Monday, February 25, 2008

Vanishing CEOs

No it isn't the title of an Oscar-winning movie. Rather it is what has happened to two of my MFI stocks recently. Perhaps in the end it'll be good, but it happened in both cases as the stocks went into "the house of pain".

TGIS - Not a good day for Mr Taylor (Thomas Group Announces Michael E. McGrath as Executive Chairman of the Board & Resignation of President & CEO).

IAR - Ms Harless hardly even gets mentioned (Idearc Names John J. Mueller Chief Executive Officer).

I did sell LRCX today as tomorrow will be its one year anniversary. It was down about 11% for my year. While it is no longer on the MFI list, I suspect that is because they are delinquent with their financials as they have an internal probe into option back-dating. I think when that is cleared up, they'll be back on the list. They may also pop if the news isn't bad.

I did buy two new stocks last week: ODP and FTO. I felt that if ODP at $17.60 was good enough for Mr Greenblatt then it was good enough for me at $14.40. Then I bought FTO because of a very bullish blog I read (Six Refiners to Pump Up Your Portfolio).

I thought there was very good news for MFI today (Getty Images Agrees to $2.1B Buyout). GYI has been on the list for many months. This signals to me that there are buyers at the bargain basement prices out there (ASPV, UIC, FCGI, and BDY are examples of others bought recently). Nothing will jump start these stocks faster than the value being unlocked.

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