Tech stocks.....

In general, I avoid techs, they always seem to have high P/E ratios and seem to have a narrow economic moat, where another company can leapfrog existing technology and products.

Companies like Apple and Amazon are very interesting, but not at P/E's of 50-100.

Two that look interesting are Microsoft (MSFT), altho I wonder about the Yahoo! merger bid, and Qualcomm (QCOM), whose P/E is around 20 but which has 72 insider sales.

I'm sure there are other techs out there worth considering and welcome any ideas.....

Preferred stocks preferred........

In general, I think it too early to buy in the financial and real estate (such as home builders) sectors, except for some of the preferred stocks available. For example, Sallie Mae, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac all have preferreds that yield at least 9%. Since these have the implicit guarantee of the federal gov't, and are senior to common stock, adding these to an IRA for example is worth considering.

Some mortgage REITs such as Annaly Mortgage, MFA, and Anworth also have preferred stocks, altho in these cases the common is attractive also. These REIT's invest in mortgages, but generally minimize credit risk in exchange for interest rate risk. They're all rallying because short term rates are dropping, increasing their rate spread. Annaly is considered the best, especially since their CEO correctly anticipated the problems seen last year in the 2006 annual report and in other communications.

Microsoft buys Yahoo!

Yahoo shareholders should go for this, since Yahoo doesn't seem capable of coming up with a sustainable business model, for example they had a ten year lead with their purchase of broadcast.com and geocities then let those properties languish and were passed up by recent startups such as YouTube, mySpace, and FaceBook.

Microsoft, on the other hand, might be overpaying somewhat; it would have been interesting to see an initial bid in the mid-20's.