Saturday, February 23, 2013

February 24th 2012 Monthly Tracking Portfolio

February 24th 2012 Monthly Tracking Portfolio

 Another month has zipped by. As my faithful readers know, I have been tracking the Magic Formula Stocks as described by Joel Greenblatt in The Little Book That Beats the Stock Market since January 2006.  Every month I take the top 50 stocks over $100m market cap from his website and track how that portfolio of stocks fares versus the Russell 3000 for the next 12 months.  It has been an uphill struggle as the tracking portfolios have under-performed, driven in part by Chinese reverse merger fiascos, for-profit education stocks and home health care stocks all being proverbial albatrosses. 

This month-end was sadly no different, going up a solid 8.7%, but still getting thrashed by the R3K, which was up a more solid 13.3%!  Here are the 50 stocks in descending performance order:

Stock  Initial Price   End Price  Percent Change 52 week low  Mkt Cap 
CRAY                7.83           19.10 143.9%         6.55           285
ASTX                1.96             3.17 61.7%         1.57           182
DLX              24.48           38.80 58.5%        21.40         1,278
HRB              15.60           24.45 56.7%        14.35         4,722
ESIC                4.70             7.25 54.3%  N/A            149
OSIR                4.86             7.27 49.6%         4.47           159
GTIV                8.02           11.55 44.0%         5.13           243
ARTC              26.43           35.76 35.3%        24.13           706
PRX              37.28           50.00 34.1%  N/A          1,350
MRX              33.54           43.98 31.1%  N/A          2,041
MDF                8.71           11.26 29.3%         7.22           365
VIAB              46.44           58.80 26.6%        35.13       25,787
UIS              18.97           23.70 24.9%        14.40           832
PRSC              14.97           18.07 20.7%         9.56           196
NVMI                7.87             9.46 20.2%         6.82           201
ATVI              11.95           14.24 19.2%        10.45       13,902
KLAC              46.31           54.90 18.5%        43.21         8,095
PDLI                5.91             7.00 18.4%         6.02           894
USNA              38.44           45.43 18.2%        30.51           575
GME              22.05           25.33 14.9%        15.32         3,223
KFY              16.46           18.80 14.2%        12.10           797
NEMFF                8.69             9.84 13.2%  N/A          1,021
NOC              58.39           66.04 13.1%        56.59       15,137
FRX              32.29           36.41 12.8%        31.28         8,551
CJES              21.87           24.46 11.8%        16.15         1,174
RTN              48.99           54.05 10.3%        49.03       17,420
CSCO              19.68           21.11 7.2%        14.96     108,797
XLS              10.23           10.84 6.0%         9.01         1,949
VECO              28.83           30.13 4.5%        26.15         1,138
AMED              11.99           12.47 4.0%         9.51           346
PWER                4.67             4.77 2.1%         3.51           492
SNDK              49.14           50.06 1.9%        30.99       11,738
TNAV                7.47             7.52 0.7%         5.05           304
KLIC              11.24           11.23 -0.1%         8.05           822
SAI              12.09           11.75 -2.8%        10.31         4,351
EGY                8.48             8.13 -4.1%         6.88           484
DLB              34.49           31.67 -8.2%        28.66         4,197
MSFT              30.56           27.87 -8.8%        26.26     262,943
AFAM              23.17           20.80 -10.2%        17.87           226
USMO              13.27           11.40 -14.1%        10.34           311
NSU                4.16             3.45 -17.1%         2.68           853
DELL              17.15           13.83 -19.4%         8.69       31,233
VPHM              31.74           25.32 -20.2%        19.02         2,196
CPLA              41.45           32.60 -21.4%        25.81           576
MANT              33.56           25.93 -22.7%        19.74         1,283
MPAA                8.40             5.73 -31.8%         3.96           105
GTAT                9.02             3.39 -62.4%         2.82         1,110
APOL              52.14           19.13 -63.3%        18.36         6,601
CECO              11.93             4.07 -65.9%         2.51           875
ESI              74.21           18.78 -74.7%        11.69         1,890

Needless to say, with three For Profit Education Stocks bringing up the rear, this feels like

same song,
second verse,
a little bit louder,
a whole lot worse!

Here is a listing of every monthly portfolio I have tracked:

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 -2.9% 10.4%
11/26/2010 -8.5% 1.4%
1/3/2011 -11.4% 0.1%
1/28/2011 -7.6% 4.9%
2/25/2011 -5.5% 5.0%
3/24/2011 -4.4% 7.4%
4/21/2011 -16.0% 3.2%
5/27/2011 -12.0% -0.4%
6/24/2011 -9.5% 5.0%
7/29/2011 -4.3% 8.1%
8/26/2011 12.0% 21.6%
9/30/2011 23.5% 29.6%
10/28/2011 0.4% 11.5%
11/25/2011 13.9% 24.0%
12/29/2011 9.9% 15.9%
1/27/2012 7.4% 16.6%
2/24/2012 8.7% 13.3%
3/23/2012 4.7% 10.9%
4/27/2012 4.2% 10.3%
5/25/2012 14.3% 17.5%
6/22/2012 15.8% 16.3%
7/27/2012 10.6% 11.9%
8/24/2012 5.8% 9.7%
9/28/2012 5.9% 7.2%
10/26/2012 10.1% 9.1%
11/23/2012 11.0% 9.0%
12/31/2012 7.4% 6.7%
1/25/2013 1.1% 1.1%

You will note the sad fact that this is the 26th straight portfolio to lose (that is hard to do... it ain't random) and remarkably the next 7 open portfolios are trailing as well.  Maybe we should buy a dartboard instead of using this?  Or maybe we should SHORT all these stocks?  Hmmm.  If you go back and see my posts the last few months, the words don't change... just the count.

Subsets

I also keep 2 subsets of the larger portfolios:  (1) dividend stocks (those with a yield per Yahoo of at least 2.6%) and (2) new stocks (those new to the tracking portfolios in past 12 months.  The dividend portfolio was decent, up about 8.6%.  The new portfolio was just okay, up 6.6%.  Finally, I like to track cash as it is more "honest" than percentages as if you go up by 25% and then down by 25%, that is a different result than up by 5% then down by 5%.  So I track what you would have to day if you had spread $100,000 over the first twelve portfolios evenly.

Category Value
Total   122,778
Total New   119,144
Total Dividend   273,540
Total Russell 3K   137,287

As you will note, buying"new" stocks has not been a winning play, but dividend/mfi stocks continue to do well. They were up 20% from February 2012:

Stock Initial Price End Price Percent Change Yield
DLX 24.48 39.66 62% 4.1%
HRB 15.6 24.66 58% 4.2%
PDLI 5.91 7.03 19% 10.2%
KLAC 46.31 54.78 18% 2.8%
NOC 58.39 65.97 13% 14.3%
RTN 48.99 54.44 11% 3.5%
MSFT 30.56 27.76 -9% 2.6%
USMO 13.27 11.66 -12% 7.5%

DLX has been on fire!

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