Other than small cap blitzkrieg runs and the giddiness on the streams, things are pretty normal.  Momentum is in charge and high yield checking accounts that yield .15 percent are creating this need to chase risk for the moment.

I sold some $AAPL this morning, not because it’s overvalued – because it’s run 100 startight points since the world was supposed to end and that is what I do.  It’s obvious that Facebook will get public, but it’s been public for 18 months so all those people saying the IPO will be the top are missing the point.  I don’t see the same signs of a top that I did in October that made me post ‘This is What A Bottom Looks Like’.  We have Mobile, Oil, Internet, Semiconductors and Retail stocks ripping.  We have defensive stocks sloppy.  This is pretty textbook behavior for a strong rally.  Book some profits, redeploy a little in some fresh breakouts in fast growing sectors or sit tight and enjoy the gains knowing that this won’t continue and have a plan to exit.

You work hard to stay in the business so that you can sit back and enjoy these runs and think less.

Disclosure – Long $RAX $INTU $SIVB $VRSN $AMZN $AAPL $NUAN

In 2009 and 2010 I wrote a lot about the ‘Inconceivable Rally‘ and I was investing in web startups in a relentless fashion.  The year 2011 was a great one for startup valuations and 2012 is now what I call the ‘The Relentless Rally’ – at least to the shortsellers. We are in one of those amazing periods where we are gripped by momentum. Slap any four letters together and buy them and you made money, just ask Kenny.

I got a few things wrong in January…Google was a ‘fakeout’ breakout and Facebook chose $FB as their ticker symbol, not $FBOOK. Other than that, here are the tickers that were all the rage in January:

1. $AAPL – Apple is its own asset class. There has never been a company that has defeated “the law of big numbers” for so long. It is the most followed stock on StockTwits.

2. $FB – $100 billion valuation might seem a lot, but the truth is that the social network is more popular than the stock market itself. It is not even publicly traded yet, but it is the talk of the town and if often was a top trending ticker on StockTwits in January.

3. $AMZN – Amazing sales growth, tepid net income and margins, but Amazon has never tried to conform to Wall Street’s games of short-term expectations. This company just owns the internet – from infrastructure to the cash register. Its earnings disappointed two quarters in a row, but maybe this was the best thing that could have happened to its real long-term investors. Expectations have been lowered and it would be much easier to be blown off in the future.

4. $BAC – Warren Buffett took a lot of ridicule when the common shares of  his investment briefly dipped below $5, but look who is laughing now. You can’t fight creative accounting and good mood. $BAC  has become one of the best performing large cap YTD.  Note to myself – take baths more often. Genius ideas could come from that place.

5. $GOOG – continues to be a one-trick pony that relies on advertising income only and there are a lot of players reaching for its pie. The silver lining is that the pie is growing and there might be enough for everyone, but not everyone will survive of course. $GOOG tricked out many investors last December by breaking out to new 3 year high, only to report dissapointing earnings in January and plunge.

6. $NFLX – came back from the dead, rallying almost 100% in January, squeezing everyone who was unwise to average up their short positions. Guess what. Valuation does not move prices in short-term perspective. Supply and demand do and they are impacted by money flow and confidence.

7. $GMCR – one of the high-roller short targets in the second part of last year, came back with vengeance in January. $GMCR sells addiction and this is a good business to be in. Their products are everywhere, even in Starbucks. I don’t drink coffee, but half of the world does so, on a regular basis. Huge market, but how much of the demand has been already discounted in the price of the stock?

8.$RIMM – It used to be The Canadian Tech Proud, now it the Canadian Nokia. There is a reason behind the saying that “you could rarely find value tech stocks”. Changes in technology are so fast that the average life cycle of a product has decreased exponentially. Between rumors of being acquired, changing its CEO and possibly switching to another OS, $RIMM was a frequent trending ticker on StockTwits in January

9.$IBB – broke out to new all-time high, giving a boost to multiple known and unknown biotech companies. We are all getting old and need out medicine and I have the feeling that biotech will be the next big industry to pull the American economy in the next 10-20 years. Smart money knows that, but it is hard to choose from the hundreds of stocks in the field. Which will be the winners? $IBB is a good proxy, if you don’t want to guess and want some action in the overall trend.

10. $BVSN – rallied 300% in a month on no news, bringing back memories from the dot.com boom, when strippers and taxi drivers became day traders and smart, seasoned value investors lost their shirts.

Facebook $FB (should be $FBOOK) is the new Location Location Location.

Stocks generally do well when I give them this triple title…I did so for $LULU a while back. It is fun to see it all come together as both companies hit all time highs and LULU become the ‘Facebook of ladies tooshies’.

I have been mostly wrong about Facebook the stock. It is hard to get a Company right when you don’t use their product on a steady basis. Directionally I have never been bearish, so I guess I should have been buying. Here is one example of a post I did in 2009 titled ‘Twitter…What Would You Pay’. In 2007, I said ‘Hurry up and Get Public‘. Also from 2007, I thought a consumer brand like Coke or American Express should have bought Facebook and now Procter and Gamble is laying off 1600 employees as Facebook goes public.

As usual, most of us are wrong and a few make all the money.

Of course yesterday I got a call from a reporter from the Los Angeles Times yesterday asking for all my thoughts on Facebook. Is it a buy or a sell?

I have no opinion on Facebook itself, but it will help drive capital and profits all over the place in many amazingly good ways and create havoc for certain industries as well. Facebook the stock is just one piece of the giant puzzle of the market. For example, if you work in TV and Radio sales, your job is getting tougher. The IPO just put the toughness at all time highs. But, if you are a GREAT TV ad salesmen, your job got easier and LinkedIn will have your phone buzzing with recruitment offers.

It’s about watching the money flow and today is no different than yesterday in the business of managing money.

As per the Facebook IPO, I liked the following pieces:

Andy Kessler – ‘The Button that Made Facebook Billions‘

The Globe and Mail – ‘Why Facebook May not Be a Growth Story‘ (begs the question…define growth).

Dara Albright – ‘Where is Facebook’s Audacious S1‘

Dan Ramsden – He is tearing it up with great analysis in an easy to digest way – ‘A Way to Look at Network Value‘

Right now though, all I can think about is …so much money left on the table.

But, who has not left money on the table. It’s just part of the game…the business…life.

Screw that…it hurts. In today’s version of the game of ‘I can’t believe how much money I left on the table’ is $GSVC. Some of my good friends are very long $GSVC. Smart guys. It’s really a simple thesis. Own the derivative of $FBOOk and wait for the announcement. It’s not perfect and is never smooth, but today is the payday.

The Twitter run could have been played with $SINA and the $GRPN run with Trvelzoo $TZOO.

I just got an update from Betaworks today. Really an amazing Company. Betaworks is at the center of the social and web revolution in New York City. I invested in late 2008 because of my strong belief in New York, the angel scene, the web, the idea of Betaworks, the portfolio and the genius of John Borthwick and Andy Weissman. I wanted to leverage my time and reach. I was starting Stocktwits and would never be able to see everything I wanted. So I invested and they invested in Stocktwits.

I was very bullish on the idea of another $CMGI. Another Internet Capital Group $ICGE. The financial markets love a well timed roll-up. I have the ticker picked out for Betaworks ..it’s live on Stocktwits $BWORK. Andy and John will vouch for the many times I said, get Betaworks public and take advantage of the valuation boom ahead. Today we are seeing what happens when the stars align for being a PUBLIC Company at the right time in a fat trend.

Alas, it is $GSVC that is making all the money today in the ‘own a piece of Facebook and Twitter’ game that is Wall Street. Big Kudos.

There are many ways to be right. It’s why I am addicted to the markets and sharing my thoughts.

Monday night at 7, StockTwits will gather for cold beers and eats at Antarctica in Soho.

Please join us.

Where:  287 Hudson Street (below Spring)

When: Jan 30 @ 7PM

Apple is a ‘Magnificent’ Company.

Scott O’Neill of Investors Business Daily shared this chart that helps quantify the difference between great and magnificent:

A couple of fun facts:

1. Apple earned more money in the last quarter than the stock was worth 8 years ago (thanks Eddy Elfenbein)

2. Apple’s current cash level of $97+ billion is more than the MARKET CAPS of 474 S&P 500 companies! (thanks Bespoke)

Apple is not alone in it’s Magnificent’ execution and performance. Monster energy is a ‘Magnificent’ Company.

Monster ($MNST) is one of the great stocks of all time. IT’s market capitalization and earnings have both increased 200 times since going public. Earnings do matter.

On it’s way to ‘Magificent’ are Chipotles ($CMG) and LULU Lemon ($LULU). In the meantime, they are pretty damn great stocks.

You can get rich owning a basket of great stocks over a 10 year period, but you will get ‘RICHHHH’ finding one ‘Magnificent’ Company.

We are at 11 year highs in the Nasdaq for a bunch of reasons and none of them are because of a bubble.

Here is my ‘Momentum Monday‘ that delves a little deeper and covers some more potential winners in this strong tape.

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Scott Kessler – Senior Director leading S&P Capital IQ’s Technology Sector equity research efforts and also covering Internet and Software stocks including Apple, Adobe, Google, Yahoo, Oracle and other related companies.

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I don’t own the stock, but it is about time and I want to.

If you asked 100 random people in the street to describe Nike in the streets with one word/phrase…they would likely use ‘swoosh’ Just Do It’or shoes.

Just loving the company for those basic things has earned investors from 1977 a 27,000 % return. The Company trades at just 2 times sales with $3 billion in cash. Sometimes the ‘big idea’ is sitting in your closet with no hard drive, just laces.

I was in New York this week, and as noisy and as hectic as it can be versus say….the beach on Coronado, the different energy gets me thinking about bigger ideas in many more ways. It’s likely the exciting conversations and the back and forth with high energy people.

I have watched and written about the biotech industry for a few years act as a leader in the markets. The stocks on a whole make me nervous, but I have been following the $IBB. I don’t want to own stocks I can’t understand wrt growth cycles or competition or acceptance and government regulation.

But Technology is changing biotech and data is changing biotech. In 2012 and beyond, pills, painful treatment and machines may not solely define the world of biotech. The world of biotech will extend to electronics, data and services.

Nike will help this all become mainstream. They are late to market with their ‘Fuel Band‘, but their massive distribution will make this a winner over time and many iterations. Smaller companies like Fitbit will face competition for sure, but Nike will increase the market by hundreds of folds.

While investors argue over the margins from the products and their usefulness, the data will spawn thousands of companies in the service space that tap into the data. I am seeing it on Angel List daily and I am making a few investments. Consumer electronics, data and some structured service type solutions is a new form of biotech and even a replacement for many of the drugs we take each day.

Am I early…NO! Is Nike, the best way to play this trend…not sure. Is the trend Gynormous….YES!

The last clue sent them to Dog Beach to grab a picture with a dog. Done.

The year 2012 will be a great one to start a business. I say this every month and every year. It’s always the same reasons. There are great prizes along the way for the entrepreneurs and the costs have never been lower.

This year, with all the new entrepreneurs and startups in the web world, there is a lot of ‘bubble talk’. All of a sudden, the ‘media’ is very concerned for investors about to lose their shirt by overpaying for ‘social networking’ and other web startups.

It has to be a ‘bubble’ because CES broker attendance records for people to see old man @rupertmurdoch shoot dice and yammer about Google being evil, Polaroid (I am an investor) battle Eastman Kodak ($EK) on the exhibit floor, crowd around some 3d tv’s and walk by a bunch of ipad cases and phone chargers.

But Howard…isn’t it important that my new Samsung Fridge has a $P Pandora option on the freezer door?

The thing is, people are schlepping in record droves. Paul Graham nails it with what he calls ‘Schlep Blindness.’

There is never a bubble in ‘Schlep Blindness’.

You will never find enough entrepreneurs willing to schlep and enough money to back the people willing to schlep because of their blindness.

As an entrepreneur you can win when you make the 50 extra yearly schleps (cold calls, ‘red eye’ flights to see customers, late night product sessions ‘evolving’ your product after hundreds of discussions with your users). As an angel investor you can make money in any environment by spotting these schleppers.

Side note -there will probably be light blogging again from me this week as I schlep to New York today.

If you have 20 during today’s trading day give it a listen and/or watch.

It’s just been a hard market for leadership and momentum with traps like $GOOG and software lately for me and a herky jerky market with last years DREKKK rising and leadership from Biotech ($IBB).

I have no doubt in my mind that Life Sciences is in a massive trend and while Silicon Valley may cool down, Sorrento Valley (San Diego) will heat up.

You can’t have all this cash slosh around and not chase some real returns. People want to live longer and as Mark Cuban discussed in my interview with him last year…personalized medicine and treatments is just big an idea to fail. He has been dead on since we chatted.

Keep it simple and stick to a plan.