Looking Ahead

As soon as you pass Labor Day, it is time to start looking ahead. Companies start putting together their plans for 2007. Financial analysts start looking towards 2007. Money Managers start preparing their portfolios for year-end taxes and window dressing. Thus my choice of title.

I have to laugh at Blogger.com. They started this word verification system a few months ago. I am sure hacker computers struggle with it as my human eye struggles. I'll bet 25% of the time I miss the word. Yes, I am going to the eye doctor this fall.

Hey, hey, hey, Barron's had a positive article about ANF (Some US back-to-school retailers a good bet-Barron's). I have a lot of respect for Barron's, so if they're positive about a stock I own I am happy.

I have mentioned several times that I respect Jon Markman and his opinions. I got a trial subscription to a newsletter by him in July. He recommended a dozen stocks. In total he is down 7.5% since July 10th. When I see those sorts of things, I am not so upset about my so-so MFI performance. It has been a tough market this summer. But don't mistake not being upset with being complacent.

Thomas Ko mentioned a distubing thought in his journal this weekend (Journal Entry: 9/5/2006). He said the market might be jumpy this week as we approach the 5 year anniversary of 9/11. I try not to let things like that impact my investing approach or my life (such as travel) as I feel that is the weakness the terrorists want. Still, it always is in the back of your mind, you wouldn't be human otherwise.

The WSJ had an article today about a major oil find in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico (Vast Oil Pool Tapped in Gulf of Mexico). It could increase known reserves for the US as much as 50%. I wonder how the laws work in International Waters. Who gives the oil companies rights to drill in certain areas? Who owns the land? DVN appears to be a big winner. I suppose that companies that specialize in drilling in deep water (RIG and NOV) will benefit as well. It looks like Anarko knew what they were doing when they bought KMG. CVX will benefit as well and they are a megacap MFI pick. Watching the early financial news, in its own weird way this oil discovery will likely be negative for the oil industry in total. In other Energy news, I see where VTS is being bught at about a 35% premium of 30 DMA. VTS was an MFI stock in the early days, back in Dec 2005 - Jan 2006. You'd have done very well to have picked VTS.

Regarding my stocks. PTSC.OB announced another company has agreed to pay them for their patents (Patriot Scientific Gaining Momentum as Olympus Signs Eighth Licensing Deal in Eight Months). The stock quickly spiked up 8 cents on the news. But then settled down for a meager penny gain. They did have some new and interesting wording in their release discussing that Jim Turley of the BOD will be devoting increased attention with PTSC:

"Jim's increased availability to provide input and assistance based upon his industry experience and expertise will be extremely helpful as we consider additional strategic moves intended to enhance the strength and profitability of our company," Pohl stated.

As Patriot Scientific accumulates capital resulting from licensing revenues, the company is ready to implement the next phase of its strategic plan and is now evaluating possible opportunities to diversify its revenue stream by entering into joint ventures or by acquiring other companies and technologies.

What does it mean? I'd be curious to know how much capital has been accumulated. Then it looks like they're trying to decide what to do with that capital. Per their last BS, their available cash etc was about $59m. How much has that increased? What could they buy? Hmm. They paid 6 cents in dividends in Feb & March. I figure that cost about $22m.

FTO was one of the top ten losers on the NYSE today, down 6.7%. Not sure why, though it seems refiners were off across the board, just FTO was the worst, sigh.

All-in-all, not a bad day. I was up about 0.2%, on par with the benchmarks and slowly gaining ground on breakeven. I think I am under the $10,000 mark on my charts. It was a great day for the 9 MFI stocks on my watch list, which went up a composite 0.7%. They're up a total of 3.5% since I started watching them last week. I'll wait at least another week before making a move. My move of buying some MFI stocks in my IRA continues to work ok as PONR, TGIS & NSS are holding their own. TGIS just got re-added to the MFI list today. My hypothesis is that can often be a catalyst for them. We'll see!