Quadruple Witching

That's about it for me. Options expiring today, I exited PKG, CULS, and OPSW, all in the black. Put some positive numbers into the spreadsheet and made pocket change. Don't remember if their relative strength indices were overbought, don't care. I don't want to look at level II quotes and volume all day. SFCC had a conference call yesterday morning that I didn't know about. Bloomberg came out with another article, about a test subject in Montreal that infected people with TB. Investors were unimpressed with SFCC's performance on the conference call. Strike a dirge as we commence sullenly toward end-of-year tax selling.

Like a depressed housewife splurging on shoes, I made myself feel better with a new, shinier bag. Coventry Health Care (NYSE: CVH) operates as a managed health organization. They are a component of the S&P 500 index. Picked them after seeing an article about their high operating margins, then ran a comparision vs. other HMO's. Compared them to Aetna, Aflac, Wellpoint, Cigna, Humana and many others' stock performance over periods of six months, two years and five years. They pretty much move together and CVH has out-performed. That's the way I decided it was ok to go ahead and buy Valero this spring.

So the top end of the portfolio is starting to shape up. Valero (NYSE: VLO) is a bit heavy at twenty percent of the total. About ten percent is in Radiation Therapy Services (NasdaqNM: RTSX), a fast growing provider of radiation therapy. This investment attracted me with a direct inside buy of more than $167,000 by some director named Inge. Since then, the CEO and another director have unloaded ten times that much. Still in the green.

Newfield Exploration (NYSE: NFX) has been green since the day I invested in June. Newfield explores, acquires and develops oil and natural gas properties. They hit a fifty-two week high on NG prices and an exploration deal off Hong Kong with CNOOC. I couldn't bring myself to sell though, not with winter just setting in.

A rising star is Art Technology Group (NasdaqNM: ARTG), a micro-cap e-business software provider. Since buying in November after insider buying, they are up fifty percent. Because I am not greedy, I am going to follow it with a five percent trailing stop loss sell order.

Oldest bag of the bunch is SunOpta (NasdaqSC: STKL), a Canadian company with three operations. Founded as Stake Technology, they have a patented steam explosion process for turning biomass into food, biofuel, and paper products. They also operate Opta Minerals, an industrial minerals supplier. And for all those yoga mamas cruising Trader Joe's and Whole Foods, they operate as a specialty natural and organic food supplier. I believe it was a Motley Fool article on value investing that caught my eye. Their p/s is still under 1.00, and revenues are growing with a number of acquisitions. Stephen Bronfman of the Canadian Seagram's dynasty is a director. STKL is like a garden where much of the various crop are vegetating and getting stronger, and some are blooming. Soon there will be fruit for the taking. I'd like the organic blueberry cracked wheat waffle, extra butter please.