Increasing Positions in Japan

After raising cash and reducing risk exposure by selling positions in the Central Europe and Russia Fund (CEE), (down a stunning 20% since the sale last Monday morning), reducing some holdings of the Russell 2000 (IWM), and swapping from small and mid caps to large caps, I decided to put a little money back to […]

Cars Not Quite As Good As Expected; Overall Box Office Up Again

Cars opened at the low end of expectations with $63 million failing to provide a catalyst I had been counting on for Disney (DIS). I think the opening will hurt sentiment for DIS stock because it will make it easy for naysayers to get traction with the “they overpaid for Pixar” theme. However, DIS shares […]

The Journal Stays on the Tribune Case

The Wall Street Journal had another front page article on Thursday about Tribune (TRB), followed by a Heard on the Street column on Friday. Both articles suggest a potential restructuring or sale of Tribune (TRB) might be more likely than I had assumed. My key takeaway from the latest articles is that TRB’s future could […]

Interesting Developments at Tribune

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday about some interesting developments at Tribune (TRB). The three Board members nominated by the Chandler family voted against the company’s plan to buy back 25% of the shares outstanding. The Chandler family controls 12% of TRB shares that were acquired via their sale of Times Mirror. It is […]

My Expectations for Disney’s Cars

Disney (DIS) made a new 52 week high in Monday’s abysmal market, likely anticipating this coming weekend’s opening of Cars. I think the Cars hype is also helping Regal Entertainment (RGC) which has performed relatively strongly the last few sessions. Northlake remains long both stocks although DIS is approaching my target for considering a sale. […]

Central European Media Enterprises: Croatia For Sale?

This story from BroadbandTVNews.com caught my eye: The Serbian Pink media group has set its sights on the Croatian national commercial station Nova TV. Speaking during a visit to Zagreb, the group’s owner Zeljko Mitrovic said he had sent a letter of intent to the owners of Central European Media Enterprises (CETV) backed Nova TV […]

Unusual Options Activity in NTL

I am not sure what to make of this but last week two separate reports surfaced about heavy buying of NTL call options. Here is the comment that appeared on StreetInsight.com: U.K. based media company NTL Holdings (NTLI-$27) is trading almost 8 times its average daily call option volume today, with over 9,000 contracts changing […]

June Model Signals

The June signals from Northlake’s models led to significant shifts in client and personal portfolios on Thursday. Overall, the changes moved portfolios from being small and mid cap biased to being large cap biased. The result reduces risk and volatility by moving half of the S&P 400 Mid Cap (MDY) exposure to the S&P 500 […]