hughes (BHI) finally starting to perform like I had hoped. I think it's underperfoming Schlumberge though, so I may turn out to be wrong on my valuation momentum guess.

Then there are the stocks that should be moving but keep falling for me.

Oh Tesoro, why oh why won't you rise? Gas prices rising, Crack spread narrowing, Summer driving season rapidly approaching, a low P/E ratio, what else do I have to say? If this were for the long term I'd be adding up to about $35 per share then holding on till it got back up to $50+. I prefer TSO over VLO for the low P/E, and larger gains possible from a big fast move in this contest.

Also wrong so far, my bet for a big rebound by Humana.

Stocks that are churning: MSFT, GE, CSCO. I still like all 3. GE may be set for a pull back though.

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Bad timing

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Well that's 2 days in a row where orders didn't execute at the price I wanted. And my Morgan Stanley trade suffered because of it. I don't see the financials rebounding in the short-term from the profit taking today, so I'm selling MS.

Well looks like Jeff Macke was correct on GLD. I was wrong. Dennis Gartman is major league worried, so I'm dumping my GLD.

There are a couple of intesting trades to be had due to stocks nearing their 52 week lows:

Verizon & Merck.

Verizon's news that they'll open their network up to more devices may be a long term bullish move, given their video downloading dominance. I'll but on that news.

Merck, well it's been beaten down, and due for a short-term turnaround. Pete Najarian likes it as well. So I'm in for a little bit of Merck as well.

FCX is interesting because of the pummeling it took todya as well. Guy Adami said on Fast Money that the psat few times FCX dipped into the 80s it was a buy. With an 11% move down just today, I think that offers a nice speculative cushion to begin building a position. I'm dipping my toes for $10,000 of FCX in the SLO2.

Which is more intersting: Monsanto down nearly 12%, or Potash down nearly 11%? Either way, they're starting to come down to buyable levels.

Down seems to be a recurring theme, so I'am beginning a DOG position. I should've put it on yesterday, but oh well.

Altria looks like it might be a fairly safe defensive play here around $70. So I'm in.

Also, BUD looks like its getting close to turning the corner. I'll double down on my BUD position.

I'm not certain if I should be disappointed in myself for not selling my YUM position today. It lost half of what it's earned for me today, but everything is volatile as heck these days.

I also spotted what I believe to be a bit of a bargain in a forum favorite. Sirius dropped to $2.75 last week. And just about any time it dips below $3 it's a buy, so I'm in for a little bit, nothing too much though.

I think I've identified a trading range for Ford as well. I'm waiting for a triple confirmation signal before getting in though.

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