Bamboo cultivation can be a metaphor for life:
sometimes you have to pay attention, others you have to leave it alone to thrive by itself.
Bamboo, Taijiquan, living in Pittsburgh, part of the human family.

Friday, October 31, 2003

historical newsletter 1: Halloween, 2003

Before I get back into these amateur newsletters, via "bamboo thoughts", I'll relay previous letters...

==============
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 14:49:13 -0800

Friends,

This has been a weird Fall - that's the only way I can describe it.
Fire's in la-la-land, hurricanes over-running Western Pennsylvania
(albeit severely diminished), a very pink aurora borealis visible
from my backyard last night...and a stock market full of investors
wondering whether 7.2% GDP growth means a strong 2004 or imminent
increases in the Fed funds rate.

For the past nine months, semiconductors have led the NASDAQ from
zero to sixty in 4 seconds; while they look to continue on up, some
fear that they've come too far too fast (ISSI, LEXR, SSTI, SNDK,
etc). Data storage seems to have lagged the upswing a bit...and will
probably lag a little bit more (BRCD, MCDTA, EMC, etc.)...thought
Network Appliance has been staging quite a comeback (NTAP).
Small/micro caps have been doing very well and will probably continue
to do so...but there are so many, whom do you follow? (e.g., BCSI,
NSO, SOFO, etc.)

So, where will the action run next? Obviously in many directions:
as corporate/governmental spending picks up, telecom is rising,
network appliances are coming back and software is selling well. So,
just try to find the industries that you can understand (with a bit
of web-reading) and may be able to carry your boat up with the tide.
One of those, for me, is wireless products (wi-fi, GPS, etc.). I've
found three interesting "wireless" companies: At Road Inc (ARDI),
Proxim Corp (PROX) and WaveRider Communications Inc (WAVC.OB).

At Road weaves together GPS and wireless tech to assist companies in
managing their mobile workforce (truckers, etc.). Although ARDI was
recently beaten up by a Piper-Jaffray analyst rating, their rev's and
income (decreasing net loss) have been advancing (lessening) nearly
every quarter, and they have a nice debt:asset ratio. Proxim and
WaveRider both install Wi-Fi networks for companies and governments,
using a technology called non-line-of-sight wireless networking.
Proxim (Sunnyvale, CA), for example, bought out ORiNOCO (wireless
networking equipment) and has a contract to outfit Panera Bread
stores with Wi-Fi Hotspot networking. WaveRider, a Toronto company,
in the other CA, is selling it's tech to municipalities and others
looking to provide wireless internet access. Both PROX and WAVC are
in the penny-stock territory: sub-$2 prices and lots of
liquidity...but both are pure-play wireless concerns. ARDI is
currently at about $12.50 and has a much smaller float at about 19.5
m shares...which means to me greater potential for future splits as
the price moves higher.

As always, I've found that the greatest research tool around is
Finance.Yahoo.com. They've added technical charting and a pretty
decent stock screening tool.

Have a great Fall!

Wednesday, August 27, 2003

historical newsletter 2: article mentioning SNDK

article mentioning SNDK, and personal commentary
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2003 05:40:46 -0800


Friends,

check this blurb out about Sandisk in specific and tech positions
generally. I'm really ambivalent about the market at this
point...maybe it's my biorhythms. :-) I've trimmed my SNDK position
at the recent high, by 75%, but have moved those same funds into LEXR
and FLSH (to build existing positions). SNDK has the dominant
position in the Flash ram industry (for pure plays, versus non-pure
plays like Intel and AMD), but LEXR and FLSH are building market
share (and revenue) quickly.

Also at this point I really like and have built my positions in both
BRCD and OPSW. Fidelity recently let slip that they've built their
position in BRCD to 7.5% of outstanding shares...and I think that
since the slide of BRCD lagged the down market, it's rise will lag
the up market (and, of course, following any earnings news).
Opsware, formerly Loudcloud (of Marc Andreesson fame), has come back
up from a low of $.35 (if only I'd bought then!) and similar to
Freemarkets is now priced near to their initial offering price.
Opsware does software for datacenters....and in fact used to run
datacenters but sold the hardware part of their business to EDS,
which included a 5-year contract to manage those datacenters for EDS.

I also like and have built position in BCSI (formerly Cacheflow).
They've come back nicely from a low of 2.50; but since their market
is extremely narrow (internet security devices) I can't recommend
them as anything more than pure speculation. ;-)

There's an interesting article in today's WSJ about market timing.
Although I talk "buy and hold", in today's market you can't
successfully surf the waves and troughs without blending "buy and
hold", "market timing", "gut feeling" and consistent research.

ttyl,

Twitter: alex_landefeld


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