January 31st 2014 Tracking Portfolio + Investing Thoughts

First, as my readers know I started on end of Friday a new Monthly tracking portfolio.  It is simply from the official website, using the top 50 stocks > 100m.  Here are the dividend stocks:

Stock	Initial Price	52 week low	Mkt Cap	Yield
AGX	28.41	13.90	403	2.6%
BAH	18.28	12.51	2,641	7.6%
BKE	44.32	42.08	2,142	4.5%
CA	32.09	23.98	14,221	3.1%
COH	47.89	45.87	13,271	2.7%
CSCO	21.91	19.98	117,832	3.1%
GME	35.07	23.36	4,075	3.1%
IQNT	11.60	2.80	373	12.4%
LO	49.22	37.95	18,162	4.5%
MANT	29.10	23.20	1,082	2.9%
MO	35.22	33.12	70,210	5.2%
NATR	16.27	13.30	264	11.7%
PDLI	9.10	6.74	1,543	6.6%
PETS	13.23	12.24	267	4.8%
RAI	48.50	42.46	26,240	5.1%
RGR	76.17	44.76	1,474	2.8%
UNTD	12.11	6.71	161	4.5%
USMO	14.26	11.10	309	3.5%
VCI	34.00	23.69	1,307	3.6%

As I often warn, I generally just use dividend yields from Yahoo Finance.  You have to be 2.6% or greater to make the cut. Some of these are not really accurate, for example NATR clearly includes a special dividend.  So do your own research.

Here are the "new" stocks to the list in the past year:

Stock	Initial Price	52 week low	Mkt Cap
SPRT	2.70	2.67	157
SCSS	16.37	16.10	904
SNDK	69.55	48.88	15,666
NSR	33.89	33.19	2,067

I guess I bought one of these (SNDK).  I did also consider NSR.

Finally, I wanted to share an insightful article on investing that I found yesterday (Walter Schloss' 16 Factors Needed to Make Money). You can read through it yourselves.  Some words to invest by:

"Have patience.  Stocks don't go up immediately." 

"Don't buy on tips or for a quick move.  Let the professionals do that, if they can.  Don't sell on bad news."


"Have the courage of your convictions once you have made a decision."

"Don't be in too much of a hurry to sell.  If the stock reaches a price that you think is a fair one, then you can sell but often because a stock goes up say 50%, people say sell it and button up your profit.  Before selling try to reevaluate the company again and see where the stock sells in relation to its book value.  Be aware of the level of the stock market.  Are yields low and P-E ratios high.  If the stock market historically high.  Are people very optimistic etc?"

Wow - just re-reading these gives me goose bumps.  He is so right - notice the focus on patience and conviction.  I may start posting these regularly as a reminder.