3Com Corporation

I’ve been watching 3Com (NASDAQ:COMS) for a while. Last week I dreamt it was bought by some other company.

Should I listen to my dreams?

Today’s the day: ETFC

I didn’t tell anyone but I bought an amount of shares from E*Trade (NASDAQ:ETFC) recently when I thought it’s either going down or will make me rich. Reading a lot about shorts in the past months I decided to risk some money.

$2.55 apiece is not very much, so: what risk???

Ok, nobody could foresee what would happen today but one thing is clear: I am going to rip of a lot of people who went short on ETFC.

Nice that the US-Dollar went up, too. Maybe that stock is going up to $5.00 today, who knows?

Moneymachine E*Trade (NASDAQ:ETFC)

A real nice stock to gamble with is still E*Trade (NASDAQ:ETFC).

I watched it for several months now and am still suprised that the company survived its big mistakes in the mortgage business and the slandering crap of Prashant the Guru from Citi (You know, that bank which got finally into trouble itself … ). I made some good money with E*Trade in the past few months by getting in and out in time and even switched my account from a lame European brokerage (Deutsche Bank’s Maxblue) to E*Trade itself because they have a nice interface and their platform is fast whereas my former broker had big difficulties in international trading (you actually never saw when your order was placed finally).

On Monday I couldn’t resist anymore since the stock was so low in Euros that I bought some. I had about 30% profit when I sold yesterday but somehow I now think I sold too early: the stock will probably go up today and the next week. On the other hand: the profit is already on my account.

Yahoo! on losing street

Now that Microsoft has dropped its plans to take over Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) the stock price in pre-trading fell over 21%. The question is: what will happen next?

On the one hand Mr. Yang is absolutely right that a 30$-offer was too low considering that his company was worth more than 31$ in November ’07. On the other hand the whole market is down since the credit crunch. So, do you really believe Microsoft will let go Yahoo! now? This is MS last chance to jump on the internet after it failed to succeed in its own internet business.

My guess is that it’s just politics: Mr. Ballmer was too stupid to do a simple job but now he still does what MS can do best: to scheme (behind Mr. Yang’s neck). Now Mr. Yang is the jackass and all the shareholders will ask for his head. MS will undoubtedly make a hostile takeover in a few months when the stock will go down further and further and the shareholders will be eager to get rid off the stock for less that 30$ a piece. Microsoft always wins.

My advice: short that stock and take what you can.

Sirtris Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:SIRT)

When I pointed at Sirtris Pharmaceuticals in February I was considering to invest in that stock but had no money left. Too bad, since exactly happened what I had suggested: a big player is now trying to buy the company. GlaxoSmithKline today announced that it is going to acquire Sirtris (NASDAQ:SIRT) for $720 million through a cash tender offer of $22.50 per share.

More than 81% profit if you bought that stock yesterday.

US-Stocks viewed from the Eurozone

So far there was some money to be made with US-stocks. I myself made some with E*Trade (NASDAQ:ETFC) and Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL) but less than I could’ve expected since the Dollar went down and down against other major currencies. That leads me to the idea that one should consider the exposure of certain stocks to export. Oracle sells a lot of its software and service to all parts of the world, E*Trade has branches in the Eurozone. Especially E*Trade with the momentarily low price seems to be a good re-investment for people in the Eurozone or Yen: the stock price in US-Dollars now is somewhat 10% lower that 2 months ago at the same levels. Someone investing in Euro has either lost 10% or can re-invest 10% cheaper now.

The question is: will the Dollar go lower or not?

I’d say, the risk of going much lower is far more unlikely than going up. This means, buying US-stocks now could bring a lot more profit than risking a lot. Especially with cheap stocks like E*Trade. Honestly: the bankruptcy-szenario of Prashant Bhatia is gone with the wind and a single act (or a unique chance seen from today’s point of view). No one will listen to this guy and his fantastic analytics anymore …

However, E*Trade remains a good investment for long – but also for fast money since the volatility will keep up.

Sirtris Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Another hot stock is Sirtris Pharmaceuticals. The startup’s activity is discovering and developing proprietary, orally available, small molecule drugs with the potential to treat  metabolic diseases such as Type 2 Diabetes and such of aging by modulating sirtuins, a recently discovered class of enzymes. The drug candidates are designed to mimic certain beneficial health effects of calorie restriction, without requiring a change in eating habits, by activating an enzyme called SIRT1, a member of a recently discovered class of enzymes called sirtuins.

All in all Sirtris (NASDAQ:SIRT) is a promising investment in two ways: first its activities are in a field that affects everyone of us sooner or later. Secondly it has just a market capitalization of 340 million dollars – but its competitors are Pfizer (market cap: 152b $), Johnson & Johnson (180 b) and Eli Lilly (58 b). You get the point. One buyout offer and the stock shoots into the sky.

ETFC : E*Trade rebound

Sometimes it pays out not to be a chicken. After realizing that E*Trade (NASDAQ:ETFC) was just a pinball in the game of Prashant Bhatia, the wizzard of Citibank, I was tempted to buy this stock but chickened out when it hit 2,-$.

A biiiig mistake though I was convinced that price was definetly way too low – but there was the danger of foreign fulfilling prophecy: if a guy like that Bhatia from Citi could bring a stock that much down just by blubbering E*Trade could go bankrupt though he had no data to project this – who knew what could happen next? The stock could’ve gone to zero.

So, instead of risking at least only 2.000,- $ I did nothing. Stupid me. But that’s the way it is: when fear switches off reason. Well, in the end I went in at 3,- $ so it’s not soo bad. I just don’t know yet if I should go long or not since the technical analysis shows a clear upward trend.

I could imagine that the stock will see double digits within the next months. But I hesitate to engage heavily.

ORCL: Oracle profits rise 35%

Actually I don’t like software companies. Why? Because software is something virtual.

Sure, software makers profit from the fact that people have to follow their rules and are fed by the sw companies thru permanent changes and the need for better hardware and the other way around. But even monopolys like Microsoft that suck us are going south by time: other OS like MacOS X or Linux have growing market share and show the world what a computer with the right operating system can do.

However, Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL) is one of the most successful software companies in the world. Its CEO is a strange guy but as charismatic as Steve Jobs. After the closing bell they announced an increase in profits of 35% – far more than so called “analysts” had predicted.

I have to admit it: Oracle stinks of money but does not pay a dividend. But Oracle made a lot of money and whoever invested right in the beginning made more than 11000% profit – even more if he sold shortly before the internet bubble burst.

I think that an eye should be kept on this stock.

ETFC : E*Trade again

So E*Trade made it again.

Tonite Reuters claimed E*Trade (NASDAQ:ETFC) gets a $2.55 billion cash infusion from a group of investors led by Citadel Investment Group that already owned a share in E*Trade and will have a bigger share at about 20% now.

I wonder if those guys already went in at 3.46 last week when the stock was hammered down by speculation and rumors … Maybe one should invest in Citadel or in Blackrock since they got a nice pre-xmas present: a $3 billion asset backed portfolio for just 800 million dollars plus 20% of E*Trade. Sounds quite a good deal for me. Who gives me 1 dollar for my 25 cents?

So guys – what moron sold his ETFC-shares yesterday for some bucks? A lot of idiots who went short and talked the stock down are now bleeding, I guess.

After gotten rid of the sub-prime mess E*Trade should be quite well doing as an online broker like it was from the start. Back to the roots so to say.