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After months of painfully holding onto my stocks, I am starting to feel good about my portfolio again.

I made a good call on DKS sporting goods, but I didn't make any money off of it because I only own 10 shares. I wish the stock would stay down so that I can have an opportunity to buy a significant amount in the future. I still think it is a good value, and should be trading at least in the 30s when you factor in the growth opportunities for the future.

It really doesn't matter though because because I made more with my money in LDK. It looks like solar is getting hot, and LDK is becoming one of the leaders in the sector. I still think LDK is significantly undervalued and am not planning on selling until 2009 when it starts producing its polysilicon. This stock should be trading at least in the 100s. At its current pace of growth, it is should earn $5-10 a share in 2009.

I just think that Wall Street is very risk adverse right now, and won't touch anything doing with China. The American solar companies are trading with PE multiples of 100 while their Chinese bretheren are around 20. It just doesnt' quite add up, but I am taking advantage of this discrepency.

Oh, and NVDA is still significantly lower when I bought it, but it is starting to gain momentum. I think it has found a bottom.

Everyone is afraid of GM and FNM and no one wants to touch them because both companies have the risk of going under. They can still provide opportunities if you know how to manage the risk.

With these stocks, there is a possibility of that these stocks will go to zero, but if they succeed, you will be greatly rewarded. The risk can be managed with proper diversification.

I am not a big fan of diversification, but when you have securities that can go to zero, it is essential to protect yourself. Don't risk capital that you aren't afraid of losing.

I think that these stocks are good buys because there expected value is probably higher than its current price. A simplified way of calculating of the expected value is :

(% chance of losing all)*(0) + (% chance of succeeding)*(price if it succeeds)

If the expected value is significantly lower than its current price, given you a large margin of safety, then these could be good buys. Just make sure you manage the risk properly by making them just a small holding in your portfolio. These should be treated more like options than actual stocks.

NVIDIA's stock has been hammered recently by competition and a write down, but after listening to the conference call today, I was reminded why I loved the stock so much in the first place.

Jen-Hsun basically addressed every single problem head on that they were experienced, which is exactly what I want to hear from a CEO. I hate hearing BS, and just want a CEO who shares the same concerns as I do.

NVDA's strategic position in the market is being challenged from competition from AMD, but that will probably change in a year. These two companies have been trading the lead back and forth for years, and they continue to grow.

I can go into details, but my final decision is really based on intuition. I know NVDA is a great company that is not going anywhere. At this current price, there is really no downside risks and the potential for a multi-bagger in the coming years.

Now is the time to back up the truck. I am even considering buying some margin.

They killed it posting $1.29 vs a .42 estimate. Sure only .82 cents were operational profits, but it still up about 100%.

LDK is still priced really cheap for what it has to offer. Assuming LDK's profits remain constant, they are trading at 12.2 times earnings at its after hours price of $40 (40/(.82*4)). With the amount of growth in the company, it should be trading around 100.

If it hasn't already, this stock should be taking off soon.

LDK, which is my biggest holding has definitely been volatile and I have had some huge swings in my portfolio. My performance record looks ugly, but I am confident in this stock in the end.

Unlike some other undervalued stocks, LDK's plans for growth is clear and straightforward. If LDK builds its polysilicon plant on time, it should double its margins while it rapidly expands its wafer business. There is growth in revenue and from margins which should be very potent combination.

There are some risks in execution of this plan, but LDK's execution has been flawless so far and there is such a large margin of safety in its price, that it shouldn't be an issue except in the most extreme circumstances. Even if LDK's polyplan is delayed a year, there is still lots of upside in the stock.

The main reason I bought this stock is because the polyplant is not priced into the stock by the market. When you see something in the stock that the market doesn't, it might take a while for it to catch on, but when it does, LDK should take off. Not to mention, half the float is shorted in the market, so there will be a huge squeeze in the process.

Now the hard part is waiting until these events to priced into the stock. I might have to wait for the earnings in 2009 to prove my point which is a long way away. The good news is that I can enjoy a lower tax rate when I finally do realize my gains.

LDK can easily go to 100+, and I really don't see any better opportunities for my money out there. In the meantime, I get to experience pain and suffering from the market.

One thing I noticed about Warren Buffet is that he prefers to buy whole businesses than just a portion of his stock. This seems to go against the common notion of owning stocks, which is to basically flip it onto someone else at a higher price.

I am bringing this up because owning a stock is the exact same thing as owning the business, yet no one really thinks that way.

Instead of framing your decision making into whether the price of the stock go up, ask yourself "would I own the company?" If there was no such thing as a market, would you still want to own the stock? Are the long term prospects of the business strong, and is the future cash flows from the business make up for the initial investment?

This is what Warren Buffet does, and he seems like he knows what he is doing.

The most absurd idea that I find in the investment community is this notion that volatility is a measure of risk. The only reason I can think of why volatility is used as a measurement to risks is because it is easy to calculate and it seems reasonable.

Volatility just measures how a stock trade, not the measure of risk. The only time volatility can be used as a measure of risk is if you need cash in a short period of time. Other than that, it is completely irrelevant how a stock trades.

The problem with thinking volatility is risks is that use base your decisions on how a stock trades rather than the underlying fundamentals. If a stock goes down in price, they assume that the market is providing them information, when it really is just have one of its mood swings.

Volatility can also provide a false sense of security. If the markets are fairly stable for a while, people can tend to think of them as less risky. Look what happened in the mortgage and housing market where investors were complacent for years. It wasnt' until economic conditions changed that the real risks were exposed by the markets.

Real risks has to do with factors that can go wrong with the underlying fundamentals of your investment. There isn't a magic number that represents it, but a collection of variables including many unquantifiable factors ranging from politics to consumer taste. It is messy and doesn't fit into any simple models, but that is the way the real world works.

One of the few times I use technical analysis is to avoid falling knifes, and NVDA looks like one right now. In a bull market, I would expect NVDA to pop up rather soon but not right now.

However, since NVDA is priced really really low, it could still be a good time to start buying now. Although NVDA looks like a falling knife, it could really be near the bottom right now for all we know. It is near impossible to predict the absolute bottom.

I figure a good way to play these types of stocks is to start a small position now, and keep on adding to it later. This way you can hedge your costs basis no matter what the stock will do. This way you can keep emotionally sane while accumulating shares, which will make you a lot more rational in the process. Striving for perfection is the sure way to be overly emotional, which will adversely affect your performance.

Now this catching falling knife strategy only works if the fundamentals are strong for the long term. If a company has lots of debt or is losing its competitive edge, don't mess with it. Just because a stocks price looks cheap doesn't mean it is. Research the companies first, and perform the proper due dilegence.

This might be my first bear market that I've experienced, but it seems like everyone on CNBC agrees that that stocks will go up after the point of capitulation.

My main problem is that everyone agrees on this. If there is a clear signal to make money by timing the bottom, it will be arbitrage out of the market. If the VIX has to get at a certain level (I don't know what it is because I don't care) then people will start buying before that magical number is reached which completely ruins the signal. Thus the consensous agrees that the bear market will continue.

Another problem I have with this is that it is 100% techinical. It has no basis for the actual businesses in the economy itself and doesn't have to be the sign for the bottom.

The bottom could occur when we least expect it, and could lack the drama that everyone expects. The herd could be waiting for this signal, and completely miss the first leg of the next bull market.

I am not going to try to time the bottom, because I believe it is a futile exercise. Just buy the companies that are undervalued, and you should be doing fine in the long run whether you call the bottom or not.

OM Group(OMG) has a PE of 5, and from a quick glance, I can't see anything really wrong with it.

I am a big believer in if it looks too good to be true, it probably is, but there could be exceptions.  I am going to start digging into the 10-Ks and past conference calls to find the real story behind the stock