Update

Apple has taken a beating over the last few days since Steve Jobs announced his medical leave.  I might suspect that he may not return this time.  That makes it tough to hold on to the stock, yet I would expect the company to continue to deliver strong results at least for another year or two.

Intuitive Surgical beat earnings handily and the stock jumped 36 dollars on Friday (I believe it was up more than 40 at one time).  This one position has kept me from losing value in the portfolio due to Apple and Coin Star. 


Lot of indicators are now heading lower making me really nervous.  I have been looking at the sugar ETF - SGG.  I almost bought it on Thursday but didn't pull the trigger.  On friday, the shares jumped up around 3.6% to close around 94+.   The floods around the world (the most significant ones being in Brazil - #1 producer of sugar in the world, and Australia - #5 producer) have impacted the supply of sugar at a time when demand is rising.  Pakistan also experienced floods and a huge part of their sugarcane crop was wiped out).  Combine that with the production of Ethanol in Brazil using Sugar cane, and the world has seen the price of sugar more than double in the last year.  The sugar beet crop in UK has experienced damage due to the snow/thaw.  The US industry is in limbo pending the court decision on genetically engineered round up resistant sugar beets.  50% of the US sugar production comes from sugar beets.  The sugar ETF SGG hit a low of 37.18 in May 2010, and closed on Friday at 94.16.  That is almost a 200% run up (and something that made me hesitate on Thursday).  But I guess, with commodities you have to take advantage of the situation when the conditions are right because soon the market will adjust.