My Portfolio

I will admit it. I get emotionally attached to my stocks. I hate to admit I have a bad stock. I like to celebrate the successes. I love stock symbols. They can be fun. Here are the cards I am currently holding, the dirty dozen (+7), the start of my fortune (I hope):

ANF – I bought them one day too early. They had fallen 5 or 6% and I jumped in. The next day they dropped another 5%. Steady gains since and great quarterly report. Heck, even Cramer loves them, but I picked ANF before that!

CHKE – I know, I had never heard of them either. That is a beauty of MFI, it gets you to research stocks that you did not even know existed. Kind of a middle man in clothing, pays a 6% dividend.

DLX – Maybe not my most savvy purchase. They make the old fashioned paper checks that your granny might still use. But they were knocked down from $46 to $25 and paid a 6% divdend and I didn’t have other stocks like this.

ELX – A high tech flier from the hangover days of the bubble. You’d have to be a computer geek to understand their profile, something about IOCs and HBAs.

FTO – They refine oil and makes lots of money since everyone is paying so much for gas. Capitalism at its best. I call this stock Free To Own.

HW – They have technologies to turn coal into diesel. I know, not quite Lead into Gold, but a close 2^nd. They have been pretty beaten up lately, so I call them Head Wind.

IVII – They make software which allows your legal DVDs to play on your laptop (perhaps even illegal, I don't know). I encourage all of you to go watch a movie on your laptop.

MGLN – The profile says “behavioral health disease management”. Sounds like an area ripe for growth!

MSTR – My 2^nd bubble high flier, this one was a real roller coaster in 1999-2000! They are a software company and they make a lot of money. I just call them Master of the Universe.

NSS – boring company that makes pipes etc in Kentucky. All they do is make lots of money selling the pipes etc to oil drillers. I call them “Nice”.

PACR – I am an Indiana Pacer fan, but that has nothing to do with this stock. Also, 6 of my 19 stocks start with P. But that has nothing to do with this stock which supplies logistics to the transportation industry.

PCU – A little copper anyone? Did you know it costs the US mint more than a penny to make a penny? That is a losing proposition, but I hope the Big Wheels Keep on Rolling.

PGI – Pig switched around a bit. The G stands for Global and they provide global business services. And the P is for Premiere… with Premiere and Global in the name seemed like a slam dunk!

PNCL – A profitable airline. Just think how much they’ll make if jet fuel ever drops in price.

PONR – I love the symbol, I immediately thought of Point Of No Return. Just a boring small company that makes chemicals for businesses… profitably.

PTEN – whenever I see this symbol, I think of the magicians Penn and Teller but it doesn’t quite fit. I must be dleysxic. Another energy stock into drilling and such. I am afraid my MFI portfolio isn’t all that environmentally friendly. This is the last of my “P” stocks!

TBL – Timberland shoes. I think Table when I see the symbol. TBL has struggled a bit, seems the EU has slapped a tariff on inexpensive Asian-made shoes and boots. Where is free trade when you need it?

TGIS – my favorite stock symbol, “Thank God It’s Saturday!” Small Dallas company that provides consulting and management services to small businesses. I did get a kick from their recent headlines: “Thomas Group Ranked Number One Fast Track Company”. I thought, Wow! Pretty impressive. Then I read the article, and it said “Number One Fast Track Company in Dallas/Ft Worth.” Not quite as impressive, I call that lying by omission.

UST – Last of my nifty nineteen, but not least. I know all you chewing tobacco fans of Skoal and Copenhagen recognize UST. I used to think this was the symbol for US Steel, in actuality it is US Smokeless Tobacco. Just a slight difference.

There you have it, faithful readers (you are faithful aren't you?). We will be tracking this weird mix of stocks over the upcoming year through this blog. But they have one element in common, yes... "hocus-pocus" and (crossing my fingers) a good shot at outperforming the market. I will likely add 6 to 11 more stocks through the remainder of 2006 if I can scrape up some spare change. That may be iffy as Uncle Sam just gave me a nasty surprise with the new tax bill, but that is for another day and another blog.