Because the shares traded down 2%, I would say the street reacted negatively towards the report, but volume was only at 38,000 - 56,000 less than the average - which can hardly be considered a reaction. Still, the net loss continued to fall, coming in at 13 million and EPS sank to a loss of $0.88, compared to a loss of $0.71 in 3Q06 and a gain of $0.20 in 4Q05. In their 8-k, they list a few of their 2006 business highlights as follows:

Equities Investment Banking reported net revenue of $25.6 million for 2006, an increase of 42 percent compared to 2005.

Municipal Sales and Trading reported net revenue of $17.8 million for 2006, an increase of 33 percent from the same period last year.

Before we jump on the bandwagon, let's look at the big picture... for the quarter, overall investment banking revenues fell 35% QoQ, with the full year over year decline at 3%. Overall institutional sales and trading revenue remained the same Q0Q and fell 14% YoY. Also, equities investment banking and municipal sales and trading posted a 46% and 35% decrease in revenue QoQ - not exactly "highlights" to finish out the year. When it's all said and done, these departments made nice YoY gains, but combined they only made up 37% of 2006 revenues.

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What we've seen of late is a bottom and some increased momentum as IMAX has posted some strong price gains. The stock was up 16% last week with increased volume.

I wrote about the company on Jan 16th, saying that "Analysts' may worry about the business model, but I believe that IMAX's product is not a fad and recent theater deals back that up." I didn't recommend the stock, but spoke highly of the recent contracts which they have signed, one of which was with a high profile American chain, Kerasotes.

Since then, IMAX has signed a deal to install two theaters in the China Science and Technology Museum. Including these two theaters, IMAX will have a presence of 27 theaters in China at the end of 2008. They currently have 280 theaters in 40 countries. Theater signings haven't been a problem for IMAX though, as their current CEO has stated there are 73 orders in the backlog which have yet to be installed. Management has been a core issue with the company, as there have been SEC inquiries, stubbornness with buyout offers and lackluster production.

Chicken processor sales took a decent hit from the bird flu scare, but have recovered since. The worries for bird flu have quieted down a bit now and while a relapse will damage the stock, Sadia S.A.'s (SDA) price appears to be at an attractive valuation for a company posting a strong quarter.

With share price of $33 and a P/E of 12, Sadia trades at a discount to the industry (Fish/Livestock) P/E of 16. It is a small cap (2.25B), Brazil based company with ADRs trading on the NYSE at an average volume of 87,000. The company consistently pays a dividend, the most recent of which came in at 3%.

Their core businesses are as follows:

First Albany Capital - A broker/dealer subsidiary which underwrites and trades in municipal capital markets, analyzes and trades in equity capital markets, and performs an advisory and capital raising service through investment banking.

Descap Securities - A mortgage and asset-backed security trader and advisor.

FA Asset Management - Provides enhanced indexing and asset guidance to institutional investors.

FA Technology Ventures - A venture capital provider for early and expansion stage companies in the information and energy technology sector.

The company's stock price is trading right around $2 and it has a market cap of $32 million. With an average volume of 94,000, this stock doesn't see much action on the Nasdaq. Its shareholders haven't seen anything positive either, as the stock has shaved off close to 70% in the last year and is at its 52 week low. In the most recent five quarters, only one (4qtr, 05) produced a net income.

The terms of the deal were announced Sunday, as Vodafone secured a 67% stake in the cellular provider for $11.1 billion. The deal ultimately values the cellular provider at $18.8 billion, including debt, which lands the final value in middle of the $16-20 million range analysts were expecting.

Sources such as Bloomberg and the Wall Street journal have expressed skepticism, saying the price may be too high but the market has reacted positively, sending the shares up over 2% in early trading today. Investors should be cautious though, as Vodafone's CEO, Arun Sarin, has said the deal will add to their earnings five years after completion (Bloomberg.com). Also, it will take four Indian cellphone users to generate the revenue that one European customer brings in. That said, operating margins in for Hutchison Essar have been higher than Vodafone's and the rapid growth should provide the volume necessary to offset the four-to-one ratio.

After all, these are the bigger names with a longer, proven track record. Specifically, ethanol has become a focal point in this area and companies like Pacific Ethanol (PEIX), VeraSun Energy (VSE) and Aventine Renewable (AVR) have found themselves in the spotlight. But if you look a little closer, there is a category which should receive more investor attention for the long-term - biodiesel.

If you watched the State of the Union address, you might have noticed President Bush mention that we should be exploring ethanol as well as "everything from wood chips, to grasses, to agricultural wastes" for fuel production. Now, by no means am I using President Bush as an investment adviser, but I want to focus on the latter.

It is based in Taiwan, but serves an international market place, with 61% of its sales coming from North America, 35% from Asia and 2% from Europe. The stock closed at $8.75 on 1/30 and sits at an attractive P/E of 12.55, despite a fantastic run over the last three and six months, where it has been up 36 and 58%, respectively.

The company just reported an outstanding fourth quarter but issued lower guidance for the upcoming quarter. Let's take a look at some highlights from the recent quarter's conference call and analyze the company's prospects:

Since mid-July, shares have gained around 60%, profits have seen outstanding growth and their products epitomize ‘cool.’ But is Apple’s premium stock price warranted? Its valuations are high and dependent on outstanding future growth, which will be hard to deliver.

Apple’s most recent quarter saw year over year computer growth of 28 percent and iPod growth of 50 percent. Pretty impressive numbers, but can that kind of growth be maintained? When announcing the earnings, Apple lowered its guidance for the upcoming quarter, negating any push the stock might have received from the most recent quarter’s results (in all likelihood the results were already priced into the stock).

Getting Crowded in the Market
The Apple fanatics will come out and say that “they always put conservative estimates out” and that it shouldn’t be a sign of slowing growth. However, if we look at Circuit City (CC)’s MP3 sales, they were flat year over year and Best Buy (BBY)’s consumer electronics saw a modest 8.5% gain, mostly attributed to flat-panel TVs. The market is becoming saturated and a large portion of those 21 million new iPod users were gift recipients or consumers who are just finally catching on - people who aren’t going to drop another $300-400 on Steve Jobs’ latest masterpiece.

They had strong growth in their retail and wholesale segments and predicted low double digit revenue growth for this quarter, while upping their expected earnings per share to $3.50-3.60 for the full year. The strength behind this continued earnings growth lies in Ralph Lauren's brand image. They have always been the premier American luxury clothier and will continue to foster that image.

No Department Store Damage
A previous article on SeekingAlpha.com made the case that the brand was being undermined by its presence in department stores. While I would agree that flooding the market with cheap clothes isn't the way to promote exclusivity, this isn't a wide spread image the brand holds. When you go into a department store, Ralph is typically the most expensive brand in its section. Other brands, which used to be considered competitors, such as Nautica or Tommy Hilfiger, have lost their popularity among the younger crowd.

I have had the opportunity to hear Ed Breen speak, twice in the last two years, at our alma mater, Grove City College. Breen graduated from the college in 1978 and worked in the broadband and cable industry before moving into the role of President and COO of Motorola in 2001. He was named CEO of Tyco in July of 2002. Once in that role, he cleaned house of the corruption that Kozlowski left behind. He immediately fired the board who hired him and gutted the upper management positions.

Starting Anew
Of the 300 employees at Tyco's headquarters in Princeton, only 12 remain that were at the company before Breen. He wanted to start fresh and needed a clean slate to establish shareholder trust and he has achieved just that, with share prices far outpacing the S&P and bringing tremendous return since he took over.

Many are realizing that steps need to be taken within the private sector and within U.S. legislation. The demand for alternative energy keeps growing and companies in the industry should see fantastic growth.

Hampton Pearson, a CNBC correspondent, was interviewed during the Power Lunch segment yesterday and his focus was on the recent U.S. Climate Action Partnership meeting. This meeting brought together big private sector names, such as Alcoa (AA), GE (GE), DuPont (DD), Duke Energy (DUK), and Lehman Brothers (LEH), with environmental groups, including Environmental Defense and the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. The main goal of the partnership is to find ways of slowing, stopping and reversing greenhouse gasses through corporate action as well as government incentives.

Pearson believes electric power generation and greater incentives for those operating under the EPA's "cap and trade" system will be the first step. "People want to see action taking place," says GE head Jeff Immelt, noting a mood change across the world towards environmental impact. Participants hope to put pressure on the government to establish federal legislation, as opposed to letting the states determine their own policies. This would provide an easier entrance into clean emission production. The big picture here is that the push is on to put country wide legislation into place that will open doors for alternative energy companies to increase their business.

The analysis behind these stocks isn't entirely fundamental and a fair number of them were based on more visible, psychological trends that I saw.

The Bombay Sensex has seen a good dose of volatility in the past two months, coming close to 14,000 pts and dropping just below 13,000 5 days later. Then, more recently, between January 3rd and 10th, the index fell 4.6%. With this much volatility and investors skittish about potential overvaluation of the Indian market, it's important for investors to find a company whose industry and product growth potential can weather a possible market downturn. You should find just that within India's cellular market.

In November of 2006, India reached 100 million GSM subscibers. This places it at 3rd, behind China and Russia, in national subscribers to GSM. All told, there are 140 million cellular subscribers in India. With a total population of 1.1 billion, this means that 12.7% of the population uses cell phones. Compare this to China, with 449 million subscribers and a population of 1.3 billion, with 34.5% saturation. Both countries have cellular concentrations in their major cities, with some spotty coverage in outskirt villages. If you look at this graphic, you'll see that the major cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai make up about 20.7% of cellular usage (source: India-cellular.com):

Not only does the country have room for growth, but the government's goal is to have 500 million subscribers by 2010. GSM will provide the pathway for this growth as will expansion of companies like Texas Instruments (TXN).

Its share price hasn't exactly been larger than life. With a 52 week high of $11, and a current trading price of $4, two huge price drops have burned those holding stock. Recent activity has brought some life to share price though, as buyout rumors brought it up (and subsequently down), and contract agreements have brought some much needed new business.

I bought into IMAX at $3.42, in December, when it was near its 52 week low. The company has a large amount of debt (160 million) on the balance sheet and performed zero installations during the last quarter. An SEC investigation, bad management and poor sales have been detriments to the stock. There has been speculation of a buyout, but nothing has materialized.

Many solar energy companies are placed in the technology sector and, more specifically, in the semiconductor industry. Even within this bandwidth, their stock price, ratios and financial statements are extremely hard to compare with companies not operating on the same playing field, as the market place for solar energy products has many hurdles to overcome before it reaches maturity. That said, I think companies offering this product can offer an investor tremendous long-term growth as alternative energies gain favor with the public, the government and corporations.

Towards the beginning of the summer, as fuel prices were skyrocketing, the public and government started to seriously consider alternative forms of energy. The government has been offering tax-rebates for buyers of hybrid cars in an effort to promote the changeover. With this type of legislation, we can expect to see progress made in other types of environmentally friendly initiatives. These initiatives will hopefully be directed towards companies who are willing to take the plunge into solar energy use.

One such company that has already moved in this direction is Wal-Mart (WMT). They will be installing solar energy panels on stores in five states. This is a major step in the right direction for companies wishing to employ solar energy. Wal-Mart is a trend setter, a leader in business, and is extremely influential.

Seoul's Kospi index rose 3.75% while the Nikkei rose 5.71% in '07. There was weakness in Japan's small caps and the arrest of activist investor Yoshiaki Murakami scared the market as well. Within South Korea, the headline grabbing event of the year was North Korea's bomb detonation and also worrying investors were economic concerns over interest rates and the value of the Won.

These concerns appear to be losing their footing though as "the rate increases may have stopped, and the Bank of Korea last week said the won had peaked," as Leslie Norton of Barron's reported. South Korea should have a strong year and makes a fine choice for investors looking into Asian diversification.

If that same investor had found himself long China Petroleum and Chemical Corp. (SNP) and PetroChina Company Ltd (PTR) at the beginning of the year, he would have had his answer to the question. PTR and SNP are up 72.5% and 86.09% for the year respectively (click to enlarge):

The motivating force behind purchasing stocks at their 52 week low is to move into the contrarian position - to grab the stock when it's down and out, to beat the tide before it shifts the other way and ultimately, to look back at some point in the future and know that you bought in at the lowest point possible.

That said, there are of course some serious questions that need to be asked when looking at a company sitting on its 52 week low: Why is it at its 52 week low - bad reaction to earnings? Faulty management? Consistent downward slope? Reaction to previous overvaluation? And will it simply continue to go down? Let's look at some stocks that will fit into each of these questions.

That brings us to Tata's future sales prospects. It's likely that their international passenger vehicle sales will remain at a low level or even take a slight dip. But the main force behind their growth potential lies in the Indian market. There is tremendous potential here as more and more Indians become financially secure in the growing economy. The Bombay Sensex (the Dow Jones of India) has risen over 40% this year and Indian businesses continue to flourish. This means the market for Tata's economical, entry level cars will continue to grow and benefit the country's largest automaker. The company has been named one of India's top ten recruiters and it's safe to say that they will hold this position as India's working force grows.

Recently, Tata signed deals with both Fiat motors and Thonburi Automotive. Even though Fiat is a struggling brand, Tata's will gain cost-cutting advantages from joint development projects. The Thonburi deal will provide an outlet for Tata to manufacture and distribute cars in Thailand. This will bolster Tata's international commercial vehicle sales, as Thonburi has a strong truck development presence in Thailand.