Decent Day

The portfolio finished the day up 0.48 but my stocks outperformed my funds yet again. The portfolio was up .70% at midday before the Fed announcement. The S&P at the time was barely at break even but after the announcement it shot up almost one percent while my portfolio barely budged. The indexes bested my performance by 15-20 basis points, mostly because of my funds.

Top JOB Performance

JOB posted stellar quarterly numbers yesterday and the stock boosted 16%, at one point today it was up over 30%. Overall, the portfolio finished the day up 0.47%, slightly better than all major averages. My stock holdings handily outperformed my mutual funds, even with oil rising over a buck today.

Getty Images was up another 9% today. This stock has reached my sell zone and i plan to unload it on its next strong day. PXPL continues to vex me as it was down almost 8% for no reason. It has been extremely volatile lately.

Big Hole to Start the Week

The week started out poorly as TAIT, PXPL and RAND pulled me lower. TAIT was a large portion of my drop today as the portfolio finished down 0.09% while the Russell 2000 finished up 0.63%. I did do better than the S&P by two basis points and only slightly worse than the 1000.

Getty Images posted a solid quarter and beat estimates. It rose over 5% today and is up another 4% after hours. COH, MRVC and ARTX also helped out the portfolio.

Weekly Summary

For the week ending Jan. 26th, the portfolio finished up just 0.27%. It was a disappointing week given the advances most of my stocks had early in the week. I did however, manage to outperform the S&P by 86 basis points and the Russell 1000 by 77. I underperformed the 2000 by a few basis points. As of Friday, I know have just over $75,000 in individual stocks and $175,000 in mutual funds. I'm on schedule to have a 50/50 distribution by the end of the first quarter.

PXPL?

PXPL has been extremely volatile the last couple of weeks and today was not different. The stock was down most of the day until a few minutes before market close when the it jumped more the 17% on no news. For the day, we were down 0.70%

SUNN-y Days

I started a position in SUNN today. Its a great net net play selling at80% of NCAV. Also, i had a limit for 1500 shares of PFSW at 1.10 which hit. My lower buy limits weren't reached. I got into a large position of TAIT. I think I'm a little late to this game but i think the stock has at least another dollar upside.

Overall, the portfolio finished up 0.70% which was not as good as the major averages but any up day is a good day i say!

OIL Finally Rebounds

The portfolio finished up 0.52% today thanks in large part to my energy fund and Fidelity Leveraged Company which has a 28% sector weighting in oil. My individual stocks did not far as well. ARTX continued to move and I added to BRNC with another 150 shares at $15.85 bringing my total to 450 shares, one of my largest holdings. EGR was also added to doubling my share total to 2000 at a cost basis of 1.44.

TOA finished down 6% today after announcing they were updating a joint venture in which they basically created an SPE with Deutche Bank. EMVL, formally EWEB, dropped 6% also on no news.

Coach announced earnings today that beat estimates and it also raised its forecast. However, the street didnt like the small decrease in its margins due to the fact that factory store sales outpaced regular store sales for the first time. Seems to me that Wall St. always focuses on the worst news of any earnings report. The stocks was down almost 3% at one point before rebounding to finish up slightly.

Bad Start to the Week

The portfolio was hit by the broad decline and fell 0.47% however that was slightly better than the S&P 500 and Russell 1000 and over 50 basis points better than the Russell 2000. I sold small stakes in three mutual funds today, which would make me more happy if they had finished in positive territory, and have placed a few limit orders to pick up some potential bargains. More to come on those buys...

Weekly Summary

For the week, the portfolio finished up 0.66% besting all major indexes soundly, especially the NASDAQ and Russell 2000 which finished down 1.15%. I'm still looking for more value microcap plays to invest in. I'm happy to see oil recover slightly as some winter like weather finally moved in across the Northeast. Ill continue to search for some more investment opportunities or buy some current holdings on weakness. But until then, I'll continue to keep the mutual funds.

Not As Bad As I Thought

With oil dropping again and trading below $50 for a time today, I thought my portfolio would have been down a lot more than it was. The portfolio finished down 0.59% on the day with really no consistency between the funds and stocks. RAND and PXPL were both down over 6%. ARTX was again up as it has gained over 25% in the last week and change. Again, i can't stress enough that I wish I got more than 400 shares of my limit order. ATRM, JOB, and NWS were all up over 1% to help stave off disaster.

For the Second Day in a Row..

My stocks picks have destroyed my fund holdings. I think the market is trying to tell me something... the portfolio finished the day up 0.13% besting all major averages which were all negative. I'm still trying to pick up more ARTX but the stock jumped .27 (7%) today so I obviously wasn't able to grab anymore shares. Energy made a nice bounce today so I hope tomorrow will be more of the same so I can dump my energy fund. We'll see.

Stocks to the Rescue

WIth oil down again, my funds performed poorly. However, my stock holdings which represent 26% of my portfolio, increased 1.78% today alowing me to beat the major indexes quite easily. Right now, I'm looking for a boost in oil given the forecast for the first major outbreak of cold weather in the northeast as an opportunity to sell my energy fund and decrease my mutual fund holdings.

While I'm always on the lookout for new stocks to buy, right now I'm focusing my attention on increasing the size of some of my individual stocks to increase their weight in the portfolio. Im currently buying ARTX, PXPL, ATRM, and RAND on any weakness they show.

Weekly Summary

The portfolio finished the week up 1.90% besting all major averages except the Russell 2000. It was a broad rally with all holdings up except PXPL.

NCAV Stocks

I have been tracking NCAV stocks which are stocks that are trading below there net current asset value. Basically, you subtract total liabilities from current assets and then divide that by the float and if the stock is trading below that figure, it considered a deep value stock. This philosophy was tauted by Benjamin Graham, the father of value investing, in his landmark book, The Intelligent Investor- the basis for the name of this blog.

A great resource to find these types of stocks is grahaminvestor.com/screens. This site is updated daily with the 20 most undervalued stocks based on their float. Now, I would caution about flat out investing in such securities without serious investigation beforehand. Many times, there is a legitimate reason why they are trading at such discounts.

UP 1% today. Oil finally rebounded and boosted my energy fund 2.86% along with a new position that I hope I caught on its low, Bronco Drilling. BRNC has a high correlation to oil, almost .94 according to Bloomberg. I am probably one of the few hoping for $80 oil again.

Too Much Red

Down 0.2 today. Couldnt pick up any more ARTX as the stock jumped again today, up over $.29 (7%). Thats a two day profit of 18%. I could complain that i didnt get my full alotment of shares but i guess i should be thankful i had anything in it. 400 shares is better than nothing.

New Position- ARTX

Well, I have a new position to report- ARTX- Arotech Inc. I have been watching this stock for some time and should have pulled the trigger back in November when the stock was trading at $1.65, but i procrastinated and at $3.50, think its still has significant upside. The stock trades at 74% of book value and has seen significant institutional buying over the past quarter. I put in an order for 1000 shares at 3.58 this morning when i went to work. I was away from my desk most of the day and when i returned, found that 400 shares had been filled and the stock was no trading in the $3.85 range. Thats a nice 8.4% return in a few hours. I just wish I got all my shares.

Seesaw

The market was all over the place today with the portfolio finally ending the day in positive territory 0.22% (+$543.88). Funds boosted my overall performance with the price of oil and natural gas recovering a bit with talk about a new OPEC meeting on production cuts. I'm hesitant to sell at this point with oil mostly lower due to the unusually warm winter in the Northeast. I may hold it one more week as the forecast calls for a general cooling trend this week and a cold snap next week. I hope this will boost oil prices so that i can garner a few more percentage points on my energy fund.

Kent Brockman, "If 60 degree days is the "price" we have to pay for global warming, then pardon me if I don't get rid of my old pontiac."

Weekly Summary

For the week, the portfolio started the year down 0.99% with a significant portion of that under performance coming from the energy sector plummeting this week. I have precleared many new microcaps and hope to sell my energy fund and some assets within other mutual funds to provide capital for new securities within the portfolio.

I have been receiving these spam emails at work with weird from addresses that state a certain pink sheet stock will jump by 10-50% over the next few days. I have been watching them and they do indeed jump shortly after receiving the email but then the following week, they plummet, usually to a level below what it originated at. I guess these people know they are going to acquire a block of the stock so they are spamming to try and gain a floor for when other investors initiate selling after the pop. Unethical to say the least.

Bad Day for the Funds, Good Day for Stocks

The portfolio finished the day up 0.13% ($320.12) pulled up by my microcap holdings. The price of oil plummeted today so obviously the energy fund dropped (2.11%) in addition to many of my other funds which have a high correlation to oil.

MRVC led my stock holdings higher posting a 7.32% along with JOB 4.73% and COH up 2.69%. Tomorrow i will run some of my screens to see if any opportunities have presented themselves over the past few weeks. I hope to devote more capital towards microcaps to benefit from the January effect.

Weekly Summary- Bounce Back

For the week ending December 29th, the portfolio finished up 0.95% besting the major averages. I was on vacation all last week visiting the folks so I couldn't update the blog. Starting in a few weeks, I'm going to start to increase my equity holding from 21.5% of my portfolio towards 40%. My goal of 50% equity holdings, 50% mutual funds should be attained by the end of the first quarter. I hope to not invest solely in microcap stocks but it will be the bulk of my investing.