The Market Giveth and the Market Taketh

wow, I was so giddy yesterday as I was finally starting to get some separation between my portfolio and the benchmark Russell 3000. Well I gave virtually all of it back today. Sigh

HW announced their earnings. I love the variety of headlines:

Headwaters Incorporated Announces Results for Fiscal 2007 First Quarter
Headwaters profit falls 40% amid weak housing market
InPlay: Headwaters beats by $0.05; reaffirms FY07 gudiance
Headwaters 1Q Earnings Fall Sharply
Headwaters Reiterates Earnings Guidance
UPDATE - TABLE-Headwaters Q1 earnings fall, backs 2007 view

They seemed ok to me, the market had already priced in bad news. The re-affirmed 2007 eps. And of course they then tanked at the opening bell. This is a much hated stock. The good news is that they battled back and finished up one or two cents.

PONR was my big loser. They announced that during 2007 they will be expanding capcity at a plant which will cost about 150m (Pioneer Announces the Expansion of its Chlor-Alkali Plant in St. Gabriel, Louisiana). I guess the market thinks it is a bad use of their money.

Then pretty funny, I was going to buy VCI today. I had an order to buy it at $14.42... but I guess my blog is a market mover as it started at $14.53 and never looked back, going up 5.5%.

Finally, I have posted a graph that compares the performance of each of my monthly MFI tracking portfolios with the benchmark Russell 3000. As you can see, of the 11 months, MFI is ahead in 8. Pretty good. JG said that over the long haul, MFI just wins 7 of 12 months. Of course, no stunning months. Then I do have my portfolio on far right. I think if you zoom to 1000% you can see that I am ahead by an angstrom (I think that is the correct physics term).