Federal Reserve cuts 25

Ouch -- with friends like the Fed who needs enemies huh? Obviously the market traders who were setting prices today were hoping for 50bps and I can't blame them. My home equity line and my financial stock exposure was hoping for 50bps too. Grand scheme of things no big deal. We were primed for a breather after the recent rally and so now we have gotten it. I suspect we will be higher from here -- if not Wednesday, then soon after.

Darn TECH -- up over $70 now!!!! had the chance to buy more around $63 and didn't because of other options that I am now wary of. ugh!!

FLIR -- a sell rating has led to some profit taking -- should have bought more today especially if I think the market will rally from here but I didn't -- always hoping for more of course. Still at the equivalent of $62 that it closed near today, its still trading at high 20's multiple -- not much room for error. Mr. Am Tech puts out a sell saying all the good news is in the stock. Quite likely right but he was just talking about 2008. Maybe some upside but most likely he is right. On the other hand is the stock already discounting the strong secular growth of the next 3-7 years? not as convinced -- think the upside is still huge over time.

MCF -- bought some yesterday -- got a lousy price but those are the breaks. I listened to a couple of their conference calls tonight and the story is very interesting -- the guy said something fascinating about their value add --- they just discovered a 600bcf (billion cubic feet) natural gas find in the gulf of mexico -- probably the largest find in 15 years yet the 3D seismic on the area had been done in 1993 -- hundreds had looked at the very same data and seen nothing but they looked at it and found a huge store of gas. they won't and can't repeat that level of success but they can find several 50bcf reservoirs, which will be quite additive to the company's value given its small size.

Anyway, I plan on buying some more -- they have a $850 or so million market cap but CEO thought they were worth over 1 billion back in april when that 600bcf find was only 430bcf -- here we are with better fundamentals and the stock STILL isn't at 1 billion. I wouldn't normally take a CEO's word on valuation but this story is a little different.

that's about it for now.