Saturday, October 01, 2011

September 24th 2010 Tracking Portfolio

Another Tracking Portfolio Loses

I closed the September 24th 2010 tracking portfolio today. It is a week late , but trust me... that didn't make any difference. As a reminder, I create a tracking portfolio of 50 stocks > $100m every month and hypothetically hold them for a year. I have been doing this since January 2006.

The portfolio lost to the Russell 3000 going down 4.3% vs the benchmark gain of 0.3%. That makes it the nineth straight portfolio to close behind the benchmark. To make matters worse, all 11 open portfolios are also trailing. One can seriously question whether the MFI approach is working. Here is the listing of stocks followed by how all portfolios have fared:

Stock Initial Price End Price Percent Change 52 week low Mkt Cap
PRM 3.41 7.10 108% N/A 157
GXDX 13.92 25.00 80% N/A 240
TNAV 5.33 8.87 66% 4.80 225
IDCC 28.50 46.58 63% 28.90 1,232
CNU 3.97 6.38 61% 3.36 235
AHCI 2.45 3.84 57% 2.08 106
CBST 23.55 35.32 50% 20.81 1,381
CNXT 1.67 2.40 44% N/A 132
LO 77.18 110.70 43% 72.40 12,178
MRX 29.73 36.48 23% 24.97 1,719
AGX 8.41 10.18 21% 7.98 113
VPHM 15.13 18.07 19% 14.28 1,079
PDLI 4.76 5.55 17% 4.66 616
JCOM 23.72 26.90 13% 24.45 1,033
SNDK 35.85 40.36 13% 32.24 8,223
SNTS 2.62 2.79 6% 2.40 151
HRB 12.52 13.31 6% 10.13 3,930
PPD 64.48 66.50 3% N/A 624
DLX 18.05 18.60 3% 17.50 914
MSFT 24.78 24.89 0% 23.65 211,759
IMMU 3.22 3.20 -1% 2.85 241
FRX 31.35 30.79 -2% 29.23 8,843
UNTD 5.42 5.23 -4% 4.80 490
USMO 14.22 13.20 -7% 12.29 343
RTN 44.36 40.87 -8% 38.76 16,834
IPXL 19.45 17.91 -8% 14.46 1,204
ASTX 2.11 1.92 -9% 1.79 126
GTAT 8.01 7.02 -12% 6.65 1,109
EME 24.41 20.33 -17% 20.18 1,575
SNTA 3.91 3.25 -17% 3.23 150
APOL 50.53 39.61 -22% 33.75 7,493
ZLCS 1.27 0.98 -23% 0.92 108
TNDM 12.93 9.68 -25% 9.02 423
ELNK 8.73 6.53 -25% 6.52 964
PRSC 15.04 10.65 -29% 8.35 195
LHCG 24.75 17.06 -31% 15.76 438
KIRK 13.91 9.17 -34% 7.69 261
TSRA 18.26 11.94 -35% 11.83 882
CECO 20.38 13.05 -36% 12.95 1,769
CSGS 20.65 12.64 -39% 12.35 714
OSK 26.95 15.74 -42% 15.65 2,368
UIS 27.88 15.69 -44% 15.13 1,135
AMED 26.89 14.82 -45% 12.64 788
AFAM 30.74 16.63 -46% 15.14 280
CRME 6.10 3.29 -46% 3.21 364
FSYS 38.70 19.21 -50% 17.22 674
DRWI 6.90 3.30 -52% 3.16 248
ARO 23.40 10.81 -54% 10.09 2,156
COCO 6.30 1.55 -75% 1.55 573
GTIV 22.80 5.52 -76% 5.13 683

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 92.8% 55.6%
3/27/2009 85.8% 48.1%
4/24/2009 69.7% 45.8%
5/29/2009 31.8% 22.8%
6/29/2009 21.3% 24.0%
7/29/2009 19.5% 15.9%
8/28/2009 7.4% 8.8%
9/25/2009 12.6% 12.4%
10/30/2009 22.7% 18.3%
11/27/2009 24.3% 13.6%
12/31/2009 23.7% 18.1%
1/22/2010 19.0% 20.6%
2/26/2010 18.6% 23.6%
3/25/2010 10.0% 15.4%
4/23/2010 7.1% 11.4%
5/28/2010 19.3% 25.4%
6/29/2010 16.7% 25.7%
7/29/2010 5.4% 20.1%
9/2/2010 7.3% 10.1%
9/24/2010 -4.3% 0.3%
10/29/2010 -15.4% -3.2%
11/26/2010 -11.3% -4.3%
1/3/2011 -18.1% -10.8%
1/28/2011 -20.2% -11.0%
2/25/2011 -19.6% -14.3%
3/24/2011 -20.2% -13.9%
4/21/2011 -23.7% -15.9%
5/27/2011 -21.5% -15.8%
6/24/2011 -19.1% -11.7%
7/29/2011 -21.0% -12.9%
8/26/2011 -10.0% -3.9%
Grand Total 2.8% 2.4%
Closed 7.0% 4.8%
Open -18.2% -18.2%

Special Portfolios

As people may know, I also track two special sub-portfolios. One is called "new" and only has stocks that have not been in a tracking portfolio in the prior 12 months. The second is called "dividend" and only picks stocks with at least a dividend of 2.6% (per Yahoo Finance). The dividend portfolio continues to way out perform (it was up 14% and is beating the Russell in 11 of the open 11 portfolios).

Stock Initial Price End Price Percent Change
DLX 18.05 18.60 3%
ELNK 8.73 6.53 -25%
HRB 12.52 13.31 6%
LO 77.18 110.70 43%
PDLI 4.76 5.55 17%
PRM 3.41 7.10 108%
RTN 44.36 40.87 -8%
UNTD 5.42 5.23 -4%
USMO 14.22 13.20 -7%

The "new" portfolio has been pretty poor. It was down 18% in the past year and the average open positions are down a poor 21%.

In addition, I do like to track performance solely using percentages. This is because a portfolio that goes up50% one year and down 50% the next leaves you at a worse absolute $ amount than one that goes up 5% and then down 5%. The chart below shows how much money you'd have if you spread $100,000 evenly over the first 12 months:

Category Value
Total 98,981
Total New 93,489
Total Dividend 197,077
Total Russell 3K 99,313

So while the first table showed that MFI is "beating" the Russell 3000, this table shows we have been losing do to the greater volatility. The standard deviation (a measure of spread) between all the monthly tracking portfolios is about 33%, versus 25% for the Russell 3000.

For those of you playing along at home, here are the dividend stocks in the 9/30/2011 portfolio:

Stock Initial Price Yield
USMO 13.20 15.2%
STRA 76.67 5.2%
PETS 9.00 5.6%
PDLI 5.55 8.1%
MDP 22.64 4.4%
LPS 13.69 2.9%
KLAC 38.28 2.9%
DLX 18.60 5.4%
CMTL 28.09 3.6%
CHKE 12.85 7.6%
HRB 13.31 4.5%
AMAT 10.36 2.9%

Then here are the new stocks:

Stock Initial Price
VG 2.60
DV 36.96

Have a great weekend everyone!

Late Addendum: I saw that MSFT wasn't in the dividend list. That is because their trailing dividend was 64 cents which is a hair under my 2.6% screen. However, they just increased their dividend to 80 cents, so I have over-ridden and added them to list for September 30th 2011.

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