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    Jamba Juice Finally Extends It's Brand, Officially
    I have been a big believer in Jamba Juice since back before it was a public company. Not only have I lost a lot of money owning JMBA, but it has been very disappointing. I have been patiently waiting for the new management to do something and finally the day has come.



    Today Jamba announced that distribution has launched of the new Nestle/Jamba ready-to-drink beverages in eight western states. Nestle's giant distribution channel is exactly what JMBA needed to get it's products to the masses. Drinks will be available at Target, Safeway, Albertsons, Ralph's, 7-Eleven, Raley's, and Walgreens the very first day the produts launch. The starting lineup includes six drinks, three smoothies & three juices. They include: Strawberries Wild w/Energy Boost, Orange Dream Machine w/Immunity, Banana Berry w/Heart Healthy Boost; and, three Jamba Juicies named Orange Strawberry Banana w/Protein Boost, Mango Orange Peach w/Fiber Boost, Very Berry w/Calcium Boost.

    Now the magic touch here with the Jamba drinks are the boosts. I believe the secret ingredient here are the boosts. Anyone familiar with a Jamba Juice smoothie knows how they work and I think boosts will translate to these ready-to-make drinks nicely. I hate to compare, but the energy drink market is HUGE and profitable. Anyone who rode the wave at Hansens(HANS) knows what I'm talking about.

    The stock got a nice pop today on the announcement (12%) but I think we might finally see a gradual turnaround of this unloved stock. As investors start seeing the drinks and as announcements come out of distribution expansions we could have the next JSDA on our hands. I am going to pick up some more shares here even though I am way overweight and have lost a lot of money with JMBA. It is just one of those stocks that I have always believed in. The real test will be the drinks. I will come back and update once I have tried one.

    UPDATE: Somehow I left out a Starbucks reference. The business model is a lot like theirs. Starbucks's largest growth came when they began licensing out and selling coffee outside their store.

    Related Articles:
    Jamba Juice Explodes On Record Earnings, And Then Tanks (12 June, 2007)
    JMBA- All Time Lows, & Taking Me With It (15 August, 2007)
    JMBA- Cutting Back(21 August, 2007)
    27 May 2008
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    The End Of Oil, Buy DUG
    oil-barrelI have never been big on trading commodities. It seems like the price of them is intertwined with to many other various factors that I have yet to figure out. The one commodity that gets the most press and I hear about the most is the price of oil. As a regular watcher of CNBC it seems that they talk about the price of oil every 5 minutes. From what I have been hearing and from the way people are reacting it is my belief that the price of oil is topping out. The guys on FastMoney have even referred to the chart below as "going parabolic".

    crude-chart


    Oil has had an unbelievable run this year doubling from $60 a barrel to a new high of roughly $135 last night. I am going to avoid the technical reasons all together and explain my three simple psychological reasons as to why we have had such a huge run up in oil.

    1) Bush and his republican buddies are leaving the White House. I can't help but think about Bush's connections as a Texas oil man and all he is doing in the middle east and around the world with regards to oil. It is almost as if this is the last chance Bush and all his oil buddies have to reap the rewards of the high price of oil.

    2) The Democrats are going to be pro alternative and renewable energy and from this point forward, oil will play a less important role in transportation. Demand is going to slow and supply/demand will no longer be an excuse for speculators to lean on.

    3) This might be the last chance to rally oil for as long as we live. That's right. This might very well be the last run oil ever makes if we are able to convert the world to alternative energies.

    With this in mind, the only thing we can do at this point is try and call a top and get short oil. The most likely candidate for doing so is DUG, The ProShares UltraShort Oil & Gas Fund. This ETF shorts roughly 80 various oil and gas companies with half of the fund being made up of companies like ExxonMobil (XOM), Chevron (CVX), and ConocoPhillips (COP). The fund has seen explosive volume in recent days up roughly 400%. I am going to start building a position now, because once oil starts to drop, it is going to be a slippery slope.

    DUG-chart
    22 May 2008
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    Introduce Yourself
    21 May 2008
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    Fighting For Furminators
    furminatorJust when I thought people are abandoning eBaY for other online shopping sites I was proved wrong. My mom called me this morning and left this voicemail:

    "Greg, I need to get this special dog hair brush for Kelsey. It is called THE FURMINATOR and my friend said the best place to get it is on ebay. You are much better at that stuff than I am so can you do it for me?"

    So I hop onto ebay, search "furminator" and I was shocked. There were over 650 items (which is what I expected because eBaY is so over crowded) but almost ALL of them had bids. People were fighting for Furminators!

    It comes in 3 different sizes: small($23.99), medium($28.99) and large($33.99). Of course my mom said she needs the large one. Every single one is selling and some of them have over 15 bids before the auction is over. Inventing this product is one thing, but whoever is behind the viral marketing campaign is a genius.
    20 May 2008
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    Track Advertising Success With Barcodes
    Looks like barcodes are finally going to become a consumer product thanks to ScanLife. I've heard for years that they are huge in Japan. There are a TON of ways this can be used to enhance and track marketing campaigns. What I didn't expect is that it would take the iPhone to finally bring them to us.
    20 May 2008
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    Nissan Plugs In
    Nissan-LogoSo yesterday (Sunday night... odd timing?) Nissan announced a huge investment of $115 million in NEC Corp. to start producing lithium ion batteries for their vehicles. I wonder what type of implications this has for Hybrid Technologies (HYBR.OB). I still havn't determined what (if any) patents HYBR has on lithium ion vehicles.

    "By 2012, Nissan plans to mass-market electric vehicles to consumers globally. It is also planning to make available on a wide scale zero-emission vehicles in Israel and Denmark in 2011."

    Related Posts:
    Investing In Hybrid Technologies
    19 May 2008
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    Investing In Hybrid Technologies
    I am the first person to admit that investing in penny stocks is shady business. One of these days I will write a full explanation of why I do it anyways. My most recent penny stock investment is in Hybrid Technologies(HYBR.OB)

    Hybrid Tech. makes lithium ion powered vehicles. Basically what that means is that they have found a way to power cars with the same technology that powers our cell phones and laptops. They have a full line of cars most of which take between 6-10 hours to charge and can be charged up to 1,500 times before needing replaced batteries. If you charge your car every single night (which isn't necessary), thats still over 4 years of battery life.



    The hype around this company is huge and they have a very aggressive PR company fueling the fire. Recently Popular Mechanics Magazine Experts reported that Hybrid Technologies has a real chance at winning the Xprize.

    Four years ago the stock was trading at about $100! Shares has been acting pretty crazy lately and took a giant hit recently after the company payed a large cash dividend (shaddyyy). After getting knocked down to $2 it is making a comaback on strong volume. It will be interesting to see how much this stock can recover from the big fall.

    I bought in at $4.65 on Monday 5/12/08 and already find myself up 23%. I am going to hang on and see if this is the penny stock that makes me rich =)
    16 May 2008
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    PriceLine Negotiator
    william-shatnerI was recently stunned to find out that PriceLine.com(PCLN) was a $5.3 billion company. I see the commercials every week and figured that since the economy was in bad shape, they were just trying to convince people to travel. But in reality, they are spending their advertising dollars to fuel the biggest bull run I have seen in a internet stock in some time.

    I had always compared PriceLine.com to a Interactive Corp.(IAC) style company. One of those sites that is owned by a parent company and just never really gets anywhere. Turns out, PCLN has been ramping up its international sales and buying a couple international travel sites to stay ahead of the US meltdown.

    Their recent positive earnings have sent this stock soaring into uncharted territory. While there is seriously no way you can get short a trend like this, how long can a web company in such a competitive space remain so bullish? I am going to keep it on the radar just to make sure I am there when it falls. The video below does an excellent job of analyzing PCLN's chart.
    16 May 2008
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