Thursday, July 19, 2007

Quick Update

Sold Montpelier Re Holdings (MRH) at 17.88.

While I had originally planned on converting the TODCO (THE) shares to Hercules Offshore (HERO), circumstances dictated that I take the cash instead. The cash payout hit the account this morning, so the shares were sold at 48.46. I suppose that looking at HERO's current price (32.34), I got a little more going the cash route... the conversion rate was 1.4616 HERO for 1 THE.

In quick news, eBay (EBAY) came out with strong earnings and revenues, but Wall Street is punishing the company on fears of slowing growth. The fear, I believe, was brought on by eBay's listings, which actually decreased for the first time (listings fell around 5% year over year). But, something to keep in mind is that the revenues per listing was up a whopping 30% year over year. And, let's not forget the outstanding performance of their Paypal unit. In short, I think the sellers today have it wrong. In any case, I'm hanging onto the shares I currently have in my Trading Portfolio.

International Game Technology (IGT) got a nice pop following its earnings today. They believe that demand is going to be really strong in FY '08. And, they also mentioned the possibility accelerating the buyback being conducted by the existing repurchase program if they see opportunities to get cheap shares.

Washington Mutual (WM) is a retirement account holding of mine, so this is probably the first mention of it here. Anyway, they said in their conference call that they would continue to reduce their exposure to the sub-prime loans. They also expect further declines in house prices, which they believe will push up credit costs. In any case, the stock is flat today in spite of an early morning pop.

3 comments:

Never-Limp said...

EBAY is trying to get rid of the trashy listings to make the user experience more friendly, that's a big reason why they are down.

The CIT earnings release contained some worries that the subprime mess is spreading to other areas of consumer finance which is bad news for all financial stocks. They have been the worst performing sector YTD and I suspect that they will continue to perform poorly for awhile.

Brute Force said...

What do you think about eBay now? I know you were bullish... are you still?

Ya, I think I agree with you about financials. I am quite under-allocated in that sector right now.

Never-Limp said...

I still like it.

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