Posts Tagged ‘XRAY’

What Appendicitis feels like, Portfolio updates, China & Visa

Tuesday, March 11th, 2008

I’ve been getting asked recently, what does an appendix that is about to explode feel like?

Well – to me at least – it felt like getting sucker punched without the immediate impact of the punch.That is, just the aftermath. And it just hung around for hours. Then I started puking everywhere. With a fever. I couldn’t sit still, and needed any slight pressure on my body increased the pain.  It took 5 hours of this before I went to the hospital at 6 AM. About 14 hours later, I had blood tests, CT scans, urine tests, etc. etc. and was then under the knife.  I should also say, my symptoms weren’t normal – the doctors weren’t sure if I had appendicitis until after they operated.

I now have 2 or 3 inch cut in my abdomen and 6 staples holding it shut. I get them out today. It’s hard to move around, but I am healing quick.

Portfolio updates: I cut XRAY today, $37.38. one of the reasons I bought was price strength, that’s gone for the time being. I’ll buy it back, probably more expensive later. I owe the option traders a thanks, call buyers have let me reduce CROX down to about $30 and I’m still covered with calls – It’s a shoe company folks, they are going to make new styles of shoes, they will sell like other shoes. It will eventually have a PE of 15 again. I’m out of leveraged gold, I want to get back into Yamana, just the stock – SOON.

China is about to apparently open up shorting in the months to come – should be interesting, to say the least

Mark your calendars for the Visa IPO, March 20th – that’s a basket of worms for many reasons. Business Week wrote about some of the worms, I shared via google reader.

Stocks At all Time Highs, Sign Me Up

Saturday, January 26th, 2008

The investing side of me is a culmination of every investment I’ve ever made as well as every investment I’ve ever seen.  I take pleasure in learning from the successful. 

The present value of a lesson learned is infinite.

I’m jumping on the bandwagon with the teachings of two different millionaires I know…a Hawaiian and Albertan Real Estate success story and a trend following entrepreneurial VC fund runner.  Both buy the tops in the markets they operate and sell it to somebody else higher, and don’t think twice if the market looks remotely like it’s about to go sideways.  Although, I’m going to keep the principles I’ve learned to me by other successful investors like Buffett, Sprot and my dad.

So take a look at XRAY, trading at 25x. 

I think there’s got to be a play somewhere on insulation.  Everybody everywhere is trying to improve the efficiency of their homes as energy gets more expensive while the planet gets more polluted.  If I found a company that was operating in that space and trading at all time highs, I’d be all over that…I’ll be looking and will report.