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July 5, 2008

 
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 » tickerspy Planned Outage
7/3/08 

tickerspy will be unavailable for most of Saturday, July 5th, for a period of planned maintenance. We apologize for the inconvenience. Have a great holiday!

Posted by Max at 11:54AM on July 3rd | No Comments »
 » Tough End to a Tough Week
7/3/08 

After the week we’ve had on Wall Street, the only silver lining might be that it’s shorter than usual.

But which tickerspy portfolios are thriving today, even as the market undergoes another tumultuous day?

As of this writing, the top member portfolio on our Ideas & Research page belongs to bluebeard.  With a short position in Nvidia (NVDA), the portfolio is benefiting from that stock’s plunge on a lowered outlook and product defects.

Meanwhile, a dip in crude prices is offering a respite for beleaguered airline stocks, and boosting airline-focused portfolios from, jwixted, Pozhil, and kranch.  All of these portfolios include AMR (AMR), Continental (CAL), Delta (DAL), Jetblue (JBLU), Southwest (LUV), and UAL (UAUA).

Other top portfolios include that of abs7224a, which is jumping on big gains from Chindex (CHDX) and Converted Organics (COIN).  A portfolio from multibillionaire is up on a big move from Middlebrook Pharmaceuticals (MBRK).

Posted by Max at 11:41AM on July 3rd | No Comments »
 » Articles Highlighting tickerspy Data
6/30/08 
Posted by Max at 12:16PM on June 30th | No Comments »
 » Invus Takes the Lead
6/25/08 

Currently leading the one-month Pro portfolio performance on Tickerspy’s Ideas and Research page is Invus Public Equities, pushing ahead of Steelhead Partners, which we profiled recently. According to Invus’ website, its strategy for success is to “focus on small to mid-cap stocks that are trading below our assessment of their intrinsic business value. The average holding period in our public equity portfolio is not measured in weeks or months but years.”

This methodology seems to have led Invus to biotechs and pharmaceutical companies. With general success across the industry, Invus’ especially large stake in Elan (ELN) has driven the portfolio to success in the first quarter. Elan is a researcher and developer of specialty neurological drugs that has pushed higher this quarter on the promise of its Alzheimer’s drug, which is currently in trials. Acorda Therapeutics (ACOR), Schering-Plough Corp (SGP) and Vanda Pharmaceuticals (VNDA) are three other of Invus’ holdings that have returned over 30% in the first quarter of 2008 alone.

Invus does not invest exclusively in biotechnology companies, the fund has realized significant gains from positions in Visa (V) as well as Qualcomm (QCOM). The only real laggards for Invus this quarter were small stakes in Rite Aid Corp (RAD) and Deltek Systems (PROJ), a maker software.

Posted by Max at 3:09PM on June 25th | No Comments »
 » Market News on tickerspy
6/23/08 

We allow tickerspy members to contribute their own links and original research on tickerspy (you can do that here), but, as you may be aware, we also automatically bring in news in from a variety of sources.

You can have the headlines from the news sources below fed directly to your Alerts page by clicking on “track newsfeed.”

We hope you enjoy the news coverage on tickerspy.  If there are other news sources you’d like to see on tickerspy, let us know and we’ll try to add them.

Posted by Max at 1:36PM on June 23rd | No Comments »
 » Timely Tickers: Tech, Natural Gas, Fertilizer
6/20/08 

Another day, another batch of Timely Tickers. This list shows the most frequently viewed tickers by the tickerspy community over the last few trading days.

As of this writing, the market is way down on woes in the financial sector as more writedowns and losses appear imminent, specifically at Citigroup (C).  C is currently in the second spot on the timely tickers list.  Ahead of it and behind it are a pair of blue chips GE (GE) and Apple (AAPL) that always seem to garner a lot of investor interest.  Even on down days like today.

Rounding out the top five are a pair of stocks in some very hot sectors.  Apache (APA) has been a beneficiary of the sudden boom in investor interest in the natural gas segment.  Natural gas prices have zoomed higher of late following the price of crude upward.

Mosaic (MOS), meanwhile, is a part of the still hot fertilizer sector.  Despite a slight pullback over the last couple of days, analysts remain bullish on the prospects for the industry.

Posted by Max at 10:31AM on June 20th | No Comments »
 » Energy Strength Sparks Interest in Bakken
6/18/08 

Are we in an energy bubble?  The stock prices of many energy names have certainly skyrocketed, but there are other signs as well.  Average investors are talking shop about Brazilian offshore oil fields and Canadian oil sands.  And suddenly everyone is interested in something called the Bakken shale formation, a 200,000 square mile region of Montana, North Dakota, and Saskatchewan.

With oil at around $140 a barrel and growing concerns about the long-term supply of oil keeping up with growing demand, the Bakken shale formation, containing an estimated 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil in our backyard, is garnering quite a bit of investor interest.  If oil stays high, spots like Bakken, where the oil is expensive to extract, become economically feasible.

tickerspy member Pozhil has set up a portfolio to track companies with exposure to the Bakken formation. In it are Bringham Exploration (BEXP), Continental Resources (CLR), Petrohawk Energy (HK), Northern Oil and Gas (NOG), and XTO Energy (XTO).

Other stocks with exposure to Bakken include Hiland Partners (HLND), Kodiak Oil and Gas (KOG), Whiting Petroleum (WLL), and Core Laboratories (CLB).

Among these, XTO is by far the most popular among members and Pros.

Posted by Max at 11:15AM on June 18th | 4 Comments »
 » Steelhead’s Coal-Heavy Portfolio Shows Gains
6/17/08 

Looking at the top Pro portfolios on our Ideas & Research page, currently occupying the top spot in our 1-month gainers list is a hedge fund called Steelhead Partners.  According to Steelhead’s website, the Seattle-based fund “seeks to outperform the market using fundamental, balance sheet based analysis and an independent thought process to build portfolios. Our investment style is characterized by finding names that are out-of-favor and under-followed by Wall Street; historically, this has consistently led us to opportunities with exceptional risk/reward profiles.”

This strategy led the firm to coal stocks, which have gone from out-of-favor to very much in favor in short order.  A heavy dose of these stocks, have led to uninterrupted gains in Steelhead’s end-of-Q1 top holdings.  Leading the charge have been coal producers James River Coal (JRCC), Alpha Natural Resources (ANR), and International Coal (ICO).  Steelhead has had luck with some names outside the coal sector as well, particularly Level 3 Communications (LVLT), which is up sharply this quarter.  In fact, the only real laggard among Steelhead’s end-of-Q1 top holdings is micro-cap gold miner Gold Reserve (GRZ), which is down sharply this quarter.

Posted by Max at 11:27AM on June 17th | 2 Comments »
 » Timely Tickers: Mining, Fertilizer, and Energy
6/16/08 

Investors looking for a quick way to see which stocks people are buzzing about may be interested in our “Timely Tickers” list. This list shows the most frequently viewed tickers by the tickerspy community over the last few trading days.

As might be expected, the top five include stocks from some of the sectors that have been hot in the market of late.

At the top of the current list is Vale (RIO), the Brazilian miner whose ore has played a big part in the steel that has gone into China’s building boom.  RIO has pulled back about 20% after notching new highs in May.

Potash (POT) also continues to maintain investor interest as the fertilizer industry remains very hot.  The stock has notched new highs as investors remain enamored of the fundamentals in the sector driven primarily by high food prices and a quest for higher yields.

In the energy sector, Chesapeake Energy (CHK) and Penn West Energy Trust (PWE) are garnering notice from tickerspy members.  Both have exposure to high energy prices and both have long been tickerspy favorites.

Finally, Research in Motion (RIMM) rounds out the top five as the only tech name.  Apple (AAPL) has now announced its new iPhone, but many believe that loyal business customers and new handsets in the pipeline will help fend off Apple’s intrusion into RIM’s markets.  This battle is still a long way from being over, however.

Posted by Max at 11:24AM on June 16th | 1 Comment »
 » Are BRICs Favored for Overseas Investments?
6/12/08 

With the outlook for U.S. economy still uncertain, overseas markets continue to garner investment dollars, particularly among investors looking to tap into the growth engines of emerging markets. But which markets exactly are favored among tickerspy members and Pros? By looking at the most tracked single country ETFs, we can take a pretty good guess. (note that this method excludes many regional focused ETFs. In the handful of cases where there is more than one ETF for a particular country, I looked at the most popular. Number of holders/trackers are listed in parenthesis)

Among members:

1. Brazil (EWZ) (207)
2. China (FXI) (146)
3. Canada (EWC) (57)
4. Hong Kong (EWH) (51)
4. Singapore (EWS) (51)

Among Pros:

1. Brazil (EWZ) (22)
1. China (FXI) (22)
3. Russia (RSX) (21)
4. Taiwan (EWT) (11)
5. Hong Kong (EWH) (10)

Posted by Max at 11:20AM on June 12th | 1 Comment »