"I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then"
Bob Seger

I remember taking a close look at AAPL back in October of 2007 as the stock was rapidly closing in on the magical $200 level... I liked the company products, business model, management and the only real negative noted was the hefty price. But, regardless of how many times the "always dreamy" analysts raised the target price and how many "I love AAPL" posts were posted on every possible investment board I could never come up with a reasonable justification for the "sky high" stock price. So it came as a huge surprise to me that just several weeks ago AAPL showed on one of my screeners as a potentially inexpensive stock.

So being a permanent curious research junky I really am, I figured that it was finally time for me to put my original "too expensive" thesis to the test and do a little more research into the iconic company's stock price... And while I ultimately still found the AAPL stock to be too expensive, I came to realize that studying a phenomenon of the unlocked "iPhone" helped me to generate some other investing ideas

Let's start with giving credit where credit is due- I do believe that Steve Jobs is a genius. There are only few people in the technology world whose words arguably carry similar weight (Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Larry Page and Sergey Brin) and he probably has no equals in his ability to market products. In addition- the ingenuity of AAPL's R&D team, the "simple and brilliant" design of AAPL's products still remains an envy of the entire IT world. The loyal customers of AAPL are willingly shelling out ever larger sums of cash for never slowing flurry of newer and better products. But this is precisely where I believe AAPL got in trouble in the first place and why it is so vulnerable today...

Continue reading "Unbiased opinion on AAPL or case of the "missing iPhones"..." »

Nice song to cheer up :) First seen on Calculated Risk

"Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you.
Maori Proverb"

As one should have expected oil and other commodities have staged a short rebound over the last several days, and while I still think oil will end the year lower, I couldn't resist to take a part in this "inevitable" bounce- what goes down so quickly has to go up for a little while :) Remember the "dead cat bounce" analogy- given how fast commodity stocks fell in July/August, it is a logical outcome for them to stage a short term bounce even if long term they are still poised to go lower...

I pointed out in numerous articles already -in my opinion, commodity stocks as a group have topped out in early July and now the new long term direction is down. Because of that, it is highly unlikely (not impossible :)) that I will buy O&G stocks outright in the nearest future. But as my trades from last week's article on MSN should have shown (due to production issues article got posted but trades did not), I have grown increasingly interested in solar stocks as an alternative way to play high energy prices.

Some might ask "Heh? "Isn't alternative energy all one big fairy tale"? My answer is "not so fast"- regardless of where the oil prices ends up in the short/medium term, I think we as a nation have finally gotten a message loud and clear- anything (except ethanol) that can get us of the "oil addiction" is a good thing. Wind and solar are the logical way to go...

I have stayed away from solar field for quite a while as it simply became too hot, overvalued, irrational and crowded earlier this year. Trading prices of names like LDK, CSUN and SOLF seemed to defy any fundamental logic as they became "new darlings" of momentum crowd. "All solar stocks are a buy" and "opportunity of a lifetime" scared the hell out of me and I sold my positionss. But, just as I expected, the crude reality of very tight silicon supplies, lower European subsidies and cut-throat competition finally set in, and led to the most logical outcome- prices for most of these names have been cut in half and jokes about "silly" solar companies/ investors became a staple in many media outlets.

So with that in mind, being a contrarian investor I really am, the amount of "fear driven" selling finally became so encouraging, that I decided to do my research on the sector all over again, and about three weeks ago I finally picked the same three names I bought last year (STP, JASO and CY(SPWR))...

Continue reading "The right way to play the oil "bounce"" »