Conclusion:

If you are looking for a liquid instrument for which you can accurately trade the high yield bond market, (JNK) is your choice.  Options give your positions tremendous flexibility as well.  If you are looking for a fund with a huge monthly dividend but only a small premium to (NAV), (NCV) is your choice.  But beware that the huge dividend is more likely to be cut than many other funds if the market contracts too far.  (PHK) is the choice for those who want their money managed by the largest name brand in the business.  70% is truly an astonishingly high premium to pay, but something about having Bill Gross manage your bond portfolio in turbulent times does feel good. 

An excellent idea is to diversify across all three funds to have the best of all of the fixed income world.  (JNK) puts can also serve as excellent insurance for all three funds losing principal.  (JNK) is shown below versus both (PHK) and (NCV).

The company's prospects seem to be betting on the success of a weight loss drug.  In short, I don't think weight loss drugs are worthy of my investment money.  In fact, when I get weight loss drug advertisements, I tear them up and throw them in the trash.  I think any management team spending time and money on research for such a product is wasting resources, especially when they have no profits to show for their efforts.

Fundamentally, the stock is a wreck.  The company is fairly overleveraged with a debt to equity ratio of nearly 3X, a price/book ratio of over 9, ROE of -165%, price/sales of over 22, and a dwindling level of assets and equity while debt has risen dramatically.  These are all very negative signs, and other than as a pure gamble on a miracle drug being developed which makes the stockowners rich, I call this stock worthless.  If the European crisis continues to accelerate and the lending market begins to worsen, (ARNA) is one of the companies I would most expect to have trouble continuing operations due to a lack of financing.  Anyone holding shares with gains would not be ignorant to sell and cash in those gains, unless you believe that weight loss drugs are good investments.  If that is the case, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you...

If I was the legal judge in place at the SEC, and I set all of the rules and punishments that individuals would get in this country when tampering with the securities laws, the exact punishment I would enact over George Economou would be that his entire position in Dryships be forfeited.

This would transfer control of the ownership interests in the company from another country into the United States.  If the international jurisdiction had a problem with my decision, I would immediately enact emergency powers and halt trading in the stock and investigate options for a complete ban on ADRs, American Depository Receipts.  The very chance that international criminals are able to plunder the United States through continual share dilutions and fraud reaches well beyond the law.  The issue reaches all the way into the currency markets.  The United States should be tough enough that the securities markets should always be regulated closely enough such that at all times investors should be able to rely on their own currencies never being used against them at the international level.  Meaning, no investor in the US should have to worry about international robber barons holding the keys to their retirement plans. 

In other words, China finds it artificially easy to build factories and ship products to buyers in the US because of the currency situation.  The US on the other hand is becoming a country without dirty industry.  A country in which the only way to survive and compete is to reduce cost through technological means to compete with currency manipulators.  The end result is a country which essentially eliminates costs of production of all types.

My prediction is that 50% of the US working population and possibly students will be telecommuting on a daily basis in as soon as five years.  When that gigantic process is completed, the United States will have officially taken over the world economy by regaining the illusory capital flows it has lost.

You see, the US is so powerful that there truly is no long run competition.  As the Chinese have devalued their own currency for decades, the US has been forced to adapt into the absolute top technology-based economy in the world.  There is no other economic solution for US businesses to survive in the free market.

Just think back to economics 101.  Imagine a very three dimensional, illusory dimension which only Gods can see.  The image which should be burned into your mind is the topic of "golden growth."

The US is in the process of possibly the largest expansion of golden growth economics in its history.  This is not nominal growth; this is growth which re-engineers the very landscape in which we work and play each day.  In due time, the trade deficit will finally shrink down to nothing, and the world will witness the most perfectly functioning economy in recorded history.  Health care for all who need it.  Cars which do not pollute nor require more than the slightest amount of fuel.  People will be able to see this in the coming year, emerging from the cocoon.

It appears to me that the US is destined to become a nation of information technology-based researchers, who work from their homes and earn excellent pay. 

Some look back to the dot com boom as a problem in US economic history, but sometimes it takes something that big to usher in the future.  Real estate may even be falling due to a lack of commercial demand over the long run, as companies that used to house people in large skyscrapers no longer need to spend the funds on this.  Instead, these companies can save tremendous amounts of money by just designing companies in which all or nearly all of the workers telecommute.

We could one day see the freeways to big cities in the US nearly empty because so few people commute by car anymore.  While countries with artificial funds use those funds to build intricate transportation systems, the US is being forced to due away with transportation entirely.

Verizon allows unlimited calling service but limited data for anywhere from $100 to $200 per month.  Average users would be happy with the $140 per month service.  The Iphone 4S 16GB costs $199, which brings the two year cost not including taxes to $3560 for an individual, almost $1000 more than the Sprint option.

AT&T offers unlimited calling for $135 per month, not including taxes.  This also limits data to 4GB per month.  The Iphone 4S sells for $199 at AT&T.  The total two year cost comes out to be $3440; slightly cheaper than Verizon, but significantly more expensive than Sprint's option.

Because service from Sprint is considered by the public to be nearly identical in quality to both AT&T and Verizon, I think many, many users will likely end up switching to Sprint for their Iphone service.  Saving almost $1000 over two years is not something rational consumers will ignore for long.

For the simple fact that consumers are rational in the long run, and because the economy has still not caught fire to regain high growth rates, analysts ought to recognize that Sprint will lead the industry in Iphone subscriber growth this next quarter or two.  With Sprint's profit problems, this is indeed an essential time for this to occur too.