The Flyers method - mucking and grinding and fighting for gains

Like Dave Schultz and Bobby Clarke of the Philadelphia Flyers sometimes you just need to dump the puck in and then work hard, work hard to make something happen.

I dumped in today and sold some shares of good companies with good balance sheets that had 18-20 % gains , (GRMN) Garmin and (ADM) ArcherDanielsMidland. Sometimes, just like in hockey , you need to take shorter shifts, to get all four lines on the ice and keep everyone fresh. It just seemed like both issues were fully valued here.

I picked up some value stocks to plug in with defensive positions. I am not as bullish here as most of the soothsayers. I do not see a fast recovery at all. (BMY )Bristol Myers Squibb has a 6.2 % dividend yield, so you get paid to wait for a stock gain. They are also in a product partnership with Gilead Sciences , (GILD).

Foster Wheeler AG, (FWLT), a play on rebuilding infrastructure in heavy construction and engineeering. Both stocks are value plays that are lower beta volitility than Garmin and ADM. We'll see if we can get a quick goal here if the puck bounces right! These activities are in an IRA retirement account, so are a little bit more conservative picks.

Thanks,

freewilly

Market Update -7/12 or "Dogs marching up a hill"

I have always loved this picture from the web and needed to work it into a blog post. These dogs are working so very hard to get up the hill and seem to be on a mission. I am not sure where they are going. ?

Well the picture is like the current stock market here in the US (as of 7/10). You can have the best quality stocks in your portfolio and be working very hard to improve your positions , but you really don't know where it is going over the last 6 weeks or the next six. I guess we should have all "sold in May and went away." I say every year that "were not going to get fooled again" to quote The Who, but we are probably more fully invested at this time in stocks versus cash than we should be. Hunker down time.

Some things you can do right now is to re buy positions where you have an unrealized capital losses and then sell your original position in 31 or 32 days. You can lock in tax losses for 2009 and sometimes get a little uplift in the stock price. You can also re balance the diversification of your portfolio by buying and selling like priced stocks in different sectors.

I think what we need here right now is for the 30 year interest rates for mortgages to be cut down to the 4 % to get all this debt in the system refinanced and get the housing market moving again.

We also need stimulus grants to small businesses to get them moving again, because they create 60 to 80 % of the new jobs in the US.

We also need to put back in place the "uptick" rule for shorts in the market so that these super "bear" hedge funds with their pools of money cannot continue to strafe good stocks with earnings and decimate them.

Enjoy your week. .............(If you are an employer, hire somebody and put them to work on a project to create new growth at your company.)

Freewilly

Summer Time - some pharma stocks to look at with a 2 year time horizon

Dendreon Corp., (Symbol DNDN), located in Seattle, Washington, trading around $24.50 is up today in a summer doldrums market. One analyst has moved the target price to $36.00 and on CNBC they off-handedly threw out a $49 target handle projected on the stock. Story here is a big cancer breakthrough in prostate cancer treatment.

Another stock to keep an eye on as we go into the next flu season is Gilead Sciences Inc., (Symbol GILD). Sometimes after a big flu threat year like with the swine flu the following year is even worse. This Forest City, Ca. company is very well positioned for medical solutions in this area. The stock trades at $45.36 today. (7/6) Last quarter earnings were growing at 24 % plus.

Either of these stocks could also be targets for buyout from the "bigger fish" in the pharma area. As always buy in with smaller positions and average in with your purchases.

Happy hunting, P.S. disclaimers. I have 37 years of personal trading experience, (and I have had many bumps and bruises along the way), but no degrees in finance or Series 7 licencing. These are just observations based on my experience.

Thanks,

Freewilly

What about that 1953 Plymouth Cranbrook in my profile?

Some folks have asked about why do I have a picture of a 1953 Plymouth Cranbrook on my profile. Well that was my first car that I ever owned. My neighbor Jim Thoms fixed it up and gave it to me for free because I only had enough money to pay for the car insurance in New Jersey. My car even had a name , the "Arnold" , named of course after Arnold Ziffel that used to be the neighbors family pig on the TV show "Green Acres". (That song from the show is still imprinted in my brain). Anyway I still have the stick shift for that car up in my drawer because someone sawed if off when we were down the jersey shore. The Cranbrook with its 218 cubic inch flat head "6" engine had a 3 speed shifter on the column and I had to drive home using the stub of the shifter only. The Arnold machine was all Silver and then had a Black roof, hood, and trunk like a limousine. I can tell you that the "Arnold" was like honey , attracting the young lass's. Certified babe magnet. We also snuck-in once 4 kids into the Pennsauken Drive-in, in the trunk of the Plymouth ,with plenty of room to spare. I also picked up a copy on eBay of the original sales brochure for the 1953 Plymouth series with the Cranbrook and Cambridge shown. I will post it sometime.

Best regards,

Freewilly