Microsoft, travel and thinness (updated)

7:48 am (Hawaii) Barnes & Noble is up 61% on Microsoft's play for the Nook tablet. I like visiting B&N locally, but as an investment, it's been a dud for years going back to the war with Amazon. Now BKS is at 22.14, off its high today of 26, after Microsoft's move. 

Whitney Tilson was on Fast Money. He went long BKS last week, says it was 87% short. That's incredible and explains the run today. He says BKS was much less a value play at 26, but is "very attractive" at 22. Total of $605 mil from Microsoft. 

Also surprised by the move in EXPE, up 7.3% on top of last week's gain. All three indices are in the red moderately, and EXPE is up almost 3 bucks to 43.26. 

ZAGG, one of the AAPL plays, is up 6.7% to 13.11. I had my eyes on this last week at 11.99 and 12.29 and opted to wait until today. So even with a down market, ZAGG is rising fast with earnings due Thursday. 

AMZN is up another 2.5% to 232.41. I sold this at 219 last week, and the P/E is outlandish. The questions about the company's accounting maneuvers are not holding this back, it seems. 

AAPL is down 2.5% to 587.92 after one of the New York newspapers blasted the company for its tax strategy. Legal, but chastised anyway. I still would like to see AAPL at 546 (Fibonacci retrace), and with big money chasing other trades, it still might happen. AAPL got down to 555 last week before spiking. 

Light volume overall. No catalyst in the near term. Just a cool morning and an opportunity to sip a beverage, get work done and wait patiently. That would not be Monster energy drink (MNST), though, which is up 10% on rumored buyout talks (Coca-Cola) worth as much as $15 billion.

Update 8:19 am Fib retrace for BKS (based on today's gain off Friday's close) is 21.29. It sold off early in the day off the humongous gain down to 21.75. This was a broke company with negative EPS before this deal. Watching but not touching.

MNST Fib retrace is at 76.56, which it has breached easily. It got down to 71.47 before moving back to its current level at 76+.

Update 11:05 am I liked ZAGG on Friday, but didn't enter because of weekend wackiness worries in the general market. I passed at 11.99. ZAGG, an Apple play, closed up 6% today in a down market. Earnings out on Thursday; anticipation is high. But this run-up might translate into a selloff on the news. Today, ZAGG's intraday high was 13.27. A Fib retrace would've been at 12.89, and sure enough, the stock pulled back to 12.90 mid-day. I entered a half position at 13.02 just before the close.

This comes with some risk, of course. ZAGG has made a massive move from 10.66 at the close last Tuesday. That's a gain of more than 24% to today's high. How much upside is left? If today's modest pullback was a breather and the market takes off tomorrow and/or Wednesday, it would probably be good for ZAGG and other earnings plays. But I don't view this is a long-term hold, though maybe I should. Closing no doors just yet.

Update 11:40 am More info on ZAGG.

P/E 20.68, forward P/E 12.77
Shares outstanding: 30.04M
Float: 21.93M
Short interest: 47.7% (of float)

Tie that together with the Apple relationship and it's no wonder this has been combustible. ZAGG hit a one-year high of 17.10 on Aug 15 last year, just nine days after it had dipped to 11.40. But that's not the one-year low; the low of 6.67 was on Dec 28. This is a radical stock. Question is when to get out, and that answer will be dictated by price action and trading discipline. In other words, a decision would be best determined by stop loss rather than panic and/or greed.

Quarry Logic: Growth that can't be stopped

As Mo'ili'ili Quarry was dug out to pave the roads of Waikiki and greater Honolulu 60 years ago, there are necessities across America and the globe that cannot be denied. So, I'm going to keep a tidy little list to remind myself of what's important not to me, but to the rest of the world. The blossoming may not happen next week or next month, but sooner or later, these companies will bear fruit. Big, juicy, awesome fruit.

• China Internet. Computers are not affordable to the vast majority of mainland Chinese. Cellphones are vastly more popular already, as is instant messaging. I once underestimated the role of China's leading wireless king. No more. The players: China Mobile (CHL), Alibaba (40% owned by Yahoo), Research in Motion (RIMM).

• China Energy. Whether it is in house "old energy" or alternative, China needs it. With gas prices just 1/3 of what we pay in the West, consumption will be rampant. But oil alone won't be enough. The players: PetroChina (PTR), CNOOC Ltd. (CEO), Suntech Power (STP), Yingli Green Energy (YGE).

• E-commerce. Yep, it's a hokey term that should've died out a decade ago, according to every bear and naysayer. And yet, Amazon has proven them all wrong, and there will continue to sprout new ideas for retail over the internet, save for Fed intervention and online taxes. Couple e-tailing (yes, another late '90s tag) with China's growing economy (up 11.9% in Q2), and there's no end in sight. Yet. The players: Amazon (AMZN), eBay (EBAY). X Factor: China still doesn't have a reliable, trusted system of online payment. PayPal China (eBay) anyone?

• Search/Advertising. Of course. The possibilities are endless in the West, but in China, we're seeing just the tip of the iceberg. (I am loaded to the gills with cheesy cliches this morning.) BIDU at $324? Scary to think it, but imagine this: 12% of China still has no internet access, and BIDU is fully protected by the government. So much growth is possible, no, probable, which means Baidu's stock is still in its first inning. The players: Baidu (BIDU), Google (GOOG).

• Fast Food. Huh? Larger salaries mean more disposable income in China. Inflation? A big factor, but not so much when families have only one child. Single children will spend, hang out at Starbucks, eat at KFC and McDonald's. I see no end in sight to the fattening of New China, Mexico, India, Brazil... The players: Yum! Foods (YUM), McDonald's (MCD), Coca-Cola (KO), PepsiCo (PEP), Starbucks (SBUX).

• Macao Gaming. Chinese are notorious gamblers, even taking discount junkets from the mainland to Macao. What Wynn Resorts and Las Vegas Sands have done in Macao is utterly unmatched anywhere in the world. So much for Mao's version of communism. The players: Wynn Resorts (WYNN), Las Vegas Sands (LVS).

• Handhelds. The demand is insane, though I don't really relate to it. A cellphone is all I want and need, but the rest of the world is koo-koo for gadget-loaded handhelds that tell us what time it is, who's calling, where we are, while giving us songs to listen to and directions to get here and there. The players: Research in Motion (RIMM), Apple (AAPL), Garmin (GRMN), Navteq (NVT), Trimble (TRMB), Nokia (NOK), Google (GOOG), Synaptics (SYNA).

More later. I'm gonna hit the sack and try to get up in 90 minutes.