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.

The Curse of the Eternal Optimist?

I think the universe is trying to tell me something here; something about the eternal optimism that I exhibit.

No sooner than I pick a stock to add to my Potentials list than bad news seems to hit the company! 

Today my latest pick for the Potentials list, Novo Nordisk ADR (NVO) declared that they will find it difficult to raise prices of drugs in the US and also lowered the earning growth potential down from 15% to 10%. Needless to say, the stock too a beating today; down over $3 or more than 6% at the end of the day after being more than $4 down at one point of time.

Now I'm having second thoughts about it, and wondering if it should be Dropped from the list of Potentials completely. I will continue to watch it for a few days before moving on it for sure. Maybe the market will shrug off the bad news and turn around on this otherwise good stock.

Meanwhile, I am also considering offering up my services to companies who want to do harm to their competitors. For a "small" fee I am willing to put said competitors on my Potentials list and bring down the "Curse of the Eternal Optimist" on them. With the inevitable bad news and financial ruin this will bring upon the competitors, my clients will be free to dominate their industry. Do you think this will be a good business venture? WhatSayYou? Leave your thoughts in the comments below. Or if you are a potential client, feel free to get in touch!! :-)

January 9th 2016: Addendum

So what happened to Kimberly Clark (KMB), you're wondering. It was listed as one of the Potentials in January 2nd 2016 post but there was no mention of it in the January 9th 2016 post. Well, after further consideration I have Dropped it from the list...

Here's the reason; the stock is priced at a whopping $128 or so. This means to get a reasonable number of them I am looking at multiples of $12800. The price appreciation potential of the stock does not justify, for me, such a large investment at this time.

So it's off the list. Maybe another time.

Saturday, January 9th 2016

... Or a funny thing happened on the way to the market.

Two of my picks from last week CALM and FUN got downgraded by Valueline in the report that came out last week. CALM went from a Timeliness of 1 to 2 and FUN dropped from 2 to 3. This meant that FUN immediately Dropped out of my list of Potentials; I may consider it again if at a future date if it rises from the ashes. You know, with a stock symbol like FUN, how can you completely give up on it? 

CALM though is still on the Potentials list because a Timeliness of 2 is still considered a good or Timely stock in the Valueline universe. CALM also withstood the storm that came down on the market last week reasonably well, which is a great segue to the GREAT CHINESE MARKET DEBACLE of 2016.

The Chinese stock holders and the world in general have started to catch on to the hoax of the Chinese stock market. As a person of Indian origin, with a Chinese made knife still stuck deep in the back of my psyche, reference to the "हिंदी चीनी भाई भाई" ( Indians and Chinese are brothers ) days right before the Chinese People's Army attacked India, I have a deep suspicion of anything Chinese. So I am not surprised that the miracle of the Chinese stock market is just a mirage that is starting to fade.

Anyway, the instability meltdown of the Chinese market affected markets around the globe and I figured this would be a good time to buy some stocks that have dropped from their high perches. So, onward to the Buy(s) of the week.

I picked up a small quantity of GOOG at $744.475 and another small quantity of GOOG when the market dropped even further at $726.70. I thought this would be a good time to invest with the market on the downswing, but I underestimated the velocity of the downswing. The week ended with GOOG at $714.47 earning this week the Ka-Flunk label :-( . I am not worried about this because I believe the Google (Alphabet Inc.) is still a good investment and it will pay off.

Still on the list of Potentials is this stock from last week:

Name:                                Cal-Maine Foods

Industry:                            Food Processing
Symbol:                              CALM
Timeliness:                        2
Safety:                               3
Technical:                          3
Approximate Price:            $46
Dividend Yield:                  6.6%
Industry Rank:                  35
Low Gain Estimate:            0%
High Gain Estimate:           45%

The Industry ranking has dropped 3 slots to 35, the estimated yield is down to 6.6%, and both the Timeliness and Technical Ranks have dropped by one. But the price appreciation has risen to 0-45% to match the price drop showing that the stock still has the same appreciation potential. Also the price is only down a few points to a little above $46, so the stock dealt with the China crisis quite well. This makes sense because the company has no real exposure to Chinese markets. All this keeps the stock in the running as a potential buy.

That's all folks...