Early in April after a month long run off the bottom I posted a list of equities that gained at least 60% in the preceding 4 weeks (Apr 5: The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth: 92 Stocks Over $10 Returning 60%+) The list was a whose who of beaten down merchandise. Generally, by week 4-5 of an oversold rally these type of names begin to peter out but the ramp has been relentless in lower quality, low price stocks. My gut tells me quant (and other varieties) of hedge funds have been shorting these names, using fundamental reasons - expecting some pullback after huge runs - only to be run over again and again even in week 6 and 7 of this rally. All it takes nowadays is saying "business has stabilized at the worst levels we've seen in decades" to elicit glee and massive short covering rallies. While the market was flattish last week, I[More...]

Today there were a couple of posts about how tech stocks are currently especially attractive because they hold plenty of cash and tend to have little debt. Paul Kedrosky initially caught my eye with his post "Tech Cash is King" which in turn pointed me to a story on Bloomberg by Eric Martin. I ran a screen tonight that looked at both cash and debt. Specifically, I screened for a Price-to-Cash ratio under three, a Debt-to-Equity ratio under three and a Market Cap greater than $2.5 million. Based on these criteria, I obtained a list of 136 stocks. Judging from our list, it is absolutely true that many tech stocks do seem to have lots of cash and little debt. What also became apparent as I went through the list is that there[More...]

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Looks like Cisco Systems (CSCO) is dead serious about turning the screws on the competitors of its Linksys line of products. Today, Netgear (NTGR) announced its Q1 2008 financial results and they were, to put it mildly, terrible. Sure, revenues were up 14 percent on a year-over-year basis, but operating income, net income and earnings [...]