The Proficient Investor

Over the past few days Quiksilver (ZQK) has bounced from about $9.25 to $10.17 up $.36 cents in intraday trading today. Why the quick jump?

The big news for Quiksilver is that Kohl’s has agreed to be the sole retailer of the Hang Ten brand (which you might remember from the 80s). Quiksilver will be designing the new brand aimed at a younger audience and will launch in the spring of 2009 in over 240 stores.

Quiksilver has a growth rate of 13% over the next year. Q1 and Q2 were both profitable for the company, earning $.16 cents and $.29 cents per share respectively. This new contract bodes well for the company and you could see this stock double over the next 18 months as a result. Summer is always good for the company as it makes a lot of surf/skate/snowboard gear and clothing and most recently had sold off the floundering Rossignol brand it had purchased last year.

I like the new direction of the company and I’m long on the stock.

I own shares of ZQK.

Canadian gold mining corporation Crystallex International (AMEX:KRY) has resumed talks with the venezuelan environment ministry over the opening of the Las Cristinas gold deposit owned by the corporation. The venezuelan government has denied previous attempts to open the mine and the stock has suffered drastically as a result.

The talks were scheduled on the 18th led by Vice Minister of Environmental Planning and Administration, Ing. Merly Garcia and assisted by legal advisor Dra. Lucy Vidal.

Should the result of these talks prove successful and the mine is allowed to open, it could mean huge revenues for the company and a boon for the stock. I don’t like to recommend many speculative plays but seeing how commodities have been hot lately, this may be happening at just the right time for Crystallex. Prudent buyers could see a lot of profit on this trade as it gains momentum into the good news.

Disclaimer: I’ve been holding positions in this stock since it was in the $4 range and bought more during the recent decline. Previously I profited on the stock as it bounced from $2 to $6 on rumors the mine would soon open. That hasn’t been the case so far so this is definitely a speculation. my last purchase of KRY was 600 shares at .94 cents. I’ll be looking to unload my entire position(831 shares) around $5-$6. 

As you can see, I’ve just added a new widget to the blog.

Covestor is a site that allows you to show others the trades you make from your portfolio. This is a cool way to not only keep your public informed of what you are doing but also to be accountable and to have an audit trail of your trades.

One of the things you can really never know about someone is whether they are lying about how much money they make from this or that. I’ve always been truthful on this blog about my trades because without credibility I’d be nothing. Furthermore, it’s important to understand that not all trades make you money. Ideally, yes they do, but it doesn’t always happen that way.

By using Covestor and linking it to your brokerage account, you can show the world your trades in and out of stocks and compare your profit/loss to other indices like the S&P 500. It’s totally free, so sign up today at http://www.covestor.com

News from Taipei was good for AMD investors this morning. The company announced a brand new graphics platform to bring true gaming capability to notebooks.

I bought 300 shares of AMD yesterday in anticipation of this announcement, but also because I think the company has a lot of upside. After all, this goes along with my bottom fishing description of beat up companies that deserve better.

From BusinessWire:

AMD (AMD, Trade ) today announced ATI XGP(TM) (External Graphics Platform) Technology, a new external PCI Express(R) (PCIe) 2.0 graphics platform, designed to deliver enthusiast-class desktop graphic performance and true multimedia upgradeability to notebooks(1). ATI XGP is an exclusive technology that capitalizes on PCIe 2.0 to deliver enthusiast-class graphics via a connected cable to an externally powered and cooled device. This unique innovation delivers up to 4.0 Gbyte/s in each direction in bandwidth communication between the notebook and external graphics, whereas previous consumer level external solutions were limited in graphics bandwidth(2). ATI XGP is fully optimized for new AMD Turion(TM) X2 Ultra notebook platforms, also announced today.

I think what investors have been waiting for is for AMD to make sense of their acquisition of ATI last year, which I think we are now seeing.

The company can now offer a nearly all in one solution with their processors and graphics chips now and compete at a higher level in the marketplace.

Shares of AMD jumped 6% in morning trading.

I own shares of AMD

In light of the news from Conexant(CNXT) I decided to average down my position from $2 to $.79 cents buying 1680 shares today before the split happens. I missed the real bottom but I couldn’t pass up this opportunity to get more of this spec play. They look to be turning things around and at $.50 cents a share its almost a crime.

I also took down another 300 shares of American Micro Devices (AMD) because I think next quarter’s earnings and full year earnings are going to be a surprise. They just announced a new quad core processor aimed at the mobile market and Computex begins tomorrow in Taipei.

In other news, Crystallex International (KRY) announced the resignation of its president and CEO. Gordon Thompson tendered his resignation likely due to increased pressure from the Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez regarding the Las Cristinas gold mine owned by the corporation. Permits to open the mine have been denied by the government which has angered shareholders who have been supporting the company.

Speculation is a healthy part of anyone’s portfolio but you want to make sure your risk/reward suits your investment and/or trading style. Often times I find myself fully vested and unable to make certain trades because of one reason or another. My 6-18 month time window gives me plenty of opportunity to find good entry and exit points however so it pays to be patient. Especially in a market as unpredictable as this.

Conexant (CNXT) announced a 1 for 10 reverse stock split today to be in compliance with NASDAQ listing rules which state that a stock must trade above $1 USD or be delisted to the pink sheets.

What this means is the nearly 500 million share float will become a 50 million share float, hopefully helping the company out of the multi-year slump it has been in. At one time, Conexant was on target with the likes of Marvell and Nvidia. Conexant makes set-top semiconductors for broadband devices.

I made a speculative investment in this company initially in January of 2006 when the stock was around $3.25. At the time, things looked good but when figures didn’t pan out, the stock began a downward spiral it hasn’t recovered from. Nevertheless, since then I bought a couple hundred more shares on the way down. Now with the split it should produce a better price action for the company.

Psychologically, people don’t like buying stocks when they are under $1.

Bluefly is starting to recover from their reverse split earlier in the year and I expect Conexant will do the same. Conexant is up 10% in mid day trading on this news.

I own shares of Conexant and Bluefly.