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| Tuesday Nov 07, 2006
A Sense of Deja VuTaipan Group's Dynamic Market AlertBy J. Christoph Amberger-- A Sense of Deja Vu -------------------- Hollywood’s “Digital Revolution” Could Net You $147,300 in Just Under 2 Years! -------------------- A Sense of Deja Vuby J. Christoph Amberger If you’ve lived long enough, you can’t help but think that there’s something to the theory of history moving in cycles. Especially the kids I meet at my children’s schools remind of my own misspent youth: Hairdos and adolescent fashions are the spitting image of those popular in the mid 1970s -- except that we still managed to pull up our pants back then. Outside school, gas and gold prices look pretty much like they did in the 1970s. Turn on the radio and you can find 1970s pop music on every channel. And if you want to complete the illusion, you can buy entire seasons of 1970s television shows, lock the doors, and pretend that nothing has changed. This year especially seems to be all about this kind of deja vu. In Latin America, Hugo Chavez has erased the economic experience of the second half of the 20th century and is re-nationalizing key industries to generate enough cash for populist program that will keep him in power. Ecuador and Bolivia have already followed suit. And in Nicaragua, it looks like the populace was finally able to vote their late 1970s Sandinista idol, Ortega, into office. In the United States, we may have to wait two more years to see another Jimmy Carter voted into office. But as the polling stations are processing the will of the people today, it looks like U.S. politics, too, may soon take a fashionable retro turn. Then, it might be only a matter of time until we can enjoy that ultimate ‘70s sequel... “Keith Partridge for president.” Luckily we have the U.S. stock indices that remind us that time not only does indeed pass... but can pass quite profitably! -- U.S. real estate, too, has come full circle. At least as far as new homes are concerned. Toll Brothers Inc. announced today that fiscal fourth-quarter homebuilding revenue fell 10%, declining to $1.81 billion in the three months ended Oct. 31 (down from $2.01 billion a year earlier). Commanding an average price of $700,000 per home sold -- that’s three times the national average -- Toll Brothers is not a good indicator for the entirety of the U.S. real estate market. But the numbers are indicative that the segment of the market statistically responsible for the highest increases in national averages -- and the highest return on investment -- has indeed reached saturation. That keeps speculative money freed up to look for other venues with low risk and decent prospects for decent returns. Like U.S. blue chips. -- Speaking of which: Ask anyone here at our Taipan Financial News headquarters what Todd Schoenberger’s favorite stock is, and they’ll all give you the same answer. The editors, graphic designers, Web masters, marketers, copywriters -- heck, I’d even lay down a large wager that John, our dedicated maintenance man who makes rounds just once a day, could tell you. Todd just won’t shut up about this company. He peppers our weekly editorial meetings with updates on the position. He touts the stock on weekly radio shows across the country. And he never misses the opportunity to throw the company’s name into any conversation, no matter how inopportune. I have to admit, a lot of us around the office thought he was crazy when he recommended the stock to Diligent Investor subscribers shortly after it IPO’d earlier this year. Didn’t he know better than to get swept up into the IPO mania of a hot new stock, which usually results in a sharp downward crash shortly after the offering? Didn’t he know about the lock-up game that Wall Street plays? “Rookie,” we said under our collective breath. Todd made an appearance on Forbes on Fox shortly after his initial recommendation, and gave the stock a glowing review. Top analysts Victoria Barrett and William Baldwin slammed his pick on national TV. But Todd certainly proved to be no rookie stock picker. His years as a broker at Merrill Lynch and an institutional trader at Legg Mason taught him well how to look for investments in high-quality companies. And he’s proved us all wrong. The stock is now up more than 126% since its IPO. Growth rate is growing solidly: In the first quarter of 2006, its gross dollar volume increased by 14%; in the second quarter, 16%; and the third quarter, 18%. This company makes 14 cents per every $100 consumed with this company’s products and its volume exceeded $1.3 trillion just last year. Better yet, Todd says there’s still time to get into this stock. You could miss out on another 126% -- or more -- as this position continues to ramp up. Clowns & Harlots: Bigfoot . . .He’s Back!by Christopher Corbett With the midterm election looming… the threat of nuclear apocalypse ever more a reality… our adventures in the fertile crescent worsening daily… it was only natural that Bigfoot would be back in the news. Just when you thought that the demands of national and international news developments were significant enough to engage Americans in important debate, the “hairy woodland dweller” -- as the newscasters call it -- loped back into the headlines. This time it turns out that the mythical ape-man, or Sasquatch, was the subject of scholarship! Yikes! Turns out a pedagogue at Idaho State University was on the hot seat because many of his colleagues think he is a kook and fraud to study Bigfoot. Many of his colleagues wanted him fired. But if we began to fire college professors for being kooks and frauds soon the groves would be empty. What I thought most interesting about the return of Bigfoot -- and I will confess that I love to read these things -- was that 60% of a quarter million Americans polled by America On Line believe in Bigfoot. But nearly all of those polled -- a whopping 88% -- thought the Bigfoot scholars should be fired. That’s an interesting conclusion. I suppose it speaks to the robust national passion for nonsense on one level, and the ferocious hatred of higher learning at any level -- even Bigfoot studies. Surveys of all kinds from pop news and instant analysis to serious attempts to gauge such things always indicate that America remains a nation of nuts and flakes. Vast numbers of my countrymen believe in the unbelievable: gnomes, sprites, wood nymphs, faeries, ghoulies, ghosties, long-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night. This Bigfoot stuff is not so strange. Last year, a Gallup Poll indicated that roughly three in four Americans cling to some kind of paranormal belief -- extrasensory perception (ESP) and haunted houses tended to be the most popular. These were followed by a belief in ghosts, telepathy, clairvoyance, astrology, witches, communicating with the dead, reincarnation, channeling (allowing a ‘spirit-being’ to temporarily assume control of one’s body), psychic or spiritual healing and demonic possession. Nearly 75% of those polled by a Gallup survey believed in at least one of those things. And we have nuclear weapons. This led me to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization. They monitor Bigfoot’s activities all over the country. Only Hawaii has not had a Bigfoot sighting! And the District of Columbia. Bigfoot gets around. America is every day looking for Bigfoot. Expeditions are leaving all the time to look for it. The next one is in Oklahoma, but fear not, someone will be looking for Bigfoot near you. I live in the city of Baltimore, far from the Pacific Northwest (the traditional home of Bigfoot), so I was cheered to learn that it was possible to see a giant hairy creature in my neck of the woods, so to speak. Within a short drive of Baltimore, Bigfoot has been seen! Bigfoot really is everywhere. He -- let’s assume the creature is a he --attempted to steal a van near Augusta, West Virginia! Down near Flamingo, Florida, some folks saw Bigfoot standing by the side of the road. He did not appear to be hitchhiking. One of the witnesses said it was a bear. Another said it was not a bear. Another thought it was a deer. There was no mention of mushrooms or alcoholic beverages in that report. A man fishing near Beaver, Utah, saw Bigfoot. Reports did not indicate if cold beer was involved. A newly hired police officer near Wanblee, South Dakota, saw Bigfoot. An eight-year-old boy staying with his grandmother saw Bigfoot. A newspaper deliverer in rural Wyoming spotted Bigfoot. Most sightings are in the woods and at night. Makes sense. You would not expect to see Bigfoot at the International House of Pancakes or Home Depot or The Bedding Barn. But he is out there. He is seen just about every day. You may soon see him, too. Be prepared. -------------------- Earnings Announcements for Wednesday, November 8, 2006 Altair Nanotechnologies Inc, American Railcar Industries Inc, Atlas Air, BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Champps Entertainment, Cisco Systesm, Clean Harbors, Cooper Tire & Rubber, Ctrip.com International, Dendreon, eResearch Technology, Federated Department Stores Inc, Forest Oil Corporation, Gray Television Inc, Impac Mortgage Holdings Inc, J&J Snack Foods, Knology Inc, LCC International, Napster, Quantum Corporation, Sonic Solutions, TLC Vision Corporation, Turbochef, World Fuel Services Corporation, and ZipRealty Inc are releasing earnings. Brought to you by http://www.AmericanCapitalist.net Unlock Dates for November 2006 Brought to you by http://www.gressor.com
Upgrades and Downgrades AES Corporation downgraded by Calyon Securities from Buy to Add. AnnTaylor downgraded by Friedman Billings from Outperform to Market Perform. Elizabeth Arden downgraded by Matrix Research from Buy to Hold. KOS Pharmaceuticals Inc downgraded by Roth Capital (Buy to Hold) and by RBC Capital Markets (Outperform to Sector Perform). Tribune downgraded by AG Edwards from Buy to Hold. Virage Logic downgraded by Cowen & Company from Outperform to Neutral. H&R Block upgraded by Soleil from Sell to Buy. MedImmune upgraded by Friedman Billings from Market Perform to Outperform. PortalPlayer upgraded by Jefferies & Company (Underperform to Hold) and by Citigroup (Sell to Hold). Red Robin Gourmet upgraded by Matrix Research from Sell to Hold. Brought to you by http://www.vixtrader.com Quote of the Day: “There was a huge accident today. Apparently a bunch of Republican candidates trying to distance themselves from President Bush ran into a bunch of Democrat candidates trying to distance themselves from John Kerry. They just collided in the middle. It was gruesome.” - Jay Leno, Nov. 3, 2006 P.S. While Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and Citibank fight for control of China’s sizzling new IPO sector... a small group of conservative investors have discovered a secret backdoor that could make them overnight millionaires.
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