Some stock/ETF ideas for April

[Fish2006]

Finally, Iran is rearing it's ugly head again, driving the market down, and driving oil up.

Back at the old site, I used to talk about dollar cost averaging into USO (the ETF that tracks to the price of oil). Had you done that, you would at least be protected to some degree from the oil shock we are about to experience.

That said, there are two main things that are happening as a result of this. Ethanol is going gonzo right now. Unfortunatley, just like the oil play, we are late to the game on that, unless you think the Iran situation is going to get worse in the short term. Getting in now on one of the various Ethanol plays is going to be risky.

Second, commodities - Corn, Soybeans, etc., are taking off. Why? Those are the inputs into corn based Ethanol, which at $60-$65 per barrel of oil, becomes profitable. The DBA ETF is a way to play this indirectly, as it tracks to the price of agricultural commodities across the board. Given that corn is an input into not only, well, Corn, but nearly every other type of lifestock commodity, scaling into DBA might not be a bad way to play an oil shock.

Now, for something real speculative, I am recommending Aspen Tech (AZPN). In doing some research into alternative energy companies that (Mascoma, Celulol, Range Fuels) - and found that they all use the same solution, Aspen PLUS, to model chemical reactions. Apparently, this tool is the "Microsoft Office" of the Chemicals business. As this area attracts more venture capital, a lot of that VC money is ultimatley going to end up in the hands of AZPN.

Good luck, as always

[Kevin]

Great thought. Nice posts, I love reading them.

I myself took my quarterly contribution and bought into mcdonalds today. Nice low pe ratio and they just keep spinnin their wheels and adding low cost high profit shit to their menu. Gotta love the golden arches.

How do you feel about them right now?

[Daws1089]

good read right there. I will look into that.