Some Portfolio Updates

Some minor news in a few items not enough for full posts but noteworthy none the less.

USO Calls

– Had a tight trailing stop on the OLL AI calls in USO (USO). Oil has its best month in a decade and did not want to catch a downdraft. That being said, got stopped out at 8.10 each for a 47% gain in 3 weeks. Still am holding USO AO at an unrealized gain of 41% (same time frame). Have a tight stop there also to guarantee the gains.

If I get stopped out of this, I will wait before getting back in for oil to pull back a bit. I have been more active here than normal but large price spikes demand so type of action when the economies underlying fundamentals don’t quite justify it.

Natural Gas

– Still hold UNG calls UNE JP and are down 13%. These are October calls so there is no rush or worry here.

News Corp (NWSA)

News Corp got twin upgrades last week. From Streetinsider.com

Earlier, a JPMorgan analyst upgraded News Corp. (Nasdaq: NWSA) from Neutral to Overweight. The analyst also raised JPMorgan’s price target on News Corp from $9 to $12, saying the “market is improperly assigning a negative value to several News Corp. businesses”.

JPMorgan’s raised price target represents potential price appreciation of 25% from current levels.

The JPMorgan analyst points out that the negative market sentiment comes despite positive cash flow generation in each of these divisions. Specifically, the analyst believes News Corp.’s Cable Networks branch deserves “a higher premium than competitors due to potential expansion opportunities in international markets”. JPMorgan also sees the media-giant’s Film business rebounding following this year’s “trough year”.

Traders may also be buying shares of News Corp. on the back of new coverage over at Wunderlich Securities. The firm started News Corp. at Buy, also citing the cable programming and film segments.

Readesr here will be thinking…….”no kidding JP Morgan..where you been”? About 3 weeks late on this call

RHI Entertainment (RHIE)

From Worldscreen

In a bid to strengthen its ties with the Hollywood creative community and expand into the TV-series production business, RHI Entertainment has opened a programming office in Los Angeles, to be led by Tom Patricia and Elizabeth Stephen.

Tom Patricia, the executive VP of movies and mini-series, and Elizabeth Stephen, executive VP of series, will be responsible for production and development as well as co-financing opportunities, working closely with RHI’s New York creative team, including company founder and head creative executive, Robert Halmi, Sr., and senior VP of development, Lynn Holst.

“While RHI has always had a high profile in Hollywood, this new programming arm will enable us to ramp up our West Coast development and production efforts even further,” said Robert Halmi Jr., the president and CEO of RHI. “Tom and Elizabeth are extremely talented executives who have the key relationships and know how to get projects greenlit and produced. They will have an immediate and far reaching impact on RHI’s creative output.”

Patricia is an Emmy-nominated producer whose credits include Homeless to Harvard for Lifetime Television and the mini-series The Gathering. He served as senior VP for Michael Ovitz’s Artists Television Group, where he was head of the television movie and mini-series department. He also headed up TV movies and mini-series at Mandalay Entertainment. Stephen most recently was president of Mandalay Television, and served as executive producer of the Showtime series Brotherhood.

I love it when holdings, in the midst of a severe recession make smart moves to expand their business. While other are retrenching, RHI is smartly and cheaply setting up shop in LA. Many feel the move is a precursor to them getting into the “regular TV lineup” shows from the current mini-series/TV movie format they have.

I like the move as the company has a great reputation in their current format so attracting talent and getting serious looks at projects for the TV genre ought not be too difficult.

Disclosure (“none” means no position):