Illumina, moody's, market, other stuff

Illumina reported results tonight after the close -- haven't heard the call or read any analyst notes about it yet but the stock was up 7% after hours -- generally a good sign. The numbers are kind of confusing given all the proforma stuff but it looks like higher than expected revenues and earnings guidance -- pretty cool. They are still in the early stages of multiple product cycles -- usually companies in that situation beat estimates repeatedly until the cycles have reached a peak. With the stock at nearly $70 and 80% of my shares costing under $32 -- my biggest issue is not giving back my gains. For now it looks pretty solid. I might try to sell some calls on the name in the next few weeks if it seems like the rally is over.

Illumina is expensive -- no doubt about it but they have organic revenue growth faster than just about any health care company. Its a profitable company with lots of growth potential. a good combo.

Forgot to mention one intersestng tid bit the other day -- the Merrill analyst said he now believed estimates had dropped enough for 2008 based on the results and guidance from S&P and Fitch. In fact, his estimates were now too low. That's a sign the stock has bottomed for the moment -- yet on the day his report came out the stock was under $34 -- a low level relative to recent trading. Sure enough by the end of the day the stock was back over $35. I expect financial stocks to head back down in another few weeks or so. It just seems hard to believe that all the bad news is out by now.

TSRA -- more on them -- did some thinking about the story over the weekend and here is what I came up with:

they win the lawsuits or settle the cases -- either way their annuity revenues reach a $400 mill run rate. In 2010, I would expect them to have revenues near $600 mill which would equate to $200 mill in net income or about $4 in EPS. So add in the almost $10 per share in cash they should have by then and the stock price is around $90-100. not a bad return vs. the $41 its selling for now.