Where Have All the Stocks Gone?

Who sings that? Joni Mitchell? Is there a current singer who can hold a candle to Joni Mitchell? Maybe Alicia Keyes or Norah Jones I suppose. I have a vested interest in the MFI website being correct. I am investing hard earned real money on the stocks that are listed there. The one thing I don’t understand (and not understanding makes it disconcerting) is why stocks drop off the list if the price doesn’t change significantly.

It seems that one of the following must be true in such an event: (1) other stocks became a better value, so maybe my stock is now #101 and I just can’t see it. (2) MFI took into account the recent earnings report and the stock fell off the list. Or (3) the Stock was on the list by mistake [gulp]. I guess I would not mind (1) or (2), though if I had invested on the most recent earning report, I am not sure how that (2) could happen. If it was (3) and MFI had some erroneous data or should not have been on the list as it is a non-allowable class, I guess I’d like to know. Yes, I am a control freak and I hate for things to be in a black box. Argh!

The stock I am kicking around right now is “Thank God it’s Saturday!” (TGIS). I bought it at $10.65 (on May 1st) and it has fallen from grace somewhat to $9.95. I am pretty sure it was in either top 50 or top 25 when I bought it and it had most recent quarter data. But now it is nowhere to be seen, despite its 7% drop. Maybe other stocks have just fallen more… but the point is… I don’t know! [ok, deep breaths]. While I like JG and am very appreciative that he runs his site for free (psst - I would pay), I would love a little more transparency.

Not sure which song to sing now: “Whenever I Feel Afraid” (Actually the correct song title is “I Whistle A Happy Tune”) from the King & I or “I Have Confidence” ("I Have Confidence") from the Sound of Music?

Ticker Tape Tales

PCU – I will be watching my Peruvian channel closely regarding the outcome of their elections this weekend Peru Elections. I am rooting for some guy named Garcia as the other candidate is in the mold of Chavez and is threatening to nationalize Peru’s mines. To answer your question, “no, it does not feel good to have the value of my investment in the hands of Peruvian voters.”

KG – Timing is everything. KG got downgraded today to sell by BAC, not sure why (I hope it wasn’t because he read my Blog). I don’t “mind” that a stock gets downgraded as I believe 50% of analysts don’t know up from down. But, I wish it had happened a couple days ago so I could have bought KG more cheaply.

RAIL – Pretty cool, some one actually mentioned my blog on the Yahoo! RAIL board. I didn’t think anyone was listening. Now I know how Elvis felt when he heard his first song on the radio… wait, he probably felt better, he probably felt "all shook up".

HW – Ah yes, my old “Head Wind” stock. It is my leading stock if you turn my charts upside down. It looks like Uncle Sam won’t be getting any capital gains taxes here. Anyway, Jim Jubak (my other favorite talking head) did offer some words of encouragement on HW Jubak on HW and has set a price target of $35. That (if reached) would pare my loss to just 6%. I suppose I should buy some more, y’know, “average down”…. Nah!

ANF – this stock has taken a pounding since reporting great 1st quarter earnings. They are down about 10% since May 10th. They reported same store sales yesterday that were a bit better than expected, but that didn’t help. I am a bit gun shy about retailers, but ANF is so cheap (growth this month was 17% and for the 1st quarter was up 20%) at 11.29x next year earnings. Even Cramer likes them and said in his show Cramer on ANF that he would pay up to 34x earnings using his funky 2x growth rule. I don’t know about that as that suggests the stock could triple, I will assume he was speaking metaphorically.

PTSC.OB - This OTC stock has been on the MFI site for at least several weeks. In the past week it has virtually doubled, going from 70 cents to about $1.37. It does make me wonder whether the best strategy is not to over-think and over-analyze, but rather have faith. Some one said that the single biggest advantage small investors like us have over the big guys is that we can buy stocks like PTSC.OB. And MFI gives us a tool for finding these stocks. Will some not do well? Yes. But that is precisely why we buy a basket of stocks.