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The Oscar goes to....

It's Oscar weekend and to make watching Oscar awards program interesting, what is better way than to pick winners and see how one does in predicting. Last year I had 75% success rate (3 out of 4). So this time I decided to predict 14 winners as follows:
  • Best Picture - Argo 
    • Lincoln has good shot but after seeing both movies, Argo deserves to win
  • Best Director - Steven Spielberg (For Lincoln). 
    • This should have been Ben Affleck but nomination process blew up this time. So it would be one of those years when Best Picture and Best Director could go to two different movies
  • Best Actor - Daniel Day-Lewis (for Lincoln) - no competition here
  • Best Actress - Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty) - this could be only award this movie may win due to controversy surrounding this movie
    • Jennifer Lawrence (for Silver Linings Playbook) could be surprise winner only because of "feel good" factor vs "controversy" 
  • Best Supporting Actor - Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln)
  • Best Supporting Actress - Anne Hathaway (Les Mis) - no competition
  • Best Adapted Screenplay - Lincoln
  • Best Original Screenplay - Django Unchained 
    • Here ZDT should win but most likely not due to reasons mentioned earlier
  • Best Visual Effects - Life of Pi
  • Best Original Song - Skyfall
  • Best Costume - Les Mis
  • Best Animated - Brave
  • Best Cinematography - Life of Pi
  • Best Foreign Film - Amour
  • Best Documentary - 5 Broken Cameras
Looking forward to Oscar evening tomorrow to see results of my prediction index (I have asked Yash also to pick winners so there is little family competition)

Last week markets started feeling little anxious over upcoming "sequester" cuts as well as some possible European uncertainties especially around Italian elections and Spanish corruption scandals. In Feb markets have gone up less than 1% after a big Jan. That would mean that momentum is coming to end at least for short term and at this time it is more likely that DOW would touch 13500 before it touches 14500. Having said that I particularly got interested in Solar sector recently. Over last few months some of these stocks have gone up by 100-200%. However some basic industry level changes such as reeducation in oversupply due to many companies going BK, lease options becoming popular and big utility projects (Mr Buffet invested)  seem be turning and could provide further upside to these stocks. My picks are FSLR ($33), SPWR ($11-12) and WFR ($5). Be careful investing in any Chinese solar manufacturer - they are alive only because of Chinese bank support.
Have a great Oscar weekend
/Shyam

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