Graduation Day

Today I sold the TAO warrant 6 with a 60% profit in less than a week.


I have graduated as a speculator in warrants and options.

I want to make a memorandum on what happened today to NICE. Their offices are on Tzomet Raanana and I look at it each day. It is a software organization with products sold to the security/intelligence sector. Today they published their results, 78% increase in profits, a veritable cash machine. The share price went DOWN on TASE. The same may happen to TOWER that publishes its results on next Nov.7.

NICE Systems (Nasdaq: NICE; TASE: NICE) has published its financial report for the third quarter of 2006, which shows that it beat analysts’ estimates. The company also issued strong guidance for the fourth quarter. Third quarter pro-forma revenue was a record $112.2 million, representing a 35.6% increase from $82.7 million in the third quarter of 2005. Pro-forma gross margin in the third quarter was a record 60.6%, or $67.9 million pro-forma gross profit, up from 56.6%, or $46.8 million in the third quarter of 2005.

NICE posted a pro-forma net profit of $16 million, a 78.5% increase over $9 million in the corresponding quarter in 2005. Proforma earnings per share rose to $0.31 per share, from $0.22 per share in the corresponding quarter last year.

Operating cash flow totaled $25.3 million. Cash and cash equivalents totaled $244.2 million, compared with $421.1 million in the preceding quarter. This follows the $200 million that were paid for IEX during the quarter. NICE expects fourth quarter earnings per share to reach $0.32-37, higher than the mid-range analyst estimates of $0.33.

Nice dividend.