Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Back Up 2%

Final Change For the Month - (I Promise)! It has been a hectic 30 days for my MFI portfolio. Today I made what should be the final change until April. I sold TBL (granted a week early, but at a substantial loss) and bought IVAC. Here is a summary of my activity since the start of 2007:

01/17 – bought SHOO

02/05 – sold ELX and bought EGY

02/20 – bought AVCI

02/26 – sold MSTR, UST, PTEN and MGLN and bought DGX, CREL and LRCX

02/26 – renewed positions in PACR and HW

03/01 – bought PDS

03/05 – renewed position in ANF

03/06 – sold TBL and bought IVAC

It is a little depressing that of all the stocks I have bought/renewed in 2007, only CREL is in the black (all in down 3.6% on average).

April Showers - That gives me 31 stocks in my portfolio. PGI & DLX will hit their anniversary dates in early April. I see where DLX is back on the charts. But I think I am going to stop thinking about replacements until the day comes as I keep changing my mind.

Disappearing Act *poof*– I have mentioned before about PTEN vanishing off the lists in early February. A poster on the Yahoo! Board also noted that XJT has vanished (I think RAIL is also gone). Looking at the two companies and their ratios following their most recent financials suggests if they would good enough for the lists (generally top 50) then, they should still be on it as their prices have dropped and they had nice numbers. I have seen this before (I wrote up about in perhaps June of last year when TGIS fell off). It is disconcerting. Has JG and his programmers changed their views? Is there a data issue? Are these no longer viable stocks? All three of these stocks are capital intensive, perhaps JG has tweaked his formula a bit on required capital in the ROIC calc? Who knows? Anyone out there have an opinion? I’d like to sleep well at night.

Alpha Day - My portfolio moved almost perfectly in sync with the market all day. I had actually hoped that since I had fallen faster than the general market, that I would rise faster. But I suppose that is a test for another day. Hard to complain though about being up 2%.

Non-Believers – I looked at True Religion today. The short % of float is a stunning 45%! When they come out with their earnings this month, there will either be a short squeeze to end all squeezes or I’ll be crying! It makes you wonder, do the shorts (likely hedge funds) know something? My recent track record of MFI earnings has not exactly been stellar. Stay tuned.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi MG,

I've only been checking the short ratios via yahoo which gives them periodically. I've noticed that from Jan to Feb several of my MFI have gone up considerably. OVTI was in the single digits last month (and of course since I own it I assumed the shorts were right!), but it is now sporting a short which is 40% of the float.

I think in the last month half of my stocks had their short ratios double or triple. I would like to think this reflects an expected correction in the overall market, so some people want to make some quick cash before a rebound. In other words, normally I would think twice about a heavily shorted stock, but given the recent volatility I am not particularly concerned at this moment.

Thanks for the Diary. Your style is both entertaining and informative.

MAS

Nick said...

"I saw where JG’s sister owns ANF stock. Actually she only owns two stocks: ANF & ARO. But she has over 1m shares in each… heck I’d just like to have her dividend checks. Makes me feel better about renewing my ANF.'

Can you provide a link to the filing or article that showed her porfolio?

What is the name of her fund?

Thanks,
-Nick

Marsh_Gerda said...

http://worldbeta.blogspot.com/2007/02/little-stock-that-beats-market.html

Marsh_Gerda said...

Nick it is saddle rock capital. I am having trouble posting the link

MG