Tuesday, December 31, 2013

12/31/2012 Monthly Tracking Portfolio

December 31st 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.

 Fearless readers will recall we had a 29 month "losing streak"..  This month-end extended the winning streak to 7! It went up an excellent 52.3 %,stomping the R3K, which was up a less excellent 33.3%! Here are the 50 stocks in descending performance order (just a stunning list of successes this month):

Stock  Initial Price   End Price  Percent Change  52 week low   Mkt Cap 
NUS              36.38         138.22 279.9%                36.85         2,179
GTAT                3.03             8.72 187.6%                 2.61           360
SAVE              17.73           45.41 156.1%                17.40         1,286
HLF              32.17           78.70 144.6%                30.84         3,554
CPLA              28.08           66.44 136.6%                26.96           361
PBI              10.03           23.30 132.3%                10.71         2,136
USNA              32.93           75.58 129.5%                32.03           477
QCOR              26.23           54.45 107.6%                24.75         1,562
GME              24.34           49.26 102.4%                22.30         3,033
POZN                5.01             9.79 95.4%                 4.26           152
UIS              17.30           33.57 94.0%                15.68           759
ESI              17.31           33.58 94.0%                11.69           404
WCRX              11.89           22.93 92.9%                10.85         3,016
STX              29.59           56.16 89.8%                30.26       11,741
RPXC                9.04           16.90 86.9%                 9.10           475
JCOM              29.91           50.01 67.2%                30.49         1,379
DLX              31.47           52.19 65.8%                32.32         1,641
RTN              56.15           90.70 61.5%                52.24       18,995
SAI              10.28           16.35 59.0%                  N/A          3,871
AGX              17.37           27.56 58.7%                13.90           251
CA              21.22           33.65 58.6%                22.25         9,977
PETS              10.61           16.63 56.7%                11.01           222
LPS              24.30           37.38 53.8%                21.23         2,085
BAH              12.88           19.15 48.7%                12.51         1,888
MSFT              25.93           37.41 44.3%                26.28     224,949
VG                2.37             3.33 40.5%                 2.30           528
DELL                9.97           13.86 39.0%                 8.69       17,583
VCI              24.69           34.25 38.7%                23.69         1,009
NATR              13.02           17.32 33.0%                13.30           228
DLB              29.33           38.56 31.5%                29.29         3,024
APOL              20.92           27.32 30.6%                15.98         2,348
PDLI                6.54             8.44 29.1%                 6.50         1,335
USMO              11.26           14.28 26.8%                11.10           254
MANT              25.14           29.93 19.1%                23.20           960
CSCO              19.22           22.43 16.7%                19.98     104,358
GNI              58.55           68.10 16.3%                61.50           101
CF            201.02         233.04 15.9%              169.33       12,772
HFC              43.60           49.69 14.0%                38.98         9,475
TZOO              18.99           21.32 12.3%                18.60           300
KLIC              11.99           13.30 10.9%                10.08           889
NTI              22.27           24.60 10.5%                17.83           468
DMRC              20.30           19.26 -5.1%                17.85           148
INTX                8.72             7.79 -10.7%                 7.15           171
TNAV                7.99             6.59 -17.5%                 4.91           329
NSU                4.08             3.32 -18.6%                 2.65           851
EGY                8.65             6.89 -20.3%                 5.03           500
IDCC              40.78           29.49 -27.7%                28.53         1,682
SVLC                2.52             1.68 -33.3%                 1.13           226
STRA              56.17           34.47 -38.6%                33.64           667
POOSF                1.42                -   -100.0%                     -             114

This is the first tracking portfolio in decades (ok maybe not that long) where the For profit Education Stocks were NOT a drag.  The 4 of them were up on average by a whopping 71%. And there were six stocks up 100% or more (including GTAT).  I do think things are continuing to change.  You can see that in the next table!

Here is a listing of every 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 7.8% 13.3%
3/23/2012 9.1% 15.2%
4/27/2012 10.5% 15.3%
5/25/2012 26.5% 27.5%
6/22/2012 26.1% 24.6%
7/27/2012 30.4% 25.7%
8/24/2012 26.0% 19.8%
9/28/2012 39.3% 22.1%
10/26/2012 48.3% 28.9%
11/23/2012 45.7% 32.1%
12/31/2012 52.3% 33.0%
1/25/2013 43.8% 26.0%
2/22/2013 41.7% 24.6%
3/28/2013 38.0% 20.0%
4/26/2013 29.9% 19.3%
5/24/2013 22.6% 14.3%
6/28/2013 22.8% 16.3%
7/29/2013 15.0% 11.0%
8/30/2013 13.5% 14.1%
9/27/2013 9.9% 9.5%
10/25/2013 4.3% 5.1%
11/29/2013 1.3% 2.8%

As noted, this is the seventh straight portfolio to win after 29 straight losses! (that is hard to do... it ain't random).  However 8 of the 11 open portfolios are leading the Russell 3000 (down from all 11 last month).

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 most excellent, up about 37.5%.  The new portfolio was solid okay, up 35.9%.  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   170,342
Total New   173,705
Total Dividend   389,604
Total Russell 3K   171,157


I am sure my eagle eyed readers have noted that the "Total" is now losing to the Russell 3000 total.  It has been a real back and forth of late.