Against the Trend, or Is There a Trend?

Markets down, I did a bit more buying. I added some COM.TO to my existing position. There are a number of catalysts in the coming months during 2007, and I believe this selloff is sufficient to generate some buying opportunities for me here. I believe it could easily move back to $14-$15 range with some decent announcements, and it could go up to $20-$25 level if its NDA gets a FDA approved this year.




I also opened a position on ATD_B.TO, which has been coming down lately. The company is doing rather well, with great ROE, good revenue growth (via acquisitions) and very decent earning growth. Valuation is becoming rather attractive here, and it is a consumer staple company, and probably would do well if the economies hit a soft patch. My initial target is $30 and it could hit $33-$35 if I am lucky.



Positions: Long: COM.TO; ATD_B.TO

MXX.TO IPO? A Rocket or a Bust?

I opened a small position on URB.TO, an investment company specialized in exchanges. It practically owns every exchanges in the world with largest position in NXY. I think this may be an alternative way to own exchanges. Moreover, the Montreal Exchange is going public on March 27th, and could be a near term catalyst for this little company. The company have excellent track record in the past five years, although we could come to the party too late.

Position: Long URB.TO

WEEK 11-12

I am back to about 4% YTD, which is really not that bad considering how under-invested I am presently. I am holding approximately 50% in cash, and the remaining 50% mostly in rather defensive positions. The markets really surprise me as the pull back, while volatile, remains rather shallow. I would have thought that it would be much deeper, given the run we had since last August. Having said that, the market is always right, and you can't argue with it, just like you can't really argue with your boss (you may disagree). I remain not convinced though. Moreover, I still don't see a lot of compelling buying opportunities. A lot of names on my watching list behave like the market, with some pull back, buy not sufficiently and compelling. The next couple of months could be important and my feeling is it will run a bit, one way or another, before the summer dull. The question is which direction will it run? I wish I knew. My gut feeling is that it will go down and hard, maybe another 400 points day, then consolidating until September. This has been a rather difficult year for investors. Pros are not doing much better.

The only transaction I did in the past two weeks was that I wrote some covering call on QCOM (July 50).

Position: Long QCOM, Short QCOM July 50 call.

Week 10 - Directionless

The market was rather volatile this week, although remained directionless (with an upward trend?). I put a few bids in during the week, unfortunately, despite the volatility, none got filled. For the week, my portfolio was up by about 1%, inline with the overall market, which wasn't not too bad, considering how under-invested I am. YTD, I am up by about 3%, compared to a flat or slightly down market. I remain slightly cautious and not too sure this correction has run its course yet.

Precious metals had a bad week, one of my holdings, ARU.TO got stopped out with a small profit. I was not ready to let it go, really, so I added back with a higher price. Although I am rather confident this one will eventually go up, way up (I am looking for at least a double here), the volatility is very difficult to take.

POSITION: LONG ARU.TO

Week 9 - Here Comes The Correction

Here comes the long-waited correction and it was brutal. All three major indexes are now negative for the year, with NAS on the lead. As usual, momentum stocks are leading the market on the way down. Materials stocks, particularly uranium juniors are falling pretty hard. Gold also declined, which is somewhat surprising. I would have thought that many investors would have hidden behind the shinning metal. I was down by approximately 2.12%. While significantly better than the overall market, I can't say I am happy. I took a bit more profits (CAE.TO, SJ.TO, CVO, MSFT), trimmed a few positions, and raised a bit more cash. Where the market goes from here is anyone's guess. My view is that it probably will continue to fall a bit. I expect a 10% correction, and so far it has down between 4%-6%. I have a list of stocks on my watchlist and would like to build up positions.

Positions: CAE.TO, SJ.TO, MSFT: NONE; LONG: CVO.