latest thoughts

Market -- pretty close to the top with last week's comments huh? Anyway, going to stick to stocks today:

FLIR -- wow - news keeps getting better and better for them. Big gov win that's almost as big as the business is now! no firm orders but they will come over the next year or so. stock has been moving up persistently so no chance to get in yet but there will be.

MCO -- wow again -- a cover up would be about the worst thing that could happen unless it turns out to be just an isolated incident which is what anyone owning or buying the stock is betting on. If it turns out to be widespread behavior, then the firm is gone -- a scapegoat for the ratings troubles. People seem to be overlooking the fact that despite the errors Moody's had the same ratings as S&P, which supposedly didn't have errors or a cover up.

ILMN -- conference and some other commentary suggest innovation is occuring faster than expected. they have released data about the performance of their 2nd gen system that was better than anyone expected. Cowen did a survey of smaller labs -- the ones buying about 60-70% of units so far and concluded that the market for next gen sequencing was bigger than thought and much more sticky -- people in small labs were going to choose a provider (generally either ILMN or ABI) and stick with them with subsequent units because the training and start up costs were too great to repeat. that means ILMN's 6-9 month lead is very important to the size of this business. Feeling better about the business -- strong as can be is my guess but with the stock flattening out much of this good news is already reflected. not sure what will get the stock moving again other than dramatically higher numbers.

TSRA -- small DRAM shop that was part of the DRAM suit set for September at the ITC has settled. This is good news is the sense of validation of the IP but not a big deal because they were small. Probably not much meaning in terms of what the big guys will do. That's why the stock popped but only back to $20. A real win will get this up to $30 or higher.