market news and articles @ firstadopter.com

Michael Burry Vanderbilt Speech Notes. Link

AAPL – JP Morgan previews Apple’s quarter next week. Link

URBN – President Stephen Murray will be leaving the company.

My favorite casual gaming company PopCap had $100 million of revenue in 2010, +25% y/y. Link

Videogame console sales were down –16% y/y in March missing Wall Street expectations. Link

MMI – More companies are delaying their launch of Android tablets due to unstable performance of Android 3.0 and poor Xoom sales. Link

WSJ: GOOG hired 1900 people in the quarter with operating expenses +54% y/y. Link
WSJ: Groupon expected to pick Goldman and Morgan Stanley to lead their IPO later this year valued at $15-20 billion. Link

EB-: INFY

Trading Radar: INFY

Sell-side: Jefferies downgrades URBN to Underperform. Goldman initiates ATVI at Buy

Today’s POMO: $5-7 billion

Yahoo still has some hidden Chinese internet assets. Link

Charlie Munger was broke and divorced at 31 years old. Link

Twitter reportedly received a $10 billion bid from Google. Link

Nintendo sells about 400K 3DS since launch. Link

Jobless claims 412K vs. 380K est., 382K prior

IDC comes out with their Q1 PC data. It’s weak with Acer the worst at down –42% y/y. Bye bye netbooks. Link

BIDU SINA – Baidu is entering the micro-blogging market. Link

Finland could block Portuguese bailout with new parliamentary elections on April 17th. Link

Irish politician wants a “structured default.” Link

German finance minister acknowledges Greece may have to restructure its debt. Link

INTC – Intel to push for using their chips for Android tablets with a $10 subsidy. Link

What is really rising and falling in price in the last 12 months. Link

Interview with the lost co-founder of Twitter. Ev is bad in this portrayal. Link

John Paulson is now negative on housing for 2011, a big reversal. Link

RIMM – Mossberg reviews the PlayBook tablet. Link

Tea partiers weigh debt-cap filibuster. Link

Janney on 10 reasons to own Gamestop. (very lame in my opinion) Link

EB+: SVU
EB-: UFPI
Trading Radar: ZIP
Sell-side: Roth downgrades INTC to Neutral. BofA downgrades OPEN to Neutral.
Today’s POMO: $6-8 billion

One of the hardest things for me to learn over the years is taking small losses (1-2%) isn’t a bad thing. Trust me I know it’s hard to do. The worst thing is to get run over with a huge loss when you are wrong. You should do your utmost to protect against that scenario.

The way the compounding math works is if you have a big draw-down from a huge loss, it takes a LOT more work and return to make that loss back.  For example when you lose 50%, you need to make 100% from there to get to break-even.  Thankfully compounding also works in a positive way; if you eek out positive gains upon positive gains, you get huge long-term returns. Just try it with a spreadsheet.

My point is I don’t mind taking lots of small losses or gains and then keep plugging away with smart rational fundamental idea setups because eventually I’ll hit some homers like GMCR 1-day 27% gain, BGP bankruptcy pin action trade idea, OVTI on EB+ earnings, and buy NFLX on price increase winner, etc. (all previous big FA Alert winners).  The key is to stay in the game for those big home-runs and not lose much on the other trades. Have a good day guys.

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If you like what you see above, be sure to check out my two paid services below as that is where you can exclusively find my fundamental trading idea flow now:

1) FA Alert – email trade alerts: http://www.firstadopter.com/fa-alert/
2) FA Chat – trading chat room: http://www.firstadopter.com/fa-chat/

March retail sales ex-auto 0.8% vs. 0.7% est.

INVE – Seeking Alpha blogger negative on INVE stock. Link

AMZN – Senator Durbin and Enzi plan introduce a bill forcing internet retailers to collect state sales taxes. Link

RIMM – RIM is internally optimistic about PlayBook tablet sales and is ordering large unit shipments. Link

AAPL – Apple has not released a production road-map for iPhone 5 say touch panel makers out of Asia. Link

TYC – Morgan Stanley says any deal will likely be at a premium of as much as 35%. Link

TYC – Schneider says not currently in takeover talks with Tyco. Link
Rueil-Malmaison (France), April 13, 2011 – In response to market rumors, Schneider Electric announced today that it is not currently in discussion with Tyco International regarding a potential strategic transaction between the two companies. Schneider Electric stated that it would make no further comment regarding this matter.

TYC – Wall Street Journal says Tyco receives a $30 billion preliminary bid from Schneider. Link

WSJ: Skeptical on AT&T synergy claims in its T-Mobile acquisition. Link
Sell-side: Jefferies initiates coverage on BIDU with a Buy rating and $200 price target.

Today’s POMO: $4-6 billion

TYC – Bloomberg and Telegraph report that Schneider is looking at Tyco for an acquisition. Link – Link2 – Link3

CMG – Chipotle unveils details of new Asian restaurant concept. Link

Fed Dudley saying Q1 U.S. growth will be somewhat disappointing at 3% or less. Euro and Yen ramped on these comments.

CSCO – Cisco restructures its consumer business. Shutting down Flip video and cutting 550 jobs. Link

GOOG – Google invests $168 million in a new solar energy plant. Link

HPQ TIBX – HP considered buying Tibco as of 2 weeks ago, but talks fell apart. Link

AMZN – Amazon to offer a $114 Kindle e-book reader with ads, $25 cheaper. Link

NXPI – The CEO of NXP Semiconductor is considers another secondary later this year. Link

Peter Thiel talks about “the higher education bubble” again. Link

AAPL – Sources in Taiwan down-play an iPad 3 launch in 2011. Link

AAPL – A demonstration of glass-free 3D fort he iPad 2 using the camera for head-tracking. Link

CALL – FCC says MagicJack can’t collect access charges from AT&T. Link

Japan raises the severity level of nuclear crisis to 7 matching the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Link

Paul Ceglia files evidence that he owns 50% of Facebook. Link

Sell-side: Jefferies bullish on AAPL due to upcoming cloud-based video services (bad for NFLX?). Link Barclays initiates LULU at Underweight
WSJ: Mixed on HAS. Link Negative on ESI. Link

EB- MCRL WMS EXTR
Trading Radar: NFLX MCRL WMS ESI
Today’s POMO: 0, new schedule will be released at 2PM

Demand destruction already from higher gas prices. Link
U.S. drivers reportedly bought 2.7 billion gallons of gas in the first full week of April, a 3.6% decline from the same period in 2010 when gas was 80 cents cheaper, according to MasterCard’s report.

New York Magazine profiles Ray Dalio. Link

Taiwan motherboard makers post strong month-over-month gains in March due to deferred Intel Sandy Bridge buying. Link

NDAQ NYX ICE – NYSE Euronext rejects Nasdaq/ICE bid and affirms commitment to Deutsche Boerse’s offer. Link

Oil – Libyan rebels reject African Union cease-fire plan that Qaddafi agreed to. Link

Reuters reports that Bill Gross is now short U.S. Treasuries. Link

China posts first quarterly trade deficit in 7 years. Link

China copper imports +29% m/m, but –33% y/y. Link

BIDU SINA – Bloomberg reports that SOHU.com says Baidu has signed a deal with Facebook to start a social networking site in China. Link

LVLT GLBC – Level 3 announces a definitive agreement to acquire Global Crossing in a stock for stock transaction.  Based on previous close, it valued Global Crossing at $23.04. Link

Sell-side: Canaccord downgrades IBM to Hold
WSJ: Warns of Google competing with Expedia’s TripAdvisor’s spin-off. Link

Trading Radar: BIDU LVLT GLBC
Today’s POMO: $6.5-8.5 billion

Who says you can’t find good stuff on Twitter. Here are my 5 best fundamental tweets from my Twitter feed in the last 4 months.

1. GMCR on March 9, 2011

The Tweets: I tweet that the only logical move for Starbucks (SBUX) is to do a partnership or buyout deal with Green Mountain Coffee (GMCR). I then send out an FA Alert to buy GMCR to put my money where my mouth is.

Result: The next day Starbucks announces a partnership deal with Green Mountain Coffee and FA Alert subscribers make a 27% gain in one-day (Trade screenshot Link)

2. SINA on March 2, 2011

The Tweet: I tweet that SINA is the best public stock market vehicle to play the web 2.0 internet bubble due to their ownership of the Chinese Twitter.

Result: Although I wasn’t smart enough to buy it myself, the social networking valuation bubble went into over-drive with SINA moving up from $77.15 on March 2nd to $119.35 on April 8th for a +55% move in 5 weeks.

3. NVDA and MMI on February 7, 2011

The Tweets: I tweet that Nvidia Tegra 2 tablets will flop and Nvidia is a short as that flop news comes out. I also say Motorola Mobility’s Xoom tablet will flop hard vs. Apple iPad.

Result: Nvidia Tegra 2 tablets including the Motorola Mobility Xoom flop. Nvidia (NVDA) trades from $25.32 on February 7th to $17.55 on April 8th for a decline of 30.7%. Motorola Mobility (MMI) trades from $30.88 to $24.03 in the same time period for a decline of 22%.

4. Short BGP, Long BKS on January 28-31, 2011



The Tweets: I tweeted a prediction that Borders Group will declare bankruptcy in the coming weeks and BGP will go down and BKS will go up on the news.

Result: Borders Group did declare bankruptcy and their stock BGP got de-listed. Moreover BKS did go up on the BGP bankruptcy news and FA Alert subscribers were able to bank huge gains (Trade screenshot Link)

5. Buy oil, gold, farmers, and web 2.0 holding companies on December 5, 2011

The Tweets: After ranting against Bernanke money printing, I lay out the plan on how to play QE2. Buy oil, gold, farmers, and web 2.0 internet vehicles.

Result: From December 5th to April 10th, oil trades up 27%, gold up 4%, MOO up 8%, and web 2.0 private internet valuations go up a gazillion percent (Facebook, Zynga, Groupon, etc.)

If you like what you see above, be sure to check out my two paid services below as that is where you can exclusively find my fundamental trading idea flow now:

1) FA Alert – email trade alerts: http://www.firstadopter.com/fa-alert/
2) FA Chat – trading chat room: http://www.firstadopter.com/fa-chat/

WPRT – Congressmen introduce tax credit bill for natural gas vehicles. Link

According to a report, Nintendo sold only about half of its 3DS shipments in Japan. Link

OCZ – OCZ raises $81.3M with a secondary offering of 10.2M shares at $8.50. Link

NVDA – Nvidia expected to land Tegra 2 orders from Samsung. Link

CAT – Caterpillar executive warns of a tire shortage by the end of this year. Link

NXPI – Reuters reporting that a Dutch newspaper says NXP Semiconductor is in take-over talks with Intel, Qualcomm, and Broadcom. Link

EXPE – Expedia announces it is spinning off TripAdvisor. Link

BKS – Barnes & Noblie to open up Nook Color to Android app developers. Link

ADS – Congress is investigating the Epsilon email data breach. Link

STX – Seagate guides up Q3 revenue to $2.7B vs. $2.62B est. and raises their dividend to 18c a quarter. Link

“Niederhoffer said the buy-the-dip “risk-on” trade is the only one that’s currently working in the hedge fund industry. That’s left most managers’ returns highly correlated with the equity market.” Link

Frank Quattrone returns as the top tech investment banker. “Mr. Roux said the mystique around Mr. Quattrone had been overblown. It’s simple, he said: “Frank’s a very likable guy who knows what he’s talking about.” Link

EB+ TPX
Sell-side: SunTrust initiates FFIV with a Buy.
WSJ: MMI should merge with another hand-set maker to get better scale.

Trading Radar: TPX
Today’s POMO: 0

7.4 earthquake hits northeastern Japan. Link

Jobless claims 382K vs. 385K est., 388K prior

ECB raises rates by 25bps to 1.25%. Link

ECB Trichet said during the press conference the decision was unanimous among the governing council. Moreover they have not decided whether if this is beginning of series of rate hikes

TSMC (Taiwan’s largest semiconductor fab company) lowers their 2011 forecast for global semiconductor growth from 7% to 4% due to supply chain disruptions from the earthquake in Japan. Link

MCP – Congressman introduced a rare earth supply stock-piling bill. Link

Acer expects component shortages for tablets and smart-phones. Link

OCZ – Anandtech reviews OCZ Vertex 3 120GB SSD drive. Link

DISH NFLX – Dish Networks bought Blockbuster to compete with Netflix in the online movie service business. Link

Portugal is negotiating a $107 billion bailout package with the European Union. Link

Samsung Electronics reports weak profits due to falling TV demand and weak tablet/computer sales. Link

XNPT – FDA approves XenoPort Horizant drug for restless leg syndrome. Link

March Retail Same-store Sales
LTD 14% vs. 1.5% est.
COST 8% ex-gas/FX
TGT –5.5%
GPS –10% vs. –7% est.
SKS 11.1% vs. 0.8% est.

EB+ BBBY
EB- PWER

Upgrades: CRM Outperform by FBR $170 PT
Downgrades: TZOO Hold by Benchmark Link

Trading Radar: RIMM
Today’s WSJ articles: negative on RIMM, NFLX, CSCO
Today’s POMO: $5.5-7.5 billion

NYX – Deutsche Boerse will not raise bid according to Reuters source. Link

NFLX – Netflix signs a deal with Lionsgate to stream Mad Men re-runs. Link

SEC unveils a plan to reduce market volatility with a new proposed 5% limit up/down price band and halt mechanism. Link

DISH – Dish Network wins Blockbuster assets auction with a $320 million bid. Link

Fed bailed out a European bank with $37 billion during the financial crisis to save U.S. municipal bonds. Link

AAPL – iPad 2 sales are on fire. 2.4-2.6 million units in March and 12 million units expected to be shipped in Q2. Link

MMI – Report that Motorola has only sold 100K Xoom tablets. Link

The Big Picture discusses the reasons when he fires a mutual fund manager. Link

Business Insider profile on hedge-fund manager Joe DiMenna. Link

EB- OCLR guides Q3 to 116M vs. 124M est.
EB- AMSC guides Q4 to less then 42M vs. 119M est.

Trading Radar: AMSC OCLR
Today’s POMO: $1.5-2.5 billion