The Financial Effect ii

This week started the new CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge.
I started playing on Monday and have done reasonably well, IMHO.

My 5 Portfolio results for the week ending May 16:

_______________GAIN_____TOP PERCENTILE____RANK
Portfolio 1.____ +5.8%________7.3%________44,320

Portfolio 2.____ +6.1%________6.6%________39,868

Portfolio 3.____ +6.7%________5.1%________30,823

Portfolio 4.____ +7.4%________3.9%________23,468

Portfolio 5.____ +5.5%________8.3%________50,558
All w/o any formal business training :)

For Poops & Giggles

Given the recent Mothers Day where my wife forgot to get a card, she asked if I could pick one up for her while picking up her script (prescription) at 9 pm the evening before.
Upon reaching Rite Aids surprisingly generous Mothers Day card section, there were four other young men perusing cards. I found this funny. So I went around to other side of the card wall for a B-day for our niece (also upon wife's request). Needless to say the section looked like a 5 year old went through mixing them all :P
So I got back to the Mothers Day side (still with the 4 young men) and was joined by yet another young man. I sidled to the end of the row for the best vantage point and wishing I had my camera. – THAT would have made the best Mothers Day card – 5 young men looking at Mothers Day cards, independent of each other.

TIP: When in a rush for an event card (b-day or whatever), and you don't have the time to read through them all, just do a once over to find the card slots that have the least cards left in them. Those are the popular ones that will likely satisfy your recipients needs in a pinch.

PS. I try to avoid cards because rarely do they satisfy my thoughts/feelings accurately.

POLITICS

I'M FOR CLINTON. She (& Bill) have the experience. Period.

Obama is a politican that America will not elect. It's a fact that America is still strongly racist.
I don't like Obama because he cannot think on his own. He cannot do live Q&A. He gives speeches, nothing more. And he talks "black/ghetto" to minority groups and "Kings English" to predominantly white groups – this is a typical politician.
Also, Obama wants to raise capital gains tax the highest (~28%) of all the candidates.

To me it appears that popular people, politically related or not, merely support Obama for their own personal publicity because it's the history-of-racism redeeming thing to do.

It's unfortunate that this democratic primary is about race and women.

I think the best opportunity to have a democrat in the White House is to have the Primary winner choose the other as a running mate.

Imagine either:
Obama – President

Clinton – Vice President

OR

Clinton – President

Obama – Vice President

UNSTOPPABLE!

I think the next best thing would be to have Edwards as the democratic running mate.

More On Frosted Mini Wheats

I have ID'd the bad boxes of cereal. I avoid the boxes with the letters "KBA" adjacent to the date. KPA is good.


KBA boxes have been consistently bad: mostly uncoated or overcoated (glops of coating) pieces, and broken pieces.

The Financial Effect

(STOCK MARKET)

What's popular this year, 08:
Financials- Currently down
Retailers- Currently down
Energy- Currently up
Agriculture- Currently up

I own:
AMD- Advanced Micro Devices (a "Cramer" 'wall of shame' company/CEO)
KMX- Carmax (a "Buffett" stock pick)
EP- El Paso (a "Cramer" stock pick)
WBC- WABCO (a "Buffett" stock pick)
CEDC- Central European Distribution Corp. (a "Cramer" stock pick)

I use a mix of popularity, value, future/past growth, technical analysis (basic charting), personal feelings & intuition, and an OK grasp of 'what's happening' in the realm of my interests.

My thoughts about buying/selling these stocks:
(which may change at any moment depending on the news related to each company, etc.)

To me AMD is a good value at anything below $9. My next buy would be $6.05 or less. I missed the last drop to ~$5.90 because I was sleep deprived and wasn't thinking clearly. Oh well. This will see $21 again, but I'm not telling you when :)

KMX. I'd buy at $18.50 or better, and consider selling at $29 if I don't sell it for a better value elsewhere. The financial crisis (for lack of a better word) I believe is keeping this stock price down and slowing the current demand. But I believe this company is poised for good growth over the next 1-2 years. I think (50/50) that it may see $24-26 prices within a year.

EP. I'd buy more if it dropped to below $15.40, and probably consider selling at $21+. But given recent news regarding its expected earnings and the nat gas boom, I may decide to hang on a while (throughout the year).

WBC. I bought this at $40, very near it's low. Currently I'm up over 22% since I bought it early this year. I bought it for my kids, too. I don't plan on selling this company for a long time. It's a Buffett owned stock, as well. So far it's doing very well and has been flying under the CNBC news radar and isn't grabbing a lot of attention. I have a good feeling about this company.
I think that it will drop back down to @$45 again and possibly even $43-42. I think this is going to be 'a slow and steady wins the race' stock.

CEDC. I was finally able to decide between this company and FMX. I admit I was somewhat impatient when I chose CEDC, but you can only wait so long before you opportunity changes. FMX never went back below $42 and CEDC has a beautiful chart, so I chose CEDC at $60. I wouldn't be surprised if CEDC's price dropped to $52-49. I would buy more. This is another 'slow and steady wins the race' company. I expect it to continue rising for at least a year or more. I believe this can easily make it to $75-85, beyond that - ? if it consistently outperforms analysts expectations it shouldn't have a problem exceeding $100/share w/o becoming overvalued. I think that outperforming analysts expectations with a $2.7B growing company won't upset the analysts too much. A larger company would need a more stable outlook so as not to surprise analysts and give the image of a company that isn't controlling itself.

Stocks that will meet my chopping block at some point:
AMD
EP

Stocks that may meet my chopping block at some point:
KMX
CEDC

Stocks that I intend to hold, lest really bad news befalls them:
WBC

Misses:
BNI Burlington Northern Santa Fe. I really wanted to get this one for my kids because they love toy trains (and it was in line with a long range outlook). By the time I found it's range (between $78 and upper $80's) and set a buy price @$78, it haphazardly kept going up, into the $90s and finally surpassing the $100 mark. Oh well.

Took a Big Hit:
SIGM Sigma Designs. This one I bought at @$40, very near its low at it's range at the time. The upper end was around $49. After a couple of times in the upper $40s I decided to sell it the next time it went up. It didn't. It went down into the upper $30s, then lower $30s. So I held tight and waited. Upper $20's :P I sold out at $27. It went to $15 and stayed down for some time. It's finally coming back. I think it may make it back to the low $40s. IDK. F@%king shortsellers!

BTW By the way, I'm not a stock broker or related to one.