Sunday, January 26, 2014

Investment Idea Sharing January 26, 2014

This Week's Activity – January 25, 2014: 
This week, the world market indices were down on expectations The Federal Reserve will make a further cut to their bond buying stimulus program, by as much as $10 billion per month, and concerns on the slowing growth in China.  Read more:
I still think the markets are overpriced but continue to look for good values on individual stocks of good solid companies. 

My wife and I, and my son Trey, and his wife, are all reading “The Total Money Makeover” by Dave Ramsey.  In this book, Dave clearly explains his 7 step plan to financial independence, and illustrates it with testimonials from people who have successfully implemented his plan in their finances and lives.  You must be fully committed to this plan because it requires a lifestyle change while you pay off ALL of your debt. 

Before you can start his 7 step plan, you must set up a monthly budget so you can clearly see how much money comes in and then make a list of every single place this money goes out each month.  Here are the steps and Dave’s estimation of how long each step takes his typical followers:
 1. Set aside an Emergency Fund of $1,000 (several months)
 2. Pay off all your debts except your house. (2 to 3 years, work overtime or 2nd job)
 3. Increase your emergency fund to equal 6 months of living expenses (several months)
 4. Start saving 15% of your income for retirement. (until you retire)
 5. Start saving for your kid’s college fund (until they get out of college)
 6. Pay off your house (7 to 10 years)
 7. Manage your own investments to be wealthy for the rest of your life

We got our copy of Dave’s book from the library for free, but the information he provides is extremely valuable, yet very common sense.  I recommend this book.  Please let me know if you have read it.

Visit our website: http://www.ultimatestockfinder.com/ for more investing ideas, links, training, tools and information.

Summary Table of Worldwide Market Index Closing values for this week:


This week I sold a PUT on LF and a CALL on TTWO. See the details below in (CALL or PUT) Sells for This Week.  LF closed this week at $7.12 which is near their 24 month low.  Revenue is up 4%, profit margin is 13%, but stock price is down from $11.50 in July due to a software glitch on their newly released LeapPad Ultra this summer.  They have corrected the glitch, but now are gaining more competitors (Amazon, Apple, Samsung) in the education tablet business.  LeapFrog already had VTech as a competitor.  So there are many downward pressures on LF stock, but they have good fundamentals, and I think they can compete with these rivals and will recover from this. 

See the Yahoo 5 year chart for LF at

TTWO closed this week at $18.46 which is near their 52 week and 6 year highs.  In September they released the world’s largest selling video game “Grand Theft Auto 5”.  I bought TTWO six years ago at $18 on the recommendation of my younger son.  You can see from the chart that after I bought them the lights went out.  So now that they are finally back to my buy price after 6 years, I am fully happy to sell a Covered CALL on them.  I am nothing if not patient.

See the 5 year chart for TTWO here: 

StockEvaluator ‘Short List’
‘Short List’ screens using 12 fundamental value limits that I want to see in a stock before considering it as a possible buy. 
View our training video that shows how to enter your preferred values for each of these ‘Short List’ screening limits:

View the ‘Short List’ screening criteria and target limit values here: http://www.ultimatestockfinder.com/short_list_12_criteria.JPG

Stocks on the ‘Short List’ list this week are:  CAJ, KYO, CVX, PTR, CHU, CHA, ELP.

Stock Evaluator ‘Volatility Sort’
Stocks on the ‘Volatility Sort’ have Current Price <5% above 52 week low, Volatility >3%, Profit>0%, <6 Red cells in Stock Evaluator.xls. 
Stocks on the ‘Volatility Sort’ this week are: UVE, GNI, IMG.TO, AEO, SCSS, ZA, SHOS.   

MutualFundEvaluator ‘Short List’
Mutual Funds that are within 3% of their 52 week low AND have less than 3 Red cells. 
This week’s list has 40 funds.  All except 1 (FRIFX) are Bond funds, which are all still 3 to 8% above their lows from 2006 to 2008 before The FED dropped interest rates to bring the U.S. out of the recession.  When interest rates go down, bond prices go up, and when interest rates go up, bond prices go down.  These bond funds only pay a 3 to 4% annual dividend and I think the bond prices will go down another 3 to 4% when The FED finally lets interest rates go back to historic levels which mean 10 Year Bond interest rate of at least 3.5% compared to today’s 10 year rate of 2.74%.  I will continue to wait before buying any bond funds because I do not want to lose a whole year’s worth of interest if I buy back in too soon.

The top two funds on this week’s short list are BCOSX and MWTRX.
Here are their 10year charts to show why I am still waiting to buy.
MWTRX:

BCOSX:

Next Monthly Meeting 2nd Tuesday of every Month:
Tuesday, February 11, 2014 , 7:30 PM at my house. 

Here are my Stock BUYs for This Week:
Stock Symbol:
Buy Date: 
Buy Price:  
Target Sell Price:

Here are my Stock SELLs for This Week:
Stock Symbol:
Sell Date:
Sell Price:
Buy Price:
Buy Date:

Here are my Option (CALL or PUT) Sells for This Week:
I only Sell Covered CALLs or Cash Secured PUTs
Option: Covered CALL
Stock Symbol: TTWO
Sell Date: 1/22/2014
Expiration Date: 1/17/2015
Strike Price: $20
Option Price: $2.30
(I bought TTWO in Jan 2008 at $18)

Option: Cash Secured PUT
Stock Symbol: LF
Sell Date: 1/24/2014
Expiration Date: 1/17/2015
Strike Price: $7.50
Option Price: $1.40

Visit www.ultimatestockfinder.com to download all Stock Evaluator and Mutual Fund Evaluator spreadsheets, read training articles and check out all our web links for investing information.

Please remember to send me any other investing ideas, information or questions that you want to share with the group.

Thanks,
John D.

Disclosure: The author has no positions in any of the stocks or mutual funds mentioned in this article unless clearly stated above. We certify that except as cited herein, this is our work product. We received no compensation or other inducement from any party to produce this article.  Please see our full legal disclaimer at:  http://www.ultimatestockfinder.com/stockevaluator_disclaimer.html
______________________________________________

To Remove Your Name from this email distribution list, reply to me and I will delete your name.

Ultimate Stock Finder is also on Facebook, you can ‘Like’ us on FB and receive our weekly ‘Investment Idea Sharing’ letter (summary paragraph only) to your FB page.  https://www.facebook.com/UltimateStockFinder


You can read our weekly ‘Investment Idea Sharing’ letter at our Ultimate Stock Finder blog:  http://ultimatestockfinder.blogspot.com/

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Investment Idea Sharing January 19, 2014

This Week's Activity – January 18, 2014: 
Check out our new training videos showing how to use Mutual Fund Evaluator spreadsheet as a powerful fund screener to find mutual funds that buy Large Cap Stocks based on fundamental value and performance criteria.

This video shows how to use the Mutual Fund Evaluator ‘Short List’ screener and change it to screen to your own limits.

This video shows how to use Mutual Fund Evaluator to do a ‘Row-by-Row’ comparison of the fundamental values for mutual funds you are considering.

This week, the world market indices were mixed on uncertainty while waiting for a large number of quarterly earnings releases scheduled for next week.  http://news.yahoo.com/wall-st-week-ahead-stocks-may-vulnerable-earnings-001945204--sector.html  
I still think the markets are overpriced but am always looking for good values on individual stocks of good solid companies. 

Visit our website: http://www.ultimatestockfinder.com/ for more investing ideas, links, training, tools and information.

Click here to see our Summary Table of Worldwide Market Index Closing values for this week: http://www.ultimatestockfinder.com/weekly_index_summary.GIF


This week I sold PUTs on LF and SODA. See the details below in (CALL or PUT) Sells for This Week.  LF closed this week at $7.71 which is near their 20 month low.  Revenue is up 4%, profit margin is 13%, but stock price is down from $11.50 in July due to a software glitch on their newly released LeapPad Ultra this summer.  They have corrected the glitch, but now are gaining more competitors (Amazon, Apple, Samsung) in the education tablet business.  LeapFrog already had VTech as a competitor.  So there are many downward pressures on LF stock, but they have good fundamentals, and I think they can compete with these rivals and will recover from this. 

See the Yahoo 5 year chart for LF at

SODA closed this week at $38.15 which is near their 14 month low.  Revenues (up 29%) and profits (up 20%) are way up over last year, but management’s guidance was a little weak and the market is punishing them.

See the 5 year chart for SODA here: 

See this article for current problems being faced by SODA:

StockEvaluator ‘Short List’
‘Short List’ screens using 12 fundamental value limits that I want to see in a stock before considering it as a possible buy. 
View our training video that shows how to enter your preferred values for each of these ‘Short List’ screening limits:

View the ‘Short List’ screening criteria and target limit values here: http://www.ultimatestockfinder.com/short_list_12_criteria.JPG

Stocks on the ‘Short List’ list this week are:  CAJ, KYO, CVX, PTR, CHA.

Stock Evaluator ‘Volatility Sort’
Stocks on the ‘Volatility Sort’ have Current Price <5% above 52 week low, Volatility >3%, Profit>0%, <6 Red cells in Stock Evaluator.xls. 
Stocks on the ‘Volatility Sort’ this week are: SCSS, SHOS.   

MutualFundEvaluator ‘Short List’
Mutual Funds that are within 3% of their 52 week low AND have less than 3 Red cells. 
This week’s list has 37 funds.  All except 1 (FRIFX) are Bond funds, which are all still 3 to 8% above their lows from 2006 to 2008 before The FED dropped interest rates to bring the U.S. out of the recession.  When interest rates go down, bond prices go up, and when interest rates go up, bond prices go down.  These bond funds only pay a 3 to 4% annual dividend and I think the bond prices will go down another 3 to 4% when The FED finally lets interest rates go back to historic levels which mean 10 Year Bond interest rate of at least 3.5% compared to today’s 10 year rate of 3.01%.  I will continue to wait before buying any bond funds because I do not want to lose a whole year’s worth of interest if I buy back in too soon.

The top two funds on this week’s short list are BCOSX and MWTRX.
Here are their 10year charts to show why I am still waiting to buy.
MWTRX:

BCOSX:

Next Monthly Meeting 2nd Tuesday of every Month:
Tuesday, February 11, 2014 , 7:30 PM at my house. 

Here are my Stock BUYs for This Week:
Stock Symbol:
Buy Date: 
Buy Price:  
Target Sell Price:

Here are my Stock SELLs for This Week:
Stock Symbol:
Sell Date:
Sell Price:
Buy Price:
Buy Date:

Here are my Option (CALL or PUT) Sells for This Week:
I only Sell Covered CALLs or Cash Secured PUTs
Option: PUT
Stock Symbol: LF
Sell Date: 1/17/2014
Expiration Date: Jan 2015
Strike Price: $7.50
Option Price: $1.10

Option: PUT
Stock Symbol: SODA
Sell Date: 1/17/2014
Expiration Date: July 19, 2014
Strike Price: $35
Option Price: $3.80

Visit www.ultimatestockfinder.com to download all Stock Evaluator and Mutual Fund Evaluator spreadsheets, read training articles and check out all our web links for investing information.

Please remember to send me any other investing ideas, information or questions that you want to share with the group.

Thanks,
John D.

Disclosure: The author has no positions in any of the stocks or mutual funds mentioned in this article unless clearly stated above. We certify that except as cited herein, this is our work product. We received no compensation or other inducement from any party to produce this article.  Please see our full legal disclaimer at:  http://www.ultimatestockfinder.com/stockevaluator_disclaimer.html
______________________________________________

To Remove Your Name from this email distribution list, reply to me and I will delete your name.

Ultimate Stock Finder is also on Facebook, you can ‘Like’ us on FB and receive our weekly ‘Investment Idea Sharing’ letter (summary paragraph only) to your FB page.  https://www.facebook.com/UltimateStockFinder


You can read our weekly ‘Investment Idea Sharing’ letter at our Ultimate Stock Finder blog:  http://ultimatestockfinder.blogspot.com/

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Investment Idea Sharing Jan. 12, 2014

This Week's Activity – January 11, 2014: 
I have a conflict on Tuesday, so this Month’s Meeting is this Wednesday, January 15, 2014  7:30 PM at my house. 

A simple and very famous yearly investment strategy is called the ‘Dogs of the Dow’ where the strategy is to buy the highest dividend yield stocks from last year (2013) and hold them through this year.  This Wall Street Journal article explains the ‘Dogs of the Dow’ strategy and performance:  http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2013/12/30/dogs-of-the-dow-regain-some-bark/

As a fundamental value investor, I will never look at dividend yield by itself without taking into account the other fundamental value components that define a good company.  The top two ‘Dogs of the Dow’ from the Wall Street Journal list are T and VZ.  But these two companies have huge Debt to Equity ratios AND huge Goodwill to Equity ratios.

Debt to Equity (my target is <80%)
T=164% , VZ=353%

Goodwill to Equity (my target is <50%)
T=139%  VZ=325%

These huge ratios at T and VZ mean those wonderful dividends are being paid with borrowed money.  How long can that go on?  Maybe for many more years.  But they can’t keep on paying their shareholders a great dividend with borrowed money forever.  I prefer that my dividends be paid from earned money the company can afford to return to shareholders.

I ran my own version of ‘Dogs of the Dow’ using the ‘Short List’ targets and the top two companies on my list are CVX and CSCO.  I already own CSCO and will buy more if it goes to $20.  I do not own CVX, but will buy if it gets to $110.  I will also check the PUT prices on these before actually placing a buy order.

Here is the link to the USF version of ‘Dogs of the Dow’

Excellent article from CNNMoney.com about the high current market valuations and suggesting being in more cash right now.

This week, all of the world market indices were mixed.  I still think the markets are overpriced and continue looking for good values on individual stocks of good solid companies. 

Click here to see our Summary Table of Worldwide Market Index Closing values for this week: http://www.ultimatestockfinder.com/weekly_index_summary.GIF

Visit our website: http://www.ultimatestockfinder.com/ for more investing ideas, links, training, tools and information.


This week I sold Cash Secured PUT’s on IQNT, MYGN and PBR, and I sold a Covered CALL on my NOK shares.  See the details below in (CALL or PUT) Sells for This Week.
I did my research on these stocks at Yahoo Finance.

6 Year chart for IQNT:




Next Monthly Meeting 2nd Tuesday of every Month:
Changed to Wednesday Jan 15 for this month only, 7:30 PM at my house. 

Here are my Stock BUYs for This Week:
Stock Symbol:
Buy Date: 
Buy Price:  
Target Sell Price:

Here are my Stock SELLs for This Week:
Stock Symbol:
Sell Date:
Sell Price:
Buy Price:
Buy Date:

Here are my Option (CALL or PUT) Sells for This Week:
I only Sell Covered CALLs or Cash Secured PUTs
Option: PUT
Stock Symbol: IQNT
Sell Date: 1/10/2014
Expiration Date: Jun 2014
Strike Price: $10
Option Price: $1.40

Option: PUT
Stock Symbol: MYGN
Sell Date: 1/6/2014
Expiration Date: Aug 2014
Strike Price: $20
Option Price: $2.35

Option: PUT
Stock Symbol: PBR
Sell Date: 1/6/2014
Expiration Date: Jul 2014
Strike Price: $13
Option Price: $1.40

Option: CALL
Stock Symbol: NOK
Sell Date: 1/9/2014
Expiration Date: Jan 2015
Strike Price: $10
Option Price: $.60
(I bought NOK at $8.50 in March 2011)

StockEvaluator ‘Short List’
‘Short List’ screens using 12 fundamental value limits that I want to see in a stock before considering it as a possible buy. 
View our training video that shows how to enter your preferred values for each of these ‘Short List’ screening limits:

View the ‘Short List’ screening criteria and target limit values here: http://www.ultimatestockfinder.com/short_list_12_criteria.JPG

Stocks on the ‘Short List’ list this week are: CAJ, CVX, PTR, CHA.

Stock Evaluator ‘Volatility Sort’
Stocks on the ‘Volatility Sort’ have Current Price <5% above 52 week low, Volatility >3%, Profit>0%, <6 Red cells in Stock Evaluator.xls. 
Stocks on the ‘Volatility Sort’ this week are: LQDT, SHOS  

MutualFundEvaluator ‘Short List’
Mutual Funds that are within 3% of their 52 week low AND have less than 3 Red cells. 
This week’s list has 41 funds.  All except 1 (FRIFX) are Bond funds, which are all still 3 to 8% above their lows from 2006 to 2008 before The FED dropped interest rates to bring the U.S. out of the recession.  When interest rates go down, bond prices go up, and when interest rates go up, bond prices go down.  These bond funds only pay a 3 to 4% annual dividend and I think the bond prices will go down another 3 to 4% when The FED finally lets interest rates go back to historic levels which mean 10 Year Bond interest rate of at least 3.5% compared to today’s 10 year rate of 3.01%.  I will continue to wait before buying any bond funds because I do not want to lose a whole year’s worth of interest if I buy back in too soon.

Visit www.ultimatestockfinder.com to download all Stock Evaluator and Mutual Fund Evaluator spreadsheets, read training articles and check out all our web links for investing information.

Please remember to send me any other investing ideas, information or questions that you want to share with the group.

Thanks,
John D.

Disclosure: The author has no positions in any of the stocks or mutual funds mentioned in this article unless clearly stated above. We certify that except as cited herein, this is our work product. We received no compensation or other inducement from any party to produce this article.  Please see our full legal disclaimer at:  http://www.ultimatestockfinder.com/stockevaluator_disclaimer.html


To Remove Your Name from this email distribution list, reply to me and I will delete your name. 

Saturday, January 4, 2014

Investment Idea Sharing Jan. 4, 2014

This Week's Activity – January 4, 2014: 
Today’s Internet is a tremendous wealth of information for an individual investor.  I remember back before the Internet, I had to either trust (and pay for) what my broker told me or go to the library to do my research using the out of date (1 to 3 month old) yellow  company stock sheets in the big binders.  Now, my computer brings me more up to date information than I can possibly comprehend, with a delivery mechanism searched by Google to help me find the answer to any question I have.  Wonderful and also Unbelievable!!

Since the 1990’s, the big investment houses have had an expensive alternative to using the Internet.  They could buy a terminal from Bloomberg or Reuters to receive all kinds of up to the minute market data, analysis tools and articles.  Today, these terminals cost about $21,000 / year.  I have never used one, but I have a hard time believing it could be that much better than all the free data and analysis available on the Internet to the rest of us.  Do any of you use one of these expensive terminals?  Does this terminal actually deliver better information than the free sites on the Internet?    

Since I will never have a Bloomberg terminal, I am trying to make the Ultimate Stock Finder website into my own personal FREE Bloomberg Terminal.  Whenever I find a good market data website, I add it to the USF ‘Links’ page.  Good articles, presentations and investing tools are added to the ‘Training’ page.  Good Stock and Mutual Fund screeners are added to the ‘Stock Evaluator’ or ‘Mutual Fund Evaluator’ pages.  Please send me the good websites you use for investing information, and I will add their links to the USF website.

The research still takes a lot of work, but I can’t complain about a lack of data.
 
Bloomberg Terminal Costs

Bloomberg Terminal History

Ultimate Stock Finder website

This week, all of the world market indices were down slightly. Probably just taking a breather over the New Years holidays.  I still think the markets are overpriced but I continue looking for good values on individual stocks of good solid companies. 



StockEvaluator ‘Short List’
‘Short List’ screens using 12 fundamental value limits that I want to see in a stock before considering it as a possible buy. 
View our training video that shows how to enter your preferred values for each of these ‘Short List’ screening limits:

View the ‘Short List’ screening criteria and target limit values here: http://www.ultimatestockfinder.com/short_list_12_criteria.JPG

Stocks on the ‘Short List’ list this week are:  CAJ, PTR, UMC, CHA, CVX.

Stock Evaluator ‘Volatility Sort’
Stocks on the ‘Volatility Sort’ have Current Price <5% above 52 week low, Volatility >3%, Profit>0%, <6 Red cells in Stock Evaluator.xls. 
Stocks on the ‘Volatility Sort’ this week are: none   

MutualFundEvaluator ‘Short List’
Mutual Funds that are within 3% of their 52 week low AND have less than 3 Red cells. 
This week’s list has 42 funds.  All except 1 (FRIFX) are Bond funds, which are all still 3 to 8% above their lows from 2006 to 2008 before The FED dropped interest rates to bring the U.S. out of the recession.  When interest rates go down, bond prices go up, and when interest rates go up, bond prices go down.  These bond funds only pay a 3 to 4% annual dividend and I think the bond prices will go down another 3 to 4% when The FED finally lets interest rates go back to historic levels which mean 10 Year Bond interest rate of at least 3.5% compared to today’s 10 year rate of 3.0%.  I will continue to wait before buying any bond funds because I do not want to lose a whole year’s worth of interest if I buy back in too soon.

Next Monthly Meeting 2nd Tuesday of every Month:
Tuesday, January 14, 2014 , 7:30 PM at my house. 

Here are my Stock BUYs for This Week:
Stock Symbol:
Buy Date: 
Buy Price:  
Target Sell Price:

Here are my Stock SELLs for This Week:
Stock Symbol:
Sell Date:
Sell Price:
Buy Price:
Buy Date:

Here are my Option (CALL or PUT) Sells for This Week:
I only Sell Covered CALLs or Cash Secured PUTs
Option:
Stock Symbol:
Sell Date:
Expiration Date:
Strike Price:
Option Price:

Visit www.ultimatestockfinder.com to download all Stock Evaluator and Mutual Fund Evaluator spreadsheets, read training articles and check out all our web links for investing information.

Please remember to send me any other investing ideas, information or questions that you want to share with the group.

Thanks,
John D.

Disclosure: The author has no positions in any of the stocks or mutual funds mentioned in this article unless clearly stated above. We certify that except as cited herein, this is our work product. We received no compensation or other inducement from any party to produce this article.  Please see our full legal disclaimer at:  http://www.ultimatestockfinder.com/stockevaluator_disclaimer.html
______________________________________________

To Remove Your Name from this email distribution list, reply to me and I will delete your name.

Ultimate Stock Finder is also on Facebook, you can ‘Like’ us on FB and receive our weekly ‘Investment Idea Sharing’ letter (summary paragraph only) to your FB page.  https://www.facebook.com/UltimateStockFinder


You can read our weekly ‘Investment Idea Sharing’ letter at our Ultimate Stock Finder blog:  http://ultimatestockfinder.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Happy New Year from USF

End of Year Summary – December 31, 2013: 
Here, for your enjoyment, is the End of Year Summary table with all the worldwide stock market indices.  What a great year 2013 was for stock market investors! 

Now we need to continue being vigilant and careful as we look for the bargains of 2014.



















Wishing you a prosperous New year!

Thanks,

John D.