update

just a quick note since its been so long -- got a quarterly project working and its sucking up all my time.

TECH -- great business and great earnings this quarter. organic growth is double digit and margins are huge. free cash flow is awesome too.

MXWL -- great revenues and a broadening of the customer base will decrease the volatility but the lower margins is a potential issue. I am taking the CEO at his word that the reasons are temporary and that the goal is for GM to be in the high 30's. This technology is on the cusp of really taking off -- but they really need to get their costs down to turn profitable.

My one concern on this stock is margins -- I believe revenues will be huge but I am totally concerned that margins will always disappoint because capacitors are generally commodity products with low margins. Now in Maxwell's case they aren't selling just any old capacitor -- theirs have some high end properties and they have a manufacturing process that is much lower cost than the competitions.

energy -- taking a breather due to slower growth in demand. that said I wonder what happens next. I can see prices taking off again based on a rebound in growth. I can see the whole cycle being over -- that prices remain above $100 but don't get much higher for years because as much oil as china and india start using the developed world might stop using as the electrification of cars and transportation takes affect.

I have been switching some of my money into alternative high energy plays -- i.e. stocks that do well with high energy prices but that aren't energy companies and that can show earnings growth without steadily rising energy prices --i.e. how do most energy stocks show earnings growth when the year over year price in oil is down 20% or more -- that requires production growth.

Maxwell, Power integrations and FPL are the type of stock I am talking about in terms of plays on energy that aren't energy stocks. I would also include CLB in that group.

still have no need for most financials -- boggles my mind that MCO is up 30% from the bottom in July but CME is only up about 10%. I don't understand how MCO's business is going to be maintained while CME's trading volumes are going to collapse.

Bill Miller is trying to claim that prices shouldn't have gotten this low -- that people are reading too many newspapers and are still able to trade off of that info profitably. maybe. not sure about all that. do know that miller is sounding a little less arrogant. he is trying to justify a bit why he owned so many home builders and financial companies. somehow he blinded himself to the true risks -- the credit bubble and the resulting impact on home prices.

deleveraging is the order of the day -- forced on most

time for bed