The Winter Olympics have closed, without any major disturbances at Sochi other than a traditional Russian fixing of the women’s figure skating competition. Although away from Sochi, the conflict in Ukraine flared up and then subsided. The events in Kiev put a dent into markets early in the week but by the time the bell rang on Friday, the markets were only down fractionally. Also, President’s week vacations are over and the A-Teamer are back at their trading turrets.
A Deal in the Semiconductor Industry
We begin the day with another merger and acquisition which has become habitual behavior recently. That is a positive development for the markets. Today, chipmaker RF Micro (RFMD) agreed to buy its peer, TriQuint Semiconductor (TQNT) for $1.6 billion. Both stocks are rising in pre-market activity. For those of you who have been part of the Scutify investment community, my colleague Robert Marcin brought TriQuint to investor’s attention three months ago. For those of you who do not participate in Scutify, I suggest that you sign up now and download the application to your smartphone. It is free. So join the over 50,000 traders and investors who have signed up so far.
This week we will close out the month of February which has been highlighted by: bitter and brutal winter weather: mergers and acquisitions: the Olympics: and, a strong market snap back. The S&P 500 (SPX) stands within one percent of its all-time high, as do many other major indexes. I expect the SPX to eclipse that old high sometime this week or in the early part of next week.
You Are Invited to the Capital Markets Colloquium
This week is a busy one for me. The annual Jim and Judy O’Brien Capital Markets Colloquium will be held on Wednesday. The event is free to the public and you can register on the Seton Hall website. We have an exciting agenda and group of speakers for the day. I have to brag, as my daughter Carly put together the graphics for the website and posters.
Baidu is Upgraded by Analayst
One of our more recent purchases, Baidu (BIDU) caught an upgrade today. Baidu is part of our global field play on search along with Google (GOOG) and Yandex (YNDX). As for the overall markets today, we appear to be headed higher at the open as the A-Team puts cash to work. As always, one must be skeptical of an exuberant early advance on Monday morning. However, given the magnitude of the early move as suggested by pre-market futures, it appears that the opening bid is restrained. I expect that the markets will trade within its normal range and by the end of the day will close up or down fractionally.
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Disclosure: At the time of this commentary Scott Rothbort, his family and/or clients of LakeView AssetManagement, LLC was long BIDU, YNDX and GOOG — although positions can change at any time.
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Read Scott’s intra-day thoughts and comments on Scutify
