– Stock Market Companion – Current Holdings –

Nr.	Co.	Ticker	Action	Entry Date	Current Gain (Loss)

 

To do our work well at Stock Market Companion, we process a tremendous amount of information each day.  This early a.m. there was a news story about a young man who was discharged from the US military in Iraq who is now participating in the Occupy Wall Street protests in Washington, D.C.  At this point, I need to beg your pardon because we didn’t save the article, and I can’t find it right now – otherwise I would provide you with the link and be able to keep this a bit shorter.

The summary of the story is this – The young man was saying that he went to war to fight for capitalism, became disillusioned while in the military to the point that he caused himself to be dishonorably discharged, now can’t find a job in the U.S. that pays more than $10/hour, his dishonorable discharge disqualifies him from the new G.I. bill that would help him pay for school, and therefore has become a socialist because the capitalistic structure that he was defending has failed to meet his needs.  The journalist slanted the story very sympathetically towards the young man.

The very next article that I then read was this one about the company Evolution-Fresh, being purchased by Starbucks, Inc. this week for $30 million.  Click here for the Business Week article. Another article that I read about this Starbucks acquisition stated that the founder of Evolution-Fresh is Jimmy Rosenberg.   Evolution-Fresh is his SECOND juice company.  The first one “Naked Juice” he built starting in approx. 1983 and sold to Pepsi in the early 90’s.  He then built Evolution-Fresh that he sold this week to Starbucks.

Look at this brilliant website from Evolution-Fresh.  It is a model of simplicity, vibrant color, and purpose.

The idea here is – Mr. Rosenberg has a very different understanding of what capitalism is all about than the young man protesting in Washington, D.C.   Capitalism doesn’t offer hand-outs, it offers the most effective and efficient structure for people to build and participate in businesses that allocate resources of all kinds to meet the demands of an ever-changing market of individuals.  Capitalism offers a very powerful tool that allows people to create wealth legally.

In his commencement address in 2005 to the Stanford University graduating class (click on link to see it directly from the Stanford site – Video icon is there in the text), Mr. Steve Jobs mentions that he naively picked an expensive college (Reed College, Portland OR) that was causing him to spend the entire life savings of his working class parents for tuition.  After six months he didn’t see the value in it, didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life and couldn’t justify the cost to his parents.  So he dropped out and began to study what interested him.  The rest is Apple, Inc. history.   Friends, we need to teach our children about capitalism and economics so that they understand it and can apply it for good.  This is one of the main purposes of Stock Market Companion.

Mr. Rosenberg and Mr. Jobs are from an older generation.  We must educate the next generation about the benefits and current mis-application and misunderstandings of capitalism.

“Occupy Wall Street” would do well to focus on the failure of the modern leadership of American enterprises to reward the system from which they were born, with jobs and opportunity.   Mr. Henry Ford understood this – the Ford Motor Co. helped birth the American industrial revolution by providing wages that allowed workers to afford the products that they were producing and enjoy the fruit of their labor.  Today, 600,000 worker manufacturing cities in China are making the vast majority of computer products (including iPhones).  The workers there earn about $130/month.  Click here for the details.

If “Occupy Wall Street” could find this message about creating Jobs and Opportunity in America, and stay on message, they could make a meaningful impact for good.  I haven’t seen it yet.

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For those who are not completely convinced that the stock of Research in Motion (Ticker: RIMM $18.49) is going to ZERO, the company received a positive mention from Pacific Crest and today we read that Omega Advisors, Inc. (a $5.4 billion hedge fund) had purchased 1.4 million shares of RIMM.

This chart shows that a protective stop can be placed on RIMM at just below yesterday’s low of $17.17.  Bottom fishing has its risks, but can also be quite rewarding.  (Click on chart and it will expand larger on a separate browser tab, automatically).

We also like the pattern that Gentiva Health (GTIV  $5.43) is providing, on the basis of insider purchases that we identified for you on Wednesday.

Our discipline in not blindly holding Apple, Inc. shares at this time, taking our profits and waiting for a break above $408 or possible extreme weakness is paying off.  The shares are now in the low $380’s.

 

 

– Benchmarks “At a Glance” –

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