"Who can weather the storm in the tech sector and give you a good total return? I would look to Garmin LTD."

Dow Jones Industrial Average 12,004 (UP) Week ending June 17th  (NASDAQ continued down)


Tornado warnings in the Tech Sector

Well so far this weekend, I have heard about one person in the manufacturing sector who lost her job as buyer. She had been at the job for 40 years and her company is probably moving all the manufacturing outside the US, so that job is lost forever, not to be filled by a younger person in the US. Then I heard about someone who battled and battled to keep there house but finally threw in the towel, loosing all their equity in that house and walking away. This is a snapshot of USA , June 2011. How will we ever get unemployment down when we keep loosing more and more skilled and high paying jobs? We need to change our taxing policies and encourage businesses to stay in the US and new businesses to come to the US and build their factories right here.

The tech sector has been under siege for weeks
now, with Research in Motion, Juniper Networks, Micron, LG Display, Nokia, Seagate, Autodesk and others being vilified and their prices driven down. I guess everyone should just take their toys and go home and let Apple and Google own the whole tech world. I ..don't.. think... so!

One tech stock you can own is Garmin Ltd. (Symbol GRMN, $33.66).  First lets start with the 5.89% dividend  yield ($2.00 per share) that the stock pays.  Will they keep that dividend rate? You bettcha. They have a bulletproof balance sheet with Zero Long Term debt and have excellent controls on cost in place. The PE on the stock is 10.29. The product mix is being fine tuned and diversified so revenues and earnings have gone down a bit in the last four years, but the existing company is sound and moving forward into new businesses.


ForeRunner 610


You need to let go of the past. Garmin had most recent quarter EPS, GAAP earnings of .49 cents in the most recent quarter was over last years .19 GAAP earnings in the same quarter, and is up 157.89%. The 12 month total return on the stock is 18.1%. This is a dynamic company which will give you a nice total return and equity gains as new businesses develop.


 Talk about  efficiency. 52.90 % Gross profit margins and they turn their inventory 6.7 times a year.

Are there any road hazards around? Yes, keep an eye on the developments in the LightSquared 4G deployment and reported possible interference it causes to regular low power GPS systems. If there is one of those media hysterical behavior scares coming up,  there could be a big bargain day for GPS stocks. Keep on the lookout for it to buy in.

Also sift among the ruble in tech stocks and find some bargains like Skyworks Solutions (SWKS, $23.16) and Nokia Corp. ADR (NOK, $6.02).
                                               
         So find your way to Total Returns and even Go Fishing with Garmin ...... >>>>>>>
                      
           Freewilly

March Madness approaches.....time to put together a Fab 5 team of tech stocks

Dow Jones 10,624.69 (UP) week ending 03/12/2010


Ah yes, March Madness is arriving again here in the USA. 65 games of the never ending sound of squeaking sneakers on the hardwood courts! I thought it would be fun to put together my own team or Fab 5 of tech stocks for this week. The Fab 5 of course is the famous University of Michigan team with the starting team of Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, Jimmy King, Juwan Howard, and Ray Jackson. (Picture credit Flickr at Yahoo). This team, assembled as freshmen, were considered one of the most talented college teams ever. A mental mistake, calling a time-out when they had none left, cost them one championship. A mental mistake with your portfolio could cost you your wallet.

So here is my team of tech stocks with speed and fast growth that could take you to the Final Four of stock picks.

Guard - Mindspeed Technologies Inc. (Symbol MSPD , $8.34)
Guard - Clearwire Corp. (Symbol CLWR , $8.28)
Center - Apple Inc. (Symbol AAPL , $226.81)
Forward - InterDigital Inc (Symbol IDCC , $27.65)
Forward - Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (Symbol MRVL, $20.21))

Sixth Man off the bench - Atheros Communications Inc. - (Symbol ATHR, $37.22)

Some of these names you have seen before on my blog. The guards are aggressive growth portfolio picks. All these stocks are poised for rapid growth. Tech stocks are high beta stocks so they can move up and down very quickly. You need to be on your toes and keep track of when earnings reports are coming out. As always all my picks are just my opinion and should not be taken as information given by a professional financial advisor. Also the stock market at times may be fully valued in regards to PE and earnings, so you always want to look for an entry price point that affords you a margin of safety on your buy.

So good luck with your Final Four Bracket Pools. If you don't win money there,
try your skill with picking in the stock market.

Freewilly

Divine calculations and stock picking

I was watching a rerun of the movie the DaVinci code last week with all its many puzzles and calculations that they go through to get to what appears to be the truth. Well it of course made me think about how many times I had bought stocks because it just felt right at the time when the "stars of the market", kinda of the place where everything sat at that moment frozen in time, just seemed to click into alignment to make a certain purchasing decision.
Well , even though Snagglepuss told me to exit stage left, which I did, going to many cash positions, I still have been having these "feelings" about the compelling value of some of the tech stocks here the last couple of weeks. They have done a great job managing their inventories this time around in recession and could turn some earnings around to the bottom line very quickly. These companies are also are showing respectable revenue growth and have good quick ratios (%'s of assets to liabilities on the balance sheet).
So I followed my imaginary "Rose line" and it took me to AT&T Inc. (symbol T). It has a a 6.3 % dividend and plenty of cash to back it up. Current ratio is 1.6 to 1. That beats a half percent at best on sitting cash.
My second pick was to add a high tech/ higher beta tech stock to the IRA account
to add some horsepower to bring life back from the Oct-2007 to June 2009 downside debacle.
That stock is Marvel Technology (symbol MRVL). It has a lot of interesting technologies going forward. It has a 3:1 current ratio. I was lucky enough to buy it two days in front of earnings and guidance, which were good, at 14.25 and it is now up near 15.75 on the announcements. They reported the same day as Dell , so it generated some "daily tech interest".
With that I will warn you that on review in the past I have lost more money in speculative technology stocks than in any other investment category during the old"dot.com" days. These two are not speculative investments. Also other disclaimers, I do not have a series 7 license
and am not a professional investment advisor. Just a guy following my "Rose line" where it leads me.

Sincerest regards,

Freewilly