All posts by Tate Dwinnell

Swine Flu Stocks

According to StreetInsider.com, the following companies may benefit from protection, therapy and/or vaccination against swine flu.  Most of these are highly speculative so trade at your own risk.

Alpha Pro Tech (APT) – protects people with disposable protective apparel such as masks.

Generex Biotechnology (GNBT) – developing drug delivery systems.

Hemispherx BioPharma (HEB) – engaged in drug therapies for viral and immune based chronic disorders.

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (BCRX) – develops drugs that block enzymes involved in cancer, viral infections and autoimmune diseases.

AVI BioPharma (AVII)- developing of ribonucleic acid (RNA)-based drugs targeting a range of diseases.

Sanofi-Aventis (SNY) – pharmaceuticals and human vaccines through sanofi pasteur.

CombiMatrix Corporation (CBMX) – develops molecular diagnostics, nanotechnology and defense, and homeland security markets.

Gilead Sciences (GILD) – could benefit from TamaFlu sales.

Off the top of my head I can think of 3 companies that might be hurt by swine flu fears ..

Sanderson Farms (SAFM), Zhongpin (HOGS), Tyson Foods (TSN)

The airlines could very well be hit as well Alaska Airlines (ALK), AMR, Delta (DAL), Southwest (LUV), Continental (CAL), Allegiant (ALGT)

One Last Hoorah For the Bulls?

This week, I’ll keep it VERY brief with a short analysis of the charts.  As I mentioned in last week’s report, the market has shown signs of cracking up here, but going into next week bulls remain in control.  Just when it appears the market may follow through to the downside, buyers step into support this market. I thought there was a very good chance that traders would “sell the news” following the release of the stress test parameters but the market held in quite well all the way into the close.  The level I’ll be watching closely next week is that 875 level in the S&P which is an area of failure 3 times now.  Getting through there would be very bullish and signal a move to the 900 level.

42709_s&p500

The Nasdaq remains the most bullish of the major indices and continues to trade above that double bottom base breakout level around 1665.  I’ll be watching 1700 as potential resistance but that is really just minor psychological resistance.  It really looks like the Nasdaq wants to test that next major level of resistance around the 200 day moving average and November high around 1780 – 1800.  If we do hit that level, it would be a beauty of a spot to short this market with some aggression.

42709_nasdaq

The laggard is the Dow and it continues to have trouble with that downward trend line off  the Nov, Jan and April highs.  It hit that line again on Friday  before pulling back.

42609_dow

To sum up, this market has certainly shown some signs of weakening, but considering the strength of tech right now I believe there is a 50/50 chance of vaulting another 5% or so before a more pronounced correction can begin.  Get those watch lists of short opportunities together now so you’ll be ready! 

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Isn’t Time You Took Control of Your Financial Future?

The Self Investors Model Portfolio wrapped up 2006 with a gain of 27.6%, 2007 with a gain of 30.2%, finished nearly 35% ahead of the S&P in a very difficult 2008 and is off to a good start here in 2009, ahead of the S&P YTD performance by 5%.  This is a REAL portfolio with position sizing and not based on extrapolated hypothetical gains for each trade.  On average it beats the S&P by 20% per year. The result?

* Putting $100K into an S&P tracking index at the beginning of 2004 and you’re down more than $20K. 
* The Self Investors Model in the same time period would have more than doubled your money.  That’s the power of not buying and holding! 

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::: Best/Worst Performers :::

– Top 10 Performing Industries For the Week –

1. Textile Manufacturing: 22.45%
2. Resorts & Casinos: 17.80%
3. REIT – Hotel Motel: 16.95%
4. Silver: 13.60%
5. Paper & Paper Products:  12.35%
6. Office Supplies: 11.15%
7. Gold: 10.95%
8. Lumber & Wood Production: 10.60%
9. Hospitals: 10.00%
10. Small Tools & Accessories: 9.85%

– Top 10 Worst Performing Industries For the Week –

1. Research Services: -11.30%
2. Diagnostic Substances: -10.10%
3. Music & Video Stores: -9.60%
4. Farm Products: -8.75%
5. Surety & Title Insurance: -8.00%
6. Banks – Midwest: -6.75%
7. Copper: -6.40%
8. Banks – SE: -6.25%
9. Broadcasting Radio: -6.00%
10. Education & Training Services: -5.35%

– Top 5 Best Performing ETFs For the Week –
(excluding leveraged ETFs)

1. Market Vectors Gold Miners (GDX) 11.90%
2. iShares Silver (SLV) 8.50%
3. Claymore Global Timber (CUT) 8.25%
4. Central Fund of Canada (CEF) 7.70%
5. Market Vectors Nuclear Energy (NLR) 6.75%

– Worst 5 Performing ETF’s –

1. Herzfeld Caribbean Basin (CUBA) -16.05%
2. US Nat Gas (UNG) -12.80%
3. SPDR Series Trust (KBE) -7.55%
4. PowerShares Base Metals (DBB) -6.40%
5. SPDR Regional Banking (KRE) -4.95%

::: Upcoming Economic Reports (4/27/2009- 5/1/2009) :::

Monday:        None
Tuesday:       Consumer Confidence, Case/Shiller Home Price Index
Wednesday:  FOMC Rate Decision, GDP, Crude Inventories
Thursday:      Personal Income/Spending, Initial Claims, Chicago PMI
Friday:           Factory Orders, ISM Index, Auto/Truck Sales

::: Earnings I’m Watching This Week :::

Monday: Baidu.com (BIDU), BE Aerospace (BEAV), Compass Minerals (CMP), Grand Canyon Education (LOPE), Smith Intl (SII), Southwestern Energy (SWN), Tyler Technologies (TYL),

Tuesday: Amedisys (AMED),Deutsche Bank (DB), eHealth (EHTH), FPL Group (FPL), Icon (ICLR), Jacobs Engineering (JEC), Mead Johnson Nutrition (MJN), OptionsXpress (OXPS), Sociedad Quimica (SQM), Stericycle (SRCL), Vision China Media (VISN),

Wednesday: Akeena Solar (AKNS), China Offshore (CEO), First Solar (FSLR), Green Mountain Coffee (GMCR), Itron (ITRI), Rubicon (RBCN), Tetra Tech (TTEK), Trinity Industries (TRN), Visa (V),

Thursday: Athena Health (ATHN), Capella Education (CPLA), Compellant Technologies (CML), Comscore (SCOR),  Corinthian Colleges (COCO), Evergreen Solar (ESLR), Forrester Research (FORR), Genoptix (GXDX), Neutral Tandem (TNDM), SourceFire (FIRE), Strayer Education (STRA), TeleCommunication Systems (TSYS)

Friday: Flir Systems (FLIR), Mastercard (MA)

Industry Perspective: Process Control Systems Suppliers

By Guest Author: Robert Williams, PhD, P.E.

The thrust of this industry perspective is to identify system supplier companies active in oil/gas process plants and to highlight their future earnings and charts for potential investment by our readers. The companies listed below are all international conglomerates that also provide process control systems for all the other industries as well. Therefore, their potential earnings are more dependent on the global economy rather than the oil/gas industry in particular.

Refineries, petro-chemical plants and all oil/gas processing facilities are extremely hazardous, i.e. explosive, processes because of the petroleum products and the very high pressures and temperatures involved in these processes. To this extent the industry has established stringent standards as to the safety of instrumented systems in order to protect personnel, environment and the process plant. In order to provide normal process control a distributed process control system (DCS) is engineered to provide central control of each process unit within the plant, e.g. refinery. In order to provide overall emergency shutdown of each process unit and the complete plant a safety instrumented system (SIS) is engineered for each unit. The SIS is a physically separate system from the DCS and generally utilizes dual or triple modular redundancy techniques to provide the extra reliability and availability in the event of process upset condition arising. Another process protection layer is provided by utilizing relief valves to relieve any high pressures that may arise during an upset condition.

Continue reading Industry Perspective: Process Control Systems Suppliers

Rally Shows a 2nd Crack, S&P Has Trouble At 875 But Bulls Remains In Control

Everyone wants to know.. how long can the rally last.  It’s the same question that was being asked on the other side just one month ago.  How low can we go and for how long?  The market always seems to remain irrational longer than you think it will and that has certainly played out over the first quarter here in 2009.  To help answer these questions, I always turn to the charts to gauge areas of support/resistance as well institutional demand.  Admittedly, technical analysis has been considerably difficult in an environment of rumors, manipulation, intervention and extreme levels of fear and greed, but what it does and will always do well is provide an x-ray into the health or weakness of the market.  In general, slices through support and weakness at resistance indicates a deteriorating market while surges above resistance and at support indicate good market strength.

Market strength has certainly been on display over the past 6 weeks with 6 straight up weeks.  Strength was on display when the S&P easily moved above resistance at 750.  It was on display once again when the S&P moved quickly above resistance at 800 and again when it came back to find support at 800 and yet again when it took out the downward trend off the Oct and Jan highs around 840.  Now the S&P faces another test of its strength at 875 which is an area where it formed a double top in late January and early February.  Does the S&P have the kind of momentum now that it did back at 750 or 800? In a word – no.

Continue reading Rally Shows a 2nd Crack, S&P Has Trouble At 875 But Bulls Remains In Control

China’s Economy Still Robust, But Concerns Remain

china economy China’s economy remains very strong chugging along with 6.1% GDP growth in the 1st quarter, but dropped from the 6.8% growth in the 4th quarter 08.  It’s hard to believe that 6.1% is the weakest quarterly growth since quarterly numbers were tracked beginning in 1992.  It certainly indicates the staggering growth of China’s economy over the past decade. 

Credit Suisse analyst Dong Tao views the number positively, but cautioned that China isn’t out of woods as exports remain relatively weak.  Up to this point, the government’s stimulus to spur domestic demand and increasing investments in fixed assets has been been able to offset much of the weakness in exports to the US, Japan and Europe, but it will take a few more quarters to determine if they will be able to continue to do so.  Banks in China have already issued $670 billion in the 1st quarter which is more than 90% of the target for the entire year.

“The government’s rapid easing of credit and rollout of infrastructure projects has bolstered [fixed-asset investment], helping offset decreased investment by export manufacturers and property developers,” J.P. Morgan said

Rosetta Stone (RST) IPO Prices

rosetta stone ipo The IPO market continues to heat up with the Rosetta Stone (RST) IPO pricing tonight at $18, above the expected range of $15 – 17, raising $112.5 million.  The relatively small size of the float, combined with a lack of publicly traded competitors allowed the company to command a higher price.  It begins trading tomorrow under the ticker RST on the NYSE.  Rosetta Stone is a leading provider of technology based learning language instruction solutions that consists of software, online tools and audio/visual tools.

According to the regulatory filing, Rosetta’s revenues rose 52% last year to 209.4 million over 2007.  In 2005 the company reported revenues of $48 million, jumping to $90 million in 2006 so this is a company with tremendous growth in the past few years.  In 2007 the company moved its headquarters to Arlington, VA, expanded into international markets, hired 60 employees at headquarters and recently began rolling out high profile ads featuring Michael Phelps in preparation for the IPO.

1st Day of Distribution In a Month, Rally Shows Cracks

With the Nasdaq hitting key resistance around the Jan highs in the past few days, cracks appeared in the massive March/April rally today with the first day of distribution in nearly a month.  The “sell the news” move in Goldman (GS) today and likely Intel (INTC) tomorrow is telling.  One day of higher volume selling won’t derail this rally and bulls remain in control for now, but as I mentioned in my report to members last night, the long side is increasingly becoming a dangerous place to play. 

Here’s a look at the daily chart of the Nasdaq with 3 things standing out to me – the test of resistance at the Jan highs, the sharp V shaped bear market rally off the March lows and the overbought conditions as revealed by stochastics.  It all adds up to fertile ground for shorting opportunities!

Continue reading 1st Day of Distribution In a Month, Rally Shows Cracks

Ebay Announces Skype IPO For 2010

skype ipo The IPO market really is heating up!  Just one after selling back StumbleUpon to its founders, Ebay just announced that early next year it will spin off Skype if market conditions have improved in order to recoup some of the $2.6 billion it spent for Skype nearly 4 years ago.  Many had questioned the move back then and with these plans Ebay is officially recognizing its mistake and will look to focus on its core businesses Ebay and Paypal. 

Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis have been reportedly gathering private equity capital to initiate a buy back of Skype for about $1 billion so perhaps this announcement is negotiating leverage.  Either way it’s a good move for Ebay which was trading up a bit in after hours trading. 

Continue reading Ebay Announces Skype IPO For 2010

Changyou.com (CYOU) China IPO A Return to Glory Days

A couple weeks ago I highlighted the NIVS Intellimedia (NIV) IPO which brought back memories of the high ,flyin China IPO days of a couple years ago.  Considering the IPO market has been absolutely dead over the past year it was good to see a fast growing company come to market.  I still think that NIVS Intellimedia will take off any day now, particularly with the amount of momentum the China plays have been seeing so pay attention to it.

changyou.com cyou ipo While I was on vacation another China IPO hit the market – ChangYou.com (CYOU) which was a spinoff from Sohu (SOHU).  The developer of multi user role playing video games priced at $14 – $16/share on April 2nd and has been off to the races ever since, nearly doubling.  No way I’d be chasing this especially in this overbought market, but like NIVS Intellimedia it’s another one to put on your IPO radar.

The company really took off last year posting record revenues of about $200 million (a big pop after reporting revenues of $42 million in 2007), primarily from its martial arts game Tian Long Ba Bu which launched in May of 2007 and is the 3rd most popular online game in China.  The game is free but users must purchase a pre-paid game card used to upgrade characters by buying new weapons and other virtual goods.

Despite the massive growth of ChangYou.com, this is one IPO that carries considerable risk with 94% of its revenues coming from one game.  That being said, the growth is massive and any pull backs from lofty levels may offer a decent trading opportunity.