Review: Korean vacation

It's 11:30pm and I am still packing for my vacation to Korea. This time I have with me many gifts for my friends and families. As I have told you before, I found out about my cancer while on vacation in Korea last October (October 2005 that is). I really had no idea that I was this sick. The support I got from families and friends while I was lying in a hospital bed (ready to go into surgery) helped me through this difficult time. Anyway, it really was a stroke of sheer luck that I found out about my cancer.

Now, six month later (after the surgery, chemo sessions and everything else) I will be on a plane back to Korea. Nothing has changed except that I am leading a much healthier life and that I have a new hair style (Shao-lin temple style). Oh, by the way, I already have a reservation at the Plaza hotel in Seoul - which is right in front of where 100,000 Koreans will gather to cheer for Korean team during WorldCup 2006. You have no idea what it feels like to cheer for your home team along with that many people in one place! (FYI: The hotel costs $700 per night).

Review: This is exactly what we own right now:

1. RICK $6.54 (our largest holding: If you do not own this yet, buy some now. If you already own it - hold it until it reaches $10 or higher)

2. BTYH $1.37 (Bad Toys will spinoff its ambulance division - holders will receive shares; I think that the spinoff company alone is worth more than the current price. BTYH went up 10% today, it's not too late, buy - buy).

3. MATK $28.12 (Martek is still a monopoly in the DHA market. After releasing a fabulous 2nd Q. bumbers, this stock went up almost 12% today. My one year target is still $40+ per share. MATK will go over $30 soon. Do what ever you want with this info).

4. IDWD $0.92 (If you had bought this company when I first recommended it, you will be very pleased on June 15th. We will all receive shares in HLS Inc. I predict that this Home Land Security (HLS) division will be wildly profitable. IDWD is also trying to spinoff 995ad.com business through an IPO. I would not want to be out of this play. If you can stomach the volatility, buy now. Our target remains at $2.75 (this includes HLS division).

5. AUTO $1.05 (This is a boring company - transportation business. But it is profitable and growing. Selling at less than half of its annual sales, this one is cheap. As far as I am concerned, this will have to double soon - its return on equity is about 65%, wow. By the way, it went up 8.3% today. Our average cost is $1.08 per share).

6. PRZ $1.20 ( I recently wrote about this company so please refer to that article. If you are conservative, buy this after it releases 1st Q. numbers at the end of June. If you want to follow me, just buy it now. I bought more few days ago. Hint hint...).

7. UTK $15.92 (I just love this company. What a great idea this company has! It brokers new technology from universities to tech. companies and they are very profitable. UTK also owns a lot of shares of these growing companies. This stock - I intend to own it for next 10 years).

8. EXPEZ $5.05 (Expedia will have to turn around and get noticed by the wall street guys. It is currently down significantly from few months ago, and that's why I like it. I believe that Expedia can and will turn its business in the right direction - let's give them two quarters to do it. When they do, our warrant (EXPEZ) will trade in double digits! ).

If you go back and read my previous writings, you can get a better picture than this simple overview today. I am quite comfortable with our holdings. Most importantly, try your best to own all of what I have mentioned above. Diversification is key. One of our winners can offset a few losers. You probably have noticed that two of our companies are about to spinoff certain divisions into a whole new separate company. By the end of next quarter, we will have two to three new company stocks in our portfolio. In the end, I like to have about 10-12 different stocks in our portfolio.

Once again, I will be on a plane to Korea few hours from now.
Please leave comments whenever you wish me to respond.
Have a great June - I definitely will. Ciao!

Five great news !

Another so so day in the stock market.
But I have five (5) great news for you.
Let me get right down to it:

1. You all know that I had an appointment with my oncologist to go over the CT-Scan I took last week. Basically there are three possible outcome: Cancer tumor grew in size / it is still the same size / the tumor shrank in size. What do you think happened? Coooorect! It became much smaller! Thank you for those who prayed for me. Hopefully, six months more of chemo and that's it. If I survive this, I will be among the top 10% of colon cancer (stage 4) patients (90% die within 5 years). Yet another resume builder ...

2. If you read my blog yesterday, I told you that MATK will release good earnings today. Guess what? MATK easily beat the wall street estimate by a comfortable margin. Those of you who own Martek Bioscience can expect between 10 - 20% jump in price tomorrow. I understand that it took some guts to hold on but you will leap benefits starting tomorrow. This is among my top 3 holdings. Go Go Martek!

3. One of our holding IDS Worldwide (IDWD) will pay a special dividend on June 15th. Basically, for every share you have in IDWD (as of 5/18) you will receive 1 share of HLS stock. If my estimates are correct, HLS stock can easily be worth over $1 per share! And what's more? This stock can go up significantly from here. This could be our homerun stock. Again, those of you who bought into this - congratulations. You will be rewarded handsomely soon. Hold on. And those of you who did not buy - it's OK, there are still money to be made in IDWD. It will again try to spinoff its 995ad.com business through an IPO. You can still buy this as a speculative play.

4. Ricks Cabaret (RICK) is making some serious money at its clubs. Last month (May) the business grew at 75% clip. This is my largest holding currently. Before you know it, this stock will trade in double digits. Don't miss this OK?

5. I will be traveling to Korea (I was born in Seoul) between 6/8 - 6/28/2006. My plan is to visit Korea twice a year. I will be watching and rooting for the Korean team in World Cup 2006 games. Believe me, Koreans are good at this game. I will try to keep up with my blog whenever I have chance but it will not be a daily thing as it is now. Don't worry, our porfolios will not crash while I am gone. I will miss my son "Ace" very much.

P.S: I will go over all our holdings tomorrw - a review per se.
As you can see, I am loving my life right now! You should enjoy yours as well.
Life is short - Love someone.

PainCare Holdings (PRZ)

OK, this was a typical Monday.
As you know from my past writings, people look for excuses to sell. And there are many reasons why this market should fall. I think that this will be temporary. The main reason for the huge sell-off today (Dow down 200 points) was because our Fed. Chair Mr. Bernanke told us that he might still raise interest rates in June. But the truth is that the market was falling even before this announcement. And let me tell you this, what Mr. Bernanke said is really no surprise. Wall Street knew this before he said it. As I said, the market is looking for excuses.

Tomorrow should be a better day. I wish I had some more money to deploy at this time. All my capital is already working hard. I need to sell something to buy something. But I still believe in what I have. I am sticking to my guns for now.

Did you notice that our EXPEZ was up today? Since we bought it a few days ago, it is up 13%. Not bad. The stock Expedia (EXPE) will move up and down for a while. Thus, you will get many chances to own its warrant (EXPEZ) at prices below what I paid ($4.50/sh). Try to own this if you can. This is a double a year from now (I am on the record).

Our holding PRZ released full 2005 numbers. It will also report its 1st quarter numbers at the end of June. So far, I have to admit that this is a bargain (another potential double!). Here are the facts:

2005: Revenue $68.7 million Op.Inc +$12.6 million
2004: Revenue $37.9 million Op.Inc +$9.5 million
2003: Revenue $14.9 million Op.Inc -$11.5 million

Estimate for full year 2006: Revenue $88 million & $0.22/share in earnings.
How can you tell me you don't like these numbers? Read again.

In addtion, same store growth is about 11-12% per year. The real growth comes from opening new clinics. At the end of 2005: PRZ had 53 medical practices that bring revenue to the firm.
Please revisit my blog dated 5/25 for further information.

We bought the stock recently at $1.44/share. It closed today at $1.26.
I am buying more. You should too.
Our target for this is above $2.50/share (that's a double).

P.S: Tomorrow after the close (at 4pm) MATK will announce 2nd Q. numbers. I think they will beat the estimate but who really knows? This stock will move big time either tomorrow or the next day. Cross your fingers if you own it. Go Go Martek!

PPS: Tomorrow is 6/6/06. What a day to release your company earnings? But it is a great day to open a movie to the public ( The Omen, wooooh!). Sine I loved the original Omen, I am going to see this tomorrow. I will tell you about it (am I a movie critic too now?).

PPPS: Most importantly, I will get an update on my cancer situation tomorrow. I did my full body scan last Friday. My oncologist will advise me how my cancers are doing these days. I hope they are not doing too well. I am in serious trouble if they are having a party in my belly. Just so you know, I feel great! I am visiting my family in Korea on 6/8th. I will tell you more later.

"all fruit ripe"

Once again I went to a reggae concert "ReggaeFest 2006". You all know that I appreciate reggae and 80's music. The concert hall was packed (fully sold out) and everyone had a blast (I think there was less than ten (10) Asians in the whole place out of maybe 10,000). Obviously, reggae comes from Jamaica where the whole population is maybe 2 million. Jamaicans (originally from Africa) were oppressed by the whites for a long time and the music reflects that. Reggae has beautiful, energetic, distinctive drum beat coupled with some meaningful lyrics. Almost all people in the concert stood up on their feet and danced along with the flow of the music. I too moved a bit.

I learned that in Jamaica there's a saying "all fruit ripe" which means "everything alright". Now, this terminology makes total sense to me. I am going to use it often.

In terms of the stock market, all fruit's not ripe.
We are in a small down turn within the large upturn. Did you understand that? The big picture is up (economy is strong = earnings are good) but we are now in a short term down wave (Iran problem, Mr. Bernanke will raise rates further, terrorists are still out there, etc). So what to do? As I have said before, there are some great bargains out there. My advise is not to chase it but be patient until you get the price you want.

During these types of market, prices move up and down a lot.
Stocks that move 5% in one day (up or down) will be a common event.
If you can not stomach this types of swings, move out of the market now.
It will be volatile, I am sure.

When do I expect the market to move up?
Probably when most people are fed up and disgusted. They sell at a loss and leave the market saying "I will never buy stocks again". That's the bottom.
By the way, most of these types of investors come back in the market when prices are double from where we are today. That's the top.

Bad Toys (BTYH) went up almost 20% Friday. Wow!
See what I mean? This proves what I said above.
Monday does not look good either.
Iran keeps messing with the U.S. and U.N.
Iran has 2nd largest oil reserves behind Saudi Arabia.
That's a major problem ...

Rambus, Inc.

What a difference one day make!
The traders were very busy buying today. The fact is U.S. economy is growing at a nice pace while inflation is kept low. This, by the way, is the best environment for stocks. But do not be fooled to think that we are out of the woods yet. We are still in the down turn. Are many stocks on sale? Yes, but sale period can last longer. Basically, we need to be careful at this point.

One special situation stock is called Rambus (RMBS). Please refer to my blog dated 5/23: in it I said that I bought this one in my trading account. Normally I do not hold stocks for more than a few days in my trading account but this was special. Guess what. RMBS went up almost 19% today! And I think this is a beginning of something potentially big! The funny thing is that I made good money shorting this stock in April at around $45/share (again, refer to my April blogs if you care). But now, I am interested in a long position. Let me explain:

Rambus, Inc. engages in the invention and license of chip interface technologies in California. RMBS now holds more than 500 patents issued and 480 more pending patents in high speed chip interface. Rambus innovations have been incorporated into virtually all digital electronics products including personal computers, video game consoles, digital TVs and digital set-top boxes. As signaling speeds continue to rise, Rambus innovations will become increasingly critical to delivering breakthrough levels of performance.

Currently, RMBS is in a legal battle with virtually all computer chip makers (these include Samsung, Hynix, Micron Tech and many more). If RMBS wins in the court room, these chip makers have to pay up royalties starting from the year 2001. Let's just say that the amount in question is in the billions. Yes, this is not a typo: I said billions with a "B".

If you are a speculator, you may want to add this into your long term investment account. I am trading this stock (in and out frequently) but did not add this in my investment account yet. Remember, six (6) months ago, RMBS was trading at $10's. A little over a month ago, this was going for $47/share. Today it closed at $28.75. This one is a rollercoaster.

Gold: Remember I said that gold will fall to $600 area when it was trading at over $700/oz? You also know that I made some $ by shorting gold (via KRY) few weeks ago. Now, gold is coming to an area where I am getting warmed up. Soon when the time is right, I will buy a gold or a silver stock for our investment account. I am doing my research now. I am thinking BGO (gold producer) and SIL (silver producer) as a good candidate. Have some money ready...

P.S: There will be some profit taking in the market tomorrow. If you are buying stocks, be patient and wait for your price to hit. Do not chase it. We are still in the down trend ...