Out Fox The $treet

Coventry Health Care (CVH), Teradyne (TER), Foster Wheeler (FWLT) The market has become increasingly technically driven making investment decisions based on fundamentals virtually worthless. Too many investors feel the fundamentals could collapse with a double dip just as they did in 2008. As I wrote in a previous entry [Coventry Health Ups Guidance - Stock Limps Higher], even a company showing fundamental improvements is ignored by the market. CVH trades at a 7 PE multiple which in normal environments would be 2-3x higher. James Altucher published a piece in the Wall Street Journal highlighting 7 reasons why the SP500 could hit 1,500. Nearly a 40% gain from the current levels. He highlighted several reasons regarding the strength in corporate profits something that is historically important to stock prices. When the market stabilizes, profits will once again become important so its key to understand where the market could go based on current projections. Corporate Profits at Record H...

Demand in the technology sector continues to be questions. Everybody is so concerned that the cycle has peaked in the semi sector. Some of this is understandable after the Dot Com crash in 2000 and the Great Recession in 2008. Still demand seems to be building for new applications like mobile internet, 3D tv, and cloud computing. Several of the stocks in our portfolios like Teradyne (TER), TerreMark Worldwide (TMRK), and Riverbed Technology (RVBD) should just be soaring on the Insatiable Bandwidth demand from all these new products. Still only RVBD has broken out but that took explosive earnings. Interesting clip from the Xilinix (XLNX) CEO on Mad Money . He does a good job of pushing back on the cycle peak. We're just 1 year out of the Great Recession so it seems unthinkable that the tech sector has already peaked. Many a company like TER and XLNX have been posting numbers that match or equal the peaks of 2000, but their stocks lanquish. These could be big winners over the next 5 ...

Teradyne (TER) reported results last night that were explosive. Earnings of $.69 beat analyst estimates by $.22 or over 40% for the 2nd straight quarter. Revenue was up an amazing 38% sequentially. For Q3 they forecast earnings of over $.80 easily beating estimates of only $.46. TER continues to benefit from a fast expanding market in wireless (read smartphones) and smart power management. So what did the stock do? What would you expect for guidance that nearly doubled estimates? Well, in this market at least the stock went up. The gain for the day ended up $.86 or a little over 8%. Not bad, but when you consider the guidance nearly doubled the estimate from back in April but the stock is still down nearly 20% from the highs above $13 it just doesn't add up. And this is even after the large cap semi stocks like Intel (INTC) and Texas Instruments (TXN) had blow out numbers. In all fairness, the market should be concerned about cycle peaks and cyclical volumes in the semiconducter se...

In the middle of last week, technology stocks seemed about to become technically broken. A lot of the stocks we follow had broken major technical support and were in danger of serious damage. As of this afternoon, the following stocks we own in the Opportunistic and Growth Portfolios turned very bullish. Each one has now cleared the 20/50/200EMAs. Of course, it helps that the SP500 cleared the 200MA which is very bullish, but the tech sector seems ready to lead the market highers. These stocks have strong balance sheets and hence avoid any of the issues regarding debt concerns and funding. Instead they can focus on the strong growth in the developing economics and a rebound in the US. They all have some overhead resistance and still need to prove they can clear recent tops before the all clear is sounded. Riverbed Technology (RVBD) - strong WAN optimization company that got upgraded yesterday with a $32 target. Not a big jump from these levels but this company continues to preform at ...

After a decade of extreme negativity for tech stocks, it shouldn't be that surprising that some stocks in the sector have PE multiples unheard of for the sector. After a decade where a typical tech stock fell some 90% from their 2000 peaks, why would investors pile into them regardless of their earnings? After all, why not buy commodity and energy stocks that have been all the craze for the last 5 years. Teradyne (TER) is one such example trading on Friday's close at just 8x 2010 estimates and 5.5x the upper end of 2011 estimates. The stock is down some 85% from its 2000 peak around $100. What could the stock offer investors that were so burned by holding in the early 2000s? For starters, its gone almost unnoticed that TER just reported the highest semiconductor related orders in 10 years. Heck, Stone Fox Capital has been allocated some 20% into tech stocks like Apple (AAPL) and Riverbed Systems (RVBD), but we've mostly ignored the spaces such as semiconductors or communic...