Solar Burn...

What is really funny about this market is that while a couple of big names that kept on going down every day, we have some names that are going the total opposite direction, which is up.   The Citi news may have very well kick started this week, but all the focus now is on Cisco's earning tomorrow night.  As oil price keeps going higher, so too are the names from solar sector.   This is really the kind of market where you are either in a lot of pain or a lot of joy.    What makes it tough though, however, is to maintain a balanced portfolio where you try to speculate on which sectors would move next.   As we have witnessed, many of the Asian names have been under pressure the last few days while some of the more expensive names on our watchlist  kept us in the game.       

First, the good ones...

FSLR/SPWR/GOOG/MA/BIDU/AAPL/RIMM,  basically, had we been trading nothing but the expensive tickers ($100+), we literally would've been making a killing in this market.    These aren't the names we are unfamiliar with.   In fact, pretty much all of these names are positions in our portfolio at one time or another.    You can say that these are some of the obvious leaders in the market and those are the ones we ought to be owning if we believe this market is going higher.   The point it, we gotta have some of these names in our portfolio.   We may not afford all of them with big sizes but these are the ones that are carrying this market higher.

Solars, JASO TSL SPWR FSLR ASTI, every time dollar gets dumped, and oil gets bid up, and then these guys zoom another 10% it seems.    Some of these names are releasing earnings next few days so we'd have a pretty good picture how traders would react to their report given the current valuation.

AIXG, a somewhat new name to these parts is this German ADR semiconductor/equipment maker bought up early in the morning after earning. It's 9mth eps.17c vs. (0.03), while revenues jumped nearly 50%.  This co' is thriving on the demand for LED units which is in a strong secular growth mode.  The order intake Q# and the resulting backlog was very good here.  In the last 3 Q it's order intake has gone from 40 to 50 to 70mln euros resulting the co' largest ever order backlog.   This stock trades overseas as well and takes it's open gap cue from its action over there.

GHM/DXPE, these two are couple of the recent earning plays that are being bid up quietly.   We definitely don't want to ignore these as they can creep 10% on a weekly basis.

Now the nervous ones...

STV/LFT/CISG/GA,  all these have one thing in common and they are recent Chinese IPOs.    Aren't we supposed to be up 25% by now by holding these?   Right now, we are as puzzled as many others as to why all of these names aren't getting any momentum to the upside.    It feels like in  20 more trading day, there won't be anything left in these stocks;).     At this point, we simply have to play the statistics and probability game.    Any of these would be considered longer term plays and we just have to play that way accordingly.    The quiet period is going to end soon enough for some of these names and earnings are coming up as well.    We are looking forward to those events as they can be the kind of positive catalyst that can drive these stocks.    The bottom line, these plays are still at the beginning.

Simply, you cannot hold one or a few of these IPO's, 'nervous ones' without balancing out your book by trading/ holding the 'good ones'.  That is missed opportunities day after day.