Another Week in the Books

July is done, fini. My portfolio continues to stride up, here is my graph since I started 3+ years ago. As a reminder, the magenta line is my portoflio, the blue and black lines are the benchmarks Russell 2000 and Russell 3000:


It has been a wild ride, no matter how you invested. I had to laugh today, there was so much coverage of the "Cash for Clunkers" program. I laugh because the overall stimulus package was $700b and CFC was a meager $1b. Why don't they cover the programs around the other $699b? And then they actually have analysts on TV telling you how you can make money in investments regarding CFC... call me a cynic.

I will likely be buying some stocks on Monday as I try to use my mechanical portfolio for clues. It does look like it has been an active week for shake-ups on the lists, so I should have some names to pick from... I'll probably buy three or four to replace VM and ICO which were sold this week. If I ran the screen today I'd get a lot of choices. On the top 30 screen I'd get LO, BR and CBI. On the top 50 screen I'd get CBZ, CBI, DRC, JEC, and WTW.

Hmmm, some interesting names there. I'd certainly be interested in people's thoughts if I go for three or four.

LO - obviously a cigarrette company. They pay a terrific 5% dividend and just had a bang-up quarter.
BR - I owned them last year and was sorry I sold them. They seem like a very solid choice. They announce earnings on August 11th and have generally been bullish despite the financial turmoil.
CBI - I discussed them earlier this week. They look like a strong contender.
CBZ - Hmm, I have never heard of them. They look like BBSI, providing business services fro small companies. Their data is as of March 31st, but they just announced earnings this week, so I'll have to see if they are still worthy.
DRC - heck, if KBR was on, why not DRC? (these are both spin-offs from Halliburton). They just announced their earnings this week (and are part of the calc) and it looks to me like they had a surprisingly good quarter.
JEC - another of the many construction firms (like KBR and FLR) on the screen of late. I have noticed that their stock has gone nowhere in past 3 months, this is strange as KBR is up 30% and FLR is up 40%. What gives? Is JEC now undervalued or is there something wrong with them?
WTW - Finally, weight watchers, which was actually profiled in Barrons the other day as a buy. I saw where their competitor, NTRI got crushed this week. But WTW has a different model that doesn't require a large upfront cash payment. They also have a 2.7% dividend. I'll certainly give WTW some weighty consideration.

Thoughts? I'll post the official list of options on Sunday.