I’ve got to run to the Money Show conference in Washington D.C. this afternoon.  I’ll be at the Taipan VIP cocktail reception.  I hope to see some of you there.  Here’s a quick update on some of our positions.

Orix (IX), our Japanese subprime proxy short gapped down $5 on the open.  It seems that they can’t prop it up any longer.  I fully expect this stock to continue to drop over the next few months.

Our Oracle October $22.50 calls jumped 140% since our entry on Friday.  We are looking for a run-up into the earnings announcement at the end of the month.  The plan is to exit our call options before that announcement.

I am currently looking at a number of blue-chip tech stocks that derive a large portion of their income from offshore sales.  The cheap dollar should benefit these companies in the fourth quarter and the stealth ramp-up in corporate IT cap-ex continues.

In the pipeline

Many fortune 500 companies are flush with cash and are updating their computer systems for the first time since the Y2K scare in 1999.

My short list includes: GE, Microsoft, Cisco, EMC, CIENA and SIGM.  On the international scene I’m looking at some telecoms such as SK Telecom (Korea) China Unicom and Turkcell (TCK).

I’m also looking at Mattel (MAT), which got crushed after it recalled 19 million toys that were made in China and have some lead paint issues. The stock has fallen about a third in the last two months.  The way to play this would be to find a toy company with no exposure to China that sold off with the group.  I’m doing my due diligence now.

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