Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Formula Starting To Work?

Formula Starting to Work?

Not sure what happened today (I was traveling), but when I fired up my computer, I found that my MFI Formula Portfolio was up 2.5% on the day.  I wonder if retail is starting to look more promising(although I find NRF numbers to always be wrong).

While my Formula approach was the star, my Select was up 1.13% and the MFI Index was up 1.6%.  What was encouraging about my Formula pop was the breadth.

BKE was up 6.7% and GME was up 4.4%, thus my retail friendly bump.  But every stock was up at least 1.2%, except laggard CA.

Here is my table showing moves since 11/13 bottom:


 Index   Portfolio   Stock   Last Week   Current   Dividend   Change 
              25  Formula   SYNT              23.56         25.59                       -   8.6%
              15  Formula   HPQ              21.17         21.66                       -   2.3%
              12  Formula   GILD              72.85         72.59                       -   -0.4%
              22  Formula   CSCO              33.95         37.73                       -   11.1%
              14  Formula   OMC              67.92         70.65                       -   4.0%
              10  Formula   GME              16.20         19.02                       -   17.4%
              24  Formula   CA              32.32         32.69                  0.26 1.9%
              13  Formula   DIN              44.38         44.04                       -   -0.8%
              23  Formula   TGNA              19.96         21.19                       -   6.2%
                 9  Formula   BKE              19.00         23.20                       -   22.1%
              17  Formula   RGR              48.85         53.60                  0.21 10.2%


 Stock   Last Week   Current   Dividend   Change 
 SIMO              47.46         49.50                       -   4.3%
 MSGN              16.80         17.65                       -   5.1%
 YY              90.60       111.34                       -   22.9%
 CELG            100.34       103.99                       -   3.6%
 EVC                5.75            6.85                       -   19.1%
 ICHR              28.98         30.36                       -   4.8%
 AKRX              33.31         32.45                       -   -2.6%
 VIAB              24.61         27.03                       -   9.8%
 RHI              53.53         55.91                       -   4.4%
 MD              45.42         49.22                       -   8.4%
 QCOM              66.49         68.38                       -   2.8%
 KLAC            101.93       107.16                       -   5.1%
 TIME              11.40         18.45                       -   61.8%
 GHC            556.45       578.50                       -   4.0%
 WNC              19.24         19.18                       -   -0.3%
 RGR              48.85         53.60                  0.21 10.2%
 TGNA              19.96         21.19                       -   6.2%

Overall,  the two portfolios are up about 8% since 11/13.  Not bad.  I am almost happy.

2 comments:

Brad said...

Hi Marshall. Thanks for your posts. They are very helpful for people like myself interested in value investing. One thing I am starting to worry about lately is that time and time again we see studies and books published on value investing strategies that worked great in the past and then go into huge underperformance after they get published. I am a skeptic so I dont believe in coincidences. I don't think I have seen a strategy from a book in the past 10 years that has not gone into almost immediate underperformance (similar to MFI).


My fear is that maybe there was nothing there to begin with? Maybe the guru who did the study or wrote the book (and made millions selling it to us) found a model that created high returns in the past but not because it was a sound strategy, rather, they just fitted an idea to the data and it worked (in the past) and wrote a story around it? I guess time will tell.

I want to truly want to believe the little guy can beat the indexes but is just odd so many of these strategies and ideas almost always go into under performance as soon as the book comes out.

Marsh_Gerda said...

Brad - I do agree that things have changed since the book was written that make the performance JG discusses less likely.

We have a ridiculous amount of capital sloshing in system post global financial crisis.

We have a lot more disruptors, which are really threatening business models.

We had a lot of very cheap stocks in the 1998-2002 stretch right before the book at measured by EBITDA to EV, that made that stretch very very rich for a value approach.

We seem to have a lot of companies in the screen nowadays that are nowhere close to matching the situation described by Jake's bubble gum shop in the book. These companies (in my opinion) are really dragging down results.

I guess at the end,I believe you can beat the markets with this approach. But I also believe it has to be thoughtful and certain stocks need to be avoided.