Opportunities remain intriguing over the long-run.

We upgrade our rating to Buy for Research In Motion (RIMM), following the company s record performance in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008 (ended March1) along with an encouraging financial outlook provided by management. We expect the smart-phone device market to gain momentum as opportunities remain intriguing over the long-run. The company s channel sales expansion initiatives are also considered an impetus for meaningful top-line growth as carriers in new geographical regions launch Blackberry-enabled services. It is our view that RIMM will be able to maintain favorable average selling prices (ASP), due to technical superiority, despite facing increased competition. The company introduced a series of next-generation BlackBerry smartphones, specifically targeting CDMA EV-DO, EDGE, and Wi-Fi networks as other competitors are challenged with entry into
numerous wireless carriers around the world.
Source: Zacks
Target: 140
armin's stock selection

What Could the Fed Do?

Since the Federal Reserve began rolling out ever more creative steps to unfreeze credit markets, it has sold or pledged a growing portion of its portfolio of Treasurys in order to put loans on its balance sheet to banks and securities dealers backed by mortgage-backed securities and other shunned collateral.

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Dividend Yield Stock

TAL International Group, Inc. ( TAL ) also recently issued a full-year and fourth-quarter report that included a dividend declaration as well.

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2 common retirement account mistakes

As the tax season deadline gets near, many people are thinking about where to put this year's retirement account contributions.

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Today’s Greatest Hits

How does the current economic crisis compare to the Great Depression? Should Congress do anything to help homeowners and the states? Members of the Joint Economic Committee were looking to Ben Bernanke for guidance today.As Rep. Elijah Cummings (D., Md.) told the Fed chairman: “You’re the expert. You’re the one that we depend […]

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M100 Model Portfolio Web Logs

This site is home to the web logs of the very best of the Marketocracy Model Fund managers. On their individual web blogs, you'll find sections that will help you understand each of these model funds' Performance, Portfolio, Timeliness, Strategy, Biography, and Journal.

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Do you have a place to trade?

I've made many stock market trading decisions in this place, either virtual or real. It's an island, seems like the Lake Tahoe surrounded by sea ; nature and net all around! Wish you a tranquil trading wherever your place to trade may be!

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Will the sun keep shining on LDK Solar? - InvestorPlaceBlogs

While many focus on the bull/bear debate with respect to the major indexes, there are many sectors that are trading well below the 20% down cut-off that defines a bear market. One sector that has been hit particularly hard is the solar sector. Many of the stocks trading in the group are down nearly 50%.

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Fed Says Tomayto, ECB Says Tomahto

ECB Governing Council member Christian Noyer made the clearest public case to date for why the ECB isn’t following the Fed with interest-rate cuts.Mr. Noyer — a noted moderate who heads of France’s central bank — commended the Fed’s proactive response in a Prague speech, saying governor “Mishkin’s case for a risk-management approach to U.S. monetary policy in the present juncture obviously provides a sound rationale for the last three rate cuts by the FOMC.” Further, Chairman Ben Bernanke’s “in-depth knowledge of the credit crunch of the 1930s in the U.S… probably also helped shape this view that there is a non-zero probability in the current juncture of an ‘ugly equilibrium’ of the debt-deflation type that must be addressed by prompt and vigorous policy action.”So why isn’t the ECB — which has kept euro-zone money markets flush with funds since August but left its key rate on hold at 4% — following suit?First: “European banks are not of course immune from losses due to their exposure to the U.S. subprime market … but this exposure is, on average, significantly lower than that of their U.S. counterparts and their model of universal banking allows them to mitigate the consequences of a crisis in one segment of their activity.” Second, low household debt levels and a “weak transmission of financial shocks to household consumption via the wealth channel” mean “the macroeconomic consequences of protracted financial distress should be relatively less disruptive in the euro area.” Finally, “the short-term economic outlook is more encouraging in the euro area than in the U.S. — even if our economies are slowing down, no recession lies on the horizon.”Like many of his Governing Council colleagues, Mr. Noyer stressed the primacy of inflation and inflation expectations in the ECB’s decisions. Still, he became the first ECB polic maker to refer directly to the conditions in which a rate cut might be plausible, saying, “a solid anchoring of inflation expectations remains a prerequisite for rate cuts.” After euro-zone inflation hit a record 3.5% in March, most analysts pushed back their expectations of the ECB’s first cut to September from June.Stressing a bit of common ground, Mr. Noyer did ask that central banks on both sides of the Atlantic be cut some slack: “We should keep in mind that central banks cannot and should not be held responsible for everything. … Indeed, regulatory lapses seem to me to lie at the heart of the subprime crisis.” –Joellen Perry

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armin's stock buzz

GROW...Funds Continue Success

Financials: With home prices falling and the inventory of unsold homes rising, financial companies involved with the real-estate industry look like they have more trouble ahead. However, many financial companies have nothing to do with real estate or subprime mortgages and so have no exposure to the kinds of losses that have been making headlines. It is worth looking for these companies because they may be some of the biggest beneficiaries of lower interest rates, without the corresponding baggage that the lower rates were meant to offset. The two I like are U.S. Global Investors

The Wall Street Journal ’ s latest quarterly fund report ranks three U.S. Global funds in the top 1 percent overall and another fund in the top 2 percent overall as of December 31, 2007. The report also lists two U.S. Global large-cap funds among the top 10 funds in their categories in the latest 12-month period.

In addition, one of the company ’ s municipal bond funds was ranked #1 in the short-intermediate municipal debt category for the year ending December 31, 2007, and three other U.S. Global funds also earned top-quartile rankings in various time periods, according to Lipper.
Sentiment: Buy

armin's stock selection blog here

armin's stock selection

Follow Astra portfolio through Strategy Lab open round 2!

armin's stock selection blog here

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Have a good weekend!
Collected reading around the net:
Parents’ Pessimism Affects Children’s Investing