Dronamraju Ravi Prakash

So the market hasn't done what i predicted. We are at nasdaq 1838.02, about 130 points lower since the date i made that call about a rally into october. Some key factors going into my prediction were

But i still think this is an opportunity to buy. The interest rates will remain low by any historical standard (even a fed funds rate of 2% is low if you look back) and political situation globally will smooth out and resolve over the next few months.

The political situation has not smoothed out in iraq. I think this is a substantial reason for the market jitters. There is daily watch on the iraq news from Najaf and market is always on the edge. Economy is still strong - not blistering hot, but strong - and companies are performing well.

Let's review the individual stocks i picked

NTAP -- Purchase Price -- 19.12
NTAP came out with an excellent earnings report and beat the street estimates by a penny. Not to stop there, they raised their revenue+profit outlook. The stock surged and it's at $19.84. Not too bad.

CSCO -- Purchase Price -- 23.26
CSCO came out with a strong earnings report matching street estimates. However, john chambers came out with some bearish outlook about tech spending in the coming months. This has dragged the stock down substantially.
What is interesting is the dichotomy in his actions. Let's look at the recent events

1. He expressed his bearish outlook on tech spending.
2. He started selling a lot of cisco stock

Nothing inconsistent in the above 2 actions. However, this next thing he does is puzzling me

1. John chambers' salary restored to $350,000/year

Why would he start taking salary again? Either csco is out of doldrums or he's outlook is bad for several years to come and he sees no point in sticking to his stance. Anyways, i 'd rather go by his stock sales.

SO I AM EXITING CSCO TAKING A LOSS OF ~4.5$

SEAC -- Purchase Price -- 15.10

Ahead of their earnings report on Aug 25, SEAC is up 9% on friday to 17.34. Let's wait till the earnings report to really disect this stock.

Not too bad.. overall market call has been wrong. Individual stock picks, doing good in 2 of the 3

Well, well, well. Since my last post, nasdaq is down by another 100 points. Looks like i am wrong, and resoundingly wrong.
Looks like there are 2 factors driving the market down

a) Oil prices
b) Worries about economic strength.

What's weird is the price of oil being soo high. If the economy is slowing down, demand for oil should slow down, consequently prices should stabilize. Unfortunately, it might take a while for those forces to coagulate.
At this point it looks highly unlikely that nasdaq will be above 1850 by end of august. We'd be lucky if it is at that even.