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I had left some money available in my account after my recent sale of POT to re-up on nue or double down on gnk.  Now, I'm itching to do so - having missed a nice day today and I'm here trying to decide where to go with my money.

I reiterate, long term... at a horizon beyond 12 months, I don't see any way - short of GNKs contracts to just renig on them - that GNK is not trading in the 100 - 110 range.  At todays price, that's a nice 50% gain. 

NUE also is looking attractive, having completed the bulk of it's 25m share 2ndary.  It's down a whopping 5 points from where i just bought and I would not mind buying a tad more.

I think since I'm more familiar with GNK, my money's headed that way.  I just fear over-concentration in one industry / on issue.  However this is the stock i've done the most homework on, and feel the most comfortable with the business model and direction.

After watching Wianek go 100% apple, I guess I should step up on a good opportunity and rely on my due diligence

i'll look for a good entry this week.

To be perfectly blunt, I've been torched by secondary offerings.  Both GNK and NUE announced secondary offerings on the same day, and they priced and sold within one day of each other.

In that timeframe GNK went from 82 and change to 67 and change today. NUE went from 83 and change to 72 and change.  Pretty tough for a portfolio to absorb.

HOWEVER - both of these stocks actually might benefit from their respective secondary offerings.  Both of them are in industries poised for some strong growth and demand. 

GNK is using proceeds of its 3.5m share sale to pay down debt.  That's ok by me.  That means essentially, we just issued stock to buy more vessels (they bought some 8 vessels or so in the last 12 months) - which means this will directly affect the bottom line.  I already used this dip to buy more, but in hindsight I should I have waited until at least today to buy - They probably finished pumping those 3.5 million shares into the marketplace late yesterday or sometime today (avg. volume is 990,000 shares.  Yesterday it did 5mm shares, today 2.5mm shares).  Longterm, GNK is solid as ever - and I'm glad I got to get more shares at almost 20% less than I had them 5 days ago.

NUE - I have not dug into the use of the proceeds.  I do know, with the world economy where it is - and especially with the earthquake in china, Steel is going to be a resource in high demand for time to come.  I'm going to do some follow up research on NUE and more than likely - unless something in the story has changed, I'm going to buy more shares in the next few days.  Today volume was in the low 20mm's - which is actually less than the secondary - so there is still another day of new shares entering the market.

While my portfolio has gotten killed in the last 5 days due to these offerings, I feel in GNK's case - and more than likely in NUE's case, this is just an excellent chance for me to re-up my position at cheap prices.  I'm hoping / expecting in 3 to 6 months, I'm rejoicing my wherewithal to buy while these stocks are getting battered.

If there's been one momentum industry in 2008, it's been agriculture.  There are so many factors at play that are pushing this industry forward - and all of them have no short term end:

• Worldwide food shortages.  Plain and simple, there's just not enough food to go around any more.  As a result, there's high demand on maximizing crop output.
• Land shortages.  Caused by many things, but the cash crop acreage has been declining, especially in the United States, causing less grains to use as food and to feed livestock.
• Ethanol subsidies.  Maybe it's a flawed plan, but the "green" revolution is on, and pressure is on politicians to continue exploring ethanol production to offset oil consumption.  Since we're subsidizing farmers to grow corn, which will never be consumed, why wouldn't a farmer devote land to growing it?

As reported by Wired and Gizmodo - the Apple's widely expected iPhone upgrade is to be launched WORLDWIDE June 9th, 2008.

Key points from the immediate analysis:

• Considered a world wide launch, which is why we have been getting wind of all of these international distribution deals lately.  Previously it was expected to be a USA only launch with international shipments near the end of the year.
• Fixed price point removed, so international markets can sell the phone at flexible prices (something Europeans are more comfortable with - especially with different currencies).
• Pipar Jeffery analyst Gene Munster notes:
• 575 million potential customers in 42 countries (up from 152 million)
• "International rollout is about 8 months ahead of our original schedule"
• Assuming current 3% market share, Munster gives increased confidence Apple can hit 12.9 million units sold in 2008.
• Predicts 45 million units sold in 2009.

Rumors hit the wires this AM that Apple is close to a deal to add Japan and Korea (two of Asia's hottest cell phone markets) to it's roster of countries with distribution deals.  Just as I mentioned yesterday - these are the types of deals Apple needs to forge to blow away that piddly 10m estimate they made on iPhone sales in 2008.

Man, I got stung not once but twice by secondary offerings today.  GNK in the morning and now NUE after hours.  Perhaps a sign some people running companies thing we have hit a nice place to cash in?

All in all, GNK handled it well, and thank god EXM and DRYS just trounced the street on earnings, we're already back up $2.50 on the "this-industry-kicks-ass" play.

We shall see how NUE fares tomorrow.  Down $1.50 after hours.

Since the iPhone is coming out with Enterprise support soon, we're going to need to coin a term for the iPhone that rivals that of the "Crackberry".

Post any ideas you have here to the comments.  This should be fun!

The only thing I can come up with is the "HighPhone" which is just utterly lame.

So I woke up today to see the overall dry shipping market up, and GNK down 4 points in pre-market. WTF?!

Checking into it I see that they issued a press release stating they are going to issue up to 6.5 million new shares on the market to raise funds to pay down debt.  OK that explains the tank job on an up day, now let's dig into this:

As I write this post, GNK is down $1.75 or about 2%.  

GNK floated about 29 million shares before this announcement.  Post secondary offering, assuming they sell all 6.5m shares, we're looking at new float of 35.5m shares.

In short - GNK just diluted shareholders about 20%.  A dilution in and of itself is not a horrific event, as long as the funds are used to increase revenue and EPS keep in line.  Given that the stock is only down 2% at the writing of this is telling us that the general market feels that almost dollar for dollar the proceed used will be directly reflected in earnings.

I have gotten burned BAD with secondary offerings in the past, and the market action today on GNK is the absolute opposite of what I've seen before.  The market reaction is actually outright bullish.  GNK issued a massive amount of stock (20% of float) and their stock is down much less than I would expect (without any expectations of increased EPS - GNK should be down 20% immediately due to dilution).

Don't start labeling me as a GNK homer, I actually was about to pull the emotional sell trigger when I saw the Secondary Offering PR.  I just held back a second to do a little digging before I sold. 

Happy trading!

* UPDATE * GNK closed today down $5.00 (5.95%).  The market in all sold off thru the day.  I ususally use DRYS as a yardstick on performance for GNK - DRYS actually sold off harder than GNK today - relatively speaking.  When I posted this originally and GNK was -2%, drys was +2%.  GNK ended the day -6%, DRYS ended the day -5.15%.In comparison, DSX was down 2.41% today and EXM was down 6.95%.   Today was a stinger, but with the highs come the lows.  I still like this play for a 12 month timeframe.  

* UPDATE 2 * GNK also announced it signed a Panamax Charter today for $55,000 / day with ArcelorMittal.  This represents almost a 100% fee increase over it's other near term expiring Panamax charters!  Great news, if Genco can lock in a few more multi year deals at 75 - 100% revenue growth in the next 12 months.  See here for ship charter information (scroll to bottom).

A few things shaping up for Apple in the short term that could pop this stock over 200.  I'm considering adding some more to my position if a good entry point presents itself.

• New deal with France Telecom's Orange announced on Friday.  Orange will sell iPhones in Austria, Belgium (exclusively), the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania (exclusively), Slovakia, Switzerland, and Africa.  This is the 2nd distribution agreement announced recently.
• iPhone reach now at 650m potential subscribers - up from 470m by analyst Shaw Wu last week.
• Apple's self imposed 10m iPhones sales number appears to be reachable this year (another case of Apple setting a number they knew they could hit even as the experts doubted them... and they are going to do it!)
• Rumors on flying on distribution deals for the handful of large countries without deals in place (Japan, Spain, China to name a few).  Any deal here which would definitely perk up shares 
• 50 Day MA is crossing back over the 200 Day MA.  The last time it did that we ran from 73 to 193 in 15 months.
• WWDC conference coming up. 3G iPhone widely expected to be announced here.

Dry shipping demand is already stronger than supply, and analysts expect it to remain that way through 2009, until more ships hit the waters.  Now with the devastating earthquake in China.

Right now, and in the years to come as infrastructure and towns are rebuilt in South West China, even more raw materials will need to be imported.  

Daily charter rates have already reflected this, surging to all time highs today, as measured by the Baltic Index, which tracks shipping rates on over 40 sea lanes.  Daily Capesize rates are now trading in the $200,000 range, whereas they were $110,000/day just months ago.

The obvious winners in this mess are those shippers that do not sign long term charters (GNK, one of my top holding signs multi-year deals - but they do have several deals expiring soon, so they can re-up at these nice rates).  DRYS, which almost does exclusively daily charters shot up some 8% today.

Still very bullish on shipping.  In the light of this on top of all the rest of the world events, also very bullish on Ore (RIO, RTP), Copper (FCX), and Steel (X, NUE).  Agriculture (POT, MON, AGU) still remains a great 12 month play.