Earlie from Earlie:
Finally a bit of time to relax. It's been busy to say the least. Hope to spend some time working on my airplane and posting up the occasional bit of fluffy nonsense here in the rag-tag bear bin.
I more or less cleared out of most short positions when the work load started to pile up. Would love to claim that this move as brilliance on my part, but the size of the lie would cause my nose to grow. It was "blind squirrel" luck, but as Napoleon said about his generals ....... (g)
I did maintain some puts against IBM. They were delightfully in the money a week ago, but of course, I watched the profit turn to a possible/probable loss as a result of my expectation that IBM would be forced to own up to "accounting blues" before next week. We shall see if that was a dumb decision next Friday.
Vasogen is starting to move and delighted to hear that many of you hopped aboard when I mentioned it several weeks ago. Currently. I think the stock is just getting underway. More trial results are due out next week and I would be surprised if they were not exemplary. My gang loaded the boat on this one and we hope to enjoy a nice leisurely ride for the next few months at least. It is an excellent situation. No debt. Lots of cash, excellent trial results, several firms wanting to partner, and above all else, American analysts starting to get on board. Should be a fun place to be for much of the year.
Our "Sewer Rat" has been working diligently and I expect to hear some solid news shortly. A couple of contract announcements should get this one swimming upstream rather diligently in the near term.
GSL continues to gab with several interested companies that appear interested in prospective partnering. The mining organizations that hail from S. America simply don't see why anybody worries about the political situation in Columbia (as their own jurisdictions look very similar and they just carry on "doing business as usual") hence I would be very pleased if a deal gets done in the near term with one of them. We shall see. In the mean time the Columbian government has commenced a serious offensive military action against the bad boys in the hills and this time they appear to have solid American backing (intelligence, etc.). The government has made it clear that they need to see solid popular backing for this offensive or they will back off. So far, that popular backing appears to be holding up. It would not surprise me to see the government zero in on the leadership. If that particular small group were to be taken in or scattered, the whole organization would likely collapse. We shall see. Certainly a routing of the bad boys would create a completely different environment for GSL. One thing I know and like, is that the U.S. government wants large projects of this nature to be established as a way to employ guys who currently tote guns to feed their kids. The U.S. government has put this gang of misbehavers on their "terrorist" list. I wouldn't want to be one of them in the current environment.
I am salivating over the prospect of shorting into this mad rally, but am maintaining some patience until a bit of exhaustion sets in. We are just about to commence the tech sector "warnings" period and I expect it to be worse than nasty. This rally feeds on rumour and hope. Meantime, sales are miserable across the tech landscape. Worse still, the accounting genie has been hamstrung, so it won't be easy to fake the numbers this time around. For me, it is just a question of trying to time the entry properly. Currently, I intend to wait until a few nasty announcements get the attention of the sheep before I start shooting at them.
Debt levels continue to dominate my thinking. I love to find the debt-bloated whale carcasses that are stranded in the shallow waters of nil profitability and complete inability to meet burgeoning interest payments. Nothing like picking over the common shareholder bones (via shorting) as the debtholders cart off all the remaining value. "Mortally wounded" is becoming a larger category with each passing day. Nothing like being a carrion feeder in such an environment. (g)
Best, Earlie |
