Easier to Give Advice

Giving Advice Versus Taking Advice

Well,  looks like I will not be going to work today as New England braces for Winter Storm Nemo.  Nothing outside my Connecticut home yet, but they are saying it may e one for the record books.  The biggest dump Hartford has ever gotten is 24 inches, I think we have a chance.  Of course that was just two years ago... don't know about everyone else, but these one in a hundred year storms seems to be happening with greater frequency.

Back in early August 2012, I was writing about getting back into MFI.  I wrote a blog (MFI Diary: Gut Check) that listed the top 50 options sorted by dividend yield.  I have preached here hundreds of times about how MFI stocks with 2.5% yield or higher have out-performed.  Yet I have never fully taken my own advice.

Here is my quote from August 3rd: "There were/are some pretty out-of-favor securities on the list. I have to confess, I would have to hold my nose a bit to buy this group of stocks"

I thought it would be fun to see how that group of stocks has done, basically 1/2 a year later.

Ticker	Mcap	Current Dividend	Price	Yield at Purchase	Initial Price	Change
GNI	105	14.00	85.38	20.5%	68.40	24.8%
PDLI	927	0.60	7.16	7.9%	6.68	7.2%
PETS	195	0.60	13.25	5.7%	9.50	39.5%
STRA	862	4.00	62.31	5.7%	69.98	-11.0%
HRB	4,674	0.80	24.49	4.6%	15.60	57.0%
STX	11,737	1.28	35.44	4.0%	29.96	18.3%
SAI	3,981	0.48	12.38	3.9%	11.44	8.2%
MANT	773	0.84	25.03	4.7%	20.25	23.6%
GME	2,121	0.60	25.91	2.8%	15.75	64.5%
RTN	18,230	2.00	55.11	3.4%	54.28	1.5%
NSU	678	0.10	4.13	2.2%	3.33	24.0%
JCOM	1,356	0.86	31.81	3.0%	29.55	7.6%
MSFT	246,485	0.80	27.71	2.5%	29.19	-5.1%

Pretty eye-opening, up an average of 20%.  Even GNI which is a trust that will be winding down, has done well. To put that in perspective, my August 15th MFI tranche is up 10.9% and the R3K is up 9.6%.  Pretty thought-provoking. I did pick MSFT and NSO from this list then, but would have done better with many other names.

Have a learned a lesson?  It is so easy to convince yourself that you are smarter than a system.  That you can improve on it by applying your "brain power". I probably get in my own way as much as anything!

More later, I have no where to go!