How We Made 20.5% In 3 Months With Carl Icahn

[John Thomas]

One thing about the stock market is that it is never boring.

Just last month, casino operator Wynn Resorts (Nasdaq: WYNN) broke down below a rising trendline, and within days it changed its mind. This week, the stock not only moved higher to break out from a bullish flag pattern, but it is once again challenging all-time highs.

With Lady Luck smiling on Wynn once again, it is time to buy this recovered sector and WYNN in particular.

Last month's false breakdown below both the rising July trendline and the 50-day moving average did indeed look bearish. After all, the stock already failed at resistance supplied by its all-time highs set by the 2007 and 2011 peaks. And with momentum indicators also heading south, things did not look so good.

[John Thomas]

?We are one budget deal away from being the hot spot of the world. Europe is in the toilet, China?s growth has fallen down, and the Middle East is going backwards. We have a lot of potential for fracking and innovation. If we can prove our nation is governable, we will be the golden spot in the world,? said David Brooks, a conservative columnist for the New York Times.

[John Thomas]

The Chart of the Day is Altisource Asset Management (AAMC). I found the stock by sorting the All Time High List for the frequency of new highs in the last month and it was right near the top of the list. The stock is off the charts and in the last year went from 15.00 to 1005.00!

The company provides portfolio management and corporate governance services to Real-Estate Investment Trusts and other real-estate portfolio-driven entities. Altisource Asset Management Corp is based in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

This is a 1 year chart:

[John Thomas]

When the Dow Jones Industrial Average was reformulated in September, former technology leader Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) was quietly replaced. It was yet another tough blow for a firm that is on track for its third straight year of sales declines. CEO Meg Whitman, who was just celebrating her second full year at the company's helm, could not have been pleased.

But Whitman is surely getting the last laugh. Because against the odds, Hewlett-Packard has turned out to be one of the top-performing tech stocks of 2013. Shares have doubled in value, putting the S&P 500 Index's 25% gain to shame. More than $25 billion in market value has been added, and Whitman has less need to worry about job security.

[John Thomas]

Data sets are getting larger and larger, and there's a lot of useful information just waiting to be made sense of. Nowhere is this truer than in the health care industry.

Different hospitals have different platforms for managing data, which makes it exceedingly difficult to exchange information. Although it has been a slow process, the U.S. is moving toward a health care market that provides care more efficiently. Part of this includes implementing electronic health records and managing hospital costs.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act allocated about $20 billion for electronic health records. This portion of the act offers financial incentives to hospitals and physicians to adopt and use health care information technology. The other positive is that many organizations face penalties for non-compliance, starting in 2015.

With all this "reform" coming to the health care industry, one of the best ways to invest in the coming health care data boom is Allscripts Healthcare Solutions (Nasdaq: MDRX).

Yet the stock hasn't been all that great to investors over the past couple of years. Thanks to a botched acquisition, MDRX is still down nearly 50% from its 2007 highs. The multi-year pressure was a result of the 2010 acquisition of Eclipsys that proved to be more trouble than it was worth.

[John Thomas]

Stocks were headed slightly lower on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve announced they have reached a provisional budget deal on Tuesday evening. The deal will end the back and forth deadlock between the two sides by setting new spending levels, plans for reducing the deficit and relief from the spending cuts. The deadline for reaching an agreement was this coming Friday. House Budget Committee Chairman, Paul Ryan, said, ?This agreement makes sure that we don?t have a government shutdown scenario in January. It makes sure we don?t have another government shutdown scenario in October. It makes sure that we don?t lurch from crisis to crisis.? President Barack Obama had this to say of the progress, ?This agreement doesn?t include everything I?d like ? and I know many Republicans feel the same way. That?s the nature of compromise. But it?s a good sign that Democrats and Republicans in Congress were able to come together and break the cycle of short-sighted, crisis-driven decision-making to get this done.?

Shares of Costco Wholesale Corp were trading lower after the company announced higher-than-expected operating expenses took a toll on their sales. The company said their operating expenses were up 5.5% to a grand total of $24.3 million, while general and administrative expenses were up 7.2%. Profits rang in at $425 million, or 96 cents per share. This was up from $416 million, or 95 cents per share last year at this time. Analysts were expecting the company to come in with earnings around $1.02 per share. Sales were up 5% to $24.47 billion, also below analysts expectations of $25.25 billion. Sales were up 3% at stores open at least a year. Analysts had been expecting this data to come in around 3.54%. Ken Perkins, president of Retail Metrics, said, ?Costco sales have been up and down this year and were hurting by falling gas prices.? He continued to say that the company has missed same-store sales expectations for six of the last 11 months. ?They?ve had real strong sales over the last five years so their comparisons are more difficult,? Perkins said.

Shares of General Motors (GM) were trading higher after the company announced they would be putting a halt on manufacturing cars in Australia due to high cost by 2017. The company said that an incredibly strong currency is a key factor in the decision. The company will be closing their Holden plants in South Australia and Victoria states. Mike Devereux, General Manager at GM, said, ?No matter which way we apply the numbers, our long term business case to make and assemble cars in this country is not viable.? The manufacturing sector in Australia currently employs about 921,000 people. This has shrank nearly 10% over the last decade. Imports are becoming more competitive in the country as the Australian dollar rises. Stephen Clibborn, a lecturer in work and organizational studies at the University of Sydney Business School, said, ?If the automotive sector leaves then that?s a sector of manufacturing in Australia that has been a source of innovation and skills that has spilled over to other forms of manufacturing in Australia.?

That?s all for the day.
All the best,
Jack Aubrey, Oakshire Financial

[John Thomas]

Not a hater, just putting it out there.

The Atlantic?s Matt O?Brien canvassed some of the top financial writers out there for their favorite charts of 2013 or the ones that tell the story of this year best. By my count, nearly a third of these charts dealt with economic unfairness in some way, shape or form.

My favorite of the bunch ? for it?s absolute lunacy ? was from Bloomberg?s Mina Kimes, CEO Pay vs Real Minimum Wage in the restaurant industry ? just in case you thought Pat Bagley?s cartoon above was an exaggeration?