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On Friday, flash media maker Lexar Media (LEXR) received a higher revised takeover bid from Micron Technology (MU). The revised bid places the all-stock exchange offer at around $10 a share, up marginally from the initial bid.

But major shareholders including billionaire investor Carl Icahn along with hedge funds and portfolio managers have deemed the initial bid to be inappropriate. Elliott Associates believes the initial bid “significantly undervalues Lexar,” and feels Lexar is worth between $1.5 billion and $2.4 billion. The estimate is well above the revised takeover bid of about $827 million.

I must concur and say the revised takeover bid is way too low and needs to be rejected by shareholders. Micron wants to pay around 1.10x sales for Lexar while the market leader SanDisk (SNDK) is trading at 4.35x sales. Lexar also has a $400 million patent infringement lawsuit against Toshiba that it had previously won but is now subject to an appeal by Toshiba.
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Picking good stocks is only the first step to become a consistently profitable trader. Those of you that track the performances of stock picks I post on http://www.cisiova.com/analysis.asp know that it is impossible to determine if a stock is good without a good exiting strategy. And for most traders, exit strategy is the hardest part. Many people say that to trade profitably you need to develop the right mentality. Unfortunately, such winning mentality can only be developed through experience. However, there is a short cut to get through the learning curve without throwing thousands of dollars in the process. This short cut is playing POKER.

Yes you heard me right. Apparently, playing poker has a lot of similarities with investing in stocks. First of all, they both deal with money, uncertainties, and a keen judgment of potential risk and reward. In this article I will explain the similarities and differences between stock trading and poker. But before proceeding, make sure you know the rules of Texas Holdem and fluent with the terminologies.

Think of stock picking as looking for good hands to play. In Texas Holdem, you can look at the two hole cards and decide whether you can play the hand or not. Similarly, you can analyze the stock before entering a position. Fortunately for you traders, no one will raise pre-flop, so you just pay the commission. Remember to exit the position you also need to pay the commission, which implies that the cost of entering a position is two times the commission. Good poker players only play good hands, so you should do thorough researches before entering a position. One good thing about trading is that you do not have to wait for good stocks like poker players wait for good hands, you can find good stocks on stock picking websites or using screeners to find them yourself.
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Over the years, Dines successfully forecast the Internet mania, forecasting the giants of the tech boom, and forecasting the tech bust. A gold bug again, Dines also added uranium as the metal to watch over the coming years, saying, “This is my way of playing the whole coming energy boom.”

Interviewer: You have been calling a bull market in uranium and, once again, you were the first voice in the now-growing crowd of uranium bulls.

James Dines: What a surprise.

Interviewer: Why are you bullish on uranium?

James Dines: It’s very important to get into a bull market early. The earlier, the better. That’s when the biggest percentage gains are made. That’s why we got into the Internets very early. We got stopped out in 2000. We were in cash for a year and then went to metals, as the way to play the China boom in 2001. We’re still in those. In 2002, we turned bullish on uranium as a unique way to play the coming boom in the whole energy complex.

Interviewer: But why uranium, as opposed to another type of metal?

James Dines: Basically, the western world demand is outpacing supply by about 300 million pounds a year. Global uranium use, excluding the growing usage by China and the former Soviet Union, is running at around 155 million pounds a year, as compared with global production of only around 94 million pounds. There are only about 500 customers for this stuff, not counting terrorists (joke). Because of that, it’s not a regular commodity. The public can’t go and buy uranium. In August 2003, there was a shocking blackout in Canada. The utilities were shaken. They realized when they don’t pay attention, the lights go out. That was a kick in the shin for utilities to begin immediate investment in the infrastructure of the electricity grid. But what is completely under the world’s radar is that nuclear plants are also concerned about a shortage of uranium. If they run out of uranium, the lights go out. You can’t switch to another fuel. You can’t toss another log on the fire, so to speak. Because of that, there is a growing panic among the buyers. That’s why I became what I’m calling myself: The Original Uranium Bug. And calling, or predicting, the coming Uranium Melt Up and buying panic.

Interviewer: A panic over uranium. Why do you say that?

James Dines: There’s going to be a buying panic. The bottom line is that in 2002, there were 441 nuclear reactors worldwide and another 34 under construction. Six new reactors began commercial production in 2002, three in China, two in South Korea and one in Japan. There was construction begun on six reactors in India and four in South Korea. There are more units coming in Finland, Russia, Ukraine, Romania, and Brazil. China announced recently they were going to build five more nuclear facilities. All of the governments of the world have been frightened by the talk of the difficulty in getting oil. I wouldn’t be surprised if more of them began building up their strategic oil reserves as the US has done. That would turbo the whole carbon-based fuel crisis higher. That makes nuclear more than a competitor. The price of uranium hit $7.10 on Christmas Day 2000, and then began a low, quiet and slow climb. The bottom line, which I outlined in my book on Mass Psychology, is that a new bull market must be invisible to the crowd. The corollary to that is when you see bandwagon on Wall Street, you are too late.

Interviewer: Some are making predictions of $50 uranium or even higher. What do you think?

James Dines: $50, $60, anything is possible. If you are running a utility and your choice was getting uranium at any price or having the lights go out, which would you do? This is my way of playing the whole coming energy boom. I think it’s the smartest way. This is unique. This metal is just not there. We’re just not going to have it.

Interviewer: How much of a role does Cameco (NYSE: CCJ) play in this market?

James Dines: They control the world’s largest high-grade reserves and low-cost operations, commanding position. They supply around 20 percent of the western world’s uranium. It’s America’s only uranium producer, in Wyoming and Nebraska. Around 20 percent of America’s energy is produced by nuclear. That accounts for around 35 percent of the western world’s consumption.
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Should you fire your financial advisor and hire a month in order to optimize your asset allocation?

Probably so, if you believe proponents of a time-honored indicator of future stock market performance known as “The January Barometer.” The Barometer simply states that “As goes January, so goes the year,” and it’s racked up a seemingly remarkable forecasting record since well before Yale Hirsch of Stock Trader’s Almanac first popularized it as early as 1972.

Since 1938, the direction of change of the benchmark S&P in the first month out of the gate has matched the year as a whole more than a whopping 80% of the time, making January by far the most predictive month on the calendar. The results are similarly impressive if you use the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) as a yardstick and, although it somewhat diminishes the accuracy of the forecasting tool, if you assess efficacy over the next 11 or 12 months to avoid double-counting January’s moves in the periods it’s supposed to foreshadow. Dating back to the inception of the NASDAQ Composite Index in 1971, January achieves the greatest success of any month in anticipating the movement of OTC stocks throughout the following 11 or 12 months, and ranks second only to April in its correlation with calendar-year outcomes. Starting from 1950, an up January has meant about a 13% gain in stock prices through the remainder of the year, while opening with a down month presaged about a 1% loss.

Criticisms of The January Barometer

The historical evidence looked even more compelling at the start of this decade, but The January Barometer laid an egg in 3 of the past 5 years. In 2001, a positive January called a premature end to a bear market that got ugly after Al Qaeda suicide hijackers attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon. In 2003, stocks declined in January, continuing a deep correction in the wake of a sharp initial rally off the final bear market low of the previous October, but turned higher in springtime to climb 26.4% by year-end, still the biggest annual gain since the 1990s. Last year, the market fell again in January, only to see the S&P 500 eke out a 3% gain for all of 2005, although the Dow edged down a fraction of a percent. However, the lackluster display by the blue chips actually understated the effect of the Barometer’s error in a year in which smaller stocks outperformed for a 6th straight time and the average equities mutual fund returned a total 9.5%.

Supporters of The January Barometer sometimes point to the 20th Amendment, a piece of Depression-era legislation also known as the “Lame Duck Amendment,” to explain why it works. The 20th Amendment mandates that presidential terms, as well as those of senators and representatives, shall conclude in January, and calls for congress to convene on January 3. Formerly, they didn’t throw the rascals out until March. Despite ratification in early 1933, the amendment didn’t take effect until 1934. Hence the nation was forced to endure 4 months of lame-duck leadership from a by then wildly unpopular Herbert Hoover after the 1932 election, as the Great Depression deepened and Wall Street surrendered the vast bulk of its spectacular gains achieved during the summer of ’32, following the stock market bottom.

Now, the president delivers his State of the Union Address, highlighting priorities for the year ahead, and unveils his proposed budget in January, making the month particularly influential, or so the theory goes. Of course, they don’t hold national elections every year, and almost all of the leaders are incumbents or politicians with already well-known agendas. If the timing of the presidential inauguration is so important, why didn’t a “March Barometer” foretell stocks’ future before 1934? From 1897 through 1933, the direction taken by the DJIA in January corresponded to the full year’s results 23 times out of 37, versus just 20 of 37 for March. The record throughout that interval stays the same even if you substitute the S&P for the Dow beginning in 1928, the first year they tabulated daily prices for the S&P.

Staunch defenders of the January Barometer like to commence their record keeping in 1938, citing the especially lopsided congressional margins enjoyed by Democrats earlier under the FDR Administration. This smacks of classic backfitting, however. Could the real reason behind the 4-year delay in implementation of their pet prognostic technique instead be the disastrous performance shown by The January Barometer in the 1934-1937 timeframe? In 1934, the S&P jumped a robust 10% in January, only to slide 19% during the next 12 months. If you sold on January’s 4% dip to kick off 1935, you missed a roaring 57% advance. And if a 4% rise in January 1937 enticed you to bite, the stock market’s October 1937 crash left you licking your wounds amid a 41% plunge. Another benefit to choosing 1938 as a starting point, while ignoring the entire 1897-1937 period, rests in the fact that most market years are up years, and the more recent era captures the secular bull markets of 1949-1968 and 1982-2000, leaving out the worst years of the Depression and the relatively dull markets of the first 20 years of the 20th century. In 1897-1937, stocks went up only 23 out of 41 times (56%), compared to 47 of 67 (one year was unchanged), or 70%, subsequently. January historically ranks as the second-strongest calendar month for stocks, trailing only December.

January Barometer’s Notable Failures

Still, in over a century since the advent of reliable daily stock averages, the January Barometer boasts a 72% (78 of 108) success rate, including a level of accuracy approaching 80% during those years in which the market closed higher in January, as was the case this year. Yet the S&P 500, through Friday, February 10, 2006, remains over 1% lower this month after hitting new bull market highs a few short weeks ago. Accordingly, this seems like a good time to examine some of the January Barometer’s most notable failures following those occasions when it appeared to call for further stock price appreciation.

1902: The DJIA established a final bull market peak in June 1901 and continued to edge down slightly in 1902.

1903: Railroad stocks had risen for over 6 years, more than tripling without a serious setback, when they topped in September 1902. Their yearlong bear market was just getting started when 1903 rolled around, and their eventual collapse would drag down the industrials.

1906: Final bull market high in late January, and the DJIA was nearly cut in half before the end of 1907.

1914: A 5-year bear market, which began with an unsuccessful assault on all-time highs in 1909, climaxes in July 1914 when authorities shut down the New York Stock Exchange at the outset of World War I.

1917: After stocks more than double to a November 1916 final top in the first couple of years of the War, in which America gets rich supplying the Allies in Europe, the market drops 40% by December 1917, as direct U.S. involvement in the conflict looms.
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