I just had a great thought:

The next time that Kanye West interrupts someone on stage can it PLEASE be Jim Cramer?  I’d pay to see Kanye’s rant on stocks.

That’s it….more stocks for you tomorrow

First Solar Inc. (FSLR) engages in the design, manufacture and sale of solar electric power modules using a proprietary thin film semiconductor technology. The Company’s solar modules employ a thin layer of cadmium telluride semiconductor material to convert sunlight into electricity. It sells its products to project developers, system integrators and operators of renewable energy projects in the United States and Europe. FSLR also focuses on designing and deploying commercial solar projects for utilities in the United States. The company was formerly known as First Solar Holdings Inc. and changed its name to First Solar Inc. in 2006. FSLR was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Tempe, Arizona. continue

Featuring; DCP’s $1.5B contract; AMZN drops Kindle price; LVS’ capital raising efforts; FDO’s record earnings; and AMGN’s positive drug data.

Today’s Stock Alerts include: DynCorp Int’l Inc. (NYSE: DCP), Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN), Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE: LVS), Family Dollar Stores Inc. (NYSE: FDO) and Amgen Inc. (Nasdaq: AMGN).

DynCorp Int’l Inc. (NYSE: DCP) Stock Alert – DCP Secures $1.5 billion Afghanistan Support Services Contract from the Army

Defense contractor DynCorp Int’l Inc. (NYSE: DYN) has reportedly been awarded a $1.5 billion Afghanistan support services contract from the Department of the Army, which is a part of the next phase of the Army’s Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, or Logcap, according to a government notice.

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I guess I was bored.  I was just noodling around the web and I came across a company that caught my attention.   I looked it up on Yahoo! and on pinksheets.com.  I wasn’t expecting much, but I did notice that it was fully reporting.  So, I looked at the fins.  As a recovering CPA, I always look at company fundamentals…even though most microcaps don’t have any!

What I found surprised me! I found a stock that has $50MM in assets, revenues and net income last quarter of $11MM and $2.1MM respectively and is trading for only $1.50.  True, the share trading volume so far today is only 500 shares, but this is one to put on the radar.

The company’s name takes a little getting used to.  It is deceiving.  It is a little like a hulking defensive end playing in the NFL who is named “Phyllis”.  The name of the company?    Promotora Valle Hermoso, Inc. (PVHI). You might expect from the name that they are a food manufacturer making refried beans or Paella, or something Latin.  No, they are a construction company that operates within the Russian Federation.  They are a large general contractor specializing in infrastructure-type project (what I call “Big Dirt).  If this stock takes off, maybe I can change its name to Pay Dirt”

They do a wide range of projects including the construction and maintenance of roads; highways and bridges; designing/building apartments and office buildings, parks, warehouses, shopping centers and retail facilities, and hotels; and commercial housing projects and light industrial projects for governments, developers, businesses, and end users.   They are also heavily involved in the oil and gas infrastructure business (plants, pipelines, etc…)

Why do I want you to keep this one on your radar? It is all about potential.  PVHI has a real business with real assets and, according to company sources, a $1Billion backlog.  Russia, like the U.S., is involved in an infrastructure binge and the government is backing companies like PVHI with gov’t funds.  Another reason is that the shareholders want to get paid, too.  They have engaged an investor relations firm to begin the process of getting PVHI known.  The IR  firm is operating from the Investor Relations handbook (if there is such a thing).  They plan an aggressive campaign of press releases, road shows, and conferences to make this stock known to market makers and the general public.

You can take a look at PVHI yourself by clicking on their website link.  You will laugh when you read the site, though.  It is clear that someone who is not an English speaker designed and wrote the copy on their site.  The verbiage is unintentionally funny.   My brother-in-law does websites.  Maybe I’ll send him the referral.

Oh, and about the name. It appears that the construction company did a reverse merger with a Spanish shell about a year ago.  The owners of that shell kept 32% of the company as their compensation (pretty good deal for those shareholders, if you ask me.)  They may change the name down the road, but right now they are stuck with it.

It has a chart but, with only minimum volume, it is not going to do traders much good.

The chart indicates that the MACD has turned bullish but, with it below the zero line, it doesn’t make me that excited.  The stochastics tell me that the stock is oversold but without any volume: who cares? You can see from the chart the stock has extreme volatility.  However, the daily volume in the last three months has not exceeded 2,500 shares.  This also makes the stock ripe for manipulation.  I would like to see some volume hit the stock and start trending up.

I will be waiting to see just how successful the company is in being noticed and I am seriously thinking about investing in this. To my mind, it is the kind of company that can get hot and stay hot.   I am going to take a wait-and-see attitude with PVHI before I commit any funds.  I’ll let you know if I think they are in play.

Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL), Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSA), Cytori Therapeutics Inc. (Nasdsaq: CYTX), Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT), Abbot Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) and GT Solar International Inc. (Nasdaq: SOLR).

Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL) Stock Alert – Oracle Corp Sells $4.5B Debt

Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL) sold $4.5 billion debt, said International Financing Review (IFR) –a Thomson Reuters unit. The sale includes $1.5 billion of 3.75% notes due 2014, $1.75 billion of 5.00% notes due 2019, and $1.25 billion of 6.125% notes due 2039.

Oracle is an enterprise software company that develops, manufactures, markets, distributes and services database and middleware software, as well as applications software that help organizations to manage their businesses. continue

Stocks fluctuated in the morning session, with mixed results in today’s headlining stocks. Despite bad news from the FDA, MTXX gained 4% this morning, while FDX’s Q4 results send shares down.

Matrixx Initiatives Inc. (Nasdaq: MTXX), FedEx (NYSE: FDX), News Corp. (Nasdaq: NWSA), Steel Dynamics Inc. (Nasdaq: STLD), STEC Inc. (Nasdaq: STEC), Lockheed Martin Corp. (NYSE: LMT).

Matrixx Initiatives Inc. (Nasdaq: MTXX) Stock Alert – Matrixx to Remove its Nasal Spray Formula from the Market; Zicam Cold Remedy Damages Sense of Smell, says FDA

Federal health regulators recently announced Zicam Cold Remedy nasal gel and related products made by Matrixx Initiatives Inc. (Nasdaq: MTXX) should not be used by consumers because these products can permanently damage their sense to smell, reported the Associated Press (AP).

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said the over-the-counter product contains zinc, which scientists say can cause nerve damage. Other products containing zinc made by the company include adult and children-size Zicam Cold Remedy Nasal Swabs. continue

In yesterday’s trade alert posted on our site (and widely disseminated around the web), KERX was one of the stocks highlighted.  We had several emails asking for more info on KERX, so we are happy to oblige.

The first thing to say is that we are not experts in pharma….very few people are.  Pharma seems to be one of those niches that people act like they are experts, but there are so many “wild cards” in pharma that I believe they are kidding themselves and you.  KERX is a case in point.  Do they have a viable new drug or are they playing the news release game with old info? (they have been accused of that)

Just who is KERX?  Keryx Biopharmaceuticals Inc. (Nasdaq: KERX) is a company that (from their website) is dedicated to developing and commercializing novel therapies for the treatment of life-threatening diseases, including diabetes and cancer.  I, for one, am rooting for them.  My Mom and Stepmon both died from cancer and my Dad suffers from diabetes.  My Dad’s diabetes has reached the stage that he is probably going on kidney dialysis (one of the unfortunate side-effects of the disease).  Just because I want them to succeed doesn’t mean I would invest in them.

Let’s take a look at KERX.  A 9 cent stock as recently as February 9th, the stock has climbed “off the mat” to close at $1.25 on June 9th.  In between, it tickled $1.58 intraday in early June when the company reported positive news on their kidney disease drug, Zerenex., which is currently in its phase II clinical development stage.  They also have a promising anti-cancer drug called KRX-0401 (perifosine), an oral anti-cancer agent that modulates Akt, a protein in the body associated with tumor survival and growth. The drug candidate is in phase II clinical development for multiple tumor types.

The technical analysiis from our trade alert is good and some of it is re-printed here.  In its recent chart, KERX’s Bollinger Bands indicate greater than normal volatility as reflected by an increase in distance between the upper and lower bands. It is trading at the upper limit of the Bollinger Bands, the stock reflects neither an overbought nor oversold condition relative to its recent price trend. MACD reflects a strong bullish signal, with the indicator above the 9-day moving average signal line, and also above the 0 level, indicating that moving averages are trending higher. Stochastics are not yet showing that the stock is overbought, but it is close.  The stock is trading well over both its 50 and 200 MA lines.

However, we don’t live in charts alone.  We also live in fundamentals and news.  Let’s talk about news.  Keryx has gotten some very good news lately and with their drug, Zerenex, awaiting approval from the FDA to start stage III tests, more good news might follow.  Fundamentals are a different matter.   Keryx’s auditors issued a going concern stipulation in their audit report and as most pharma companies they bleed money prodigiously.  You have to ask yourself the question whether Keryx will be able to fund the development and trial to bring these drugs to market.

I believe that this is a short-term play only.  And, watch the downside.  This stock could be a 9 cent stock again very quickly.  I tend to doubt that, but with Pharma swings of that magnitude are not uncommon.

The red-headed stepchilds of the financial stocks have been the specialty finance companies.  Due to their non-bank status, they were not eligible for government funds under the Obama bailout plan.  Companies such as GMAC, American Express (AXP), and CIT Group (CIT) have suffered staggering losses and writeoffs that have generated real concern about their long-term viability.  The finanicng arm of General Electric (GE Capital) posted enormous losses that helped to drop GE’s credit rating for the first time in their history.

Of these three, I know CIT Group very well and I think it is worth taking a look at. I was a lender in the equipment finance industry for many years and competed against CIT on a number of deals.  I remember them as being a very tough competitor.  They couldn’t beat me on service and speed, but they beat me “10 ways to Sunday” on rate.   They had a much lower cost of capital than my firm did and were very aggressive on pricing.  CIT was the poster child on how to run a specialty finance company and make strong revenues and profits quarter over quarter.

What does CIT do? CIT Group Inc. (CIT) is now a bank holding company (more on that later), which provides commercial financing and leasing products to diverse array of industries, such as, airline, aerospace, communications, entertainment, healthcare, manufacturing, media,rail, transportation, retailing, wholesaling and other industries.

That winning streak ended for CIT (as it did for all banks) in mid-2008, when it became clear that CIT’s business model would not work in the new lending environment that banks found themselves in.  CIT was battered by market conditions but also by its ill-fated decision to enter BOTH the subprime mortgage and student loan markets in the last few years.

CIT has been a smorgasbord of bad news over the past year.  They suffered, to an even greater extent, than the banks in this financial meltdown because they were not afforded the same protections as banks (and assistance).  As a non-bank lender, they missed out on TARP funds and their own financing sources were no longer lending to them or scaling back significantly.  But the news is not all bad.

Here is what is good about CIT:

• They have changed corporate form to a bank holding company creating a deposit base and making themselves eligible for limited government assistance (if needed);
• The company appears to have sufficient assets and capital ratios to weather the current economic storm;
• The secondary markets are beginning to open up…this is where CIT securitizes and sells its loan (an important factor in its profit and liquidity)
• CIT has taken its lumps and written off a staggering amount of assets.  They have aggressively purged their balance sheet of impaired assets and made every effort to shore up their capital structure.

The last positive about CIT is anecdotal rather than analytical.  Even though the economy is extremely bad, the need for financing has not gone away.  Companies still need all manner of commercial financing and CIT still  has one of the best sales, credit and funding teams in the business.  If they are able to secure the financing (government or otherwise), they would be in position to capture significant market share.

I don’t currently own any CIT, but I am watching it.  The chart indicates that it might be overbought, but it is trading above its 50-day MA and holding that level well.  My strategy is to buy on the dips and sell on the rallies.

FOLLOW-UP NOTE: CIT had its credit rating chopped by Fitch Ratings yesterday and that led to a decline in the share price of 35 cents (or 9.2%) on June 2nd.