Not Too Much Lower Please?

Friday March 7 2008 928AM
Below 12,000?
The market has some thinking a bottom has been placed, but not yet. Today, we are below 12,000 and virtually everything is trading lower. The short sell of SHLD has held up, and we are holding this position below 97. Many companies are now trading below book value. They are not trading off of fundamentals, but trading by market reaction. Bear Stearns (BSC) is one example of being hurt by being a financial stock. Two companies I have taken a holding in are (PALM) and (AKAM). Palm makes cell phones and I believe their marketing strategy of offering their new gadget, The Centro, at a cheaper price will pay dividends. Akamai Technologies seems to be trading up after earlier in the week winning its patent suit over Limelight. Going into the weekend I am taking some profits off of the table and letting my new holdings ride.
One more idea to think about is shorting (ABK) Ambac Financial Group. They just had another money raising offering at 6.75. Today it is down 5% from its Thursday pricing, but still not below its offering price. For a company that just over-diluted its shares, taking the short position seemed obvious. I am short around $7.04.

BUYS
AKAM, PALM

SELLS
SHLD, ABK

Market Runs Out Of Steam?

The market fed off of a strong week prior to open today. The strength turned into weakness as the day progressed and oil topped $100 a barrel. Many things are still working in a market that has 100+ point swings almost every other day it seems. For example, I am still shorting SHLD, and am now long all of the agriculture and seed stocks like Potash Corp (POT), Mosaic Corp (MOS), and Monsanto CO (MON). These stocks will see plenty of growth outside of the USA this year. Also, I am counting down the days until the earnings release of SHLD. This release should take the stock down further unless it trades down a good 5-10% this week before the release. Either way, staying on the short side of this company has made a profit. We have been short SHLD since around $102.