Off to Berlin... Placing some trades...

I'm heading off to Berlin for a few days. I'll be back next Thursday, but I'm interested in a few things I think might happen.

So I'm placing two REED orders. I sold mine today 1000 @ $2.55/$2.54, profiting $217 on my initial purchase of 1000 @ $2.34/$2.32. (Since there is such low volume on REED, you can't typically complete your entire order for the price set. When my SELL triggered today at $2.55, there were only 500 bids at that price; the BID then shifted to $2.54 leaving me with an extra 500 shares. I moved my sell order down to $2.54 to move them and they sold.)

My order book also has some Tessera in it since it's due for a bounce. Their Amkor arbitration is hitting on June 10th, so I'm watching to see what happens there. I think they already won and are just determining settlement stuff but that's a big deal and if it's great news, we'll see a huge spike. My play is a mid-term, but if it doesn't auto-sell by the 10th, I'm going to cancel a sell and/or buy it if it didn't trigger to begin with. We could see a $5 (20-25%) bump on good news about this.

I am also still in 40 AAPL @ $184.35. Watch to see what happens on the 9th with iPhone chatter. I don't know how much of it is priced in but I think "amazing features" and "available immediately en masse" could be enough to push this past its support. There's been chatter of it for months but the steady increase hasn't been related to pricing in on that. I think it can break $200. Let's see what happens.

Here's my order book:

TIME		DESCRIPTION	STATUS
6/7/08 04:21:07		SELL -250 TSRA STP 14.00 GTC TRG BY #48238739 OCO #48238740	WAIT TRG
6/7/08 04:21:07		SELL -250 TSRA TRSTP MARK-.17 MARK GTC TRG BY #48238739 OCO #48238740 WHEN TSRA MARK AT OR ABOVE 19.65	WAIT TRG
6/7/08 04:21:07		BUY +250 TSRA TRSTP MARK+.17 MARK GTC WHEN TSRA MARK AT OR BELOW 18.75	WAIT COND
6/7/08 03:14:22		SELL -1000 REED @2.55 LMT GTC TRG BY #48238495	WAIT TRG
6/7/08 03:14:22		BUY +1000 REED @2.10 LMT GTC	QUEUED
6/7/08 03:12:47		SELL -1000 REED @2.50 LMT GTC TRG BY #48238484	WAIT TRG
6/7/08 03:12:47		BUY +1000 REED @2.25 LMT GTC	QUEUED

MOS hurts, TSRA heals...

So MOS shot back up, but my stops triggered properly and it only hurt me something like $40 or $60. Or something.

I initiated a fun TSRA play last night:
BUY +250 TSRA MARK+.10 WHEN TSRA MARK AT OR BELOW 18.55
I've stopped setting flat out limit purchases. The common wisdom is to never buy at MARK but to always place a limit order and wait for the market to come to you. Anything else is chasing and can be real trouble; you can almost always get a better price.

With a stock as volatile as TSRA, though, if it starts the day by shooting straight on down, it can be painful.

Say TSRA opens at 19. You have every intention to buy at 18.75. The market opens and it plunges downward, to 18.75, where your LIMIT order triggers. It then continues on its downward march to 18.35, before turning around. Here's the issue: Every penny below your purchase price is a penny you must now make back UP in order to come close to profitability.

One defense against this is the trailing stop on the BUY side with a threshold trigger. I set a trailing stop of 10 cents, only once it hit 18.55. What this means is that I can expect to pay no more than 18.65. But what it further means is that if TSRA is intent on tanking early on, I won't buy into a downtrend. My trailing stop will follow it on down, until the momentum shifts by 10 cents.

Now, on a very volatile stock with considerable spikes and lags, you can easily have a stock drop 40 cents, gain the 10 cents needed to trigger your buy order, and then promptly resuming its demise. I've had this happen. Twice. It then promptly ran into my STOP and sold me out, causing me to loose twice in a row. Things to carefully consider then: set your trailing stop level at something intelligent, based on a stock's tendency to spike and lag and its typical volatility. Truthfully, 10 cents is probably too anemic, but going much higher than that results in lost profitability; every cent the stock has to regain before you buy in is a cent you don't earn profit on.

Further, set your emergency stop further out. I should've had mine at 17, but I figured 18 wasn't going to happen. I was very, very wrong. And sad.

Yesterday, the stock started at 18.69 and started its way on down. It hit a day low of 18.33 before turning sharply and heading on up. It gained 10 cents and my trailing stop triggered in and I rode an amazing little wave on up to $19.90-ish, before it caught a lag back down to 19.74/19.55 and sold me out right about there. Still, on 250 shares, that was a profit of $272.

I'm doing something nearly identical today. I won't touch it if it doesn't bounce up at all during the day; my emergency stop is set for 17 and I think that's been a healthy support level and if it hits that, shit's hit the fan already. But holding it for a day or two is smart; it'll touch on 20 again and then back back off. A stock like this is volatile yet generally so within a range and relatively predictable. Naturally, I can get myself burned with too cautious stops or bad trailing stop levels, or if the unthinkable happens and big news causes an epic gap. But for now, it's fun and a potentially good play.

Tomorrow's order:
BUY +250 TSRA TRSTP MARK+.10 MARK GTC WHEN TSRA MARK AT OR BELOW 18.55
SELL -250 TSRA TRSTP MARK-.16 MARK GTC TRG BY #46617 OCO #4661 WHEN TSRA MARK AT OR ABOVE 19.45
SELL -250 TSRA STP 17.00 GTC TRG BY #4661 OCO #46617

Back...

Sorry for the lack of posts. I'm still jet-lagged. Got screwed by two Tessera plays that triggered and fired straight through my fucking stops. Lost about $160 on each, twice. Then watched it hit $18-ish after a dip in the $17s. Placed a buy order at $17.75 that never triggered because it shot through to almost $20. Hating it a bit about that right now.

Will be getting back into this way more actively next week. Liquidated Scottrade. Thinkorswim 4 life, etc.

On Vacation...

I forgot to post that I'm actually on vacation right now, on a cruise ship for about 2 weeks. I made a QQQQs play, looking for it as a long-term. Overbought, so that I was on margin, had bought at the dip, caught that I was in margin while at the airport, sold it off in afters for about $120+ profit.

I made some on my MOS play.

I'm watching V break its initial resistance. $100 by August, anyone? (I don't own any, though...)

And I have a standing bracketed OCO order for TSRA when it hits $19.45, stop at $18.85, trailing stop set to trigger at $21.25 for 17 cents. We'll see if that plays.

If you don't see any movement here, that's because I'm gone til May 13th. Cheers!

Long TSRA, Short MOS, missed on AAPL

So I bought 20 AAPL at $162.60 right before close yesterday. And then I watched it spike amazingly to the $171 point in after-hours. And I didn't hit sell. As I was walking around the office a few minutes later, and then back to my desk, I was wondering why I hadn't at that point. By the time I had come back, it had gone from a ~$160 profit to ($133). Awesome. Ended up leveling out, but I don't want to hold it long.

I've loaded up an interesting play in Mosaic Company (MOS). They had a rough day yesterday and a quick look at their 6-month charts shows that every time they've had a pretty rough day, they've continued to slide the next day, sometimes to much greater effect. But they've always bounced up enough to trigger an upper-limit buy-to-cover, so I've pushed it up a bit high.

My order looks like this:
Sell -20 MOS @ 131.50 LMT
Buy +20 MOS STP 136.00
OR
Buy +20 MOS TRSTP MARK+.10 WHEN MOS MARK AT OR BELOW 129.00

Basically, I want to sell short almost immediately when the market opens. If the stock turns around and spikes up to $136, I'll buy to cover my position, total loss: $100.

If the stock flies through the $129 mark, a trailing stop will take effect such that if it rebounds by more than 10 cents at any point, a buy to cover will take effect and lock in some profit. If that hits, minimum locked in profit: $49 or so.

Might turn out that I'm fucking up how I place limit orders with shorting, but I'm learning the platform and figure my stops are in place to protect me from my own stupidity.

This will be my third roundtrip if it executes, so it's a good thing I'm leaving. I need to liquidate my Scottrade positions or convert them into something more stable. Maybe try the DJIA; see if we can see some gains in 19 days. We're past the nasty bank stuff and the rough earnings period, so we might see some bounceback and growth. Berkshire is also trading at a near-6-month low, but I won't be here to lock in the profits on that and Scottrade doesn't have logical/bracketed trades.

We'll see if I keep losing with my position ideas. I need to get the hell out of AAPL as well. I'm going to put a stop on that to make sure it doesn't tank.
Edit: AAPL exit positions:
SELL -20 AAPL STP 156.00
SELL -20 AAPL TRSTP MARK-.26 WHEN AAPL MARK AT OR ABOVE 164

Sold 200 TSRA @ 20.00, Profit: $104.30

So after having re-bought into TSRA another 200 shares on thinkorswim for $19.4285, my trailing stop limit triggered at 20.00.

This is because I was fundamentally misunderstanding the utility of the trailing stop limit, which is to say, simpler than I was making it. Instead of a trailing stop that only triggers once it hits a limit, it's instead a trailing stop that triggers instantly, with an upper limit that will force a sale no matter what. A bit less useful, but basically a hybrid way of placing an order with two levels of protection in a single order.

TOS does allow you to create triggers and rules, though, so the way around this and to get the desired behavior I was talking about yesterday would be to create your basic bracketed OCO with a low stop where you want it and then to create a trailing stop with the MARK - whatever value, and a "AT OR ABOVE" trigger on the mark price.

Fortunately, TSRA swung back down just after hitting 20.00, but not before hitting 20.22, which means my TS would've triggered at 20.12, basically killing $20 in profit. Probably the cheapest form of that mistak I could make; if it had triggered on the next 20.00 touch, where the stock broke out all the way up to 20.70, I would've been much more pissed.

Feeling the burn...

Definitely a painful few days, as I'm now at a net loss of about $150. Awesome.

The market has just taken a drubbing the past few days. It doesn't help that this is "banks tell us how hard they've fucked up" week, with WaMu and a bunch of others writing down and taking losses like crazy. Add to that GE's performance on Friday and my tech and pharma stocks are eating it just from the halo effect.

Intel posted good numbers which should help, Abbott SHOULD get approval for their coated stents, perhaps this week and they announce pre-market today, in about 2-3 hours, I'd imagine. Hopefully good news; all signs point to yes. If they're anything below expectations, I'm pretty rightly fucked.

Rumor abounds that Tessera won the arbitration with Amkor; they're just discussing awards now. That will be huge for them, so I'm holding both these long for now, basically tapping my cash reserves entirely. Need a bounceback here; it's getting brutal and I'm not even in financials, aerospace/airlines or retail. Ugh.

This is why you need stop losses...

Today was a bloody day all around and not something I needed to be around for. Let's examine what I did wrong:

I hesitated in setting a stop loss for Tessera at, say, $21. In my mind, if it bounced to $21 again, it was just going to bounce back up and I didn't want to miss the swing up and lose some money. Instead, it tanked right through its support to $20.29. Jesus. Each of those cents it dropped cost me $2. I'm down $206 on $4,058 worth of Tessera, because I didn't set a stop loss.

Tessera isn't dropping on any news. It's not dropping because of a loss of value or patent issues. No, it dropped, like just about everything else today, on news that GE fucked up and didn't hit their estimates. Because GE is such a far-reaching conglomerate and because they have some exposure to subprime with GE Capital/Finance, they double-whammied and took everyone down with them.

Since I want to be in Tessera *anyway*, this was a particularly painful lesson: I should have had a stop loss at $20.90. It would've tunneled right through that before landing where it did and I would've saved $122 of pain. I could've bought my 200 shares back at $20.90 and dodged that pain. But instead, I kept myself from establishing a decent stop loss. It's part art, part science to establish a proper stop loss that will keep me from exiting just as it's about to upswing again. But I needed one today.

Abbott started to dive and kept on going. I should've held off on purchasing ANY stock at the beginning of the day with something as significant as GE's news, especially considering how sterile ABT has been the past few weeks. I'm really hoping things bounce back Monday. I also need to examine stop losses to set now.

I also have a great deal more exposure with 200 shares. A relatively meager bounceback will bring this all back and a spike will boost me quite happily. I'm guessing and hoping TSRA makes it back into the high $21-$22 range next week, on no news.

Meanwhile, I'm still looking for a 19-day strategy. Ideas are welcome.

Buying Abbott Laboratories (ABT)...

Lackluster day today. Tessera bounced around and ended low, no big deal, it'll bounce back up tomorrow. Will try to sell in the $22 range.

American Airlines completely surprised me with a BUNCH of short covers and support actually bringing it *up* 7%. Who knew.

Buying Abbott Laboratories in advance of their earnings announcement on the 16th. Could get bitten bad on this: 65 @ 53.91. Hoping to see maybe 3-7% gains, though. Could easily swing down up to 10% on missed expectations, etc. I'll bail if it looks choppy before the call. Shouldn't be an issue though, I think. Pharma is stable if there aren't any massive, unforeseen patent/lawsuit issues and Abbott has had some good news coming their way and little movement elsewhere so let's see if this pans out. Getting on board a good few days before the announcement to allow myself to profit from any gaps. Again, though, it could swing either way.

I'm beginning to look for a short-medium-term strategy for the trip. I'll be gone for a full 19 days and completely out of touch with regards to stock and such. I'm thinking I'll buy into either GOOG or back into BRK, since they're relatively low impact—but GOOG's earnings announcement could affect that a lot. Same with AAPL, but they have both traded really strongly this past month. Not sure if they'll correct back down or not.

Averaging in TSRA...

Bad day on the market, but I bought another 100 shares of TSRA, this set at $21.31. As it closed at $21.66, not a bad scene. Should've sold off the first 100 at open, but no big deal. Since I bought the first 100 @ $21.55, still doing alright. I'll sell at least 100 if it hits $22.40-ish again. $22.60 or whatnot would be ideal.

Why not sell the whole load? Because I'm still expecting news on the Amkor settlement and don't really want to miss the bump I'm expecting we'll get on that. Though the settlement talks were to end on the 8th, so perhaps nothing going til next week, once a decision is made...

Want a near sure thing? Short AMR (American Airlines' parent company). They've had to nix another 1,000 flights for MD-80 checks and that's going to hurt them something awful. Note to American Airlines: Get this shit fixed before I fly you on the 25th. Seriously. They already tanked 10% Wednesday, so they might his some support (because stuff like this can only "damage" you temporarily so much) but I think we could see another 5-10% today. It'll probably gap before pre-market and not be worth waking up for, though. Let's take a look at what happens when the market opens.

Fun fact: If I had bought 10 shares of GOOG at the beginning of this and held them until Monday, without any other activity, I would've made $536, instead of the $374 I'm sitting on now. Not sure what'll happen with their earnings though, but might be a good buy if it gets beaten up again, which some are expecting.

Even sadder? If I had bought 34 shares of AAPL (about the same price as 10 of GOOG at the time) and sold now, I'd be up $998. Medium-term may really be the way to go, at least with some of my liquidity. Berkshire's only up $30 from when I first bought it though.

AMD in and out, back in to TSRA...

Symbol	Action	Qty	Acct Type	Price	Total
AMD	BOUGHT TO COVER	500	SHORT	$6.06	$3,037.00
TSRA	BOUGHT	100	MARGIN	$21.55	$2,162.00
AMD	SOLD SHORT	500	SHORT	$6.10	$3,042.98

Can't short in pre-market. Fun. Wouldn't have mattered since it gapped pretty hard. Entered at market at open 500 @ $6.10, watched it climb to the $6.18 range, but held tight, covered at $6.06 for a net profit of all of $5. Woo.

Tessera bounced around a bit more today before triggering my limit order 100 @ $21.55 before closing at $21.87 / $22.10 (A.E.) netting roughly $55. I'm going to set another trailing stop and let this one play on its own again. If it keeps wanting to trade in this range, I might as well ride it each way. I just hope I'm on board when the Amkor news comes through, assuming it's good news.

Also, a veritable bounty of earnings calls coming up over the next week. Time to pick some tasty picks... Bed Bath Beyond, Circuit City, Progressive... and a bunch bunch more the week after.

TSRA & PLXS Sold, $74.01 profit...

Both TSRA and PLXS triggered their stops today:

Symbol	Action	Qty	Acct Type	Price	Total
TSRA	SOLD	100	MARGIN	$22.405	$2,233.48
PLXS	SOLD	100	MARGIN	$26.0901	$2,601.99

Seeing as I originally bought PLXS for $2,601.99 total, and TSRA for $2,159.47, that leaves me with a net profit of $74.01 on both.

I am now completely exited from all positions, the first time that's been the case since I've started.

TSRA has been all over the place. Early on, it was trading in a range from $22.42 to $22.60 or so. My trailing stop was set for $22.41 and I watched it come very, very close several times before finally triggering. A bit later, the stock shot up to $22.95, but it's come back down to $22.37-ish. I have a standing limit order to buy back 100 @ $21.55, but it's doubtful it'll drop far enough to hit that today, since it's up on the day and opened at $22.

PLXS ended up costing me all of $5, but it's hovering right around the same point so I'm not too upset.

I'm beginning to formulate strategies for my upcoming trip. I'll be gone for over two weeks and won't have much access to internet. I'm definitely considering just buying two solid shares of BRK/B, especially if it keeps tanking like it has. It's down to $4,360 after having hit $4,466 when I sold it.

Google also looks poised for a breakout. It's hitting $480 right now, but it's been swinging back down as well. We'll see what happens when earnings come up soon.

Safety Stops for TSRA & PLXS...

I've placed two sell orders for TSRA and PLXS.

I bought into TSRA 100 @ 21.455 and it's trading at 21.99 / 22.05 (A.E.). I think it has a lot of potential upward momentum, but if it dips back down, I can use that to my advantage. I've set a trailing stop of 0.26 pts so its floor is 21.73. If it dips below that, I'll reevaluate, but probably buy back in a little lower, instead of taking the hit for the dip. I think we'll hold steady in the upper 21s, but any significant dip will trigger the stop.

Again, this is a stock I'm holding for news on the Amkor arbitration. I think the other pending lawsuits are too far off to make this a short term play, so we'll see what happens, though I'm debating switching it from a trailing stop to a regular stop...

PLXS didn't bounce like I had hoped; the downgrade to "neutral" really hurt it. They finished some proper financing as expected late Friday, but I'm not sure it'll have much of an impact. Either way, it closed at 26.01 / 25.91 (A.E.) after I bought 100 @ 26.00, so I've set a T/S of 0.31 points, but I'm not sure I'll want to see that trigger without a nice spike. I'm looking to exit this position pretty quickly one way or another and I'll probably take a slight loss on it.

RIMM Sold, small profit...

Today's Completed Orders

Symbol	Action	Qty	Acct Type	Price	Total
RIMM	SOLD	30	MARGIN	$121.25	$3,630.47

Sold RIMM today with a trailing stop set at .75 that followed it along. Should've held on a little tighter, since it's trading in the $123.25 range now.

Realistically, I should've sold it yesterday in after hours when it spiked to $125. Definitely should've recognized that it wasn't going much higher than that and made off with it then. But alas.

Net profit after commission: $57.97 or roughly 1.6%. Not great, but better than taking a loss. Could've realized up to $220. This entire game is about timing and learning to read the market a little better. I definitely didn't anticipate a drop off to the $115 range right before market close last night, especially considering that the earnings announcement was scheduled for after the bell. I could've bought in then and sold a few hours later at the $124-$125 mark for a much healthier profit.

Had a margin call issued because of the free-ride this constituted. (Since I bought RIMM with unsettled funds and then sold it before said funds settle, it's considered sold on the margin. Since the previously sold securities I bought this with will settle up before my purchase or sale of RIMM, I'll pay no margin fees or anything though.)

Also, still holding Tessera which is up $0.38, for a net gain of $38. This is its third day of gains thus far, if it holds. I'm guessing it'll start to bounce down soon. Again, this is a medium-term holding until at LEAST the Ankor hearing results or some other info on their MOTO case come out. I'm sitting on a bit of a powder keg, but if the patents are truly valid, this could explode to the $40s. Or plummet to the $10 or lower if they're not.

Sold BRK, Bought TSRA

Symbol	Action	Qty	Acct Type	Price	Total
TSRA	BOUGHT	53	CASH	$21.45	$1,143.85
BRK/B	SOLD	1	CASH	$4,466.00	$4,458.97
TSRA	BOUGHT	47	CASH	$21.46	$1,015.62

I originally bought BRK/B 1 @ $4,374.50 (incl. comm.), so selling at $4,458.97 yielded me $84.47. Which is nice, considering the "fun" I'm experiencing with TSRA. I'm in for a penny and a pound at $2,159.57. Hopefully, the patents don't destroy me. But I'm still wanting to stick around and hoping for a good outcome there. I won't buy in any more than that.

TSRA dipped on news of the patent stuff which stung my position, but that's what happens.

Overall? For now? Up $158.87. Visa needs to bounce one way or another and hopefully not erase my BSC gains.

Tessera Patent Panic: What happens when people don't read *all* the words...

EDIT: I'm now pretty damn confused because only a few were even examined originally; so it may in fact be that all that were re-exed were rejected. We'll see what that means soon enough. Or I'll lose $2k.

Tessera received an initial action today from the Patent Office that some people interpreted, once again incorrectly, to mean that their patent had been invalidated. This was exacerbated by idiots posting "ALL CLAIMS REJECTED" onto Yahoo and Google's Finance boards. Awesome.

In reality, only 7 of the 27 claims of the patent in question were dumped. And the remaining 20 were essentially re-affirmed.

Here's my full rant on the boards:

Alright, a lot of people have been fear-mongering OR unintentionally
misreading the USPTO's office action which became available on PAIR
today. (Available here: http://portal.uspto.gov/external/portal/pair
Control number:90/008,484)

Let's be clear that the SUMMARY OF ACTION clearly states that SEVEN of
the 27 claims were SUBJECT TO REEXAMINATION and subsequently REJECTED
outright.

The remaining 20 claims were "not subject to reexamination," which
actually in force makes them stronger.

Summary of action:
1a. Claims 1,5,6,17,18,21 and 22 are subject to reexamination
1b. Claims 2-4,7-16,19,20 and 23-27 are not subject to reexamination
4. Claims 1,5,6,17,18,21 and 22 are rejected.

Now before we take a look at the claim language from the actual
patent, US Patent Number 5,679,977 (Available here:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=P...),

let's consider:
A) The patent is in full-force and effect while the case is being
examined
B) The claim is non-final office action, and Tessera will appear it
anyway

And now let's look at the claims and examine which have been rejected--
mostly the non-specific elements. Now, that's not to say that those
elements don't narrow it down to the scope of exactly what's at issue
here. It's not to say that I even know anything about the specificity
with which the patent examiner has knocked down certain claims over
others. It *is* to say that the specifics have been mostly upheld and
that MOST of the patent is intact and survivable in that form. Not
only that, but before an appeal even, those elements are "not subject
to reexamination" and thus COMPLETELY LOCKED as valid.

Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about any of this. I am
not a patent officer, attorney, lawyer or anyone even remotely
intelligent in any of these fields, or in trading in general. I am
just offering the facts as *I* see them, since I'm sick of reading
"ZOMG THE PATENT IS GONE" based on a 10 word wire piece. Seriously,
people.

Pre-Market TSRAing...

Action	Qty	Symbol	Price	Total		Acct Type	Trade Date	Time Completed	Settlement Date
BUY	47	TSRA	$21.46	$1,015.62		CASH	3/31/2008	8:01:30 AM	4/3/2008

Done and done. Back to bed. Happy to have bought below Friday's close, even if just barely. ($21.93)

A pregnant pause... entering Tessera with no available out for 3 days... (TSRA)

Tessera is a microelectronics company that holds a bunch of patents directly correlated to miniaturization technologies used in the semiconductor industry. They receive lots of royalties and licensing fees from Intel and other major semiconductor manufacturers.

Motorola has been trying to bitch slap the patent infringement suit Tessera has brought against them, which is kinda a big deal: If the patents are indeed not infringing, there's something to be said in a worst-case-scenario kinda way that they could be overthrown entirely and Tessera could lose their current clients. Bad news.

As a result of this fear, and several USPTO re-exams tossing claims, Tessera's share price completely tanked in February, from $40 to a low of $13 in seriously about a week. Ouch.

An ITC judge issues a stay against them, which killed them further. Tessera clarified that USPTO's claim-tossing was NOT the same as overturning their patents; quite different. This helped them out a bit. But yesterday, the ITC appeals panel unanimously overturned the stay and is allowing them to go forth with their claims. That caused a MASSIVE spike of 33% (+5.44 to $21.93) Friday alone.

Here's the thing: Tessera is a pretty stable company in terms of operation and IP. They have a bunch of major players paying major licensing fees to them for their technology. An analyst at Lehman Brothers is putting a price target of $46. From an intrinsic value standpoint, you're looking around the $40s at least, where it was trading for most of last year.

What's that mean? It's a steal at twice the price, even at $22. I'm going to put my liquid $1,000 into it @ market on Monday.

The only problem is that I free-rode Friday with Red Hat. (Bought in and then sold with unsettled funds.) If I do that twice, I have my account frozen for 90 days. This is why I need to sign my margin authorization. (Margin accounts aren't held to the free-ride stipulations. Even when you're trading in cash.)

So I'm effectively locked into this one for 3 days. But I think it'll be well worth it. I'm not sure how long I'll hold onto it. Any settlement or further upward movement in this court case could cause this stock to absolutely skyrocket. If they "win" in any form, we're talking a HUGE boost. It'll reaffirm their position beyond all doubt (as opposed to the unanimous overturn which simply helped them quite a bit) AND lock in a major cash influx. Huge potential here.

And if the ITC was overturning the stay unanimously, they clearly think there's some merit there. Not to mention the fact that Intel and a bunch of others are already paying the licensing fees without a peep. Some real potential here. Not sure what I want to establish as an exit strategy; if I want to hold medium or wait for a ruling on the case... if they failed to secure a victory on the case, all hell could break loose.

Either way, I'm seeing some decent short-ish term growth on the horizon. Maybe a jump on Monday, but having the free-ride limitation might actually help me out and not panic if it slips a little on Monday. (I fully expect it to go up though; there's going to be major support @ 22 and gnashing of short-covers.)

Open Orders

Status Symbol Action Qty Order Type Duration Order Time Session QUEUED TSRA BUY 47 MARKET DAY 3/29/2008 1:45 AM Regular