Thursday, April 28, 2005

Market News

YTD the S&P is down 4.58%, hopefully this starts trending upwards in the next few weeks or so.
If you're a long term investor then this might be a good time to buy some stock. Energy and Transportation have had a good run, but there are some value opportunities out there: biotech/drugs, a few banks, and maybe some tech.
I'm liking what IBM has been saying these past few days. I think this definitely could be a value play if you believe that they are able to continue changing their overall strategy- going from hardware to software to services. They might be able to pull it off...
Today they announced a $5 billion stock buyback program (remember they won't necessarily use all of this or even any of this.), the CEO has been saying some strong remarks, and the top executives pay will stay at current levels until the company gets back on track. Over the past few days it has rebounded from around the $72 range to $77.

ERES: I would have made money if I had bought some puts (but I didn't). The earnings report was not that good: they missed by a penny, sales are declining, and they guided lower. In after hours they are up because the company also approved Blum Capital to buy up to 20% of the common stock.

My open positions are holding up pretty well. Overall I'm up 3.4% mainly due to LB (up 34.6%), everything else is generally even although I'm down 10.4% in EBF. They came out with a decent earnings report, and I think the stable dividend will stop the price from declining too much.

Time to catch up on some earnings reports!

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