***We no longer follow the companies mentioned in these backdated newsletter issues. These samples of past newsletters are generated to give you an idea of what you can expect when you subscribe. Please do not use any of the information contained in the samples below as current advice. If you would like to purchase a newsletter subscription, please click here. ***

Hello Readers,

Since the last Newsletter, we closed one position for a nice gain.

GUIDANCE SOFTWARE (11/5/08). Closed position 12/5/08 at $4.41 for a 57% GAIN.

What’s this?!!! A 50%-plus gain in this market? We have no clue as to what propelled Guidance Software, but we’ll take anything right now.

As we end this year, we are less optimistic than we were a year ago. However, there may be a silver lining. Once the markets begin to get some good news, expect them to scream, really scream, for the simple reason that there are literally trillions of dollars sitting on the sidelines; and, to be trite, it is burning holes in a lot of impatient pockets. Our Current Portfolio could use some of it, also, since it has reached a new milestone. We now have 96 open positions, an all-time high in our 12-year history, of which nearly 20 are on the “Endangered List”, also a record. Ya gotta believe 2009 will be better than this.

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***We no longer follow the companies mentioned in these backdated newsletter issues. These samples of past newsletters are generated to give you an idea of what you can expect when you subscribe. Please do not use any of the information contained in the samples below as current advice. If you would like to purchase a newsletter subscription, please click here. ***

Hello Readers,

Finally! The President-elect stepped up and it worked, at least for a while. If the “Obama Spurt” is indicative of the future, then maybe better days are ahead. We can only hope. Anything has to be better than this. A little over three months ago, the Russell 2000 small cap index was at 754; it is now hovering around 450. You do the math. Rarely have we seen an index lose that much value in so short of a time. And, of course, most of the picks in our Current Portfolio are still reflective of the total carnage. Don’t expect a major Santa Claus rally, unless the heavens open and the skies rain gold dust and oil. We are going to need a little, or a lot, more patience.

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***We no longer follow the companies mentioned in these backdated newsletter issues. These samples of past newsletters are generated to give you an idea of what you can expect when you subscribe. Please do not use any of the information contained in the samples below as current advice. If you would like to purchase a newsletter subscription, please click here. ***

Hello Readers,

And so, the beat continues, or should we say “death knell”. Yes, that sounds terribly pessimistic, but there is cause for some optimism. We may have seen the worst. The key for the market’s intermediate future rests with President-elect Obama, who has been remarkably silent since his half-baked press conference three days after election day. During his two-year campaign, Mr. Obama had a lot to say. What the markets need is for him to come out onto his driveway and start telling us what he really plans to do and he needs to do it RIGHT NOW, not wait until January 20. And yes, our Current Portfolio continues to get shredded along with everything else. So, please, Mr. President-elect, start telling us about those changes.

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Hello Readers,

Forget about 889-point updays. Those are traps. The carnage is still continuing and will so for a while. When does it end? If we knew that, you would be paying a lot more for this Newsletter. Our Current Portfolio still looks as if it has been nuked, and then some; and we will repeat this, again: most of our picks seem to be GROSSLY OVERSOLD. The main question, for the time being, will they become even more so? And again, we do not have an answer except to say we should be a lot closer to a bottom than we were a month ago. Profound, huh?

Now, for the election and its impact on the markets. A McCain victory may juice the markets short term while an Obama win appears to be already factored in. The main cause for concern is if the Democrats end up with 60 seats in the Senate, making that body filibuster-proof, then the markets will most likely tank, REALLY TANK!

Here are the headlines since the last Newsletter about companies in the Current Portfolio; dates in parentheses are when we first recommended them.

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***We no longer follow the companies mentioned in these backdated newsletter issues. These samples of past newsletters are generated to give you an idea of what you can expect when you subscribe. Please do not use any of the information contained in the samples below as current advice. If you would like to purchase a newsletter subscription, please click here. ***

Hello Readers,

Since the last Newsletter, we closed two positions; one for a nice gain and the other for an ugly loss.

ACHILLION PHARMACEUTICALS (10/5/08). Closed position 10/7/08 at $1.95 for a 62% GAIN.

LIPID SCIENCES (2/20/06). Closed position 10/3/08 at 30 cents for a 88% LOSS.

Every once in a blue moon it happens that a new pick is closed within days of its posting. There wasn’t any real news that we could see that propelled Achillion to reach our 50% plus target; we suspect that when we picked it that the stock was greatly oversold, which probably speaks true of many of our Current Positions. As for Lipid, it was kicked onto the Pink Sheets, so, it was definitely time to give it up.

It seems every time we write another Newsletter we report on another “first”, and this one is that for the first time in our twelve years of publishing all of our Current Positions are in the red, or pretty close to it. We need not explain why, unless you have been wandering around Nepal or Tibet for the last several weeks. Even though we are convinced that most of our picks are GROSSLY OVERSOLD, there could be more downside over the next month. Not even good news is helping. A company, right now, could have an increase of 300% in revenue and earnings and still see its stock tank. So, have a little, or a lot, more patience.

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***We no longer follow the companies mentioned in these backdated newsletter issues. These samples of past newsletters are generated to give you an idea of what you can expect when you subscribe. Please do not use any of the information contained in the samples below as current advice. If you would like to purchase a newsletter subscription, please click here. ***

Hello Readers,

Since the last Newsletter, we closed one position:

E*TRADE (7/5/08). Closed position 9/19/08 at $3.93 for a 57% GAIN.

It took a Soviet-style takeover of the country’s financial system to give E*TRADE the jolt it needed to reach our 50%-plus gain, but, at this point, who’s splitting hairs over rationale. This was our second journey with E*TRADE, and it may not be our last.

The best quote we have heard about the whole mess is, “The end of the world only comes once and this isn’t it. But it is time to head for the bomb shelters”. The Paulson bailout plan is baloney. We have been saying for months that the more government gets involved, the bigger the problem becomes for the simple reason that the market freezes. It now waits for the Feds to take action and is more reluctant than ever to act on its own, and solve its own crisis. This could be a very long siege, but we could be close to a final bottom fishing stage.

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***We no longer follow the companies mentioned in these backdated newsletter issues. These samples of past newsletters are generated to give you an idea of what you can expect when you subscribe. Please do not use any of the information contained in the samples below as current advice. If you would like to purchase a newsletter subscription, please click here. ***

Hello Readers,

Since the last Newsletter, we were able to close another position for a gain:

AVIGEN (6/20/08). Closed position 9/8/08 at $4.58 for a 55% GAIN.

Avigen started a good run in early August when Credit Suisse upgraded the stock from “neutral” to “outperform”. What these terms mean is Mandarin to most of us. Why not just have “buy” and “sell”. Actually, we are happy to close any position for a gain for whatever reason given the state of this market…

…and that state is pretty grim or just plain plug ugly. Yes, we have become a broken record and to sum up our feelings about the last six months: the markets are the worst we have seen since the 1970s, and, if things continue, the 70s will seem like boom times. We keep hoping for the major cataclysmic sell off to occur so as to cleanse the situation and the wait has been a slow death by a thousand knives. Our Current Portfolio keeps getting whacked and is still at its all-time worst while closing positions for gains has become cause for a national holiday. Most frustrating is that most of our picks have come out with good to great news about their companies only to see their stock prices fall even more. When does the carnage end? Probably once confidence is restored in the financial system. So, get a Snickers bar, this could take a while.

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***We no longer follow the companies mentioned in these backdated newsletter issues. These samples of past newsletters are generated to give you an idea of what you can expect when you subscribe. Please do not use any of the information contained in the samples below as current advice. If you would like to purchase a newsletter subscription, please click here. ***

Hello Readers,

Since the last Newsletter, we closed a position for a nice gain:

MMC ENERGY (6/20/08). Closed position 8/29/08 at $3.45 for a 64% GAIN.

We wish we had a clue as to why MMC Energy bolted nearly $1.50 over a three-day period, but we don’t. There didn’t appear to be any news nor anything jumping around on the financial blogosphere. In this market, we are happy for gifts.

Remember that “anomaly” about small stocks breaking away from the rest of the market that we mentioned in the last Newsletter? Forget about it, for now. Looks like that was an apparition. Simply put, yes, this may be a good time to “bottom fish”, but expect the bait to be it the water for a while longer. September and October are usually bad market months, and, with political uncertainty casting even more of a pall, the next eight to ten weeks may be dicier than usual.

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***We no longer follow the companies mentioned in these backdated newsletter issues. These samples of past newsletters are generated to give you an idea of what you can expect when you subscribe. Please do not use any of the information contained in the samples below as current advice. If you would like to purchase a newsletter subscription, please click here. ***

Hello Readers,

To borrow from Star Trek, “there is an anomaly in the time continuum”. While the major averages have teased, tempted, and bedeviled us for the last few weeks, the Russell 2000 has been inching steadily upward. This most-watched index of small stock movement even has us a little baffled. We’ve heard several explanations from the pundits, but the one making the most sense is that with the decline in oil and commodity prices the hot money is starting to come into our end of the market. Actually, our Current Portfolio, which is still beaten to a pulp and still mostly in the red, has seen many picks show some slight signs of life over the last ten days. And, paradoxically, we have added more picks to the “Endangered List”, which is at a all-time total; most of them are older recommendations, and the victims of the worst bear market since the 1970s.

However, don’t get too excited, just yet. Remember bear markets end with a major mind-numbing sell-off, the kind that makes us cry and gnash our teeth. Any simply put, we have not seen it, but we feel it is coming closer. Why? Despite all of the bad news lingering over the markets and economy, there is too much investor complacency.

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***We no longer follow the companies mentioned in these backdated newsletter issues. These samples of past newsletters are generated to give you an idea of what you can expect when you subscribe. Please do not use any of the information contained in the samples below as current advice. If you would like to purchase a newsletter subscription, please click here. ***

Hello Readers,

A few weeks ago, we said to expect some bullishness and, for the most part, that is pretty much what has happened thanks to dropping oil prices. However, we still expect to see the ‘big sell off’ sometime over the next few months for the simple reason that practically all bear markets end that way. It probably hasn’t occurred, yet, because of the government’s attempts to socialize Wall Street, which its inhabitants have been all too willing to accept. The one thing that could prevent the blow-off is a sharp drop in oil to around $100/$110 per bbl., but don’t hold your breath. And yes, our Current Portfolio is basically the same as it was in the last Newsletter, which is still at its worst levels since we started publishing twelve years ago. Once again, we stress patience, because this, too, will pass.

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