Up Day

Felt good to have a nice up day for a change, even if I trailed the benchmark yet again. I have to shake my head as I type this, but after 2 years and 2 months at this I trail the benchmark Russell 3000 by a whopping 22%. That could likely take two+ years to erode, so I think it is likely after 5 years I will personally be behind the benchmarks. That is not to say that MFI in total will be behind, but rather my poorly performing portfolio. But not to dwell on the negatives, I fell 22% behind in less than a year (recall I was ahead in July 2007), so I suppose I can catch it up in less than a year.

A number of MFI stocks had earnings today: AIRV, CITP, PMTI, RAIL, HLF and SHOO to name a few. CITP was the clear winner, up about 24%. PMTI got crushed, down 16%. HLF and AIRV don’t look so hot. I didn’t have any as I had sold RAIL, which I held for two long years with about a 20% loss.

Below is a table I created showing how “new” stocks have fared in 2008. Every week I pull a list of the top 25 stocks and put them in a spreadsheet. I define a stock as new if it hasn’t been in the top 25 for the past 6 months in my spreadsheet. These 23 stocks are “new”, with the 5^th column identifying the date it hit the top 25 for me. I then marked the price that date along with the current price to get a percentage change. As you can see, they have generally done very well, in total averaging about 11%. I don’t think this approach would always work, but I will continue tracking it.

Stock Cap EY ROC MFI date Earn Date 1^st price Today Change

TIRTZ.OB	33.25	13%	> 100%	5-Jan	30-Sep	23.33	25.85	13.7%
UNTD	745.38	15%	> 100%	5-Jan	30-Sep	10.83	10.79	1.5%
PCR	921.9	20%	> 100%	9-Jan	30-Sep	34.19	36.80	7.6%
CSPI	26.76	122%	> 100%	12-Jan	30-Sep	7.02	5.83	-17.0%
DTPI	145.62	23%	> 100%	2-Feb	30-Sep	4.75	6.32	33.1%
AIRV	322.7	86%	> 100%	13-Feb	31-Dec	5.08	6.10	20.1%
citp	201.41	16%	> 100%	16-Feb	31-Dec	9.98	10.14	1.6%
PRXI	129.09	20%	> 100%	16-Feb	30-Nov	4.29	5.90	37.5%
CAST	138.1	16%	> 100%	23-Feb	30-Sep	5.06	4.20	-16.9%
GSB	35.21	17%	> 100%	12-Mar	30-Sep	2.08	2.03	-2.4%
IGC	51.71	639%	> 100%	12-Mar	30-Sep	3.70	4.93	33.2%
LGTY	86.83	20%	> 100%	12-Mar	31-Jan	6.70	7.31	9.1%
MRX	1,095.06	14%	> 100%	12-Mar	31-Dec	19.45	20.72	6.5%
DEPO	131.15	14%	> 100%	22-Mar	31-Dec	2.74	3.31	20.8%
nvtl	291.53	39%	75 - 100%	22-Mar	31-Dec	8.98	9.19	2.3%
VRGY	1,044.45	17%	> 100%	22-Mar	31-Jan	17.42	21.95	26.0%
DLX	1,015.95	14%	> 100%	6-Apr	31-Dec	19.58	23.01	17.5%
NTRI	510.7	35%	> 100%	6-Apr	31-Dec	14.94	19.75	32.2%
IUSA	294.39	15%	> 100%	6-Apr	31-Dec	5.28	5.79	9.7%
LRCX	5,114.87	17%	> 100%	11-Apr	31-Dec	41.08	42.41	3.2%
SLXP	317.26	20%	> 100%	11-Apr	31-Dec	6.47	7.02	8.5%
CHRD	167.54	13%	> 100%	19-Apr	31-Dec	5.03	4.66	-7.4%
QXM	258.4	999%	> 100%	26-Apr	31-Dec	6.26	6.63	5.9%

I have to give Steve Alexander of MFI Diligence kudos. His portfolio (at least the free stocks that I tracked) has been doing well per my calcs. I have him up about 6.2%. I’d take that. For the record, I am up 9% from my low March 17th.

I am going to do a study on Friday on large cap MFI stocks. MFI is clearly working there and I want to highlight it for everyone, so we're not all doom and gloom.