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cd_vision's LiveJournal:
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| Friday, November 6th, 2009 | | 8:11 am |
Again?
Dang man, what is up with the SEC investigating the companies I work for? First Countrywide, now CVS Caremark. | | Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 | | 8:42 pm |
| | 8:03 am |
| | Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 | | 6:29 am |
| | Saturday, October 31st, 2009 | | 9:06 am |
| | Friday, October 30th, 2009 | | 1:31 pm |
| | Thursday, October 29th, 2009 | | 8:23 am |
Hmmmm
I added to my position in American Express today. It wasn't really a great price, but I try to keep my largest holdings in high quality companies, and I noticed I had some less quality stuff exceeding it as a percentage. I'm sure that I won't break any records on this purchase, but my risk of loss is also not great. | | Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 | | 6:09 am |
Sliding prices
Mmmm yesterday's market action was really interesting. The DOW closed up a bit, but many smaller companies saw good percentage drops. I came very close to stepping in and making a short term trade on AK Steel when I saw it was down 9% at one point. I backed off at the last minute just because I didn't feel like the amount I was going to purchase would be worth it. I'm starting to get hit with the law of diminishing returns, which means that as your account/business size grows, the percentage of gains as a dollar value starts to shrink. It's an argument some finance people make against buying exclusively large-cap stocks. For example, if you have $1000, and you add $100 to it, well your account value gained 10%. The same $100 added to $10,000 is only 1%, etc. For a multibillion dollar company to grow 10% is much harder than a company with just a few million. So I'm having to make bigger and bigger investments to see a payoff. It is not my goal to take on more and more risk, so I decided against AK Steel for today. We'll see what happens with prices. I may revisit it. | | Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 | | 1:17 pm |
| | 11:57 am |
Quick n dirty analysis of Wendy's
My mother in-law is a Certified Financial Accountant, so I keep in touch with her about various investments she's making. Today she told me she's been buying Wendy's, and I had to pause for a moment to ask her why. I was immediately struck by the bad numbers on their data sheet, and declining net income for the last 3 years. I thought if anyone would recognize that they have problems, it would be her. She forwarded me this article as her reason for buying: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Fast-Food-at-a-Slow-tsmp-1668865720.html?x=0&.v=1I picked the reasoning apart, and sent her this reply: "There are a couple of different philosophies I sort through when I try to analyze something like this. Under various conditions, one may be more appropriate than others. If I start with the Buffett approach, then I could most certainly say that Wendy’s has no “durable competitive advantage”. They may very well be priced down because they deserve it. The non-synergy created with Arby’s, the frequent changing of menu options, and most troubling, the lack of customers in their restaurants when we visit pretty much points to all of this. I’ve not looked at their cash flow statements but I bet their debt load is nasty. Actually, I just looked, and yeah, it is. So, that being the case, if a recovery happens, it won’t happen quickly. You could be sitting on a $4-5 range stock for a really long time. If it was fast food Buffett was looking for, he’d want McDonald’s. But McDonald’s doesn’t go on sale too often, so what can you do. That also means it doesn’t take a 20% drop in price overnight either. The Benjamin Graham in me is the guy looking at those real estate assets as motivation, and the dividend as a margin of safety. BUT, real estate is not producing revenue for them, and I could imagine another Filiberto’s would be more than happy to buy those buildings at a nice low price. Mark to market can really hurt them here. In regards to the dividend, you can see that they reduced it by 80%, but they’re still bleeding red ink and adding debt. If you use the same reasoning to choose an investment, why not diversify with other beaten down/badly run restaurants like Carl’s Jr., or Krispy Kreme Donuts? KKD might actually turn it’s very first every profit this year, and they’ve been targeting their debt levels, so who knows? Graham would also want to purchase below the value of the assets if possible, and when examining a possible raise in EPS, he’d want a lower P/E ratio, especially in light of a low growth rate. Lastly, there’s a philosophical approach where we say that everything tends to return to sameness, but that is only in light of constants. Wendy’s is struggling to make themselves a workable business. Sometimes, the markets are efficient, and a $4 stock really is only worth $4. The argument that their competition is doing well right now doesn’t make them more appealing, it makes it look like they’re losing market share. So I’m going to pass on them for now." | | Friday, October 23rd, 2009 | | 10:25 pm |
A Nice time out
Today is my 5th anniversary. I bought my wife some emerald earrings and Hugo Boss perfume, then we went out for dinner at The Players Club in Scottsdale (TPC is where the Phoenix Open is played, it has a great view). Food was pretty darn good. They brought us out a really nice bread pudding with bannana ice cream thing with a, um.. you know, I'm not really sure what it was called. It was like a wide ribbon type of thing but you could eat it and it was sweet. Anyway, they had written happy anniversary in chocolate. They must have started making it right when we arrived, it was really a great touch. I'll get some pictures we took up soon. When I went shopping for her, I couldn't help but notice the price of jewelry with any gold content is really crazy right now. The worst example I've seen so far is this necklace with a 1/10th oz gold eagle coin pendant. The necklace part was 14k gold, so the thing might have had $200 worth of total market value if you smelted it. It was selling for $1600 at Macy's. I asked if sales had been bad from high prices, but the lady working there told me sales are actually up. People are buying this stuff thinking it will hold it's value. Walking around the Metro Center mall I could see that there were a whole bunch of new small jewelry stores that have opened up, trying to cash in on the trend. This is going to end badly. I mean the jewelry businesses will end badly. It looks like my marriage is going pretty good! Love you Jo, looking forward to the next 500 years together! | | Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 | | 8:18 am |
Today's purchases
Increased my bonds holdings in BND, and added a new bond fund, MIN. It's a mortgage-backed securities fund holding mainly Japanese bonds. It's got a very stable price and a healthy yield just over 8%. Also finally added a position in Coca-Cola, and increased holdings in Pfizer and Realty Income Corp. | | 5:21 am |
| | 5:15 am |
| | Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 | | 12:41 pm |
Investment stuffs
I quietly sold what I had in Wells Fargo a few weeks ago. I didn't talk about it because I just wanted to have some cash on hand for my 5th anniversary, which is this Friday. I did also want to take some profit on that company, so I'm not certain if or how quickly I might buy it back. I got my school check this week so I should be making some purchases before the weekend. Bonds for sure, and I'm taking a good look at my portfolio for other smart additions. | | Sunday, October 18th, 2009 | | 12:54 pm |
| | Saturday, October 17th, 2009 | | 3:19 pm |
This is getting really exciting
It was Wednesday night when I added in the supplements fish oil, Alpha Lipoic Acid, and Evening primrose. I lost 6 pounds since then. Moreover, the amount I weigh fluctuates, but this weight is two pounds below the lowest I've weighed in a few months. I'm not calling this coincidence anymore. | | 9:33 am |
The eyebrow!
It's hard for people to take you seriously when you have avatars like this. | | 8:58 am |
Oh wow..
I bought my meter home and took a reading this morning when I had only been up a few minutes. I'm getting 150 which is you know, still high, but much better than the 200+ I usually get. I didn't really eat any carbs last night, but that's still really good for me. Yay! | | Friday, October 16th, 2009 | | 2:51 pm |
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