Orexigen Therapeutics IPO

San Diego-based Orexigen Therapeutics, developing one of the most promising new obesity drugs, filed for an IPO on December 19th. Their drug is hailed as a breakthrough by the Daily Mail.

Tech IPOs for 2007

So what's new for tech IPOs in 2007? Well the horizon isn't exceptionally terrific. There aren't any Googles on the agenda. The IPOs that are trying to go public are wiMax provider ClearWire and glu mobile, developer of mobile games. A bright spot may be Aruba. Aruba enables companies to transform their wired Intranets into WANs.

Stay tuned to see who makes the leap.

Is the USA Insolvent

Good article regarding the recenlty released Treasury/OMB report entitled Financial Report of the United States Government. The report is scary enough to give me pause about the long term financial health of the nation.

Creating Wealth

Money has a good article on creating wealth. The wealth creating tips aren't anything new of course. The top tip in my opinion is start investing as early in life as possible, and put it in mutual funds, unless you really enjoy researching stocks. Another money tip I found interesting was subtracting your age by 120. That's the amount you should have invested in stocks. I would go so far as saying subtract your age by 125. Stocks will always be your top money maker.

Life Sciences Named to 2006 Scientific American 50

Good news for CuraGen(CRGN). Life Sciences, majority owned by CuraGen, as been named to the 2006 Scientific American 50. CuraGen is one of my long term stock picks.

Shutterfly not growing yet

Shutterfly(SFLY) hasn't moved much since it's IPO, but I'm holding out hope that there are some moves in the future. I believe this is one of the best and well known online printers out there.

529 College Savings Plans

A friend of mine was bemoaning the cost of college these days and how bad his investing has been going. Not everybody knows this, but there is a college savings plan called 529, which are created to help families save for college tax free. It can be used to pay for tuition, room and board, text books and required supplies at accredited colleges, universities and vocational schools.

Earnings on the 529 are tax deferred, which is always helplful. The 529 allows asset allocation funds. You are in charge of the assets and can contribute up to $12,000 a year, $24,000 for married couples, per student without any federal gift-tax consequences. That's pretty sweet, considering you get nailed for anything over $10,000 normally.

By the way, my recommendation of Mastercard(MA) continues to play out as it hit a high of $105 a share. I would really like to see it go down a little before buying more shares however.

US Dollar Falls

The Dollar plunged against major currencies on Friday and the Euro soared. What this means for your investments is that we will likely see a lot of volatility for the next couple of months. I see a correction coming since stocks have been rising for quite a while now. For short term investors, this may mean a run for safe havens. For short term investors, this may mean a buy on great stocks that have been beyond reach.

Stock-picking behind Bill Gates' Charitable Efforts

From the article, "For Cascade Investment LLC and manager Michael Larson, the road to overseeing the personal wealth of Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates got off to a bumpy start. "Read more

A good read.

Evaluating Stocks Based on Dividend Growth

Smart Capitalist has a great article on evaluating stocks on Dividend Growth. Their argument is, that stocks with a strong history of dividend payouts are superior to stocks that do not. These companies are usually more stable and responsible. This can especially be said of many of the technology companies of the past ten years. When you look at great companies over the long haul you see companies like GE, Johnson & Johnson, etc. The great companies always pay a dividend.

Yahoo and Social Networking

Yahoo (YHOO) took a major hit as advertising revenue dropped due to the continuing rise in popularity of social networking sites. Of course many experts were stating that this was going to happen, so wise investors got our early. I would like to think that Yahoo will get it together, so Yahoo at around $20 or below would make the stock look attractive.

Web 2.0 Financial Sites

There's a new breed of interactive financial sites out there. Here are a few of the all new Web 2.0 financial sites:

SquawkLive.com: SquawkLive examines over 8,500 stocks every minute of every trading day, including before and after market hours. They also have a nice industry screener for stock research.


ValueWiki: ValueWiki is a free investment wiki where users write & compile research on stocks and mutual funds. It also offers free investor chat, message boards, and blogging.


Wikistock: A wiki site aimed at making financial information free and open. Similar to ValueWiki.

FiNTAG: A provider of tag information for financial instruments, FiNTAG is now also the leading Hedge Fund website run by Hedge Fund professionals.

That's it for now, more later.

Did you notice how Mastercard blew away estimates? I bought this stock shortly after IPO. I believe Americans are going to continue building up debt, and Mastercard(MA) is well positioned for cash less society. I believe it's a strong buy after a pullback.

Bally Worth a Look?

Bally(bft), the health club chain, received a $280 million loan to refinance existing debt on which it was in danger of defaulting recently. Is this the news investors have been waiting for as shares have steadily declined in the last year? I would consider picking some shares around $2.

Shutterfly Goes Public

Shutterfly(sfly) went public today at $15.50 a share. SFLY is profitable since 2003, and keeps it's costs down. I'll be putting it on my radar. As of this posting it up at $16.06 a share.

Small Cap Biotech Pick

As an investor you have to love an article like this one. The Motley Fool wonders if CuraGen is "Hiding a Genomic Gem" in the race to find the $1000 genome. Which is important, because it helps with making designer drugs for individual people. At around $3.50, Curagen is worth a look if anything.

TINY - Harris & Harris Group, Inc. - Google Finance

TINY - Harris & Harris Group, Inc. is a venture capital firm investing in nano technology companies. My interest has been sparked of late due to a rise in price in the stock and numerous news articles naming nano technology as the big thing for the future. This is the only pure play in the sector, and a very very long long term play, which may make you rich some day.

Restored

I've always been a fan of Restoration Hardware, just not it's stock. This may change with me however now that it has posted a nice profit in it's last quarter. According to my research, the company seems to have found traction with new products and looks to have a great Christmas. Have a look at this article at Motley Fool. I'm adding Restoration Hardware to my watch list.

Four Mental Mistakes to Avoid Now

I picked this article up from digg. It's four mental mistakes investors are making from Jonathon Clements Getting Going at WSJ. His main complaint is that people aren't saving enough, or at all. This is a good read.

How to get Rich

Felix Dennis, publishing tycoon, has written a guide to becoming a multi-millionaire. Take a read. But basically his advice is to have a strong work ethic, tough skin and that the only thing to fear is fear itself.

5 Stock Picks Under $10

Here are five stocks under $10 that I've been researching, and you should consider looking into yourself.

First off is Cosi(COSI). Cosi is a restaurant on the order of Panera Bread. Although they only have 99 franchies right now, they are expected to add 400 by 2009. However, there are signs that earnings could be hurt by the expansion.

Seachange(SEAC) makes video on demand possible. The upside is the great potential in this field, where Amazon is expected to launch a download site next month. The negative is that earnings aren't really great right now, so there could be some waiting for tech to get hot again.

Design Within Reach(DWRI) is like a high end Pier One. Mostly catering to the wealthy, they have done well in recent years due to real estate market. I believe they will continue to do well, even though an earnings miss destroyed share price recently, and their CFO just resigned, however there has been some inside buying, always a positive sign.

Interstate Hotels and Resorts(IHR) manages hotels. They have seen incredible growth lately, and their shares have great relative strength. These shares keep peaking above $10 lately, so try to catch it under $10.

Last but not least Vaalco Energy(EGY). Vaalco drills for oil off of the coast of Africa. They are a small but growing company with a huge amount of cash. A good bet for those seeking a growth pick in the oil sector. Some analysts think the company will eventually be bought up by a larger company.

Remember to do your DD on any stock before buying.