whateverworks

Sell High, Buy Low?

Rating: 3.00 not yet rated(1 votes)    Vote:

You are logged in as | Logout

Toward the end of last month I decided to change part of my strategy and try more active trading. During the recent rally, every time a stock took a surge I sold it out of my SLO portfolio. The rally lasted a lot longer than I thought it would so I sold quite early and kept cash longer than I thought I would.

At the beginning of this, past week I decided it was time to buy back: CLF, GTLS, TNE, EDU, LNN, GTLS, AG, STRA and FSTR. I decided not to buy back PBR, CHL, HUGH, GGB, TNP and HDB but will probably replace them with something else. For the moment, I decided to get more VE, ESV, HEI, MT and RIO (which I hadn't sold during the surge).

Well, the market did fall and most of sold-on-surge stocks fell with it; however not nearly far enough to reach my limit order price for them. The exception was FSTR which, I am embarrassed to admit, I bought immediately due to my mis-typing the limit price incredibly low. We'll see what happens over the next week or two with my new "sell high, buy low" strategy. Lindsay Corp. (LNN) is the one stock with which I'm pretty sure this strategy will fail. Since I sold it, the price has simply gone so high that I doubt it will ever fall to my limit order level. I may end up with "buy high, buy back even higher" for that company.

Comments: 0

Market Still Up -- Darn It!

Rating: 0 not yet rated(0 votes)    Vote:

You are logged in as | Logout

Since prices did not fall this week my "buyback" of CLF, GTLS, TNE, LNN, AG, and STRA did not take place as planned, given my limit order price. EDU, however, did dip briefly and is back in my portfolio. At this point, prices for both Lindsay (LNN) and Cleveland-Cliffs (CLF) may never again fall to my limit.

I bought additional VE and ESV, as per my plans mentioned last week. However, I decided to become more diversified. Rather than getting more MT I bought Helmerich & Payne (HP) and Steel Dynamics (STLD). Rather than getting more RIO I bought China National Oil (CEO). Rather than getting more HEI I bought Guangshen Railway (GSH).

I bought Martek Biosciences (MATK) which may end up replacing the buyback of AG.

Is it time to sell FXP (short on China) and buy FXI (long on China)? I hope so because that's what I did.

The extended bull rally did have one good use. In my non-contest Magic Micro Caps fund I sell any stocks which are lower than they were a year ago regardless of how well they did in the past. However I put off my 1st quarter "housecleaning". With microcaps as a whole so badly down, I wondered if there would be anybody left! During the rally many micros recovered; so both first and second quarter reviews came at once. For now, anyway, it's goodbye to TRGT, ZONS, NTI, INXI, LMIA, TWIN, ACTU, NTI and MEA. Still betting that the bear market will resume, I may keep most of the resulting cash. However I immediately used some of it to buy Omega Protein (OME) and HQ Sustainable Maritime Industries (HQS).

You may notice I also added a "fishfood" stock to the Strategy Lab fund, above. This could be the subject of an entire subsequent blog.

Comments: 0

Fishfood

Rating: 0 not yet rated(0 votes)    Vote:

You are logged in as | Logout

An article at the MoneyAndMarkets.com Website led me to 3 recent stock buys: Omega Protein (OME) and HQ Sustainable Maritime Industries (HQS). in my Microcaps fund and Martek Biosciences (MATK) in my Strategy Lab fund. Although the current food shortage has led to many articles and blogs about fertilizer and grain, How to Profit from "Live Gold" was the first one I'd seen on aquaculture. Yet, worldwide demand for seafood is growing while global aquatic populations are drastically declining.

The "Live Gold" in the title referred to goldfish (i.e. carp) which the Chinese have farmed since around 2,500 BC! Is it any surprise that a lot of today's aquaculture stocks are Asian? Combine that with the fact that many aquaculture companies are quite tiny and it is difficult to find many you can trade at Marketocracy.

Searching the larger world of aquaculture, I found Martek which produces nutrients from microalgae, fungi and other microbes.

Algae is great stuff. It is "fishfood" in the sense that it is important as a nutrient in many marine ecologies. Unfortunately, when you get too much of it, as has happened in many coastal areas, it can actually smother other species. Although there are companies which make biofuels out of algae, they seem to be farming their own rather than gathering it up from coastal areas. The algae biofuel industry is in a very preliminary, experimental stage but bears watching.

It doesn't look like we will have many industrial-size aquaculture operations in the US anytime soon. A year-old article in "Fortune" magazine revealed that the US mostly farms fish in small ponds and lakes and has limited ocean shellfish farming. Some growing US aquaculture companies, faced with impossible red tape here, are expanding their operations to other countries instead.

Not everyone in the US is in favor of aquaculture due, not only to competition, but also to environmental concerns. Of course I am looking for a specialty company which could make money helping aquaculture firms to develop safer "farms". Here's a good niche for an experienced marine biologist wanting to go into business for herself!

Comments: 0

Desperate Housewives -- Addendum One

Rating: 3.00 not yet rated(2 votes)    Vote:

You are logged in as | Logout

In October '07 I started reviewing free stock screeners on the Web. Recently I found a couple of new ones. The first is at finance.google.com and, although very simple, lets me search on many of the fundamentals I like. The criteria are grouped as follows:
Price -- Last Price , EPS , Quote Change (%) , 52w High, 52w Low , 52w Price Change (%)
Volume -- Volume, Average Volume
Valuation -- Market Cap , P/E Ratio , 1y Fwd P/E
Dividend -- Recent Quarter, Next Quarter, Per Share (Recent Year), Div Rate Indicated Annual , Dividend Per Share , Dividend Yield (%) , Dividend From Cash Flow
Balance Sheet -- Book Value/Share , Cash/Share , Current Ratio
Stock Metrics -- Beta , Float , Institutional Percent Held
Margins -- Gross Margin (%) , EBITDA Margin (%) , Operating Margin (%) , Net Profit Margin (%)
Growth -- 5y Net Income , 5y Revenue , 10y Revenue , 5y EPS , 10y EPS

When you click on a criterium you can add a minimum and a maximum. If you are not sure what min. or max. to add, a Company Distribution chart with sliders helps you chose those figures. Another nice touch -- Google also shows you the definition in case you are not sure of it.

You can choose to screen on a list of specific sectors (or screen on all) and if you wish you can choose only AMEX, NASDAQ or NYSE.

As you add each criterium, the list of companies meeting your screen appears below (in groups of 20) along with their figures for the criteria you have chosen. You can see the number of companies remaining as you add each criterium. This is especially helpful because when using any screener it is easy to inadvertently choose criteria which eliminate most or all of them.

I was delighted to find that, unlike many databases, Google's screener has figures for microcaps as well as for larger companies.

I do wish Google would add the ability to download all the resulting data into Excel; however my usual copy and paste into notepad works OK.

All in all, this is a very useful tool.

Next time I'll review the Motley Fool's new screener.

Comments: 1