Saturday, May 30, 2015

May 29th, 2014 Monthly Tracking Portfolio

May 29th, 2014 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. This month, we had our third straight loss.  Too many bad stocks (PTIE, ESI, APOL, PFMT etc). Here are the 50 stocks in descending performance order:

Stock  Initial Price   End Price  Percent Change  52 week low   Mkt Cap 
EBIX              15.42           35.60 130.9%                12.12           600
USNA              71.91         128.09 78.1%                63.22         1,005
DEPO              11.93           20.86 74.9%                 9.85           689
CRUS              22.13           37.75 70.6%                16.80         1,371
AAPL              88.87         130.28 46.6%                88.93     545,485
CNVR              23.58           34.44 46.1%                22.21         1,579
CHE              87.39         124.19 42.1%                87.26         1,536
SAIC              37.82           53.00 40.1%                37.90         1,898
BRCD                9.00           12.37 37.4%                 8.89         3,971
NOC            119.79         159.18 32.9%              118.23       26,134
TTWO              20.63           27.37 32.7%                19.25         2,094
PETS              12.69           16.69 31.5%                12.07           269
IILG              20.08           26.02 29.6%                18.83         1,183
DNB            101.79         127.93 25.7%              101.77         3,820
IQNT              14.37           17.63 22.7%                10.06           485
CSCO              23.90           29.31 22.6%                22.49     125,956
BAH              20.73           25.35 22.3%                20.65         3,206
AGX              29.99           35.78 19.3%                28.62           438
MSFT              39.89           46.86 17.5%                39.86     338,164
SYNT              40.45           47.51 17.5%                38.75         3,378
DLX              55.01           63.83 16.0%                51.46         2,807
SPOK              15.42           17.35 12.5%                12.93           334
CA              27.76           30.45 9.7%                25.25       12,587
RTN              95.25         103.26 8.4%                89.17       30,481
MBUU              19.82           20.97 5.8%                16.16           219
TIME              21.50           22.51 4.7%                19.00         2,381
QCOR              89.83           93.60 4.2%                81.28         5,498
MYGN              33.16           33.95 2.4%                31.56         2,777
BKE              41.84           42.58 1.8%                40.54         2,170
KING              14.71           14.74 0.2%                10.68         5,147
NSR              28.02           27.32 -2.5%                20.32         1,721
CPLA              55.97           53.27 -4.8%                50.48           705
SWHC              15.88           14.71 -7.4%                 9.03           872
RGR              59.32           53.74 -9.4%                33.60         1,176
COH              39.30           35.37 -10.0%                32.72       11,299
UIS              23.47           20.54 -12.5%                18.72         1,200
STRA              54.64           45.83 -16.1%                43.95           592
BCOR              18.97           15.86 -16.4%                12.61           801
HLF              64.83           52.03 -19.7%                27.60         6,567
PDLI                8.73             6.68 -23.5%                 6.38         1,626
ONE                3.76             2.84 -24.5%                 2.15           178
NUS              71.65           50.60 -29.4%                38.12         4,357
LQDT              15.38             9.92 -35.5%                 7.32           496
SPRT                2.30             1.44 -37.4%                 1.35           123
APOL              26.80           16.58 -38.1%                16.05         3,005
LFVN                1.32             0.67 -49.4%                 0.60           137
PTIE                4.95             1.97 -60.2%                 1.61           226
PFMT                9.49             3.04 -68.0%                 2.33           460
WTW              20.83             5.48 -73.7%                 5.40         1,176
ESI              17.22             4.37 -74.6%                 1.93           402


I have mentioned that a "Dogs of MFI" approach has shown some promise.  LQDT and APOL are still on the list.  It would take some courage to buy any of those - but I guess that is why they are called dogs. 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.

Amazing that ESI went up 75% the very last day (May 29th) and still was the worst stock at down 74.6%!

This month we ended up just 5.9% versus 11.8%.  Not very good - explains why my June tranche is also trailing. It is noteworthy that the seven of these .

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 12.9% 17.7% 0
10/25/2013 11.8% 15.4% 0
11/29/2013 12.3% 15.6% 0
12/31/2013 12.7% 11.9% 1
1/31/2014 14.2% 13.0% 1
2/28/2014 15.4% 13.9% 1
3/28/2014 6.1% 12.3% 0
4/25/2014 8.6% 15.8% 0
5/30/2014 5.9% 11.7% 0
6/27/2014 1.6% 9.1% 0
7/25/2014 4.6% 8.6% 0
8/29/2014 1.2% 6.7% 0
9/26/2014 8.7% 8.3% 1
10/31/2014 10.6% 6.1% 1
11/28/2014 4.2% 3.6% 1
12/31/2014 3.1% 3.6% 0
1/30/2015 6.1% 6.5% 0
2/27/2015 0.1% 0.8% 0
3/27/2015 2.9% 2.3% 1
4/24/2015 -3.8% -0.4% 0
Average 9.6% 9.3% 0

You can see 4/24 is off to a poor start - just like my May 6th tranche.

Subsets

I also have tracked 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.  I am going to try to add a third one , which I call "dogs".  It is like the dogs of the Dow in that you take the worst five performing stocks from the prior year that renew or all those that dropped more that 29%. The dividend portfolio was solid, up about 12.0%.  The new portfolio was strong, up over 20% - helped a lot by DEPO being up 74%.  The Dogs approach was poor, down 10% 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 today if you had spread $100,000 over the first twelve portfolios evenly.


Category Value
Total     190,212
Total Russell 3K     199,167
New     205,359
Dogs     265,976
Dividend     387,277