Great Week and New Pages Up
I have put up the pages for this site’s Income Portfolio and Growth Portfolio. These 2 portfolios will be replacing the 20 Stock Portfolio that I have been using here to track the stocks I am interested in. The 20 Stock Portfolio page will stay up for a while to redirect readers and category clickers to the new pages.
I am also going to make some admin changes to the Watch List page. The Yahoo Finance chart information has become too ungainly. The code builder from Yahoo that makes the chart only allows 10 stocks. I have hacked it a bit to get more, but I have reached some sort of limit in either that code or my page length here and I cannot get all of the Watch List stocks listed.
I have a page that lists selected articles, now renamed Top Articles. Listed there will be links to the posts of this site that have generated the most interest or I like really well.
Finally, this last week was definitely a relief from the train wreck of the 1st quarter. The now reorganized, 20 Stock Portfolio lost 12% in the first quarter. For the last week the new Income Portfolio was up 3.7% and, as would be expected, the more aggressive Growth Portfolio was up 7.8%. On my to-do list is to find an couple of indexes to reference my 2 portfolios against.
The 2nd quarter is off to a great start and I am working to improve the quality of information provided here. Let us hope both trends continue.
Watch list Stocks
On this site you will see two pages with listings of various stocks. The 20 Stock Portfolio is a group of stocks that I have researched and believe have strong prospects to make investors money. I track the returns on these stocks, comment on related news, and update results on at least a quarterly basis. My personal holdings come from the components of the 20 Stock Portfolio. The Watch List consists of stocks I run across and something about them interest me. I add them to the page so I can do further review, or just to keep an eye on them. The Yahoo Finance code I use allows you to click on the symbol to get a chart, click the chart and go to the company’s summary on Yahoo.
I will scan through the Watch List stock every few days looking for new news. Now that the 20 Stock Portfolio is at full strength, (The 20th, (HDNG: 14.38 -0.09 -0.62%), was added 2/5/08) I am looking for companies that may be better performers that the current members. Also, some of these companies just interest me.
Power Air Corp PWAC is a micro-cap working on some intriguing fuel cell technology. The stock is going nowhere but down, and trading for pennies. I am waiting to see if they can bring a product to market and sell it profitably. I should not be hard to catch the stock at a few bucks a share on the way up, if it happens.
Several companies are home building, construction or home improvement related: (AVTR: 37.45 -0.86 -2.24%), (BLDR: 7.48 +0.05 +0.67%), (HWCC: 19.64 -0.29 -1.46%), (SSD: 24.33 +0.34 +1.42%). These appear to be well run companies that should out perform when the market starts to anticipate a housing rebound. No sense rushing in now! Though, writing this makes me want to take another look at HWCC.
Recent additions: (EEFT: 17.50 -0.36 -2.02%), (PGF: 21.42 -0.01 -0.05%), (STAN: 20.24 -0.11 -0.54%)
Finally, I am always looking for companies in South America that may stand out. I spend a lot of time deep south, and see healthy economic activity. Here are some companies listed: AKO-A, (BLX: 17.68 +0.04 +0.23%), (IRS: 14.01 +0.03 +0.21%), (MELI: 54.70 +0.21 +0.39%). There are some interesting stories here, but a lot of digging is required to see if valuations make sense. MELI could be huge and IRS would be in the 20 Stock Portfolio if it wasn’t in Argentina.
I hope this post encourages some of you readers to take deeper looks at these stocks or the others listed. Get back to me with your thoughts.
Watch List Additions: Alternative Energy
As oil prices stay high I am doing more and more research into alternative energy companies. This area ranges from start ups with what they hope is the next big thing, trading for pennies in the pink sheets to some large cap companies like ADM (ADM: 43.35 -0.03 -0.07%) and Conoco (COP: 91.98 +2.67 +2.99%), who are investing serious money to alternative energy sources.
There are a half dozen ETFs now available that lay claim to the alternative sector. I have picked the following two for my Watch List to get both some global and small cap coverage, these being additional interest areas.
Market Vectors Global Alternative Energy ETF (GEX: 56.00 +0.40 +0.72%): This fund of 30 stocks is balanced between large cap and small cap companies that receive at least half of their revenues from alternative energy. Approximately one half of the stocks are of the international variety.
First Trust NASDAQ Clean Edge U.S Liquid ETF (QCLN: 27.7828 +0.3328 +1.21%): This funds uses a NASDAQ index which tracks emerging technologies primarily in solar photovoltaics, biofuels and advanced batteries.
Again, my is a group of ETFs that I have picked to look for trends in certain market sectors. The market can be extremely volatile day-to-day, but the trend is your friend.
Watch List Update
I though it would be good to start the week and month with an update of my Watch List. This is a list of ETFs currently covering housing, gold, energy and emerging market stocks. The idea behind this list is to watch for trends in these sectors looking for entry or exit points to enhance the profitability of our stock holdings.
I am definitely not a technical analysis guy. My opinion of trading on technicals alone is that a technical trading program works until it stops working-usually without warning. That said, however, using some technical indicators can give us some additional insight on what is happening with a security or index. In regards to my watch list ETFs I looked at the three month price chart with the 50 day and 200 day moving averages. Again, I am not the person to talk to concerning the use of moving averages, I just use them here for added enlightenment. Read more
Watch List Addition: iShares Emerging Markets Index-EEM
Another sector of spectacular profits over the last 5 years has been emerging markets. The 5 year chart of (EEM: 155.10 +1.95 +1.27%) shows a steady upward trend with only minor pullbacks.
In my lifetime there have been some pretty terrible drops in emerging market prices, but the overall global market seems to make these individual markets less likely to crash and burn. As you see in the chart, any recent pull back has been a buying opportunity.
So I am adding (EEM: 155.10 +1.95 +1.27%) to my Watch List page. The Watch List is a collection of ETFs that cover sectors of the market I am interested in watching for trends. If you think a sector and trend shows promise, you can buy the ETF or search for individual stocks in the sector.
Watch List Addition: Energy Select Sector SPDR
If you look at the 5 year chart for the Energy Select Sector SPDR (XLE: 88.95 +3.13 +3.65%) you see a 300% gain with very few pull backs. The energy companies have been very profitable as oil prices have gone up and stayed high.
So I will add (XLE: 88.95 +3.13 +3.65%) to my Watch List page and start looking for some stocks to review. It appears we all should have some energy exposure in our portfolios.
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