whateverworks

Search for All My Children

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Lincoln Electric Holdings Inc. (LECO) has been down lately. Not yet willing to give up on the company totally, I sold only half. Still, this still left me with yet more cash; so I wanted to reinvest.

My goal is to put some more money into recession-resistant fields such as agriculture. Rather than performing yet another screen, I decided to revisit some old acquaintances. For over 25 years, now, I've worked for an investor relations firm which specializes mostly in growth companies. These are mainly small and very small. However over the years some have become quite large, for example a little, speculative start-up named AOL. Having a large pool of potential investments, a where-are-they-now search was in order.

This turned up AGCO Corp. (AG) which is still doing well. It manufactures agricultural equipment which it sells worldwide. Then fellow StrategyLab blogger Krishna Rathi (stocksrider) mentioned MOO the new agricultural ETF. I still had enough ETF allotment to add MOO.

Is biotech really a recession-proof field as people say? Former client Invitrogen Corp. (IVGN) looked good so I bought it, too.

Of course many companies have been bought out, merged into a larger company or changed name/symbol. PharmaNet Development Group, Inc. (PDGI) is "descended from" SFBC International (SFCC) and perhaps no longer resembles the client we had. However, it looks good. I decided I will buy it after taking some profit in Hughes Communication (HUGH). The satellite company is still up but the stock has not been doing as well lately.

Speaking of satellites, I managed supremely bad timing when I bought former client Novatel (NGPS) on Nov. 28. It is in the process of being bought by Hexagon AB, a global technology group and, in a press release that same day, announced that people holding shares prior to the 27th would receive cash from Hexagon. Obviously shares are not going to go up past the buyout price. So, in maybe my fastest sell-after-buy ever, I am getting rid of NGPS. I may replace it with Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc (KTOS) a "descendent" of our client Wireless Facilities Inc. (WFII).

In my Magic Micro Caps (MMC) fund Span-America Medical Systems (SPAN) reached a level of 30% below the price at which I bought it; so I stuck to my investing method and sold even though I still think the company has potential. Luckily I had noticed another former client, Exactech (EXAC), which has been doing well, has decent figures AND was still under $250M market cap. So I was ready with a replacement.

You may be wondering if Wall-Street.com has any current clients who are a shoo-in for growth during the coming year. Well, if I had inside information of course I couldn't tell you or trade on it myself. I would even avoid trading on it here at Marketocracy. Although this is just a game it has also become publication of a sort.