photo by petrick2008
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As we see with the way the stock market performed today, the sell-off kicks back into high gear. Investors are still concerned about the condition of the economy no matter who won the election.
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The rally that took place over the last week in alternative energy was erased today with the sell off. First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR) which was up $70 in the past week gave back $24 (-13%) in today’s trading.
The rest of the sector did just as bad with Suntech Power Holdings (NYSE: STP) taking the biggest hit of almost 21%. Suntech was trading last week at $11 and gained almost 90% before today’s beat-down. The one stock in the sector that escaped the abuse of today was Biofuel Energy Corp (NASDAQ:BIOF) which gained just over 28%, take in mind though that this stock is a penny stock and gains like that are quite common.
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In the financial area of the stock market, the sector was another wash-out with nearly if not all of the stocks lost ground. Out of the ones that I really keep an eye on, the best performers still lost over 5%.
Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corp. (NYSE:AGM), a stock that I’ve talked about before here on this blog took the biggest hit, losing over 25%. Last week the stock traded as low as $2.85 (where I picked up 200 shares) and yesterday hit an intraday high of $8.40, a gain of almost 200% in just a few days.
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I’ve been saying it for some time now, but you need to be ready for when the stock market will turn (good or bad). If I didn’t sell out of AGM when I did, I would have lost some great gains. Don’t get me wrong, I did keep some shares (since I’m now trading with their money). When you get big gains like the one I just spoke about, you need to remember not to be greedy and SELL.
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*DISCLAIMER* At the time of this post Billy is long AGM and has no position in FSLR, BIOF and STP

Today the DOW had one of it’s top 6 days in history after it’s worst week in it’s 112 year history. Everybody is jumping for joy and looking forward to the rest of the week. But let’s be real, I said in my earlier post this morning that the markets don’t turn around this quickly.
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We still have a lot of work to do before we can reap the rewards of what has been done in the financial sector over the last few weeks. I’m very happy from today’s gains, but I’m realistic in the fact that this has to come down from profit takers within the next few days. With my interest in Morgan Stanley, my portfolio is up an average of 25% today.
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What we witnessed today was investors and traders getting in on some great deals after a major sell off last week. Most of the trading wasn’t based on fundamental, but on the fact that many hedge funds and other entities were trying to raise capitol and cover margin calls. no matter what you were invested in (except GE and ABX), you made some big gains.
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If you are up in any stocks at this time, you might wnat to think of taking some off the table for when we will have a down day (and believe me, we will have one soon). It’s better to miss out on some short term gains than to lose out on the ones that you made already.
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DOW @9,387.61 +936.42 (+11.08%
NASDAQ @1,844.25 +197.74 (+11.1%)
S&P 500 @1.003.35 +104.13 (+11.58%)
Oil $81.85 (+$4.15)

Hang in there and happy trading.

Agricultural stocks have been a big winner over the last year or so. The leaders of the sector are Potash, Monsanto and Mosaic which have had great returns for their shareholders except for the ones that bought and held on to the stocks during that period. These stocks as well as the sector have come back down to their levels of last December.
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With the way the markets have been performing, it has caused the entire sector to pull back to levels that can’t be ignored. On September 8th these three Stocks have hit their lows of the year and what should be a great entry point back into them. Their fundamentals are still strong and should be a great buy. About two months ago Jim Cramer of Mad Money said that these stock are out of favor with the street, but I beg to differ.
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What really caught my eye last month was Converted Organics Inc, a stock that I’ve been in before and made some money. When the stock fell below $4 per share I decided to jump back in, but instead of buying ticker symbol: COIN, I looked at their other symbol: COINZ Converted Organic CL B WRTS which has basically mirrored the parent stock. I bought into the stock at $2 a share and in the first two days it did drop $.25 where it hasn’t looked back since. In the last three weeks it has gone up over 250%, I don’t know about you, but those are the types of quick returns I love to see. The company has continued to make deals and grow. They reported that their revenue grew in the second quarter. In their press release dated August 13, 2008 the president Edward J. Gildea said “We are very pleased to report that Converted Organics’ revenue almost doubled from first quarter to second quarter of 2008, and we look forward to updating Converted Organics shareholders on the status of their business, We are very pleased with the Company’s progress thus far in 2008, and we are optimistic about future potential.”
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As for myself, I too am very pleased with the reports that have been released and enjoy the gains that I’m having so far.
At the present time the only stock of this group that I own is COINZ, but I am waiting for another pull back from the other three and do plan to get in at that time.
Before buying any stocks that I’ve spoken about in this post, please do your homework to see if this invest is right for you.