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.

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

Let's play the earnings call game... Buying Redhat (RHT)

Redhat announced that they bested earnings expectations by 7%. Quarterly earnings calls almost always come with a fun shift in the stock price: up for beat expectations, down for missed expectations. Naturally, this is an oversimplification. A stock's last few quarter's performance, it's market capitalization, the amount by which it missed or exceeded and of course, random market entropy all come into play.

But it's typically one of the safer bets you can make.

I'm hoping for a 5-10% bump and I'll roundtrip it if it gets anywhere near to that. After hours pushed +1.27 / 7.24% already, so the most of what we'll see may have already come and I could be buying into a sell off. Or we could see some shorts covered and a nice spike that nets me a small profit.

I'm only buying $1,000 worth, since that's all I have in "liquidity". In fact, I don't even have that; I have $500 in settled funds and another $500 in unsettled, pending funds. (From today's GOOG & AAPL sales.) The Federal Reserve's Regulation T requires me to have the funds settled before I can buy and then sell a new set of securities with the proceeds of an earlier sale.

Example: While I can buy 29 shares of RHT with the proceeds from my GOOG/AAPL sales, I cannot sell the position until the sales have settled, in three days. If I do, it's considered "free-riding" and it's a no-no; two instances locks an account for 90 days. I'm willing to take one instance to get a nice profit in.

I'm also completing a margin application, since you can get around this provision with a margin account.

The other thing I need to watch out for is the pattern day trading rules. If I perform 4 roundtrips (in and out of a position in the same day) within any 5 day period, my account converts to a "pattern day trader" account, which requires a minimum equity amount of $25,000. The punchline? They issue a fucking trading equity call for the difference if you don't have the $25,000. Or they close your account. Woo regulations.