I Had Fun Selling Some CRAY This Morning

This was a first time experience...

On Wednesday (02012.04.25, two days ago) I placed a GTC limit order to sell some CRAY at $9.42. I didn't have a specific sell price, so I multiplied Pi by three and rounded it to the nearest penny to get $9.42.

Today, Friday (02012.04.27), the GTC limit order was executed at a sale price of $10.36.

Yesterday, Thursday (02012.04.26), CRAY closed at $8.90. Cray reported 1Q'12 results after the close. Today CRAY had a "gap open" and opened at $10.36.

$10.36 is almost a 10% increase over my Pi-based limit order price of $9.42.

Money Where Your Mouth Is

I've been giving a talk titled "Learning About the Future in 50 Minutes" and the talk spends quite a bit of time on the topics of High Performance Computing (HPC), 21st century Informatics, and robotics. When the markets closed yesterday (02012.04.25) the top three stocks in the GDT::Portfolio were Google #1, Cray #2, and iRobot #3 (i.e. Informatics, HPC, robotics).

Speaking of Cray... The company reports 1Q'12 results today (02012.04.26).

iRobot: Home, Military, Emerging Technologies

iRobot (IRBT) reported 1Q'12 results after the market closed yesterday. The company posted the transcript to their 1Q'12 conference call, so I gave it a read. It starts with the following.

"The results and outlook for our Home Robot business are excellent while the near-term visibility in our Defense & Security business continues to be limited."

I thought this was interesting...

"I [Colin Angle, iRobot CEO] have said in the past that one in four vacuum cleaners sold in Spain is a robot. Based on current data, that statistic is even more striking. Quarterly data through February showed that one in three vacuum cleaners sold in Spain was a robot. Beyond Spain, we see the same fast developing adoption in such diverse markets as Italy, Taiwan, Denmark, Israel and Russia. The robotic vacuum cleaner category is going mainstream and growing far faster than the overall vacuum cleaner market. The good news is that not only is the rate of adoption accelerating but our Roomba remains the market leader."

Reading the following prompted me to say... D'oh!

"We [iRobot] continue to experience funding delays that will impact Q2 revenue and we have reflected that impact in our expectations. We expect orders and funding to start flowing, but full-year results will be lower than we anticipated last quarter."

IRBT closed yesterday (02012.04.24) at $24.60. 52-week range: $22.46 - $38.33.

................ I'm waiting to press the "Publish" button for this posting until after the market opens today (02012.04.25) ............

IRBT opened at $23.87, down almost 3%, on 02012.04.25.

Altair Nanotechnologies Doing Business in China

Altair Nanotechnologies (ALTI) hit a buck a week ago, but it likes to penny stock. I liked this press release that the Altair issued yesterday: Altair Partners With Chinese Cities of Handan and Wu'an to Accelerate the Production and Deployment of Lithium Titanate Energy Storage Systems in China

"These new agreements will provide significant support and incentives for our entry into the Chinese energy storage market," said Alexander Lee, the Company's Chief Executive Officer. "By partnering with Handan and Wu'an cities, we will leverage our core technologies to gain access into key markets in China, which are eager to use LTO-based solutions to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels and reduce emissions."

This press release was released before the markets opened on yesterday 02012.04.24. ALTI had closed the previous day at $0.87. ALTI opened yesterday at $0.92 and closed at $0.92. Intra-day high was $0.94. Volume was average.

Cray Sells Technology To Intel

Cray (CRAY) announced it is selling its "interconnect hardware assets" for $140 million (cash). In addition, 74 Cray employees to are going to join Intel. I think 74 employees represent ~8% of Cray's workforce. $140 million is approximately $3.95 per CRAY share. CRAY closed today (02012.04.24) at $7.04. 52-week range: $4.96 - $8.39.

"By broadening our relationship with Intel, we are positioned to further penetrate the HPC market and expand on our industry-leading technologies in support of our Adaptive Supercomputing vision." -- Peter Ungaro, president and CEO of Cray

Cray CEO Ungaro says the Intel deal "is an exciting win for our customers, our company and our shareholders." I hope he's right.

[update::02012.04.25] CRAY opened at $9.09, up 29.1%. 15 minutes into trading and CRAY's volume was already 2-times the trailing-3-month average.

[update::02012.04.26] CRAY closed yesterday at $8.51 after hitting a new 52-week high of $9.19. Trading volume was two million compared to a trailing-3-month average of 0.2 million. The number of shares traded was ~5.6% of the total number of CRAY shares.

Aastrom Biosciences; Red Hat; US Airways

Tidbits from last week...

Aastrom Biosciences (ASTM) got an upgrade from WBB Securities from 'Hold' to 'Speculative Buy.' During December of last year, WBB Securities upgraded ASTM from 'Sell' to 'Hold.' WBB Securities initiated coverage on ASTM with a 'Sell' rating during February of last year. ASTM closed on Friday (02012.04.20) at $2.56, up 17.43% for the week. 52-week range: $1.75 - $3.47.

Red Hat (RHT) hit a new 52-week high of $62.75 last week Thursday (02012.04.19). I have an order to sell a tiny bit of RHT at $67.48.

US Airways (LCC) might try to acquire American Airlines. LCC was up 19.1% for the week and it is currently #10 in the GDT::Portfolio. Note: LCC at #10 is an indication that the GDT::Portfolio isn't doing well.

Illumina Tanking TCAGTCAGTCAG... = GAG

Today (02012.04.18) is Wednesday. Last week Thursday I had a blog posting titled Illumina Stock Price Heavily Dependent on Roche. Today ILMN opened at $40.42, down 8.14%. Right now (02012.04.18 at 7:11am MST) ILMN's trading volume is already three times the trailing-3-month average. In a nutshell: Illumina is not going to be acquired by Roche and Roche has no near term plans to increase their offer of $51 per share.

I just don't have enough brain to understand this stuff. Roche's offer of $51 was probably a fair price for the value of Illumina today, but Roche wanted to buy into the future for $0. How nice. I have to believe that some institutional investors are happy to be given a chance to accumulate positions in Illumina at ILMN's current price.

[update::02012.04.19] ILMN ended yesterday at $44.51, up $0.51 for the day. Volume was 26.3 million--almost 7-times the trailing-3-month average. 26.3 million is approximately 19% of all ILMN shares. Finance.Yahoo.com is reporting that 13% of ILMN shares are closely held and that "institutions and mutual funds" own 104% of all ILMN shares. Hmm...

[update::02012.04.19] Human Genome Sciences (HGSI) rejected a takeover bid from GlaxoSmithKline. HGSI, which is not a GDT::Portfolio stock, closed yesterday (02012.04.18) at $7.17. Today it opened at $14.24 (i.e. up 100%). The GlaxoSmithKline offer was $13.