defensive, value play. non-cyclical demand, large fraction of earnings generated abroad. note: bought too high, but now that price has fallen, even better defensive play b/c of 4% dividend. krft spin-off should allow management to focus (usual spin-off story) and, more importantly, to increase divs and lever up. note: sold tranche april 1.

unfairly hated value play. - great oil services business that levered not so much to oil prices as to increasing difficulty of extraction. - kbr best of breed engineering services firm, but margins stink. split-off will cause roa/roe to mechanically increase. - sits on a lot of cash. cash effectively a non-performing asset. split-off will allow payout of cash through buyback, etc., again increasing roa/roe, eps.

low multiple, big buyer of own stock, best of breed. but gs scares me: it's a black box.

every deepwater driller (and NOV, the maker of many of the rigs) claims there's a huge int'l bull market for rigs. rig is (1) not tied to volatile gulf of mexico jack-up market (2) more international than most drillers (3) in the midst of rolling over long-term contracts signed at increasing day rates. contract backlog into 2009 effectively insures rig against oil price/day rate fluctuations. [contrast with DO, which is much more sensitive to day rate fluctuations.]

bought before recent meltdown. controls about 75% of (relevant) nickel market after great deal with inco. management of aluminum business may be best in the game. relatively low political / mkt risk for a brazilian/latin american stock.

tysabri is the most effective ms drug out there. the ms market is worth about $4B, so assuming tysabri secures only 10% of the as a drug of last resort, it will still be huge. moreover, if tysabri introduces well (i.e. if no new pml cases are reported), it could secure 20+% of the market. possible label expansion of tysabri to crohn's disease (1.8M patient pop) could be catalyst. management is running tighter ship this year than last, but still not tight enough. can only hope the ton of debt compels a stricter diet. tax leverage. if you're an ip-based company, you can't beat ireland's tax system. just ask microsoft. open option interest. i'm not bullish on aab-001 and the alzheimer's pipeline (to me, it's a black box), but i think someone else is. huge open interest in jan 08 (junk) calls. note: options interest keep increasing. why? in general, i wish i could price out the aab-001 call . . . but if i like tysabri, the near-term calls are stilling selling a little too cheap for me to be willing to pull the trigger....

will comment on later.