Divine calculations and stock picking

I was watching a rerun of the movie the DaVinci code last week with all its many puzzles and calculations that they go through to get to what appears to be the truth. Well it of course made me think about how many times I had bought stocks because it just felt right at the time when the "stars of the market", kinda of the place where everything sat at that moment frozen in time, just seemed to click into alignment to make a certain purchasing decision.
Well , even though Snagglepuss told me to exit stage left, which I did, going to many cash positions, I still have been having these "feelings" about the compelling value of some of the tech stocks here the last couple of weeks. They have done a great job managing their inventories this time around in recession and could turn some earnings around to the bottom line very quickly. These companies are also are showing respectable revenue growth and have good quick ratios (%'s of assets to liabilities on the balance sheet).
So I followed my imaginary "Rose line" and it took me to AT&T Inc. (symbol T). It has a a 6.3 % dividend and plenty of cash to back it up. Current ratio is 1.6 to 1. That beats a half percent at best on sitting cash.
My second pick was to add a high tech/ higher beta tech stock to the IRA account
to add some horsepower to bring life back from the Oct-2007 to June 2009 downside debacle.
That stock is Marvel Technology (symbol MRVL). It has a lot of interesting technologies going forward. It has a 3:1 current ratio. I was lucky enough to buy it two days in front of earnings and guidance, which were good, at 14.25 and it is now up near 15.75 on the announcements. They reported the same day as Dell , so it generated some "daily tech interest".
With that I will warn you that on review in the past I have lost more money in speculative technology stocks than in any other investment category during the old"dot.com" days. These two are not speculative investments. Also other disclaimers, I do not have a series 7 license
and am not a professional investment advisor. Just a guy following my "Rose line" where it leads me.

Sincerest regards,

Freewilly

Exit - Stage Left - Compliments of Snagglepuss - some stockmarket advice

If you remember SnagglePuss , the Pink Lion from 1959

who appeared on the old "The Quick Draw McGraw show" and "The Yogi Bear show" he had a few famous lines he always used.

"Heavens to Murgatroyd" was among the catch phrases. The one

that the lion would use when he saw trouble brewing was "Exit, Stage Left" and he would make a fast escape from the tiny hunter "Major Minor", and dart off out of the way of trouble.

Well the point of all this is that this market has come a long way without any kind of major

correction. It would behoove you to exit stage right (or left )and take some profits (or tax losses) and move a good portion into cash for this September- October time frame. The market, even in good times ,will have issues in October, and in bad times with revenue growth being questionable and unemployment staying even or getting worse , it is a good time to be very risk adverse.

There will always being another stock value coming along later. You just need to have patience.

Exit , Stage Right......

Freewilly

Little surprises, and an inflection point with viewing quarterly earnings

Yes, Zooey Deschanel is guilty of eating frozen yogurt. Or maybe she has that surprised look on her face because she, like me, had sold her Garmin (GRMN) stock at a 21% gain, had the current quarter earnings come in as predicted down 33% , and revenues down 27% YOY (year over year) and promptly watch the stock go up 6 points on the news!#$%$?????
Why you ask? because the reality of their current business for the quarter now does not seem to matter to wall street. We have hit an inflection point. Business Wire by the way reported this as, and I quote, " Improved results and sequential growth" because Garmin did not perform as bad as the most dire preditions. So we have made a turn in the road where if the underlying company is giving future guidance as good, the current results are simply disregarded.
If you had instead invested in one of the retailers that Zooey may shop at , Philadelphia based retailer Urban Outfitters, (URBN) , according to my watch list you would be up a cool 68% plus this year. They sell hip clothes to people who don't want to look like they just
got their wardrobe at Walmart. (I am certainly no fashion statement). Likewise the 6 month chart of stazy retailer Aeropostele Inc, (ARO), is up 85% with the retailing industry in the doldrums. Go figure?

Have a good weekend. Weather prediction: it will be 96 degrees on Monday.

Freewilly

Beware the "Ides of August" - there are just too many people who are too bullish right now

It really scares me when I hear whole panels of people on the finance shows and they are all so bullish after such a run-up we had in the month of July. There is no way that this thing is going straight up from here. it just doesn't work that way. So patience is the watch word and if you have taken profits here keep them on the sidelines for now.
There are a few technology stocks here that you can keep in mind that have very good balance sheets. Two semi-conductor stocks that have 3:1 Asset to debt ratios. Those are Marvell Technology, (MRVL), and Triquint Semiconductor , Inc. ,(TQNT). I do not own either of these yet but would be interested after the correction.,
My favorite stock in the technology sector and one that I do own is InterDigital , (IDCC) , that is a company I consider to be a baby Qualcomm in the 3G cellular space. They own 3000 patents in the 3G technology and are very well positioned for the transition in cellular phone technology for voice and data. The proliferation of the Apple I-Phones and the RIM Blackberry's sucking up bandwidth with video and Internet web browsing are taxing the current cellular systems and changes will need to be made quickly to keep up with customer demand.

So. for the short term , keep your powder dry and raise some cash for the sidelines.

Best Regards,

freewilly