I've had to fly coast-to-coast twice this month so far for work, and am glad I woke up this morning at home.

I meant to trim my position in MSFT yesterday before its quarterly announcement, but I wasn't able to do so due to travel. MSFT missed but I was able to close my position today with a small profit. The YHOO saga is not over yet, but I'd like to switch to another name before it announces on Apr 30, following Cramer's advice. That name is OI (Owens Illinois).

CVTX received another piece of good news this week. The European Medicines Agency has recommended approval of CVTX' Latixa, and the EU is now expected to endorse this approval in the next couple of months. CVTX is now above my cost basis, but I expect it to double within the next 8 to 12 months. Of course, if it gets acquired, the doubling will happen much sooner.

Ford had a positive surprise for the quarter and my preferred stock (F-S on Google finance) is up a nice 15% now from my cost basis. And this does not count the ~11% annual dividend it pays (relative to my cost basis). Now I regret not having bought more. But I viewed it as a very speculative play, and it's not a bad idea to be prudent.

I noticed that my portfolio has turned positive for the year today (2.5%), which is good. The S&P and Nasdaq are still both negative. I however expect some profit taking next week and therefore a minor pull back. I may set up some short positions accordingly over the weekend.

I will have to fly to the East Coast again in early May for Sapphire in Orlando, but until then I expect to be able to stay put at home, working on a few proposals and accounts.

CVTX just sold half of its North America royalties for the recently FDA approved drug (Lexiscan) to TPG for 175M, and the stock is up more than 20% after hours. I think this is a very balanced move. CVTX is not giving up all the upside by selling only 50% (note it still owns 100% of the marketing rights outside the U.S.), and yet it's getting sufficient cash for its debt obligations due in year 2010. I still think the bigger upside will come in the summer. The timing of this 20% jump however is not that perfect for me as I sold covered calls ($10 expiring this Friday) a week ago when the price was less than $7.5. I may see my calls assigned this weekend (happily, btw). If that's the case, I'll probably rebuild a position in CVTX in anticipation of the summer FDA approval.

WaMu's numbers today are largely inline with expectation, and the market even moved its price up almost 5% (including after hours). This gives me more confidence that the bottom is near, if not already here. I'll hold on to my WM shares for now.

After a busy week out of town, things have slowed down a bit. And weather has become much warmer.

One of CVTX's drug applications was approved by the FDA last week. Even though the price hasn't moved up in response, I'm confident it's helped put in a solid support. CVTX already sold the North America marketing rights of this drug to Astella, and will receive royalty payments as a result. The major catalyst to this stock will remain the FDA approval of CVTX's current drug for first line use, expected in the summer.

I bought puts on WM after its big run-up in response to the TPG cash infusion. I may have sold the puts a bit too early as the stock went down another 4+% today. I believe however WM has a limited downside at around $10/share. Depending on tomorrow's quarterly earnings announcement, I'll decide whether I want to take the loss in my long WM position. Unlike C and FNM, WM has recently cut its dividend to almost nothing (1 cent), so I may not want to hold on to it for a recovery.

FWLT looks over sold during the last few sessions, and I bought some Aug 62.50 calls today. At this point I'm long on AUY, ACH, BP, C, CVTX, HAL, MO, PM, MSFT, SGP, WM, MCD, EPD, PWE, F-S, and FNM. My portfolio's year-to-date performance is -3.2%, much better than S&P500 (-9.3%), and Cramer's portfolio (-11%). However I still don't like it, because it's negative.