ETFC: News, FRPT: Hammered!

Shares of ETFC suffered with the market free fall on Friday and closed at $4.27. I've provided links to the latest ETFC news and opinion here for convenience.


E*Trade, With Layton as CEO, Might Be Angling For a Sale-WSJ
What If E*Trade is worth Zero?-24/7 Wall St
E*Trade Chairman Layton to Add Role As CEO-Reuters
Schwab, Ameritrade, and E*Trade Sell Ways to Ward Off Bear Market Conditions-signonsandiego.com
Mr. Brown's Picks-Mo'ilil'ili Quarry
Read This Before Buying E*Trade-Seeking Alpha
E*Trade Financial: Great Company, Great Bargain-Seeking Alpha

If E*Trade is angling for a sale, as the Wall Street Journal suggests, it's a drastic 'turn-around' for E*Trade's much hyped turn-around plan.

FRPT absolutely tanked after market close on Friday on news that it would be delaying it's filing of it's annual report. When all was said and done investors were left with $3.27/share and no clue as to when FRPT will file with the SEC. The reason for the delay? "Significant accounting errors". I smell significant trouble. All the contracts in the world won't save us from an incompetent CFO who already has a history of failure. Can you say "Job Opening!"
Without some P.R. guidance Monday, this trade has unfortunately become a poor investment. By the way, still waiting on January and February production numbers, which does not boost our confidence.

Hope someone out there is making a fast fortune.

FRPT: Contracts, Partnership, and Cheetah?

FRPT is having a good run of positive press that started on Thurday with the announcement of European vehicle contracts. 184 Cougar's, Mastiff's, and Buffalo's are on their way to Britain and Italy and adds confidence that Force Protection can be a global supplier for mine resistant vehicles for years to come. Read the press release here. This morning FRPT announced a new partnership with DRS Technologies, Inc., to compete for the JLTV program. FRPT longs had worried that without a partner, FRPT would be a longshot at best contending with bigger rivals such as the Northrup Grumman-Oshkosh, and Lockheed Martin-Armor Holdings joint ventures. Read the press release here. Last but not least, the above photo posted over on the Yahoo message board. No info yet on how legit this is but surely a Cheetah in the picture. The question is, Where?
Additional MRAP news over the weekend:
Big Wheels for Iraq's Mean Streets-New York Times (featuring a great photo of Cougar productions line)
Marines: Story that said lack of MRAPs led to deaths 'mischaracterized report-Stars and Stripes (With link to reports)

Beating The Averages: No Moral Victory

A quick update on how the portfolio is doing....
Holdings Return YTD: -4.5% (-2.61 yesterday alone).
Dow Jones Return YTD: -7.54%
S&P 500 Return YTD: -8.97%
Nasdaq Return YTD: -12.92%
In play we have ETFC, CBAK, FRPT, DFNS, and IOGH. (I will not comment further on IOGH, I hold on to it so that every time I see it I am reminded of every lesson learned thus far.)
Breaking it down by holdings we get this:
ETFC: -7.33%
CBAK: -29.67%
FRPT: +12.21%
DFNS: +37.04%
IOGH: +40.0%
Our CBAK position looks ugly but is still green from our basis. The red is basically all our gains wiped out from the end of December run-up. Although ETFC seems to be getting punished for daring to cross the $5 mark, we remain confident in the company's turn around plan. FRPT has held up well possibly because of 1)rumors of a large contract soon (reported by Trade The News) and 2) an upgrade from Stephens, Inc. from "Underweight" to "Equal Weight". A strong January vehicle production number via press release would be welcome.
All told we are holding up well in a horrible start to the year and in terms of the major benchmarks, but we have a lot of work to do. We continue to evaluate our positions and understand that beating benchmarks is no moral victory.

News: FRPT and DFNS

Some positive news over the weekend for 2 of our picks, DFNS and FRPT.
FRPT: Senator John McCain visited Force Protection Inc., while campaigning through South Carolina. From the FRPT website: McCain had a fruitful visit to Force Protection Industries Inc., where he and his entourage inspected armored (vehicles) with names including Buffalo, Cheetah and Cougar. "What you're doing here saves lives," he told employees.
Hopefully management expressed to the Senator (who is the Republican ranking member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services) that they have an interest in saving lives for many years to come with the vehicle that his wife got to climb into for a photo op. That vehicle of course is the Cheetah:


DFNS: Announced that it has filed amendments to previously released financial statements. Basically, nothing has changed. That's good news.
Joseph Postbinder, CEO of Defense Industries said: "I would like to use this opportunity to note that these amendments will not impact our improved results for the nine months ended September 30, 2007. Our revenues for the nine months ended September 30, 2007 increased by $7 million, compared to the same period last year, to $14.2 million, and our gross profit increased by $3.1 to $4.8 millions. Net cash provided by operating activity increased by $3.5 million to $3 million, compared to net cash of $500,000 used in operating activities in the same period last year. We had a net profit of $1.2 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2007, compared to a net loss of $400,000 in the same period last year." Mr. Postbinder concluded, "I believe that we are well positioned for growth and expansion in our markets and we look ahead optimistically that our share price will in time reflect our company's true value."
Deliver a solid year end quarterly report Mr. Postbinder, and that time should come quite quickly. Full press release here.
By the way, stock blogger Steve Hoven has done some great DD on the valuation of DFNS. Check him out here: StockDoubling
Hope you make a Fast Fortune.

Stocks Double in Six Months

The new year will bring a new direction and focus for this blog. The writings here have always been meant to follow the story of building a fortune out of nothing. This began in June when I asked my youngest brother to split a $100 deposit into a Zecco Account just to see what we could accomplish in a short amount of time, helped with zero commission trades. The result: We doubled the money as 2007 came to a close. We did a great job in a short amount of time and this has inspired some goals for 2008.

1)Make it a family affair. Three brothers collectively sharing ideas and making money.
2)Double again by Dec31, 2008 (or sooner!)

We will begin by doing an account reset. $50 is on its way into the account. I've also included my excess holdings into our figures which unfortunately did not do remotely as well and will drop our overall percentages. All together we will be starting with holdings totaling $297. Rounding up a bit we arrive at a year end goal of $600.
Gone this year are the free trades though, as our account is under the new $2500 minimum account balance that is required. We simply have to work that much harder and make wise choices in our stocks.
Stocks that are currently in play:
CBAK
FRPT
DFNS
IOGH
I hope everyone's new year is off to a great start and wish everyone a fast fortune!

FRPT: Buy On Panic?

FRPT is a stock I've kept my distance from ever since it fell below th $18 mark. The big boys started winning a bigger percentage of military contracts for vehicles and the shorts swarmed. But today, after again getting the short share of a total $2.6 billion in government spending, FRPT simply got bloodied up and my gut just told me to pick some shares up. I started a position at $4.05 and the price rose steadily through the day and closed at $4.93. We shall see how the story continues to unfold on Thursday. For now, a quick gut decision has made a small profit.

Current Holdings

My brother asked me to look into some speculative alternative energy stocks a few weeks ago and I started sifting through lists of small companies. I focused on the wind sector as it just made a lot more sense to me the long run. These are the two companies that grabbed my attention.
MMGW -Reports to be profitable very soon, patents on designs
TWRT -Ramping up for increased demand.
So we started a position in these two. My brother offered a "tip" in IOGH. So here are the current holdings:

MMGW @.60
TWRT @4.35
IOGH @.12
MKRS @.87
FRPT @18.38

FRPT is my fault...I should have sold at $30, but my love for this company just wouldn't let me sell. These guys are down, but not out and I expect the share price to rebound soon. As for IOGH, all I have to say is "Gee, Thanks for the tip, Bro!"
But, with the Dow retracing back to the 13.2K area I'll take my lumps with everyone else.

U.S. Marine Corps Impressed by FRPT Cheetah

DefenseNews.com gave FRPT some very credible feedback regarding its new "Cheetah" vehicle. Back on June 9th U.S. Marine Corps Commandant General James Conway visited the FRPT facility in S.C. and gave it a test drive.
“I’m excited about the latest addition to Force Protection’s family of MRAP Vehicles, the Cheetah,” Conway told the Marine Corps News, an internal publication of the Marine Corps, after the visit.
Read the full story here: Test Drive BoostsU.S. Marines’ Interest In Cheetah Vehicle
The Cheetah obviously made a pretty big first impression. The best part: Britain, Italy, and Turkey have also shown great interest. Pretty big news and much needed encouragement to stay long here.

FRPT, MKRS, Zecco

After dropping to the mid 20's FRPT fans got news Monday that the pentagon had approved the Army to purchase up to 17770 MRAP vehicles, up from the previous 7744 total allotment for the armed forces. This confirms what long term investors of the company already know: The pie is growing (from $7.4 billion to over $20 billion) and FRPT already has a 48% market share. This news coupled with the defense department announcement for another MRAP competition for improved vehicle design could not have hit at a better time. As of Thursday afternoon the stock was back in the low 23's.
MKRS: A stock that I have been watching and came across while studying FRPT. This stock has close to doubled since early June and has some momentum after posting great revenue for Q1. MKRS is developing a already great relationship with the Navy and is looking to market its products to other governments. MKRS specializes in electronic systems technology.
MKRS
I also recently opened a Zecco trading account. $0 commission trades, who can resist. As I fund and play around with the platform I will offer a review of the site. So far everything has gone very smoothly and I must say I am impressed so far!

Welcome to Fast Fortune

The Stock Ticker above will show stocks that I am either invested in or am watching closely. We are starting from scratch. In future posts I will disclose assets and strategy but for now, a glimpse at what is to come.

1. Most posts will focus on stock discussions. Currently I hold a very small amount of shares of FRPT which I have owned since January. While we follow this stock to a hopeful double, we will research others that have a similar potential high growth rate.
2. Cash Reserve-Essential for a homeowner and father of two, very important if you are not one of these. We will discuss best practices and high yield savings account offerings to help make this possible.
3. Book reviews of selections I'm currently reading, helpful tips and practices, broker reviews, and maybe just some neat web links of things we find along the way.