Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Stocks Of The Month: BIDU, CREE, ISRG

First, some housekeeping: Palm (PALM) was bought out by Hewlett-Packard, and I sold Biovail (BVF) after they announced a merger with Valeant...freeing up some additional cash for 3 high-flying non-dividend paying(!) stocks, 2 of which I've previously owned.

Baidu (BIDU)

Positives:
The Google of China.
High margins (36%), ROA (23%), ROE (42%).
No debt.

Negatives:
Very expensive P/E ratio of 96.

Cree (CREE)

Positives:
Designer and manufacturer of LEDs and LED-related hardware.
Excellent revenue (79%) and earnings (1012%!) growth.
$1B in cash, no debt.
Positive cash flow.

Negatives:
Somewhat expensive P/E ratio of 60.
Low ROA (5%) and ROE (7%).

Intuitive Surgical (ISRG)

Positives:
Super-cool surgical robots.
Excellent revenue (74%) and earnings (204%) growth.
No debt.
Positive cash flow.

Negatives:
Low insider ownership (1.3%).

Here's my current portfolio. As always, I believe in all of these stocks - until I sell them.

Apple (AAPL) 12.82%
Southern Copper (SCCO) 9.51%
Google (GOOG) 7.10%
Dominion Resources Black Warrior Trust (DOM) 6.60%
Annaly Capital Management (NLY) 5.08%
Ace Limited (ACE) 5.03%
The Distressed (ABK, AIG, BGP, BLOKA.PK, C, CRIC, ENER, ETFC, F, FNM, GIGM, JSDA, JTX, MOT, MTLQQ.PK, PCS, WFC, YRCW) 4.78%
Frontline (FRO) 4.73%
Hugoton Royalty Trust (HGT) 4.64%
BP Prudhoe Bay Royalty Trust (BPT) 4.41%
Prospect Capital (PSEC) 3.50%
American Software (AMSWA) 3.02%
Great Northern Iron (GNI) 3.01%
Vodafone (VOD) 2.90%
McDonald's (MCD) 2.88%
Tidewater (TDW) 2.53%
Blackstone (BX) 2.48%
DuPont (DD) 2.46%
Apache (APA) 2.35%
Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) 2.18%
Cherokee (CHKE) 2.08%
Cree (CREE) 1.94%
PDL BioPharma (PDLI) 1.87%
Baidu (BIDU) 1.79%