Tracking Portfolio Jan 25 09

As my 20 faithful readers know, I create a tracking portfolio of the 50 stocks greater than 100m once a month and hypothetically hold them for a year. I have been doing this since Jan 2006, so I am starting year #4! This weekend, the January 25 2009 portfolio came of age. Guess what? It is the best one ever! The old record was +50.9% (nov 08), but Jan 09 was up on average by 59.3%! Don't etch the record in granite though, as Feb and Mar 09 may beat it.

I also track each portfolio versus the Russell 3000 held for the same period. This was a whooping, with the Russell only up about 36%. The winning streak is now stretched to 10 straight closed tracking portfolio, beating the Russell 3000 by an average of 11.8 points. In addition, the 11 open portfolios are all also beating the Russell 3000 by 12.2 points.

A couple of other benchmarks: if you take my average top 50 mechanical portfolio since the start of it

(2 years ago), the average stock is up 21.4%
versus 0.7% for S&P 500... the average of the
24 tracking portfolios over the same time is 10.8%.

Finally, I actually have created a monthly tracking portfolio that is "mechanical" in that it only uses stocks that are in the monthly tracking portfolio that haven't been in the monthly tracking portfolio the past 12 months... so "new" stocks.

Over the past two years, they are up on average 16.3%

Okay, enough idle chatter. Let us look at the 50 record setting stocks. It is safe to say you could have thrown a rock and hit a winner a year ago.

Date	1/23/2009
	Data
Stock	Start Price	Final Price	Pct Change
BARE	3.76	18.12	381.9%
CTCM	4.00	14.68	267.0%
MSO	2.15	5.13	138.6%
COH	14.29	34.04	138.2%
HLF	19.37	41.28	113.1%
CF	46.51	96.13	106.7%
DHX	2.91	5.96	104.8%
TRA	15.95	32.56	104.1%
PRO	4.52	8.76	93.8%
GRMN	17.29	33.42	93.3%
GTLS	9.30	17.57	88.9%
MTW	6.34	11.54	82.0%
HSII	15.18	26.68	75.8%
NTRI	13.59	23.84	75.4%
MHP	19.65	33.26	69.3%
MSB	9.11	15.25	67.4%
trlg	11.90	19.85	66.8%
MOS	35.39	58.63	65.7%
MRX	13.98	23.09	65.2%
MWW	9.69	15.88	63.9%
DAR	4.86	7.90	62.6%
VCLK	6.04	9.63	59.4%
UEPS	11.51	18.30	59.0%
LOOP	6.24	9.91	58.8%
CSKI	12.03	18.77	56.0%
ADSK	16.26	25.10	54.4%
KFY	9.62	14.55	51.2%
MLHR	11.39	16.81	47.6%
ELOS	6.98	10.11	44.8%
VRGY	8.33	11.70	40.5%
KG	8.91	12.33	38.4%
OPTV	1.11	1.52	36.9%
DELL	10.14	13.64	34.5%
PPD	30.81	41.21	33.8%
KBR	14.89	19.89	33.6%
FWLT	23.40	31.02	32.6%
SHFK.PK	15.25	19.50	27.9%
KHD	10.57	13.47	27.4%
TTWO	7.46	9.29	24.5%
USMO	8.97	10.88	21.3%
EME	20.72	24.55	18.5%
ELNK	7.07	8.16	15.4%
PBT	13.03	15.03	15.3%
WFR	13.64	13.19	-3.3%
HCKT	2.65	2.53	-4.5%
VPHM	12.37	10.32	-16.6%
SCMP	5.04	3.61	-28.4%
MAXY	8.50	5.53	-34.9%
EGY	7.20	4.36	-39.4%
PACR	8.63	3.31	-61.6%
Grand Total	598.50	941.79	59.3%

Date	1/23/2009
New	1
	Data
Stock	Start Price	Final Price	Pct Change
DHX	2.91	5.96	104.8%
PRO	4.52	8.76	93.8%
MOS	35.39	58.63	65.7%
ADSK	16.26	25.10	54.4%
Grand Total	59.08	98.45	79.7%

If you are wondering, the "new" stocks in that portfolio were


Finally, here is a summary of all the tracking portfolios, all 4 years:

Average of Percent Change
Date	Total	IWV
1/6/2006	16.0%	10.9%
2/17/2006	21.2%	14.6%
3/29/2006	13.0%	9.6%
4/7/2006	10.3%	12.1%
5/12/2006	20.4%	18.6%
5/31/2006	29.2%	23.3%
6/30/2006	22.4%	20.0%
7/31/2006	19.7%	17.3%
8/31/2006	13.0%	13.3%
9/28/2006	12.7%	14.6%
10/27/2006	10.3%	12.0%
11/29/2006	-0.3%	4.8%
12/28/2006	-6.9%	3.4%
1/26/2007	-10.2%	-6.6%
2/27/2007	-3.7%	-1.0%
3/26/2007	-9.8%	-5.5%
4/27/2007	-10.9%	-5.0%
5/29/2007	-11.5%	-6.3%
7/3/2007	-30.0%	-15.6%
7/30/2007	-19.9%	-11.5%
8/30/2007	-12.5%	-8.7%
9/27/2007	-19.0%	-18.2%
11/2/2007	-40.4%	-34.3%
11/28/2007	-40.1%	-38.3%
12/28/2007	-36.3%	-40.0%
1/25/2008	-36.4%	-35.9%
2/26/2008	-51.7%	-41.5%
3/24/2008	-40.9%	-36.8%
4/25/2008	-25.6%	-31.0%
5/28/2008	-22.2%	-33.6%
7/2/2008	-11.7%	-25.3%
7/29/2008	-10.5%	-20.9%
8/29/2008	-13.8%	-17.9%
9/26/2008	-4.3%	-10.0%
10/31/2008	18.7%	13.9%
11/26/2008	50.9%	27.7%
12/26/2008	48.9%	32.3%
1/23/2009	59.3%	36.4%
2/27/2009	86.3%	53.4%
3/27/2009	66.0%	38.0%
4/24/2009	41.5%	29.0%
5/29/2009	26.9%	20.8%
6/29/2009	20.6%	19.9%
7/29/2009	18.4%	13.4%
8/28/2009	11.2%	7.2%
9/25/2009	7.2%	5.1%
10/30/2009	11.4%	6.7%
11/27/2009	7.4%	1.3%
12/31/2009	0.6%	-1.9%
Grand Total	3.7%	0.7%

As readers may recall, the simple average of 3.7%, really doesn't tell the story unless you put in the same $ each month (this is because down 50% and then up 50% might average 0%, but in reality you'd still be down 25%, so volatility hurts). I track where you would be if you took $100,000 the first year and spread it over the first 12 portfolios then rolled forward... more realistic as the way we invest. You would be a hair under breakeven at 99,950. The Russell 3000 would be at 91,880:

	MFI	Russell 3000
	8,500	8,500
	8,500	8,500
	8,500	8,500
	8,500	8,500
	8,500	8,500
	8,500	8,500
	8,500	8,500
	8,500	8,500
	8,500	8,500
	8,500	8,500
	8,500	8,500
	8,500	8,500
	8,500	8,500
1/6/2006	9,667	9,243
2/17/2006	10,102	9,549
3/29/2006	9,416	9,133
4/7/2006	9,188	9,346
5/12/2006	10,029	9,884
5/31/2006	10,769	10,275
6/30/2006	10,202	10,002
7/31/2006	9,974	9,771
8/31/2006	9,414	9,444
9/28/2006	9,393	9,553
10/27/2006	9,188	9,336
11/29/2006	8,305	8,734
12/28/2006	8,998	9,561
1/26/2007	9,072	8,918
2/27/2007	9,067	9,046
3/26/2007	8,283	8,827
4/27/2007	8,940	9,387
5/29/2007	9,532	9,632
7/3/2007	7,140	8,446
7/30/2007	7,985	8,646
8/30/2007	8,241	8,623
9/27/2007	7,604	7,818
11/2/2007	5,480	6,135
11/28/2007	4,971	5,391
12/28/2007	5,734	5,739
1/25/2008	5,772	5,719
2/26/2008	4,375	5,292
3/24/2008	4,896	5,576
4/25/2008	6,655	6,479
5/28/2008	7,413	6,400
7/2/2008	6,303	6,311
7/29/2008	7,149	6,843
8/29/2008	7,105	7,075
9/26/2008	7,274	7,036
10/31/2008	6,505	6,986
11/26/2008	7,500	6,882
12/26/2008	8,536	7,593
1/23/2009	9,198	7,801
2/27/2009	8,150	8,117
3/27/2009	8,129	7,697
4/24/2009	9,419	8,356
5/29/2009	9,408	7,729
6/29/2009	7,599	7,568
7/29/2009	8,461	7,757
8/28/2009	7,899	7,586
9/25/2009	7,796	7,393
10/30/2009	7,244	7,451
11/27/2009	8,057	6,974
12/31/2009	8,589	7,451
	99,950	91,881