Other buys....

I've been remiss in mentioning other recent portfolio actions. Here's aquick summary:

I bought Vertex (VRTX) on May 22 @$29.70, as the company released stunning phase II HCV results. (read about it here: DDW: Novel HCV Protease Inhibitor Promising in Early Trial - CME Teaching Brief - MedPage Today

Happily, shares 10 days later are already up 16%!

I sold half of my Microsoft stock in order to buy twice the number of Microsoft LEAPs to expire January 2008. (I sold the MSFT shares @ $23.65 (a 15% loss) and paid $5.60 per $20 LEAP, meaning that I'll (theoretically) make money if MSFT is rises >8.2% over the next 19 months. (Or, less than 5% annualized.)

In reality, I'm counting on MSFT getting some good news over the next 2 years. Perhaps a lift from the next Windows OS, perhaps a lift from Office '07, perhaps a slip by Google.

Should MSFT grow at 10% per year, I'll have about a 41% return.

However safe this bet looks, though, consider that MSFT has pretty much been flat for 4 years now.

A few other moves that don't need much comment:
-with my '05+'06 IRA contributions, I bought 2 Fidelity overseas funds (FSCOX - overseas small caps, and FSEAX - Southeast Asia).
-I halved my FNMIX (emerging markets income) holdings in favor of more broad international exposure (EFA - the global ETF), and IWB - the Russell 1000 ETF, in order to catch a rotation to large caps.