Monday, December 11, 2006

Picks for the end of the year

Avid JP golf + stock readers, my profound apologies for leaving you hanging through the big rally in November. I've been engaged in moving my household up to beautiful and exciting Sunnyvale, CA. And it has been a little bit destructive for the old portfolio! Not enough rigor spells doom + gloom. But no worries, I think we are well positioned to profit from any year end rally.

As I write this, here are my holdings:

Apple Computer (AAPL), Google (GOOG), Goldman Sachs (GS), Halliburton (HAL), Lowe's (LOW), Mastercard (MA), NY Stock Exchange (NYX), Research in Motion (RIMM) and US Gypsum (USG).

I had some positions in Exxon Mobil (XOM) earlier this week, which I closed out. I moved out of XOM and made a speculative short-dated options play on GS. I think these guys will have a blowout number. If they can manage $6 a share per quarter, that implies a valuation of $240-275 per share at a peer-justified multiple of 11 or 12. I think tomorrow before the close they will announce such a number. It's been a great quarter for trading and also not bad for M+A activity either. Best of all, I think 2007 is going to be great for traditional underwriting activity too. So I like GS here. I didn't play this with Dec calls (I could have) but instead January calls. Last time it took a little while for the bulls to pile in. It could be a similar situation this time, especially if a Santa Claus rally materializes.

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