Friday, February 22, 2013

Updates for Week Ending Feb. 22, 2013

All,
Last week Nathan sent me a link about the largest shareholder of ViaSat (VSAT) stock.  He is Seth Klarman, and he runs the Baupost Group which is a large hedge fund.  Hedge fund is another term for a mutual fund that only super rich people can participate in.  About 3 years ago, Seth bought $300 million worth of ViaSat stock, and now he is up to $500 million, which is 25% of our company.  I believe that Seth is buying our stock with the full approval of Mark Dankberg, our CEO, which means that Seth will not try to do a boardroom battle and oust Mark some day.  But still, having someone own 25% of your company can sometimes turn bad with that much money involved.  I am interested in seeing Baupost's filing for next quarter (end of March, 2013) to see if Seth sold any VSAT stock when we hit $50 in early February.  I certainly sold mine. 

Here is the Seth Klarman link:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/1200961-a-review-of-seth-klarman-s-baupost-group-s-q4-u-s-equity-changes?source=yahoo

Also, last week Diana asked if it was time to buy Intel (INTC).  INTC low today was $20.10, and their 52 week low is $19.23.  I would like to buy INTC at $19, because they also pay a 4.3% dividend.  So I checked their PUT Options and found the October PUT at Strike $20 was as high as $1.50 today.  That would mean an total buy price of $18.50 ($20 - $1.50) if I were to sell this PUT for $1.50 and then get INTC PUT to me for $20.  I have not decided yet if I want to do this.  

The PUT options I am considering now are:  
     INTC  Oct$20@$1.50   7.5% option premium and a 4.3% dividend
     NVDA Sep$12@$1.20  10% option premium and a 2.40% dividend
     PBR Oct$15@$1.50     10% option premium and a 1.50% dividend
     HMY Aug$6@$.60       10% option premium and a 1.40% dividend
     APOL Aug$17@$1.70  10% option premium and a 0.00% dividend

Since I am retiring, my wife and I have generated a Budget spreadsheet that captures all the categories where we spend money.  This spreadsheet also includes a daily Ledger where we are logging in the expenses for each day.  It will total them up for every month to compare against our budget.  We need to be sure that our retirement income is adequate for our lifestyle.  This Budget Ledger spreadsheet is attached above and is available for download at www.ultimatestockfinder.com at the "Investment Training Webpage"

For ViaSat employees, Mutual Fund Evaluator.xls has a worksheet "ViaSat 401K Fund Symbols" that shows the JP Morgan descriptive fund names and stock market symbols.  The JP Morgan website is not very clear about what the symbols are for several of our 401K funds, so now you can easily look up the symbol for your funds and read how they are performing in the "MutualFundEvaluator" worksheet.

Here are my Buys and Sells so far for this month February 2013:

Buy   Company    Buy
Date  Bought      Price    Target Sell
-----   ---------    ------   -------------
none

Sell      Company   Sell     Buy       Buy
Date      Sold         Price   Price     Date
-------   ----------   -------  -------   ------------
2/4        AAPL       $36.00      not bought unless it is PUT to me. 
       PUT$430 Oct2013                                     

2/7        VSAT      $4.00   $32       Employee Stock Purch Plan 6/29/2012
       CALL $50 Sep2013     

2/8        RFMD      $.75     $4.45     1/9/2012
        CALL $5 Aug2013

2/11       MU         $.82     $6.50     9/10/2010
        CALL $8 Jul2013

2/11       SKUL      $1.20        not bought unless it is PUT to me. 
       PUT$6 Sep2013                                     

2/21        AAPL       $40.00      not bought unless it is PUT to me. 
       PUT$425 Jan2014                                     

Check out how I use Options (PUT's and CALL's) to make more money off some of the stocks I buy and sell while still minimizing the risk to me.  "Go to Investment Training Webpage" on the right hand side at www.UltimateStockFinder.com  

StockEvaluator.xls and Mutual FundEvaluator.xls are available on www.ultimatestockfinder.com

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Updates for Week Ending Feb. 16, 2013

All,
Last week Dean asked me how my investment returns compared to the S&P 500.  I had no idea.  But, he was right, I should know that.  So I have made a spreadsheet that compares total annual returns for the S&P 500 along with mine and also the 5 biggest mutual funds that I own.

The spreadsheet shows returns for periods of 20 years, 15, 10 and 5.  There are only 3 different winners for these 4 time spans because LSBRX (Loomis Sayles Bond Fund) won both the 15 and 5 year spans.  Note that on the right in Col. P, I have an imaginary zero risk fund that always returns 2% per year.  We can all agree that 2% is not very good, but this 2% fund does NOT finish last in the 5 year time span due to the huge drop we lived through in 2008.  This 2% fund actually beat the S&P 500 and my AMRMX fund for the most recent 5 year span.  This helps me to feel better about my goal of buying very carefully in the higher yield / higher risk category and trying to buy more of the lower yield / lower risk investments that deliver more consistent returns across the years, whether the markets are up or down.

For ViaSat employees, Mutual Fund Evaluator.xls has a worksheet "ViaSat 401K Fund Symbols" that shows the JP Morgan descriptive fund names and stock market symbols.  The JP Morgan website is not very clear about what the symbols are for several of our 401K funds, so now you can easily look up the symbol for your funds and read how they are performing in the "MutualFundEvaluator" worksheet.

Here are my Buys and Sells so far for this month February 2013:

Buy   Company    Buy
Date  Bought      Price    Target Sell
-----   ---------    ------   -------------
none

Sell      Company   Sell     Buy       Buy
Date      Sold         Price   Price     Date
-------   ----------   -------  -------   ------------
2/4        AAPL       $36.00      not bought unless it is PUT to me. 
       PUT$430 Oct2013                                     

2/7        VSAT      $4.00   $32       Employee Stock Purch Plan 6/29/2012
       CALL $50 Sep2013     

2/8        RFMD      $.75     $4.45     1/9/2012
        CALL $5 Aug2013

2/11       MU         $.82     $6.50     9/10/2010
        CALL $8 Jul2013

2/11       SKUL      $1.20        not bought unless it is PUT to me. 
       PUT$6 Sep2013                                     

Check out how I use Options (PUT's and CALL's) to make more money off some of the stocks I buy and sell while still minimizing the risk to me.  "Go to Investment Training Webpage" on the right hand side at www.UltimateStockFinder.com  

StockEvaluator.xls and Mutual FundEvaluator.xls are attached above and also available on www.ultimatestockfinder.com

Remember to "Reply All" with any other stocks and mutual funds that you would like to see added to the Evaluator spreadsheets,
and also with any other investing information that the whole group may be interested in.

Several of you have expressed a concern about email security now that there are so many names on the Investment Idea Sharing address list.  I checked on using the bcc: function in Hotmail for all the addresses, but if I do that nobody will be able to send a "Reply All" comment back to the group.  So I have now set up a Blog website and also a Facebook page and this weekly email is posted on both these sites..  

If you would prefer to be removed from this email distribution list, just let me know and I will delete your name.  
You will still be able to check my Blog or Facebook page each week to read this same eMail update.  You will miss out on any "Reply All" comments from other members of the group.  

Blog:  http://ultimatestockfinder.blogspot.com/

Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/UltimateStockFinder

Thanks,
John D.


All the Yahoo!Finance data is refreshed on Saturday morning into StockEvaluator.xls and contains over 1,800 company stocks.  We will add any company you would like to the list.  Download "StockEvaluator.xls spreadsheet" at: http://www.ultimatestockfinder.com/ 
MutualFundEvaluator.xls is also updated weekly and currently contains over 300 mutual funds.

Run the Ctrl-T sort in StockEvaluator.xls to bring the companies to the top for 
this week that I am doing more research on to confirm if they are a good buy for me.

Run the Ctrl-R sort in MutualFundEvaluator.xls to bring all the ViaSat 401K funds to 
the top. 

Here are the CNN links that show current P/E values for the major worldwide indexes. 
Dow Jones 30 Industrials
NASDAQ 
S&P 500 
FTSE 100 (England)
Hang Seng (Hong Kong)
DAX (Germany)
View the Ultimate Stock Finder watchlist on Yahoo Finance at: http://www.yahoo.com/
        Sign In   Yahoo! ID: ultimatestockfinder   Password: UltStkFinder  
at the left side of screen:  click "Finance"  at upper right corner: click "My Y!"

Use our watchlist as a starting point to create your own watchlist in Yahoo Finance.

Download StockEvaluator.xls and MutualFundEvaluator.xls spreadsheets at: http://www.ultimatestockfinder.com/

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Updates for Feb. 8, 2013

All,
Remember that next Tuesday Feb. 12 is the monthly meeting at my house. For ViaSat employees, Mutual Fund Evaluator.xls now has a worksheet "ViaSat 401K Fund Symbols" that shows the JP Morgan descriptive fund names and stock market symbols. The JP Morgan website is not very clear about what the symbols are for several of our 401K funds, so now you can easily look up the symbol for your funds and read how they are performing in the "MutualFundEvaluator" worksheet, and you can also use the stock symbol at Yahoo Finance to do more research on your 401K funds.

My Buys and Sells so far for February are:
Buys:  None
Sells: Feb 4 AAPL PUT October2013 at Strike $430 Option price $36.00
          Feb 7 VSAT Covered CALL Sep2013 at Strike$50 Option Price $4
          Feb 8 RFMD Covered Call Aug2013 at Strike $5 Option Price $.75

Check out how I use Options (PUT's and CALL's) to help make more money off some of the stocks I buy and sell while still minimizing the risk to me.
Click on "Go to Investment Training Webpage" on the right hand side at www.UltimateStockFinder.com.

StockEvaluator.xls and Mutual FundEvaluator.xls are available on www.ultimatestockfinder.com

Let us know about any other stocks and mutual funds that you would like to see added to the Evaluator spreadsheets.

Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/UltimateStockFinder

Thanks,
John D.