Little Pop

GNW has had a very muted pop from the announcement in the WSJ that they were filing to IPO Australian Mortgage business.  Looking back at the historical price action for GNW, it seems to me likely the market has know about this for at least a month. I suspect it is pretty hard to keep secret and GNW actually stated in their 10K the intent to do so in 2014.

On March 3rd, GNW closed at 15.28. Then between March 3rd and April 3rd, it went up almost $3 (to $18.23). I do not recall any major news in that stretch. Other life insurers, such as LNC, were pretty flat in that same time span.  So I think the muted pop today is because the pop happened steadily over the past month. I still love the spin off and think it will provide GNW the capital to buy back shares or initiate a dividend, both of which would be positive catalysts.

I have been semi active on the sell side today. I sold 20% of my LMNS at 10.45. That was a 13% hit! but I wanted to reduce my risk. That being said, GS, CS and WFC came out today with buy and outperform ratings. This should not be a disaster stock (check out VJET, I bought at $22, sold at $24 and then watched it "jet" to above $60... Now it is under $21!). LMNS has a decent earnings stream and if first quarter earnings show anything positive, the stock should move up. So I am convincing myself to hold the rest. That being said, LMNS right now is my third worst stock EVER as far as dollars lost. Rare company with some past investing disasters I do not care to divulge today.

I did also sell my CTCM from my dividend portfolio. I made a quick 6% in under a month (on a largish holding). But I wanted more cash and I was still a bit worried about the "p" factors (Politics).

Finally - UConn defeats Kentucky to win NCAA Championship!