Revenue jumped 30% to $137.8 million while profits rose 19% to $22 million ($0.16 EPS). It’s not great but certainly not terrible either. However, from the looks of it, most expected way better and also expected better guidance.

The impact this morning was brutal with TRIP trading down 15% or so… I thus easily reached my stop loss at today’s close and will be closing out the trade on tomorrow’s opening. That and a bad start to my GOOG/VCLK trade have taken down my average trade return down to 2.89%

Still not too bad:) But I will learn from this. I have been asked about providing more post-trade analysis and I would say that it’s difficult to draw conclusions from most trades. On this one however, I made a clear mistake that I should have known about. There is a reason why I tend to stay away from newly issues stocks. The first few days of course always have more volatility than I’d really like.

The bigger reason though is that it’s always tempting for companies to make their financial statements look better or worse in the few quarters before turning public. There are perfectly legal ways to do this and I usually prefer to wait a few quarters before making a trade to see if growth can keep up.

I Thought TRIP Was Different

For some reason, I thought that TRIP would be different. Since it was part of the already public Expedia (EXPE), I expected that the statements would provide a fairly accurate image. I’m not saying that they didn’t but it’s true that Expedia had a lot of business with TRIP so even if it did intend to provide accurate statements, it certainly makes it very tricky to do so. Was EXPE paying TRIP enough for its traffic, did that cost change? There are plenty of valid questions. Especially when you consider that in the previous quarter, 34% of TRIP’s revenues came from Expedia while that proportion dropped to 27%… not saying it’s fishy but.

I will certainly spend more time looking into all of this and will continue to provide more thoughts both here and in the technology stocks newsletter which you can join for free:

On a side note, Expedia (EXPE) which was reporting last night also ended up coming up with disappointing results, though I’m not sure how related both of those numbers are but it’s certainly possible that the entire online travel industry is suffering a bit these days.

I would also like to invite you to see how I calculate my returns for long & short tech stocks.

Today I had a more difficult time finding the right stock pick and even did contemplate shorting Groupon (GRPN) but as I’ve explained in the tech stocks newsletter (join now if you have not done already), I’m trying to resist that for now. So today I open a 5th trade:)

Let’s start off by looking at the numbers:

Ticker	Name	Price	EPS	PE Ratio	PE Next Year	Return YTD	Sales Growth	Analyst rating	Book Value	Beta
IACI	IAC/InterActiveCorp	45.8	2.05	23.59	14.67	8.52	25.82	4	23.22	0.98
TZOO	Travelzoo Inc	28.16	0.2	18.54	15.31	7.85	31.53	4.33	2.18	1.58

Long Travelzoo (TZOO)

Travelzoo made the top 10 in my 2012 Tech Stock Power Rankings in good part because the company continues to be very targeted towards its goal of high growth. There is certainly less hype than there was a year ago when the stock made it to $100 or so… Now the stock is down over 70% but I am a believer as the financials continue to look good.

Short IAC Interactive (IACI)

IAC Interactive has been able to grow much faster than I would have expected thanks to many of its segments, even including search. Who knew people used Ask.com to search the web:) On a more serious note though, I do not expect that performance to keep up. Even if it did, keeping up with the very impressive Travelzoo seems very unlikely which presents a great trade opportunity since they trade at comparable P/E ratios.  IAC will start paying a dividend which is great for dividend investors but does not indicate that growth opportunities abound.

Disclosure: No positions on Travelzoo (TZOO) and IAC Interactive (IACI) but this trade will be opened on Monday morning

Can you believe that none of the top 20 companies in this chart have a payout ratio under 50%!! To me that is shocking.  Dividend investing is about much more than finding a big yield, it is about finding longer term stocks that will be able to increase their dividend yields over time.

I wrote about why dividend investing is not just a trend and I think that finding the right stocks to include is a critical part.

Today, we are back with our list of the top 100 dividend stocks from the S&P500 and there is no surprise in who is on top. I would caution greatly against investing based only off of a dividend yield though.

Frontier Communications Corp (FTR)

No big surprise again this month as Frontier Communications Corp (FTR) remains at the very top of our top dividend stocks in the S&P500 with a dividend yield over 17%.  Why is that yield increasing every month? 2 reasons:

-The stock’s price keeps diminishing
-No one expects the company’s dividend to actually remain so high

The dark side of course remains that the company is paying out much more than it is actually able to make, making that dividend everything but sustainable. Every month, I do more in-depth research to find dividend names and FTR has never come out on top of that research..!!

We highly recommend that you join our free newsletter to receive more analysis and research about such stocks, sign up here for Free!

FTR’s Dividend Payout History

FTR’s days at the top of this chart are nearing its end in my opinion. Not only is FTR going to likely announce a dividend cut later this month but if things keep up, it will not be able to remain in the S&P500… should be interesting! Next week, we will do further research on the 100 stocks listed here to determine which ones are more likely to do well in the long term both based on sustainability and the 20 things that we look for in dividend stocks.

In the meantime, here is the list!

I would also like to invite you to see how I calculate my returns for long & short tech stocks.

Today I am opening a trade that I was looking forward to doing. I wanted to go long Google against Valueclick, two advertising plays because I think that as the industry evolves, Google will end up doing much better. I wasn’t confident about Google’s earnings though and I turned out to be right to not buy Google ahead of its earnings. Now that the stock has declined, I am ready to go ahead!

test Tech Stock Power Rankings and while it was even more attractive a few weeks ago, I still think it’s a great buy and AOL is in many ways a very easy stock to short.

Let’s start off by looking at the numbers:

Ticker	Name	Price	EPS	PE Ratio	PE Next Year	Return YTD	Sales Growth	Analyst rating	Book Value	Beta
VCLK	ValueClick Inc	17.52	0.99	14.83	11.06	4.67	1.91	4.11	6.97	1.2
GOOG	Google Inc	579.98	30.17	19.10	11.55	(12.05)	29.28	4.59	176.73	1.05

Long Google (GOOG)

Google, an incredible power and one of the top names in my 2012 Tech Stock Power Rankings but the company did come up short of most forecasts. I do still think the company is a great buy at this price and there is no logic to me of having Google and Valueclick trading at similar P/E ratios for next year. Clearly, Google has a ton of momentum in social (not likely to have an impact in revenues/profits soon) but also in mobile through Android (this one will!), I think Google will continue to increase revenues at a quick pace and is well positioned despite the soft advertising market.

Short Valueclick (VCLK)

Valueclick used to be a company that I truly believed in. Being a small player competing against the likes of Google (GOOG), Facebook (FB), Yahoo (YHOO) and others has made things very difficult for Valueclick though. It is simply having trouble coming up with enough innovative solutions to keep up with competitors and while the revenues have increased significantly in recent quarters, I don’t see that keeping up. I don’t think there is any doubt that GOOG can outperform in terms of growth.

Disclosure: No positions on Google (GOOG) or Valueclick (VCLK) but this trade will be opened on Monday morning

Today, I decided to open a trade based on this concept. Let’s start off by looking at the numbers:

Ticker	Name	Category	Price	EPS	PE Ratio	PE Next Year	Return YTD	Sales Growth	Analyst rating	Book Value	Beta
TRIP	TripAdvisor Inc	TRAVEL	30.4	N/A	N/A	21.29	19.40	37.65	3.6	N/A	N/A
AOL	AOL Inc	CONTENT	15.6	-7.42	24.56	24.83	4.11	(25.54)	3.63	22.13	1.1

Long TripAdvisor (TRIP)

I am getting slightly worried. If you remember well, at some point, I started worrying about having fallen for Google’s (GOOG) stock, I couldn’t see much downside about the company and thought it was such an incredible investment that I probably could have paired it off against almost any other stock. These days, Apple would be that stock but TripAdvisor is also right up there. To me, the lucrative online travel industry is quickly being taken over by TRIP. Have you booked any type of trip recently? If so, chances are that you spent some time on Tripadvisor.com getting feedback about a hotel, activity, restaurant, etc. It is that good and despite attempts by competitors, nothing comes close right now and the community is only making it stronger, in a similar way to Facebook.

Another great part is that TRIP is one of Facebook‘s partner making its relationship with the users deeper and stronger. I do think the company will continue to see significant opportunities and is a great investment going forward.

If you are looking for more info about my views on TRIP, I invite you to read my post about the company from a few weeks ago.

Short AOL (AOL)

Agreed, not much has changed for AOL since the start of the year, no good or bad news.  AOL is scheduled to report earnings in a little less than 2 weeks which is pretty much as close as I could accept right now. With Google coming up short, I don’t see any particular reason that would justify great results by the company led by Tim Armstrong. The costs will continue to be very high and with the economy still being very shaky, I don’t think there is any way it could come out with breakout numbers.  It will however be very interesting to see what type of news they can come out with and if they can define their strategy more clearly.

Disclosure: No positions on TRIP or AOL but this trade will be opened on Monday morning

Shocking Results….

I’m very surprised to see that 9 of the top 16 ADR’s that came out are telecom related. How in the world is it possible? It seems like it’s not only in North America that we see such companies. In the US, FTR has been at the top of the dividend rankings for a very long time… FTR has proven to be a very bad dividend pick. I will be taking a much deeper look into these names in the coming months both here and in our free mailing list. If you have not joined, do so now, it’s free:

The major downside of course is that for some of these companies, it’s much more difficult to get information about how they’re doing, etc. Still, since they are traded on US stock exchanges, it does require these companies to report “standard” financial statements.

As we enter 2012, I will also be posting more often about the UDSP (Ultimate Dividend Stock Portfolio) and as you know, some stocks will need to be taken out over time. You can expect those to be replaced by more international names, which can probably be found somewhere on this list. For now though, I will leave you with this list, from which I will do further analysis next week on the mailing list. Please feel free to send out any comments about these names.

Here is the top 50 of the names that we follow, ranked by dividend yield, which as we have seen is rarely the best way to choose dividend stocks. Still, it’s a good starting point:

Both companies operate “job listing” properties but in very different ways. While Monster has worked hard to build a global brand, a network of sites that is used and known almost everywhere around the world and used for virtually any type of job, Dice Holdings has a fairly different strategy. The company manages a few different websites that generally specialize in one specific industry such as eFinancialCareer for the financial industry.

Let’s take a look at the numbers before going further:

Ticker	Name	Price	EPS	PE Ratio	PE Next Year	Return YTD	Sales Growth	Analyst rating	Book Value	Beta
DHX	Dice Holdings Inc	9.07	0.3	20.61	14.65	9.41	17.28	4.44	3.15	1.64
MWW	Monster Worldwide Inc	8.21	-0.27	14.16	15.4	3.53	0.99	3.79	9.73	1.75

Long Dice Holdings (DHX)

The big number that I always look at is the estimated P/E ratio for next year. In this case, both companies have a nearly identical ratio which is certainly surprising because DHX has been able to increase revenues consistently by nearly 20%, that makes its current valuation very attractive in my opinion. The company is also able to focus on its properties much more than a broader company like Monster. The counter-argument though is that Dice Holdings relies on a few key industries such as the financial industry in order to achieve its growth.

Short Monster Worldwide (MWW)

In the past few years that I have been tracking tech stocks, Monster has been one of the very consistently overpriced stocks in my opinion (with Blue Nile-NILE) and I honestly do not see any reason why. At least, Blue Nile seems to have the potential to increase its sales and profits at some point down the road. I don’t see it with Monster. I think that by the time the company will have reached a large enough scale, rivals such as LinkedIn (LNKD) and perhaps Facebook will have taken their place as leaders. Monster has been unable to grow revenue anywhere near its numbers from 4-5 years ago. That is shocking in my opinion. Can the company turn things around? Sure, at some point. But I’m bettong that the stock will head lower before that happens.

Disclosure: Will go long Dice Holdings (DHX) and short Monster Worldwide (MWW) on Tuesday morning

Another good question would be why I closed out this trade if I was going to open up the same one a few days later. That is certainly a fair question. Recently, I started writing for the tech stocks newsletter about why I use stop losses and stop gains. It’s a critical part of what I do in my opinion. You could certainly argue, as one reader did by email last week, that my stops are too aggressive and that I should let trades go a bit further. That is something I’ve been thinking about for some time now and I finally decided to not include it in my 2012 trading changes. It might change during the year but so far, the current recipe has worked awfully well for me to contemplate this change.

2012 is off to a great start for my trading as I am now up on all 3 trades including 2 that were closed very quickly. That is certainly not typical and with earnings season starting soon (Google is one big name reporting next week), volatility will certainly spike up. That is one reason why you should not expect me to trade on Google (GOOG) this week.

Back to our trade, here are the relevant numbers for both companies:

Ticker	Name	Price	EPS	PE Ratio	PE Next Year	Return YTD	Sales Growth	Analyst rating	Book Value	Beta
AAPL	Apple Inc	419.81	28.05	15.16	10.72	3.59	65.96	4.71	82.45	1.07
NILE	Blue Nile Inc	36.57	0.98	40.48	29.99	-11.86	10.18	2.67	1.81	1.34

Long Apple (AAPL)

Apple has increased a bit this year (a bit over 3%) but that is far from enough for me to back off my statement that Apple is clearly the #1 tech company in terms of value vs price. The downside is very limited in my opinion given its valuations but the upside isn’t. There are now clear rumors that the production of the iPad3 is under way and that will give yet another boost to 2012 sales and profits. I’m also hoping for more news about the iPhone5 and the eventual release of the Apple TV to keep the momentum strong. I’ve written a few posts about Apple lately so I’ll link to those if you are curious about my thoughts about the company.

-You’d be crazy to not own Apple (AAPL)
-So Apple…let me get this straight

Short Blue Nile (NILE)

I do hesitate to some degree about shorting NILE at this price because the stock is already down considerably this year (almost 12%).. That could certainly bring a rebound, it would be far from shocking. However, if I forget that for a second and simply look at valuations, the stock remains very expensive and I don’t see anything to justify the valuation so in the medium term, I do expect more downside. Of course, NILE’s Q4 earnings to be released in Mid-February will be big because that would be the company’s biggest sales period by far. It should be interesting…

Disclosure: Will go Long Apple (AAPL) and Short Blue Nile (NILE) on Monday’s opening

I got a good question today regarding how I calculate returns. I think I’ve gotten into some detail about this over time but probably never in a single post. Next Friday, I will discuss exactly that. Let me know if you have any questions regarding these returns, I’ll be more than happy to answer. In the meantime, have a great weekend! I will be opening one new trade Monday and hopefully Tuesday as well.

IS