Bookkeeping: Selling iShares Brazil (EWZ) and Rolling the Funds into Petrobras (PBR)

I am selling my smaller position in iShares Brazil (EWZ) for a mild loss. I never really had a chance to build up this position and once Petrobras started weakening I chose to focus on that name instead. I bought this stake back in early November, but truth be told this ETF is essentially 2 names - Petrobras (PBR) and CVRD (RIO) (a mining company), which dominate the weighting of the holdings. With Petrobras the crown jewel in my eyes (one of the few oil companies with ability to expand reserves, you can click on the label at the bottom of this entry to see some news they have announced the past few months) I am simply going to flip my ownership of this name through the ETF and reduce 1 position by selling the country ETF and owning the actual stock I want. That being PBR. I am adding in the $98s. Ken Heebner also appears to be a big fan of this name so I am in good company.

I also added a bit to First Solar (FSLR) @ $184s and finally took this position to >1% in the fund. Due to valuation I only had a very small stake, but in the $180s I find it more compelling than in the $270s. For the first time in a long time, I am seeing some value in solar stocks other than Trina Solar (TSL) and LDK Solar (LDK). I had been warning the past month that the valuations were ridiculous. This doesn't mean this is the bottom in solar, but at least I can justify some of these stocks valuations. Suntech Power (STP) in the $52s, to me, is an outright steal - unlike much of the junk that speculators have run up 80% in 2 weeks, this is a quality franchise.

Ironically I see some retail and financial stocks doing well today :)

Long Petrobras, First Solar, Suntech Power in fund; long Suntech Power, Petrobras in personal account