1st Anniversary Manuevers

Heading into February. I've been giving a lot of thought to what to do. I will likely be selling six stocks (MSTR, UST, ELX, TBL, MGLN & ANF). I will "top-off" PTEN, HW & PACR and then I should have $ for about three or four stocks (I am increasing my $ per stock in 2007). My short list of stocks to buy includes WCC, TTMI & VCI.

MSTR was interesting to watch this morning post their earings from Friday evening. In Pre-Dawn trading, the price was skyrocketing up about 4% at about $130. But as soon as the real market opened, the price dropped about 3% to $121. What happened? I was a bit flummoxed, not to mentioned disappointed. I think the answer can be gathered by looking at the prices run-up prior to earnings. MSTR was up from $114 to $126 since the start of the year. I think that implies that people were betting on spectacular earnings. While still good, they were not spectacular. Thus the stock sold off today.

Despite the MSTR mis-step, I had a great day today, up over 0.6% while the Russell 3000 was just barely better than flat. We'll see if we can't get a little separation this week with my magenta line.

I did update all my tracking portfolios today. I'll see if I can't publish a graph this weekend. Basically, while MFI has not been stomping the Russell 3000 and Russell 2000 Value indices, it has been beating them steadily. And to be honest, if I can beat market indices by 2 or 3 points a year with a $20 book, I don't really have much to complain about.

Trying to Get my Attention?

WSTL was a stock I briefly profiled (meaning about 10 words) in my blog a week or two ago. I thought it was very ho-hum and had no interest. Well, they had their earnings the other day and have fallen by 25%. Now perhaps that makes them a "buy" per my recent study... perhaps they did that like a child behaving badly to get a father's attention. I suspect their poor quarter and poor guidance will take them off the MFI lists.