Allegro Gets Good News

Allegro Biodiesel (ABDS.OB) is Awarded $875,000 Plus Interest and 519,736 Shares From Escrow Account. This award is related to Allegro’s 2006 acquisition of Vanguard Synfuels from the former members of Vanguard, and the subsequent selling of Vanguard in 2008. The Vanguard owners breached the agreements of the deal when Allegro sold Vanguard, leaving Allegro stock worthless while the case went to court. But now it seems Allegro finally got their payday.

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Allegro has been idling along like most penny stocks in this down economy, but the news “will significantly bolster the Company’s cash position.”

No word yet what they plan on doing with the cash.

Allegro was in the biofuel business until they halted production at their Louisiana plant in late 2007 due to skyrocketing soybean oil prices. In mid-2008 they sold the plant to Consolidated Energy Holdings. The plant was owned by their subsidiary Vanguard.

Selling to CEH wiped out most debt and expenses of the company, leaving it without anything to do. Since then, they have been a “publicly-traded corporation with non-operating assets”.

They are pursuing other areas of renewable energy but as of their Oct 22, 2008 SEC filing, they were unsure of the future. They claimed if they didn’t have an influx of cash by early 2009 they’d file bankruptcy. So now we’ll have to see if they plan to do anything other than earn paychecks for sitting in an empty office.

The news just came out this morning and hasn’t moved their stock price even a penny. The stock is sitting at around a penny flat (.011).

Looks like they actually took down their website at allegrobiodiesel.com, so we’re either waiting for a new direction with this company, or their execs are splitting the cash and running for the hills.

Baltia DOT Approved

The US Department of Transportation finally gave their nod of approval to Baltia Air Lines (BLTA.OB), stating they are fit to operate:

By this order, we tentatively conclude that Baltia Air Lines, Inc. (“Baltia”) is a citizen of the United States, is fit, willing, and able to engage in foreign scheduled air transportation of persons, property, and mail, and should be issued a certificate of public convenience and necessity authorizing such operations, subject to conditions.
http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=DocumentDetail&o=09000064807e3bee

The stock shot up 125% today and looks like it will keep going up for awhile. Might be too late to get in, but if its heading to $1 or more, there’s still time.

CBTE 52-week Low

I felt really bad about this one since I just got my mom into 10k of this stock last month. Its been falling ever since.

Good news is, its going to be heading back up on or before January.

There’s two main reasons for the downfall. First is that one of their subsidiaries in the UK – Exelgen – had to file bankruptcy.

This is not a big deal to CBTE, since they own several very profitable subsidiaries, but it did cause a delayed 10-k filing, which pissed off the Nasdaq, who in turn threatened to delist them.

Panic on Wall Street followed and now we see a 52-week low.

The company is still as sound and profitable as it has been for years (balance sheet). A majority of their services is DNA testing. With all the baby mommas out there, and CSI so popular, you know DNA testing isn’t going away.

Their industry segment – Research Services – hasn’t seen the slightest effect from the recession.

This is just a panic price.

IFLI Up 385%

I don’t know what happened today with this stock. International Fight League (IFLI) shot up 385% today on no news that I can find. Volume of 1,760,815.

There was some inside trades – options awarded to executives – but this rise indicates buying not selling.

Their website – ifl.tv – doesn’t even load anymore and Wikipedia says the league “closed” on July 31, 2008.

Wikipedia does say that the IFL might be bought by the UFC. So I looked into it.

The story came from rumors printed all over the net (read here and here). The UFC didn’t end up buying the IFL though, and the league filed bankruptcy September 17th, 2008.

THEN – Mark Cuban bought the assets of the IFL on around October 20th, 2008 for $650,000. This includes “all intellectual property, including the IFL’s film, video, and image library; its five-roped competition ring and team trademarks; and proprietary rights, including its Web site. The transaction also includes any remaining broadcast contracts the IFL acquired during its two-year tenure, which includes a deal with FOX Sports Network”.

Mark Cuban, who’s HDNet sports network was one of the few major networks to carry the IFL, was an early believer in the league. He has the money and the resources to make the IFL work.

So it looks like its back on for the IFL. If Cuban put his money down then there’s probably some serious gains on the way.

The Walmart Way

According to The Economist this week, 40% of all Americans will do some of their Holiday shopping at Walmart (WMT) while 90% will do ALL of their shopping at Walmart this year. Walmart stock price has mostly risen this year, although the last couple of months have been turbulent. I’d consider the current price of $53 low considering they’ll have one of the most successful Christmas seasons ever.

Of course they aren’t a penny stock, but nothing else is doing anything notable.

According to CNN today, the recession is now official, and has been going on for a year. They also noted that this “downturn” is the longest since the Great Depression. Time to get a cheap bottle of wine (or three) and wait out the storm. Or maybe that’s what you’ve been doing for the last year?

I’ve been a little more optimistic, taking this time to retool my business strategies, hunt for low priced stocks, and spend more time with my family. After all, unless there’s a holocaust, the economy will rebound. Might as well be ready for the next boom!

Bottoms Up

I’ve noticed some bottoming out of a few of my favorite stocks, and a couple getting ready to climb.

• CBTE - around 40 cents. near or at bottom and way undervalued.
• BLTA.OB - lots of volume the last few days. the FAA has stopped asking questions about the airplanes and is now asking about the company, executives, vendors, etc.  that means the airplanes are ok. seems to me they’re close to flying! buy while you can! also, they just released their quarterly report - here. still no sales obviously but spending is way down. according to the report they have enough cash for at least another year of waiting plus the first several flights.
• CHCG - its under $1 right now, although its the strongest electronics retailer in China (the Best Buy of China). i know, retail is a no-no right now, but since China’s government just infused over $500 billion into their economy, I don’t think they are going to see a recession. at least not to the scale of the rest of the world. CHCG is a bargain right now.
• AMHI - it might be your last days to buy this stock before it starts climbing. they just sent out a press release - here - saying their sales are starting to climb and they have several sales contracts either signed or pending. solid company, but now backed by some actual profits!
• AMZN - down nearly $70 from its 52-week high, this stock is a steal right now. clearly this stock devaluation shows how broke Wall Street is these days. all this selling off of strong companies can only mean one thing – brokers are broke! Amazon will be around forever. i do think it will go lower before it starts climbing again, since we’re headed into what analysts expect will be the worst holiday season in over a decade. I’ll keep an eye on it tho.

You can buy pretty much anything dirt cheap right now. Just make sure the company has enough cash to weather the storm (say 2 years of operating costs). Right now is the time to invest for your retirement!

Time for Drugs

No, not because of the economy. The FDA has recently approved a slew of new prescription drugs. Considering Americans are addicted to prescription pills, this is always a good sign.

Here’s the news blip:

FDA On Pace To Approve 18 New Drugs In 2008

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved nine new medicines as of the end of June, putting it on pace to be one of the slowest years for new drug approvals in the last five years.

Drugs approved this year include Wyeth’s (WYE) Pristiq, used to treat depression, Cephalon Inc.’s (CEPH) leukemia drug Treanda and UCB SA’s (UCB.BT) Cimzia for Crohn’s disease, which causes irritation in the digestive tract.

The agency approved 18 “new molecular entities,” which means the active ingredient hadn’t been used before in an FDA-approved therapy, in 2007. The agency could approve a similar amount if its pace continues. The agency approved 22 such drugs in 2006.

Pharmaceutical companies have decried what it sees as the FDA’s increasingly tough stance on safety, saying it is making it too hard to get drugs approved. The FDA has said it hasn’t become more conservative about safety but blames the companies’ faltering research for any decrease in drug approvals.

source: Dow Jones Tomorrow’s News Today
sponsored by SCOTTRADE

 

Baltia Action

Baltia (BLTA.OB) has been climbing the last couple of days with some large volume buying – at least large for this stock. There hasn’t been any news so it leads me to believe someone knows something.

Could they be close to flight??

According to the Baltia Yahoo! forum they have met the last of DOT’s requirements, which was a financial fitness evaluation. I verified this information at the goverment’s documents site (click here).

More interestingly, the document reveals that Baltia plans to operate at least one round-trip flight per week to St. Petersburg and they have financing for a year’s worth of up to 5 flights per week. Assuming they can fill those flights and make a profit, this is HUGE insight.

Most of the operating expenses are backed and guaranteed by personal lines of credit of Baltia’s board. I like that a lot better than a company who’s board is disinterested and/or not personally liable. This puts the Baltia board in a make or break position. A couple of them will even lose their homes if this doesn’t work out. That’s more risk than I’m betting!

Also, they are outsourcing/leasing their aircraft, so equipment purchase and maintenance expenses will fall on third party operators. This will reduce expenses and increase profits when Baltia gets airborne. Let’s hope that happens soon.

See all of Baltia’s federal filings here.

Nothing new on the Baltia Blog. They may have forgotten about it.

some movement happening

CHCG is climbing. Hit a recent high the other day, then lulled, and its gonna shoot up within the next few weeks. It crashed due to the last quarter results panic but the next report is coming out soon and its great news. Strong company, owns a sizeable chunk of the Chinese electronics market (think Best Buy of China).

CBTE is still low. They just expanded to Japan. Good time to buy I think. I just bought more yesterday.

Baltia (BLTA.OB) – I hope these guys get FAA approval soon. They are still optimistic and updating their blog, so I think its gonna happen. Still waiting.

Something new? I haven’t heard anything but I did find a good site that aggregates all the stock blogs out there: StockReads.com

Baltia built a Blog

Check out Baltia Air’s Blog:

Baltia Weblog

They are staying positive about FAA approval and have even announced plans for an upcoming innaugural flight (however there’s no date set). Cool blog though. Seems like it will help me keep up with what’s going on over there.

If this FAA approval ever does happen, Baltia is gonna make me a nice profit.

What else has been happening? Not much. The U.S. economy is in horrible condition. Of course I posted that it was crashing before Wall Street realized it and I prepared my portfolio, so I’m good. Just annoyed that we’re on hold while the world economy adjusts itself. At least they’ve started arresting the assholes that dreamed up this subprime idiocy (see Bear Stearns).

Now I’m just riding out the storm, doing a little buying of my favorite stocks as they hit bottoms (like CBTE), and waiting for a recovery. Analysts estimate that will happen in late 2009. So I guess my portfolio play is on hold awhile. Glad I don’t run a hedge fund! haha