Ener1 (HEV)

I've also been watching HEV which was discussed in this article. It's another battery maker for electric cars. The stock is near at a 52 week low right now and it may be time to buy. I've watched it slide from $3/share to $2.55 over the past month mostly because of the Japan earthquake and tsunami, but no much else. They have a conference call coming up in May that will be interested to read/listen to. I'm thinking about starting a small position in the stock, maybe 500-1000 shares if it drops below $2.50.

I've read a lot of analysts who are bullish on this stock and expect these guys and A123 to be to the two leaders in battery production for electric cars. Another positive is that even though it is a small cap stock, it still averages over $1M shares trading every day which is good sign of activity in the stock and liquidity for buying and selling. They are mostly still in startup mode which means there is a lot of potential, but also significant risk. Put this one on your watch list and tell me what you think.

US Airways (LCC)

I've been following this stock for over a year now while it went from $7-12 and then retreated back to $8. It's trading below 50 day and 200 day moving averages, but the EPS is strong at $2.61/share and P/E is very low at 3. They also ended 2010 with the most cash they've had in 3 years, but they do have a lot of debt. However, there have been reports over the past few weeks with the CEO dropping hints about a merger or proposing the company as a takeover target.

The most previous year's EBITDA is $1.06B and the entire market cap is only $1.32B. Most analysts have the one year target at $12-13/share which puts this stock undervalued with a lot of growth potential.

I already bought 200 shares at $7.90 and looking to increase my position to 500 shares soon. Let me know what you think?

A123 Systems (AONE)

This company is an alternative energy company that manufactures lithium batteries for electric vehicles. I've been watching this stock for the past year or so and it has taken a beating with the Japanese earthquake, cash flow problems and poor financials. Not many reasons to invest here, right? But, the stock is down to $5.70 (low was $5.35 last week) after a high of $10.77 just in January of this year. The reason that I'm thinking about buying is because as oil and gas prices increase, the demand for alternative cheaper energy goes up. So as gas prices hit $4/gallon this summer, more and more people are going to get excited about electric powered vehicles which will drive momentum for this stock. This stock may have some serious legs if they sign a big contract or even if market sentiment starts pushing alternative energy. I think the stock may have hit a bottom and may start to work it's way back up towards $7-8/share. Cash flow is a problem which is why they just had to go back to the markets and sell stock. That's the main reason their stock has gone down over the past month.

Take a look and tell me what you think. I have a friend who works for A123 and he keeps on telling me that good things are happening and it's a good long-term investment.

JG

Expedia (EXPE)

I started looking at Expedia about 2 months ago when they released their earnings in Feb-11. The stock had a fast drop from $25 to $22 a share and then dropped further to $20/share. As I reviewed their financials, they had strong earnings, sufficient cash, and trading well below the 50-day and 200-day moving averages. But what really sold me was comparing Expedia to its main competitors: Priceline, TravelZoo and Orbitz. Travelzoo has a P/E of 95 and weak earnings - looks more like I should short this stock. Orbitz is just sucking wind with negative earnings, low cash and negative growth. Priceline is a strong established company with $3B in sales, $838M EBITDA and market cap of $25B with a P/E of 49. But Expedia has almost the mirror image of financial performance with $3B in sales, $824M EBITDA but has market cap of $6.8B and P/E of 15. Expedia has also grown at about the same rate as Priceline over the last 2 year sand Expedia pays a dividend! How can this not be a good buy!

Priceline has more cash and less debt which is a big reason for the higher P/E. Expedia had a negative operating cash flow of $160M and overall cash loss of $236M while Priceline generated $179M in operating cash but had a negative cash flow for 2010 because of large capital investments. Expedia has a current ratio of .9 and Priceline is at 4.15 which is another big reason for the higher P/E and valuation.

However, I like Expedia to get to the $27-28 range this year. I personally bought 500 shares at $20.90 and today the stock jumped to $25/share. Expedia made an announcement about spinning off their TripAdvisor business which contributed to the jump in stock price. I feel like the travel industry is finally recovering from the recession and should start to see stronger growth over the next 2 years. I work in the travel industry so I am very interested to see the progress of all these stocks.

Tell me what you think about Expedia and the travel industry stocks?

Getting Started

So I've been interested for awhile in researching and investing in stocks and I'd like to create a forum for interaction and to share what I've found. Let me start by saying that I am not a great investor.....yet. I've had positive returns the last 2 years of over 20%, but it seems that every time I pick a winner, I have a loser to negate my positive earnings. I'm tired of the losers so I'm hoping to get some discussion and input going about the potential picks out there. But I love the thrill of a big stock market gain and it keeps me coming back....just like a 30 foot putt made every so often keeps me coming back to Golf!

For most of my 20's and and early 30's I was overly aggressive and invested mostly in speculative stocks. My biggest win was buying Overstock.com (OSTK) at $12/share in 2003 and watching it go to $75/share. I sold a big chunk at $57 and another chunk at $40 as it was going back down. I sold my last shares at $20 so at least I made some money. Last year I made another nice return buying Overstock.com at $16 and watching it go to $24 after it's first positive net income year in 2009. But I also lost money in Bank of America (BAC) and trading some risky ETF's (FAZ and FAS). I like the speculative stocks, but lately I've been burned so I'm transitioning more towards fundamental analysis.

I plan to do one or two posts a week on stocks that I'm reviewing or planning to buy or just watching and researching. Please feel free to comment and let me know you're thoughts about my research and discussing your own reasons for investing in stocks.

Thanks and good luck!