Good to be back home. Had a great vacation, am recharged and ready to get back up and at 'em. I did gain about 5 pounds as we ate out a lot. So job one will be to lose a little weight.Also, lost my iPad during the trip. Little disappointed in human nature. It was in a leather portfolio with my business card. But no calls or emails. Hmm, just went through Spam to make double sure - nada. So I guess I'll be buying a new toy. I think i may just get a better computer as this one is four years old.
Newest Tranche
As I mentioned the other day, I have just kicked off my August 2015 tranche. I was very tempted to just keep the same five stocks:
| Start | Current | Dividend | Pct Gain | R3K Gain | |
| $24.40 | $28.95 | $0.80 | 21.9% | 8.8% | |
| AGX | $36.71 | $40.69 | $0.70 | 12.7% | 8.8% |
| ITRN | $21.32 | $25.11 | $0.87 | 21.9% | 8.8% |
| $9.34 | $10.15 | $0.15 | 10.3% | 8.8% | |
| $58.25 | $51.70 | $0.21 | -10.9% | 8.8% | |
| Totals | 11.2% | 8.8% |
- CSCO is on Goldman's conviction buy list and I am excited in the energy a new CEO will bring in.
- AGX still seems very cheap by many metrics. Recall that I actually bought two years ago at the extremely cheap price of $15.60! That goes down as a great trade. But I was worried that they are dependent on a couple large projects.
- ITRN was a quietly solid stock that no one has heard of. They are not on the list any more (though they are in my top 200). I will sell on Monday, though they are so lightly traded that I will need to be thoughtful about my trade.
- BRCD seems cheapish to me. They were 20% higher just a month or two ago. They announce earnings next week and I am considering holding through those earnings, but will likely sell tomorrow.
- CBI - this is just a cheap stock. I suspect I'll regret selling them. I do own in one of my other tranches. I will keep on my radar and may re-buy later. They are tied somewhat to the energy industry - but they have a solid backlog of projects.
So CSCO was the only one I kept. It is the true blue chip in the group. CBI and BRCD were close runner ups.
| Start | Current | Dividend | Pct Gain | R3K Gain | |
| $18.66 | $18.86 | $0.00 | 1.1% | 0.0% | |
| SALE | $9.34 | $9.36 | $0.00 | 0.2% | 0.0% |
| $28.95 | $29.03 | $0.00 | 0.3% | 0.0% | |
| TGNA | $25.30 | $25.44 | $0.00 | 0.6% | 0.0% |
| $20.14 | $20.15 | $0.00 | 0.0% | 0.0% | |
| Totals | 0.4% | 0.0% |
Here is my new tranche. I think I was a bit excited by some new names on the list.
- VDSI is actually a data security company. Recall I did own AVG for a pretty long stretch. They were in my May 2014 and ended up 19%. Since I sold them, they're up another 5.5%. They have a solid balance sheet. They're growing 18% this year. Next year they have guided lower which caused them to sell off from over $30 to under $19.
- SALE - this was a much bally-hooed IPO a couple years ago, kind of like Groupon. They had very disappointing earnings this quarter and have gone (ahem) on "sale", dropping from north of $20 to under $10. Theyhave a great balance sheet ($5.22 of cash per share for a $9.35 stock). They are making money. The issue is that they are no longer in growth mode. But that seems priced in to me.
- TGNA - I was surprised to see that Carl Icahn is a huge owner of this stock. He bought at much higher price, they've fallen from $37 to $25 in past quarter. They operate TV stations. Maybe a bit of a slower growth business with the internet growing, but I expect consolidation to occur here. And political advertising is potential catalyst over next year.
- HSII - this is a stock I have owned before. Back in October 2007, which was a bad time to buy an employment company stock as we had the 2008-09 recession. They are like KFY, who I owned in my August 2012 tranche and they are essentially a bet that employment growth continues. They do pay decent dividend (2.6%).
Stocks that I considered include AGX, BRCD, CBI, KORS, MNDO, BSQR, BKE, VIAB, LCI and PERI. I will take these ten stocks (as I always do) and create a "reject" portfolio so I can kick myself if I made wrong choices.
Last Year's Rejects
As a benchmark, my five picks went up 11.2%. My reject portfolio was only up 3%. It was really hurt by VIAB being down 46%. ACN was the big winner, up 32%. If I had just carried over my 5 picks from August 2013, I would have been down 4% - so that was a near miss as well. It was really hurt by FLR (down 34%) and KLIC (down 28%). KLIC by the way, is looking very cheap to me at $10.25.
Have a great day everyone.
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