Perfect Chart?

It is nice to have a good stock chart for a change. Check out SIMG since I bought them about 3 months ago for $4.47. They have pretty much gone straight up (70% at this point) on very little news. I will admit I was tempted to sell when SIMG passed $5, then again at $6 and once more at $7. Stocks going up have been a rare commodity in my portfolio.

SILICON IMAGE INC (NasdaqGS)

Range: 1d 5d 3m 6m 1y 2y 5y max Type: Bar | Line | Cdl Scale: Linear | Log Size: M | L Compare: SIMG vs S&P Nasdaq Dow Want more control over the chart? Try our Interactive Chart. Splits:21-Aug-00 [2:1]

Last Trade: 7.60 Trade Time: 4:00PM ET Change: 0.27 (3.68%) Prev Close: 7.33 Open: 7.30 Bid: 7.45 x 500 Ask: 7.75 x 2500 1y Target Est: 5.31

Day's Range: 7.27 - 7.60 52wk Range: 3.70 - 8.85 Volume: 1,526,671 Avg Vol (3m): 1,347,240 Market Cap: 557.13M P/E (ttm): 41.76 EPS (ttm): 0.18 Div & Yield: N/A (N/A)

In other news, my May 22nd tranche is off to an outstanding start. It is up about 8% in the first two weeks. I picked the stocks simply taking the 5 largest market cap stocks that day in the 50 greater than 100m list: RHI, ACN, TRA, MHP and AEO. I do think the market will continue to favor larger stocks until we start seeing a re-birth of M&A activity.

If I were to pick 5 stocks today using that same approach I'd get LRCX, TRA, RHI, FTO and HLF. I will likely use this screen at the end of June for my next tranche.

JTX announced disappointing earnings today. A few of Steve A's Magic Diligence stocks have taken some hits (BBSI also took a fall and HURC, which went up sharply intially has dropped just as sharply to about where it was when he first recommended it).

Refining Stocks Drop Out

Ever since I started MFI back in February of 2006, Refining stocks have been a mainstay on the lists. But to stay on the list, you have to keep a strong earning stream and as I have pointed out, most refiners barely made a profit and some actually posted losses in the quarter ending March 31st. HOC is a great example, their operating income for the quarter ending 3/31/07 was $96.5m. This year, it dropped all the way down to 9.5m. That takes the EY/ROC from 21%/50% to 17%/41%. They will likely drop further as the 2nd quarter of 2007 was an all-time best for refiners. That also explains why the stock prices of refiners have dropped, even though they were on the MFI lists in numbers 6 months ago. MFI was "predicting" that they would replicate their record 2007 year. In retrospect, they will fall well short. It goes without saying that comapnies that make less money in the upcoming year will generally not see their stock prices thrive.

Rambling Comments:

• HURC actually dropped below $36. It was not time for a MFI buy for me, but I bought some HURC outside of MFI.
• QCOR is a stock I think will get added to new Russell 3000 index in June, I bought some outside MFI as well.
• I am going back to the basics on my MFI investments. I will be making purchases in tranches of 5 at regular intervals and will be focusing on stocks greater than $1b market cap. I started on May 22nd with TRA, AEO, MHP, RHI and ACN. I figure it'll take me a year to transition to that approach. I don't know that I'll always go greater than $1b, but until I see M&A activity picking up in the small caps, I think I'll keep my holdings minimized.
• I have done very well the past 3-4 weeks, but still have a long road to travel to get to breakeven, let alone get to the benchmarks.