From Robes to Riches

The Battle of The Billionaires and the Talk of the Town

This last Month the Vegas plays have been both interesting and profitable. On April 1st. MGM was at 2.33 a share. Today it is at 6.30. That's over a 250% return..not bad. So having played both MGM and LVS I of course began to research these plays and was so intrigued but what I was finding I thought I would share some of it with you.

The History of MGM is fascinating in itself and this is where the Billionaire and fascinating story of Kirk Kerkorian begins. Kirk Kerkorian is Las Vegas most influential and the longest operating casino owner who virtually changed the direction of Las Vegas numerous times through his arrival here after 1945.

The father of the Megaresort

Operating a charter airline, flying junkets to Las Vegas, Kerkorian gained a early position as being a key player in the growth of post-war Las Vegas. In 1962, he purchased the land across the street from the Flamingo, then leased it to Caesars for 2 years - until selling them the land. In 1967, he purchased the Flamingo Hotel, ran it and remodeled it and sold it. His next project was the construction of his world's largest International - in 1969. Kerkorian then purchased the land for the MGM Grand, on the SE corner of Flamingo Road and the Strip. After the sale of his International Hotel to the Hilton chain, Kerkorian set out to build a new, grand hotel on the Strip. His MGM Grand opened in 1973. Twenty years later he opened the second MGM Grand, on Tropicana. After the Millenium, MGM acquired the Mirage, Bellagio and Treasure Island. New York, New York and the Monte Carlo were part of the MGM's holdings. In 2003 MGM acquired the Excalibur, Luxor, Mandalay Bay & Circus Circus.. opened as the Strip's first super-resort in 1973.

Early Vegas

The story behind this man is truly fascinating having dropped out of school in the eighth grade to become a professional boxer who then flew suicide missions for the Royal Air Force, made a small fortune in surplus military airplanes, and a larger one in the airline business.

Early on Kerkorian had a commercial pilot's license, and a job as a flight instructor. But teaching bored him.

"I heard about the Royal Air Force flying out of Montreal, Canada, and I went up there and I got hired right away," he recalls. "They were paying money I couldn't believe, $1,000 a trip."

The mission of the RAF Air Transport Command was to fly Canadian-built Mosquito bombers from Labrador to Scotland. Only one in four made it.

Mosquito bomber

The Mosquito's fuel tanks carried it 1,400 miles. It was 2,200 miles to Scotland. Pilots had only two possible routes, each worse than the other.

The roundabout route was Montreal-Labrador-Greenland-Iceland-Scotland, but the planes' high-performance wings could be distorted by a paper-thin coating of ice, causing it to fall out of the sky. "The snowfields and forests around that frozen perimeter were strewn with downed Mosquitos crushed like matchboxes," wrote Dial Torgerson in the 1974 biography "Kerkorian, An American Success Story."

Or one could fly straight across the Atlantic, riding a west-to-east airflow called the "Iceland Wave." It blew Mosquitos toward Europe at jet speeds, but it wasn't constant. If it waned in midflight, plane and pilot were lost.

Kerkorian and his wing commander, J.D. Woolridge, rode the wave in May 1944, and broke the old crossing record. Woolridge got to Scotland in six hours, 46 minutes; Kerkorian, in seven hours, nine minutes. He came in second. He hated that.

The following month, the Iceland Wave died halfway across. The sun set. The reserve tank ran empty, and Kerkorian prepared to ditch. His navigator begged Kerkorian to drop low just once. As they broke through the cloud, the lights of Prestwick, Scotland, twinkled ahead.

Kerkorian made a perfect landing.

In 2 1/2 years with the RAF, Kerkorian delivered 33 planes, logged thousands of hours, traveled to four continents and flew his first four-engine plane. He also saved most of his generous salary.

Kerkorian clearly recalls his first visit to Las Vegas in July 1945. His RAF service completed, he paid $5,000 for a single-engine Cessna in which to train pilots. "And I used that same plane to fly charters. That's what got me into the transportation end of the business.

So I read here a very tough guy being a boxer who wants to compete and hates to lose. A man who is unafraid to to great risks as he rides a wave of air that may or may not be there but yet makes perfect landings. In other words he seems to have a way of getting out of a jam. Couple all this with some reports that he may be the son of the famous mobster Meyer Lansky as one comment I found reads,

Kerkorian is an enigma. An FBI report noted that he met with a Meyer Lansky lieutenant (Lansky was the mafia financial godfather who paired with Lucky Luciano and Vito Genovese to take over the US mafia in the 1930’s).

Meyer Lansky

Stranger still, Kerkorian is the spitting image of Meyer Lansky–he looks like he could be Lansky’s son. And Kerkorian made his fortune running a gambling junket airline between LA and Las Vegas, where Lansky’s mob money was king.

Kirk Kerkorian

According to the Forbes 2008 list,
he is the world's 41st-richest person
with a net worth of $16.0 billion.

So, the question is raised: Is Kerkorian really Lansky’s son, the favored (shadow) repository of Lansky’s billions, rather than being a supposed Armenian immigrant’s son? A cover identity is easy to arrage, especially if you have millions to pay for it. And now, Kerkorian’s $$$ are endangered by a financial mafia’s debacle. Most ironic.

And if this were true, the question has to be asked, do we really think he will not get funding to complete his latest project?

Enter the the CityCenter Project - The most expensive privately funded construction project in U.S. History.

CityCenter

Mr. Kerkorian with his private investment corporation Tracinda owns about 55% of MGM which is in partnership with Dubai World to build this project on the Las Vegas Strip.

Dubai World is a major investment holding company representing the business and investment portfolio of the Arab government of Dubai. Dubai World will invest approximately $5 billion in the deal, with $2.7 billion being funneled directly into the CityCenter project. Another $2.4 billion will be invested into purchases of MGM Mirage common stock, purchasing up to 28.4 million shares, which will also give Dubai World an approximately 9.5 percent equity stake in MGM Mirage itself having bought 14 million shares at $86.... OUCH! So these guys are none to happy about it and have refused to pay any more towards the project until they can have assurances that MGM can remain viable.

The most expensive privately funded
construction project in U.S. History.

The Las Vegas gargantuan $7.4 billion, 68 acre project.

CityCenter is on schedule to open in late 2009. The “city-within-a-city”
concept will include over almost 5000 rooms in three hotels, with another
2700 condos/condo-hotel units, in multiple towers. These will be anchored together by 470,000 square-feet of retail and entertainment space and a
equally large casino area.

MGM instead of reporting its fourth-quarter earnings, filed two other SEC forms. The first one was to confess they had tapped out their $4.5 billion revolving credit line by withdrawing the last remaining $842 million. And the second filing confessed why it was late with its earnings announcement. It is about to be in breach of its senior debt covenants - and if that happens, MGM’s debt laden house of cards starts to collapse.

Just to be sure everyone got the message, MGM added, “it is likely that…the Registrant’s consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2008 will contain an explanatory paragraph with respect to the Registrant’s ability to continue as a going concern.” Translated, this means if MGM isn’t able to sweet talk its senior debt holders into revising their agreement, bankruptcy is the next stop down the line.

MGM is carrying a mountain of debt, primarily related to the $9 billion CityCenter project. And a lot of it is scheduled to come due in the next couple of years. They have about $1.2 billion due this year and about another $1.1 billion due next. So Dubai World has refused to make payments on the loans for the completion of the CityCenter.

On Friday came news that MGM MIRAGE Provides Funds to Ensure Construction Continues at CityCenter which sent shares of MGM as high as 6.82 from the low of the day in the 4.80's. It was a great ride as it was stated

The payment by MGM MIRAGE includes $35 million that should have been funded by Infinity World, a subsidiary of Dubai World.

"MGM MIRAGE remains dedicated to supporting the completion of CityCenter, recognizing the significant long-term value this development will provide to Las Vegas and the state of Nevada," said Jim Murren, Chairman and CEO of MGM MIRAGE. "MGM is determined to make CityCenter a success and we continue to review with our partners all options to keep CityCenter fully funded. We are continuing to engage in constructive discussions with our senior lenders and the CityCenter lending group and we appreciate the support of the involved parties.

But the story just keeps getting better and better...enter Corporate raider Carl Icahn. You remeber him from the Yahoo Microsoft debacle right.... right.

Corporate raider Carl Icahn

So the CityCenter drama just keeps getting more fun after it was reported that corporate raider Carl Icahn and private equity firm Oaktree Capital management were buying up millions of dollars in MGM Mirage bonds in an effort to force the casino operator into a bankruptcy filing to restructure the company.

MGM Mirage is facing a May 15 deadline to come up with a restructuring plan for its $13.5 billion in long-term corporate debt.

These events are giving long tern MGM Mirage investors a front row seat at a high-paced action thriller.

“MGM Mirage continues in a high-stakes poker game,” KDP Investment Advisors gaming analyst Barbara Cappaert wrote in a research note Friday.

But MGM’s current debt holders are at a catch 22 themselves. Banks don’t want big debt going into default -as it does bad thinsg to those already shaky balance sheets. So MGM might be able to work out a deal with its current lenders. So I'll be watching what has to be the greatest soap opra of all tim eto hit Las Vegas play it self out in the comming weeks. There should be lots of volitility here which means if you like to play the tables at vegas, youre gonna love trading MGM!

GLTA

DEO

Weekly Update

Update 4-13th thru 17th
C - $3885
MGM - $3292
BEE - $160
DRYS - $30
Tues - $79
GRO - $172
LVS - $377
ABK -$220
Total Gain - $6459

This week was a roller coaster ride to say the least. Nitro pills anyone? :-) I tried some new strategies that try to maximize gains. I'll be working this new strategy to see how viable it is. So stay tuned. Right now I'm spending time looking at all the stories behind MGM. This stock has so many power players involved - Kirk Kerkorian, Carl Icahn, Dubai World and Bank of America. WOW...what a group! And as I research into this play more the stories just get better and better. So much so I hope to blog on this tonight if I have time because there are some very intriguing highlights they are all blog worthy.

Friday saw a wild ride up as news was announced that $70 million was infused to secure the loans for the Vegas City Center casino resort with estranged partner Dubai World.

The City Center project is a luxury residential, resort and retail complex with an estimated cost of $8.7 billion and is owned by City Center Holdings LLC, a joint venture equally owned by MGM and Infinity World. The project is being developed on 67 acres between the Bellagio and Monte Carlo resorts on the Las Vegas Strip. The project includes construction plans for several casinos, hotels, a retail strip and other office and residential buildings.

Dubai World has been withholding up to $135 million payments for the project and filed a lawsuit alleging a breach of contract and cost overruns due to mismanagement, following MGM's statement on its 10-k filing that "there is substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern."

MGM
One of the biggest soap opera's to hit Vegas!

So I rode this wild ride and 'should have' lol doubled my gains but I was away from my computer and at work only to receive an email that the MGM was running. I hurriedly went to a computer signed on and sent in a blind sell order right as it was correcting momentarily. Oh had I been at my trading desk with charts and level 2! Oh well, one day we will do this F/T. Till then it's a P/T gig that both fun and profitable.

Here's a little history of what has been happening with MGM that was relaesed back in March


I'm not offering a buy or sell on this stock, but just pointing out there is alot going on here that will be fun to watch<>

GLTA

NEWS - Calpers Seeks to Buy TARP Holdings, Citigroup Assets

Calpers Seeks to Buy TARP Holdings, Citigroup Assets
April 15 (Bloomberg) -- The California Public Employees’ Retirement System said it’s seeking opportunities to buy assets of Citigroup Inc. and other financial companies tied to the U.S. government’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Calpers, as the largest U.S. public pension manager is known, said today it’s setting aside “billions of dollars” amid the credit crunch and is ready to deploy capital. It added that there’s a “glimmer of hope” in the stock market.

The pension fund is seeking to buy “some of the assets of these financial companies such as Citi and the others, assets that they’re trying to get off their balance sheets,” Henry Jones, a Calpers board of administration member, said in an interview after a speech in Seoul.

Closing the Deal

Citi - Very Rewarding

Citi
The "Very Rewarding” Campaign

April 12 Update
Sold for Gain
FEED - $950
Total Gain - $950
Holding C and up $4086

A few years ago Citi Bank ran an ad campaign called Citi - "Very Rewarding.” At the time, Citi was trading at around $50 a share. With the fall of the financial's Citi has just recently come off it's low of .97. Now Citi is again living up to it's old campaign as those who were buying were definitely flying as others blindly looked on. All last week there were those who were writing Citi as done and a are still surprised even as it printed an AH high of 4.30.

Because of the R/R factor on this one I went in on Thursday in PM as I wrote in the last blog at $3.00. I dont think many realize all that's at play with Citi this week so I'll share some of the highlights and interesting sub plots to this developing play.

Number one, is the obvious, we have Earnings reporting this Friday BEFORE the bell which generally means good news. This after WFC blew the doors off of their earnings report in an early suprise Thursday before the bell.

C

So the FINS are setting up for some good numbers as M/M and fuzzy math with derivatives combined with help from the Fed all sync to build consumer confidence that the economy is turning. Now there is no doubt this is very much a CONfidence game, but if you know what they are doing, then play along and reap the reward. No need to be cynical and blind.

So a few intersting points that led me to believe this was in play other then earnings.

First, In a letter to his employees the CEO of Citi states,

"In fact, we are profitable through the first two months of 2009 and are having our best quarter-to-date performance since the third quarter of 2007."


Second - The arb story that could lead to a VW type short squeeze.A Graphic Representation Of the Citi Arb Carnage

Three because Citi is the number one shorted stock on the NYSE short interest at 22.28 % of the float or 1,209,885,200 shares.

Third - Cramer posted a video of a BUY for Citi here April 7th.

Fourth - The Stock was at $3 and lagging behind and giving ht e above, the upside out weighed the Risk.

Today my account gained $6900 thanks to FEED. As I've written before I've had to average down on this one and have been very patient for 5 months. Yes, 5 Months! Sometimes patience pays. So today I went green enough for me to sell and release $16K in capital that was dead money. The China AG plays look to be a sector that is heating up. Apparently Jim Rodgers made some positive comments and the stock soared. So seeing GRO as a possible play in the coming days I bought some.

FEED

GRO

Another buy today was MGM. I've been liking the story behind the both Vegas plays MGM and LVS. So today I bought on the dip at $5.75 and am looking to add here with the news just out.

MGM Mirage gets bank funding for CityCenter construction

8:22p ET April 13, 2009 (MarketWatch) LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) -- MGM Mirage said late Monday that it has received an amendment of its senior credit facility from banks lending to it. This will allow it to fund the entire current construction cost of its CityCenter project, regardless of whether Dubai World goes ahead with a $35 million investment in the project. The costs total $70 million, due no later than April 17, MGM Mirage said in a statement. The casino operator said it "remains committed to finding a long-term solution to the financing of CityCenter to ensure the completion of this important project."

MGM

And finally I took a position in TUES and BEE on that dip at the end of the day. I won't be staying in this one long, but that dip was attractive, so we'll see where this goes. The REIT's have been hammered but we might gets some positive movement here in the short term.

Great Series on Wall Street

The Bears Vs. the Bulls

This Week Will Tell

April 8-9 Update
Sold for Gain
AEN - $1227
SPSN- - $1110
LVS- $780
CNO - $341
PIR - $156
Sold for Loss
EBHI - $199
VG - $202
Total Gain - $3213

These last few trading days I've been on the sidelines waiting to pounce on anything that might present itself as the market seemed abit toppy going into Thursday so imagine the surprise to wake up to the news of Wells Fargo's earnings which helped the DOW surge 246 points.

Up early before the PM per usual I had the opportunity to purchase WFC at the first dip in PM at 17.50. I didn't pull the trigger because I figured (wrong) that Citi would follow in sympathy and being the laggard of the financial's might just have a stronger return with their upcoming Earnings next Friday the 17th. Besides, with short interest at 22.28 % of the float or 1,209,885,200 shares with 1.6 days to cover, an explosive short squeeze was and is possible.

In a letter to Employees from Vikram Pandit dated March 9, 2009 Pnadit states,

Dear Citi Colleagues,

After a broad sell off in the markets last week, I thought I would give you a quick update on our position.

Despite the steps we’ve taken to strengthen our capital base, I am, like you, disappointed with our current stock price and the broad-based misperceptions about our company and its financial position. I don’t believe it reflects the strengths of Citi; our newly strengthened capital base, our unique global franchise and most importantly, the quality of our people. These are unprecedented times in the markets, but over time, the markets will recognize the many strengths of Citi.

In addition to our strong capital position, I am most encouraged with the strength of our business so far in 2009. In fact, we are profitable through the first two months of 2009 and are having our best quarter-to-date performance since the third quarter of 2007. In January and February alone, our revenues excluding externally disclosed marks were $19 billion.

So this gets me thinking that if we get any positive news from earnings and with all the shenanigans the Fed Gov is taking in this financial debacle to instill "CONfidence" a Bull run "may" be get another boost.

BUT, and this is a BIG but, I'm still not so sure that this just isn't another bear rally to set up a big trap. Most would agree that Bulls live above the 200 MD average and the Bears below so technically we are still in a Bear Market.

And we know past bear market rallys from the 29′-32′ years average 33%. So this rally isn't so special after all but just seems that way because Green has taken over the color Red on our watch listings. So with this rally being not even higher then the average bear rally of 29-32, Longs might be a little too optimistic, so hedge your bets. I know I am ready at the trigger to see what Monday will bring as we are right at resistance and we could easily see a pullback on this next leg. And generally when everyone gets a little too excited about what goes up, we must temper this enthusiasm and now that what goes up, must come down. So tread carefully, a Bull could break thru and run with a great Earnings week or fall if there are those companies that come short. Remember that six stocks, GOOG, MSFT, CSCO, AAPL, ORCL, and INTC all make up nearly 25% (23.8%) of the entire Nasdaq and they are up 24%, 26%, 33%, 35%, 35%, and 27% respectively. So if just one has a bad day, so to does the Nasdaq. Generally all ship rise or fall with the tide.

I posted the trades I made over the last few days in the update and won't go into much detail as they were mostly quick Crack plays that ran up in minutes for some quick juice. To manage risk, I went almost all cash and sold both LVS and CNO on the flat Thursday, only to see Fridays run, as both, hell almost all stocks went green Friday.

So I'll be waiting for Monday and the week to see what earnings will bring as I'm also watching one battered penny stock for news of a possible buyout. So needless to say I'll be up bright and early Monday morning.

GLTA

DEO

SGIC Gets the Rack in The Shadow of The Sun

April 6 Update
Sold for Gain
SGIC - $986
LVS- - $956
Total Gain - $1942

JAVA Loses IBM

The Shadow of The Sun

Yesterday had some interesting news stories and whenever that's the case, there's sure to be buzz surrounding the plays of the day. That certainly was the case of the two Digital Giants of the Silicon Valley , Sun Mircosystems and SGI. A story SUN would take well to heed as IBM might not be their biggest problem, but the fate of it's sister of Silicon Valley, SGI.

SGI's news item was that Rackable Systems -RACK was to buyout the assets of Silicon Graphics for only 25 million. The news hit the wires beginning last week and Zacks posted on it. SGIC closed at .125 on Friday so even though it looks as if the sharholders will not recive anything in this buyout, the stcok still went ballistic. I got in for some fun in the early am at .175 as I wrote about it the other day in last blogs comment section. It quickly ran up to .30, thinking a quick bounce to .25 was nice I sold at .285 for a quick gain on a little margin. Thinking it was done for the day and confident in my other positions, LVS and CNO I had to step away from trading for awhile only to come back at 2:30 to watch the close. I couldn't believe my eyes. SGIC was going vertical! I didn't think this was worth more then a news trade for a quck in and out. So I just watched in amazement as it printed .76 in AH, up over 300%??? Say what!?

SGI
Say What?

The Item 1.01. of the 8-K Filing - Entry into a Material Definitive Agreement reads as follows.

On March 31, 2009, Silicon Graphics, Inc. ("SGI") entered into an Asset Purchase Agreement (the "Asset Purchase Agreement") with Rackable Systems, Inc. ("Rackable"). Under this agreement, Rackable will purchase substantially all the assets, except for certain excluded assets, of SGI for $25 million, subject to adjustment in certain circumstances, plus the assumption of certain liabilities associated with the acquired assets. The Asset Purchase Agreement has been approved by the respective boards of directors of Rackable and SGI.

Completion of the transaction is subject to a number of closing conditions, including the approval of the Court (as defined below). Subject to such conditions and uncertainties, the transaction is expected to close within approximately 60 days. The assets to be acquired do not include certain non-core patents, which will be retained by SGI. It is expected that the net proceeds of the transaction will be distributed for the benefit of the secured creditors of SGI, and that SGI stockholders will not receive any proceeds in respect of the sale.

“It is sad that the once great SGI has fallen on unfortunate times and devalued its assets,”
Todd A. Bone, CEO of XS International.


Silicon Graphics (SGI) initially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection early on Wednesday, listing some $526.5 million in debt against $390.5 million in assets, just hours before Rackable announced it would be purchasing the computing legend for just $25 million. SEC filings reveal that SGI intends to use the proceeds of the sale to pay off secured creditors, as the bankruptcy filing constituted a default on those obligations. This is the second Chapter 11 proceeding for SGI.

Wanting to know more I thought I'd follow the leads to see where they go, and they got pretty interesting so I thought I's share what I think are some really amazing connections and stories behind these two SV Giants.

Both Silicon Graphics -SGIC and Sun - JAVA were founded in 1982 and were both influenced by engineering innovations that emerged from Stanford University. The two companies used the same microprocessors but for different purposes: Sun optimized its computers for networking; Silicon Graphics, created engines for displaying computer graphics for such well known moves as

Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, Swordfish, Twister, Disclosure, and Lost in Space, among others.

SGI's :"Its initial products were based on the Geometry Engine that Clark and Marc Hannah had developed at Stanford University, and derived from Clark's broader background in computer graphics. The Geometry Engine was the first very-large-scale integration (VLSI) implementation of a geometry pipeline: specialized hardware that accelerated the "inner-loop" geometric computations needed to display three-dimensional images."

Not only known for their Graphics from the movies listed above and other cool shorts like "RYAN" and Academy award winning film you can see here. (It's really wild)

SGI also helped create NASA's supercomputer, COLUMBIA seen here.

SLES-Powered Colombia Supercomputer

NASA's 10,240-processor Columbia supercomputer is built from 20 Altix systems, each powered by 512 Intel Itanium 2 processors. (Image courtesy of Silicon Graphics, Inc.)

The powerful system, built by Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI), promises to revolutionize the rate of scientific discovery at NASA. Using only 16 of its 20 installed systems, Columbia achieved sustained performance of 42.7 trillion calculations per second, or 42.7 teraflops.

"If you could do one calculation per second by hand, it would take you a million years to do what this machine does in a single second," said G. Scott Hubbard, Ames' director.

The new performance record eclipses the performance of every supercomputer operating today and knocks NEC's Earth Simulator off its perch as the world's No. 1 machine—a spot it has held since 2002.

So some cool stuff and with the rackable systems now competting with SUN Microsystems for mobile virtual Data Centers.

RACKABLE SYSTEMS

Rackable Systems is joining the mobile data center parade. The Bay Area company is rolling out its first "Concentro" mobile data center on March 26, which will compete with Sun Microsystems' Project Blackbox, which Sun unveiled in October. Rackable's mobile shipping container, which the company dubbed Concentro, is a 40-foot by 8-foot mobile data center with the capacity to hold up to 1,200 of company's rack-mount 1U (1.75-inch) servers

"Concentro"
Mobile Data Center

Project Blackbox

Virtual Datacenter

So with Sun left standing alone after IBM ends takeover talks and RACK anteing up, I think I'll keep alert to see what big plays are next with these three. SUN might want to heed yesterdays news with SGI and Yahoo's rebuff of Microsoft.... Should be an interesting day. maybe it's time to go back to Vegas and look at MGM because it's all a gamble today in this market. Staying on the sidelines for the most part today as the market is at a level could get ugly.

JAVA

Viva Las Vegas - Better Odds then the Vegas Tables!

Viva Las Vegas!

April 3 Update
Sold for Gain
FEED - $1021
MGM - - $956
ALTU - $586
Sold for Loss
CTIC - $90
GGP - $68
Total Gain - $2405

In the last blog I mentioned that I was limited in funds because I had depleted it to buy the two cars. So with positions already in FEED, GGP and ALTU I awoke to the Pre Market with nothing but $1800 in margin money to play with. Well there was no way I was going to let that sit there in this market so off we went to trade and break a rule that I try to hold to. Never buy in Pre Market... But sell all you want...but there is always that occasional exception and today that exception was MGM. It was time to play Vegas baby! I caught the second buy of the PM at $2.23 and it was all up from there. LVS had made great gains over the last several days but MGM lagged behind so I figured this would be a mover today.

MGM

So with a possible runner in the making I was hoping for a pop in either ALTU or GGP so I could take that money and leverge larger gains. Later in the AM ALTU popped just enough for me to move out with a small gain and throw all of it into one of the hot Vegas Casino plays MGM or LVS. LVS and MGM were both hot going back and forth up 9 to 12%. By the time I finally had some capital to play with MGM had outpaced LVS so I threw $9000 into LVS at $4.50. which was the opening price. Little did I know that MGM would go vertical and leave LVS in the dust. But hey, I wasn't too mad, here I was using borrowed money which I would later sell near the bell for about a grand in pure profit. I couln't turn that down as I already made over $5oo for a small gain off ALTU. Later AH MGM just went nutty and hit a high of $5.25 before settling back to $5.05. LVS ended up closng at $4.60 AH. I believe LVS will double from here as it has a recent history of sharp vertical leaps to $14 from this price. So I'm holding here for a target of $8 or $9 as hedge funds can buy if the price is over $5.

I'm feeling good about next week having more powder left over for whatever Monday may offer.

LVS Set for another double?

The other big stock move was DNDN which I just didn't pull the trigger on when at $4.90. As you can see from the chart, it also went vertical today and closed at $6.15 AH. So there were some great plays out there as even CNO ripped away again. I must admidt I almost committed all of the capital to this when is was at $1.03 but my my was set the bright lights of Vegas.

DNDN

Nice spike!

The Beginning of The End?

Is it over?

March 30 -April 2 Update
Sold for Gain
CENX - $1563
CNO - $628
KOG - $377
HYTM - $71
BGP- $47
Total Gain - $2592

Like Agent Smith asks of NEO in the Matrix at the end of the great Battle scene in Revolutions, "Is it over?"

Well it may not be over yet and only time will tell, but some are calling for the end of this great economic battle to be nearing based on the latest increase in unemployment.

“Job losses tend to be very bad at the end of a recession,”
says Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi’s chief financial economist Christopher Rupkey.

"Rupkey notes that in 1991 and 2001 recessions, job losses peaked two months before the recessions technically ended. Interestingly enough, some economists are now calling for an end to this recession in April or May."

So reports CNBC in their post

March Job Loss May Signal That Worst Is Finally Over

Jobless benefits surged to a nearly 26-1/2 year high and many economists feel that though these numbers will continue to increase, we may be nearing the end of the recession. Today's market rally of 216 points on the DIJA tends to lend credence to that as you always have to remember that the market has already taken in the bad news and is always forward looking. So today was another good day to be in the market but we defiantly feel toppy at these level with the DOW so I'm watching cautiously an waitng to see

A couple of stocks that have been on my radar and in my portfolio were stocks that went big such as CNO and CENX.

CENX

Up 30% today!

CENX was a monster play and many made and will continue to make big money on this one.

CNO is another hot stock with impressive gains over the last few days. effectively doubling over the last few days from Tuesdays .68 to today's high of 1.29. This stock still has plenty of room to roll so keep an eye out for this one as well.

CNO

A double from Tuesday!

A few stocks that have been on my radar but I have yet to buy is LVS, MGM, DAN, ALY and PWAV. Though I did buy PWAV. This has just srteadily been climbing everyday for some impressive gains.

PWAV

Ain't that pretty!

LVS

A better Bet then the tables a Vegas!

MGM

Just beginning.

Check out that Volume spike!