Bad Apple?

With Steve Jobs announcing yesterday that he is going out on medical leave indefinitely to treat the after-effects of his pancreatic cancer, Apple is already down 5% early. I think our MM acct is empty, but if the company falls below $300/s (from $347/s), it'll be worth scooping even a single share).

Thoughts?

The Rite Stuff

My pick is Rite-Aid (RAD). I've watched this company in my IRA for 18 months and I'm baffled as to how low they trade. With over 50,000 employees and hundreds of locations, they are currenty valued below $1/s. With Walgreens, CVS, Longs and other pharmacy outlets continuing to thrive, Rite-Aid has struggled since merging with Brooks. This company has a huge footprint and I recommend it as a high-risk, AXAS-like quick turnaround to buy 200 shares and jump off whenever we can bank a positive profit. I apologize for being short, as I'm on the road, but I will inject more later this evening.

Cloud....of smoke and some RAXs

My selection for Q1 of 2011 is Rackspace Hosting. The company specializes in cloud computing. I think cloud computing will take off this year and strongly believe we will find great value in this company over the next 12 months. Rax (rackspace hosting inc) recently purchased a development company in san francisco (which is a good sign for us) and the stock is very low compared to its competitors in the market. They compete directly with VMware, thought i would mention i choose them as a stock with i worked for the IT company in early 2009, hehe. Take a look at how all of their competitors stocks have done since, including VMware. All sectors have profited, but the companies below have really picked up a lot more coin. I think we will see another growth with the advancement of cloud computing. Also, i clipped an a few paragraphs from different resources and pasted them below too.
Many of their competitors:

• Citrix Systems
• VMware
• Salesforce.com
• Amazon.com
• Google, Inc
• Microsoft Corp
• Akamai Technologies
• Brocade Communications System, Inc
• NetApp
• Oracle Corp.
  

Best Cloud Computing Stocks to invest in 2011

With the economy getting back stable, investors are readily hunting down the best Cloud computing stocks to invest in 2011. This article provides you with some insights about cloud computing stocks that are advisable for investment. What makes the stock from these cloud computing companies is that the cloud technology is being rapidly adapted by both big players as well as small business alike. The exceptional features such as mobility, scalability and pay-as-usage model have introduces unforeseen flexibility in infrastructure deployment. With the official step-in of cloud computing leaders like Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Service, Google etc have already established it as a mulit billion dollar industry.Apart, from that job hunters are specializing especially on virtualization and cloud computing foreseeing its demand. With all these happening world-wide its definitely a wise move to sort out the hottest cloud computing stocks and invest in the one with maximum return potential.

BJ

My pick for Q1 2011 is BJ's Wholesale Club. If you have been living under a rock the past quarter and are unaware, BJ's is prime for a takeover/buyout and private equity companies are chomping at the bit waiting for them to make a deal work. The stock has seen an increase from speculation, however I do not think it's seen anywhere near enough of a valuation from the speculation so far. I think there is significant short-term value to gain from the purchase of this security, especially on news yesterday that BJ's was closing 5 stores in the southern US as well as rearranging senior management. The 5 stores they are closing are historic underperformers and as their CEO mentioned they did not believe those stores had the potential to turn around sales. These moves point to one thing for me - they have a buyer ready to execute a deal as long as they can make smart moves to satisfy a potential suitor.

I motion we immediately buy into BJ's and hold it waiting for a buyout bid to be made within the next 60 days. Even BJ's spokespeople have said that they were waiting till after the holidays to annouce any potential deal.

This one seems to be a no-brainer. Even if all deals fall through, we're looking at a profitable company with strong balance sheets and strong management - so if no deal happens, it's a win-win.

1st QTR Stock Picks

Big meeting for TM this quarter - with four figures available for investments and the market on the rise, we have quite an opportunity here. I have two stock choices for this quarter - I know its not standard practice, but I figured with the added money to spend, why not? The two stocks are Entropic Communications (ENTR) and Omnicare (OCR).

Entropic Communicatons makes semiconductor chipsets that operate a home-networking system called MoCa. That's the technology behind the multiroom DVR players (in all the commercials for DirecTV and Verizon FiOS ) that allow you to record a TV show in one room and then watch it in another. DirecTV and FiOS already install MoCa in their new HD set-top boxes, and the three leading cable companies -- Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Cox Communications -- have announced plans to add Entropic chipsets to theirs in 2011. If multiroom DVR capability does become standard on new HD set-top boxes (and that's where the experts think the market is headed) the payoff for Entropic would be enormous. It currently controls 85% of the MoCa market. Its currently trading around $12 share.

Omnicare distributes drugs to nursing homes and assistedliving facilities. Basically Walgreens for institutional customers. The P/E ratio is pretty high because Omnicare has had some debt problems and expensive acquisitions. But from what I've read, they seem to have got things back on track and its got a hefty cash and growing customer base. The baby boomers will all be senior citizens soon. The senior population in the US will grow from 39 million in 2009 to 52 million in 2014. That's alot of gray hairs in nursing homes that will need drugs. This would be a long term stock choice.

Ok that's it for now. We can talk more about it this weekend. However, if the balls fall in our favor tonight, TM may have quite a bit more to invest.....

Good Looking Face

Goldman drops a bombski on Facebook and the market is up in 2011!

Our first four-figure spending spree. Picks and pockets due Wednesday?