I “saved” some Hibiscus today from the Minnesota winter. I pulled them from my patio, snipped the roots, and then took cuttings.
I’m going to try using Hydroponics to root the cuttings, and keep them under a metal halide bulb for the winter. I do not know if it will work, but if it does, I should have about 20 new Hibiscus this spring.
We will see what happens.
Over the last couple of weeks, it has become apparent that the market is trying to rebound. Even in the midst of the debt crisis, there appear to be buy opportunities, and there are certainly bargains out there to be found. Here are some examples that I have invested in over the last month.
APA – Apache corporation is / was a great bargain. It’s PE is a modest 10, and they provide a modest dividend. Over the last couple of weeks has outperformed the S&P 500 by being up over 14% , and is still 20% under it’s 52 week high. I look for this stock to continue its run to ~ $120 before is slows down. 
AMZN – By Definition, this is not a bargain, but I jumped on it when the earnings announcement came out, and the stock took a plunge. If there is one thing you can count on right now is that the market is gong to over react to everything. Look at the chart
QCOM – If you are looking to get into the technology sector, Qualcomm may be for you. They are a leading cell phone chip manufacturer. They have had a large jump in price over the last week. I look at this stock as a longer term hold.
MCD – Did you know that on average every American family eats at McDonalds twice a week? Yes – no wonder we have an obesity issue. That being said, MCD is fat with rewards too. Even if the stock remained even for the year, the nice dividend of 2.6%. But it has not remained even. MCD has grown nicely over the last several months and over the last 6 months has posted a positive return vs the S&P500
Long @ $91.43 — After reading their blowout quarterly numbers the stock has another 15-20 percent on the upside. The last quarter EPS of $1.71 was $0.07 higher than the consensus estimate of $1.64. Its revenue of $15.7 billion was also higher than the consensus estimate. The management also raised its full year revenue guidance to $54 – $56 billion. The largest spikes in call options is at the $110 level and I think it gets there by the end of this year. Short term $94.40. Long term $115. Use an $89.25 stop loss on this trade
If you like Lands End, this is a deal! 
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PIN: 5429
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I get nothing for this . . .
Coupon Good through 10/21/11
The last couple of weeks have been crazy. Most of my portfolio was traded on my 5% stop – loss trades that I had configured, bringing my portfolio back to even for the year, and full of cash.
Some people may call me an alarmist, but the US continues to spend like crazy, causing our debt to pile up by the minute, and our corporations continue to ship jobs over seas (article). Given yesterdays S&P Rating, on the US Debt, I’m thinking that I may need to do some more research on commodities or EFT’s that focus in that space to offset some of the risk.
More to come.
I often use I use fundamentals to screen stocks before purchasing, but I also use technicals (moving averages) to determine when to jump into or out of a stock. After reviewing my portfolio this morning, I noted a momentum swing for WFMI.
Price crossed the 5d Moving Average
I like WFMI, and it has clearly made me some money this year, but with a PE of over 40, it is clearly oversold. I think it is time to start looking elsewhere to move that money.
More to come.
A good friend of mine send me his standard qtrly portfolio update this week. He is of the opinion that the bull market is on its last legs. His rationale is that this run is going on for 3 years, which puts the run in the top 20%. He is now increasing his cash position to take advantage of the bear market he is predicting.
I have a little different take. While I respect his opinion, I think this market is a little different then past. My take is that the recovery has been slow. In fact it has been slow world wide. I also think that Asia emerging markets are still primed for growth. The issue is that the world is reliant on oil, and there is a finite supply. We can not increase production to meet the demand. If the demand is going to increase, and the supply can not meet the demand, the price can only go one way. . . that is up.
My thought is lets find some stocks where we can take advantage of this situation. Something relatively “safe” is always nice too. I looked at several Oil stocks, including MRO – Marathon, XOM – Exxon, and CVX – Chevron. Although the price per share is over $100, I like this stock. The PE (11.4) and EPS (9.48) are the best of the lot, and it has a nice dividend Yeild of 2.70%. As you can see, the momentum is clearly positive, and I don’t see it stopping any time soon with prediction of $5 gasoline prices this summer.
Chevron - CVX
If you are worried about a pending bear market, I agree that it is important to manage your risk. However, you also need to strike when the iron is hot. Use tools like trailing stops to manage your risk. Get in, take advantage of the increases, and set thresholds to manage losses. In the end, it beats timing the market.
I decided to Sell KR. The prince hit the 5 day moving average and is approaching the 20 day moving average. I added OIL. People are screaming over $5 gas prices this summer, and the technicals still look solid.
OIL - 5 day and 20 Day moving average
I also beefed up WFMI. It has been doing great this year – up over 20% for me, and the technicals are solid.
More Stock Portfolio updates to come
I recently talked with a CISO (Joe) for a financial organization about his Identity and Access Management Program. Joe recently invested heavily into a new provisioning implementation, and was starting to doubt the implementation was going to resolve his access control concerns.
Like many others in his position, Joe hired a consultant when he was told that his access controls were not sufficient. The consultant pulled a page out of the IAM 101 playbook and said “Install a Provisioning System”. The advice seemed to make sense. After all, his access controls needed help and what better way to get a handle on them than to take the human element out of the access provisioning process.
The issue that Joe faces is a common one out there. In fact, most of the fortune 500 clients I have talked to in the last year are investing heavily in the Identity and Access Management section of their security program. The reason most of them are investing is to solve access control issues. The problem though is that they often are investing in a solution without understanding their problem.
In fact, the dirty little secret out there is that provisioning access is typically not the issue these companies are facing. Most of these companies are facing management memo because the average user has too much access. This access is often accumulated over time, as the employee moves from job to job, and when a manager or resource owner review access, they rubberstamp their approval, or let it go because they do not understand what the access allows. After all, it is an IT Security problem right?
Wrong! Access Management is a business issue. If a privacy breech occurs, imagine how the agent for the business would sell. “Yes Mr. Customer, I understand we lost your social security number, but we can do a much better job managing your life savings”. In appropriate access is a huge business issue. The trick to solving the access issue is not in fixing the provisioning process, but to get the business engaged enough to understand who has access to what, and to understand how important it is to remove that unnecessary access.
In most cases, a business needs to do a better job in reviewing access. There are several of products out there now to help them do this effectively. Most of these systems are fed access reports, in a plain text format from several systems. The access information is aggregated, and combined with business definitions (glossary) and then pushed to the appropriate person to review. These system offer great benefit over the traditional excel spreadsheet because they formalize the process, make it repeatable, something the process owner (typically the CISO or their staff) can count on. Better yet, the accountability is shifted back to where it belongs, the business. If someone has inappropriate access, the auditor can discuss the issue with the right person, the HR manager or the resource owner, rather than the information security staff.
Before you go out and buy that shinny new provisioning system to solve your access management problems, make sure you really understand what your problem is. If you are not trying to solve a throughput issue, or an accuracy issue, I would bet that there are other solutions out there that would better suit your situation.
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