Saturday, August 30, 2014

MFI Monthly Tracking Portfolio - August 30th, 2013

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.

Onward

 Fearless readers will recall we had a 29 month "losing streak"..  Then we had a 13 month winning streak.  I am disheartened to report that that we appear to be starting a new losing streak, as we lost for second straight month.. :( It wasn't close, up 17.5% versus 24.6% for R3K. Here are the 50 stocks in descending performance order:

Stock  Initial Price   End Price  Pct Chg  52 week low   Mkt Cap 
AGX              17.13           40.05 133.8%                17.81           248
PBI              15.84           27.06 70.8%                16.25         3,293
UTHR              70.91         117.83 66.2%                70.95         3,534
GTIV              11.47           18.07 57.5%                 7.35           359
IQNT                7.82           12.20 56.0%                 8.05           259
DLX              38.51           59.55 54.6%                38.12         1,983
CHE              68.99         105.61 53.1%                64.16         1,293
STRA              39.96           60.72 52.0%                33.51           434
AAPL              68.07         102.50 50.6%                63.89     442,608
APOL              18.57           27.77 49.5%                18.50         2,095
LO              40.48           59.70 47.5%                42.01       15,863
ATVI              16.16           23.54 45.7%                16.06       11,261
NOC              90.27         127.22 40.9%                92.32       21,296
MSFT              32.47           45.43 39.9%                30.95     278,155
MYGN              26.17           36.19 38.3%                20.02         2,304
EBIX              11.20           15.44 37.9%                 9.25           420
PDLI                7.42           10.09 36.0%                 7.38         1,346
RTN              73.50           96.34 31.1%                73.81       24,282
BAH              16.94           22.18 30.9%                16.61         2,817
CNVR              21.16           27.54 30.2%                18.62         1,572
TNAV                5.42             6.89 27.1%                 4.70           213
IDCC              35.07           44.37 26.5%                26.25         1,464
VCI              27.01           34.00 25.9%                N/A          1,071
FLR              62.78           73.89 17.7%                63.21       10,341
LPS              31.81           37.30 17.3%               N/A          2,721
AWRE                3.67             4.12 12.3%                 4.03           112
VG                3.12             3.45 10.6%                 2.99           659
CSCO              22.60           24.99 10.6%                20.22     122,797
SPOK              13.77           14.80 7.5%                12.58           306
CRUS              22.50           24.18 7.5%                16.81         1,428
CACI              67.40           72.12 7.0%                66.09         1,565
SAI              15.07           16.00 6.2%                N/A          5,154
CRTX                9.25             9.48 2.5%                 7.77           245
DHX                8.33             8.49 1.9%                 6.50           493
SWHC              10.94           11.07 1.2%                10.25           703
CA              28.31           28.24 -0.2%                27.84       13,179
RGR              50.68           50.41 -0.5%                48.37         1,013
MSB              19.60           19.32 -1.4%                18.49           275
NATR              16.88           16.45 -2.5%                12.91           279
PETS              14.53           14.08 -3.1%                12.13           307
RPXC              15.69           15.19 -3.2%                14.55           849
USNA              75.95           73.03 -3.8%                55.01         1,032
UIS              25.16           23.41 -7.0%                19.96         1,099
HLF              60.45           50.98 -15.7%                48.26         6,284
COH              51.36           36.83 -28.3%                33.39       14,887
WTW              35.77           24.69 -31.0%                19.09         2,019
LFVN                2.41             1.27 -47.3%                 1.10           273
GNI              52.63           23.80 -54.8%                16.80           106
INTX                8.66             3.50 -59.6%                 3.50           166
ESI              28.81             8.43 -70.7%                 7.46           673

I did find another site that has been tracking since 2006 this week.  It uses a different approach, just 5 stocks picked randomly every quarter. They have had better results than me (TrackJGreenblatt's Stock Picks). I found it very interesting and would encourage people to take a looksee.

AGX was number one, I am glad to report I have gotten to ride that wave personally. ESI, really took a nose dive recently.  GNI has been a real lead ("iron-ore") weight - as has weight watchers (too easy).

Here is a listing of every portfolio I have tracked:

Date MFI R3K Lead
1/6/2006 16.0% 10.9% 1
2/17/2006 21.2% 14.6% 1
3/29/2006 13.0% 9.6% 1
4/7/2006 10.3% 12.1% 0
5/12/2006 20.4% 18.6% 1
5/31/2006 29.2% 23.3% 1
6/30/2006 22.4% 20.0% 1
7/31/2006 19.7% 17.3% 1
8/31/2006 13.0% 13.3% 0
9/28/2006 12.7% 14.6% 0
10/27/2006 10.3% 12.0% 0
11/29/2006 -0.3% 4.8% 0
12/28/2006 -6.9% 3.4% 0
1/26/2007 -10.2% -6.6% 0
2/27/2007 -3.7% -1.0% 0
3/26/2007 -9.8% -5.5% 0
4/27/2007 -10.9% -5.0% 0
5/29/2007 -11.5% -6.3% 0
7/3/2007 -30.0% -15.6% 0
7/30/2007 -19.9% -11.5% 0
8/30/2007 -12.5% -8.7% 0
9/27/2007 -19.0% -18.2% 0
11/2/2007 -40.4% -34.3% 0
11/28/2007 -40.1% -38.3% 0
12/28/2007 -36.3% -40.0% 1
1/25/2008 -36.4% -35.9% 0
2/26/2008 -51.7% -41.5% 0
3/24/2008 -40.9% -36.8% 0
4/25/2008 -25.6% -31.0% 1
5/28/2008 -22.2% -33.6% 1
7/2/2008 -11.7% -25.3% 1
7/29/2008 -10.5% -20.9% 1
8/29/2008 -13.8% -17.9% 1
9/26/2008 -4.3% -10.0% 1
10/31/2008 18.7% 13.9% 1
11/26/2008 50.9% 27.7% 1
12/26/2008 48.9% 32.3% 1
1/23/2009 59.3% 36.4% 1
2/27/2009 92.8% 55.6% 1
3/27/2009 85.8% 48.1% 1
4/24/2009 69.7% 45.8% 1
5/29/2009 31.8% 22.8% 1
6/29/2009 21.3% 24.0% 0
7/29/2009 19.5% 15.9% 1
8/28/2009 7.4% 8.8% 0
9/25/2009 12.6% 12.4% 1
10/30/2009 22.7% 18.3% 1
11/27/2009 24.3% 13.6% 1
12/31/2009 23.7% 18.1% 1
1/22/2010 19.0% 20.6% 0
2/26/2010 18.6% 23.6% 0
3/25/2010 10.0% 15.4% 0
4/23/2010 7.1% 11.4% 0
5/28/2010 19.3% 25.4% 0
6/29/2010 16.7% 25.7% 0
7/29/2010 5.4% 20.1% 0
9/2/2010 7.3% 10.1% 0
9/24/2010 -4.3% 0.3% 0
10/29/2010 -2.9% 10.4% 0
11/26/2010 -8.5% 1.4% 0
1/3/2011 -11.4% 0.1% 0
1/28/2011 -7.6% 4.9% 0
2/25/2011 -5.5% 5.0% 0
3/24/2011 -4.4% 7.4% 0
4/21/2011 -16.0% 3.2% 0
5/27/2011 -12.0% -0.4% 0
6/24/2011 -9.5% 5.0% 0
7/29/2011 -4.3% 8.1% 0
8/26/2011 12.0% 21.6% 0
9/30/2011 23.5% 29.6% 0
10/28/2011 0.4% 11.5% 0
11/25/2011 13.9% 24.0% 0
12/29/2011 9.9% 15.9% 0
1/27/2012 7.4% 16.6% 0
2/24/2012 7.8% 13.3% 0
3/23/2012 9.1% 15.2% 0
4/27/2012 10.5% 15.3% 0
5/25/2012 26.5% 27.5% 0
6/22/2012 26.1% 24.6% 1
7/27/2012 30.4% 25.7% 1
8/24/2012 26.0% 19.8% 1
9/28/2012 39.3% 22.1% 1
10/26/2012 48.3% 28.9% 1
11/23/2012 45.7% 32.1% 1
12/31/2012 52.3% 33.0% 1
1/25/2013 39.5% 22.0% 1
2/22/2013 46.5% 26.4% 1
3/28/2013 40.1% 21.2% 1
4/26/2013 35.0% 20.5% 1
5/24/2013 20.4% 19.2% 1
6/28/2013 26.9% 24.1% 1
7/29/2013 17.8% 19.0% 0
8/30/2013 17.5% 24.6% 0
9/27/2013 15.6% 19.5% 0
10/25/2013 8.9% 14.7% 0
11/29/2013 7.3% 12.2% 0
12/31/2013 8.6% 9.1% 0
1/31/2014 12.6% 12.7% 0
2/28/2014 8.1% 7.7% 1
3/28/2014 1.2% 8.1% 0
4/25/2014 1.2% 8.0% 0
5/30/2014 2.1% 4.7% 0
6/27/2014 -1.4% 2.3% 0
7/25/2014 0.8% 1.8% 0

As noted, we recently ended a 13 month winning streak, which was proceeded by 29 straight months of lossest! (that is hard to do... it ain't random).  It is be a bad omen that the 10 of the 11 newest portfolios are all trailing.  Still some time to go.

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 just ok (relatively), up about 21%.  The new portfolio better, up 25% - as IQNT was up by 56%. 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     179,284
Total Russell 3K     186,811
New     186,265
Dividend     409,969
Have a great weekend everyone.