The Curse Has Been Broken!!

And there goes my amazing business idea...

This week Wendy's (WEN) bucked the trend and broke the "curse" and did not drop in price. My perfect record is broken and I can no longer offer my services for bringing down a stock price with my toxic touch. One bit of shadow on this stock is that the industry rank for Restaurants has dropped from 16 to 20 and the Timeliness of the stock has dropped from 2 to 3. So maybe, just maybe, my poisonous recommendation power is still in force? WhatSayYou? I guess based on this bad news I have no choice but to declare the stock Dropped from the Potentials list.

MGE Energy (MGEE) also managed to hold off the curse and have a good week holding steady at the price at which I listed it as a Potentials pick. Additionally, the industry group that this company represents jumped from a Valueline rank of 7 to a rank of 3, and the company's Technical rank was upgraded to 1 (best). This stock is looking even better now. I guess this high energy stock has the power to resist my toxic touch. This stock is very likely going to convert into a Buy in the coming week.

The report for the current portfolio is also good this week.

Alphabet Inc. (GOOG) had a great week rising to $737.60 putting me back in the black on one of my batches, Ka-Ching! 

Fresh Del-Monte (FDP) had a flat-to-slightly down week and ended at $41.87, still leaving me with a 5% gain, Ka-Ching. More good news, on March 7th, the stock paid out a $0.125 dividend, the equivalent of 0.29%. Sadly, the stock has dropped to a Timeliness rating of 3, meaning it's time to get out.  

Novo Nordisk (NVO) had a down week going from little over $57 to $54.61 by the end of the week, also leaving me with almost a 5% gain, Ka-Ching. In other news they paid out a $0.96 dividend, equivalent of a 1.78% return, offsetting the drop in price, double Ka-Ching.

With so much churn in my Potentials and Portfolio, I didn't get time to research new recommendations, so nothing on that front this time.

Thanks for reading.

A Country Jig about Interest Rates!!

This is a video I heard about on my favorite money podcast, Marketplace, and had to share. It's a hoot!

Enjoy:

Would I rather eat Wendy's or McDonald's?

Given my well "proven" Ownership Bias, this week has me asking the question, would I rather eat Wendy's (WEN) food or McDonald's (MCD) food. To tell the truth I would prefer to not eat either, but both these companies are showing enough promise to be on my Potentials list. Because I don't want to put all my proverbial eggs in the same Restaurant business basket, I am forced to pick one of these fast food giants. The advantages of McDonald's (MCD) over Wendy's (WEN) are obvious due to its size and customer affinity, but the smaller chain seems to have a bigger possible upside, so I am going to go with Wendy's (WEN) as my first Potentials pick this week. Here are the vital statistics:

Name:                               Wendy's Co.

Industry:                            Restaurant
Symbol:                              WEN
Timeliness:                        2
Safety:                               3
Technical:                          2
Approximate Price:            $9.39
Dividend Yield:                  2.5%
Industry Rank:                  16
Low Gain Estimate:            25%
High Gain Estimate:           90%

Pretty good numbers; reasonably priced, a decent dividend yield, and a solid growth potential to boot. If I were to believe Valueline, and I do, buying in will result in an 8-18% return on investment between price appreciation and dividend. Makes for an attractive company to bite into. 

Another stock that seems to be powerful at the moment is MGE Energy (MGEE).

Name:                                MGE Energy

Industry:                            Electric Utility (Central)
Symbol:                              MGEE
Timeliness:                        1
Safety:                               1
Technical:                          2
Approximate Price:            $50.12
Dividend Yield:                  2.4%
Industry Rank:                   7
Low Gain Estimate:            5%
High Gain Estimate:           15%

Looking at the numbers, this does not look very attractive, but the company appears prominently on the Valueline report. First it's a Timeliness 1 company, in an industry that is rated highly (7/97) ranking, plus a decent dividend and growth potential, make this a worthy purchase. Between all of this it is expected to return between 4-7% annually.

I have one more company to add to the Potentials list, but it is a weaker case and so I want to research it some more before I mention it here. I hope to get to that by the time I write my next post.

I have no Buys to report, so let's move on to this weeks performance report.

Alphabet Inc. (GOOG) continues to struggle and is once again below $700 at $693 and change getting a Ka-Flunk rating. Still believe in this one and still holding on tight.

Fresh Del Monte (FDP) continues to serve up sweet rewards sitting at $42.01 even after a bit of a down day today. With a gain of about 18% it earns a solid Ka-Ching rating.

Novo Nordisk (NVO) also continues to pull out of the curse and ended the day today at $56.36, also after a down day. Now showing an 8.2% gain it also earns a Ka-Ching rating.

That's all for today.

Thanks for reading.

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2016

Back again after a brief break.

I realize that I had planned to write a post once a week for this series, but given the limited size of my investment pool I found that I had nothing to write about on a weekly basis. So here I am after a bit of a hiatus with an update on my (mis)adventures.

Since the last time I wrote a few interesting events have transpired. 

One of my biggest Buy, Alphabet Inc. (GOOG) overtook Apple (AAPL) to become the company with the largest market capitalization effectively making it the biggest company in the world! But this major achievement has not helped the stock price keep growing. It currently sits at $718.85 well below the average price of my purchases. In the past week it has been well below $700 and so this is not as bad as it has been, but GOOG still earns a Ka-Flunk rating.

Fresh Del Monte (FDP) has been a bright spot in my portfolio. Currently sitting at $41.79 it is well above my Buy price of $35.54 and earns a Ka-Ching rating. Also the company sits well with some strategic moves that are likely to help it grow in the future.

Another update is that I converted one of my Potentials into a Buy. As you might recall, I had added Novo Nordisk (NVO) to my list of potential buys and it had immediately been struck by the "curse". Even still, I believed in the company and watched it as it struggled with the effects of the bad news. The stock dropped from around $55 all the way down to about $46 and in a couple of weeks had recovered to be back above $50. At that point I figured, the markets had forgiven and forgotten, and jumped in to Buy paying $52.03 per share. The current price is $53.07 giving me a narrow gain and also earning a Ka-Ching rating.

Meanwhile my sitting-on-the-fence stock Cal-Maine (CALM) keeps on laying golden eggs and is now priced at $54.91. I had the opportunity to buy in near $47, but I chickened out again (see what I did there?). Anyway, the Goose is still alive and well and I may yet buy it if I get the opportunity.

That's all I have in this installment...
Cheers!