Investment "Logic"

As 2017 wraps up, I want to take a brief moment to review my performance on the year and then talk about what I'm looking for in 2018. While my intent is to keep things short, it's important that I set a common base.   First, all gain/loss percentages discussed are based upon either feedback from my portfolio tracking software or by pulling up tickers on the  Morningstar  web site's performance tabs for YTD or 2017 numbers on performance.  Numbers I state have the chance of being off a few percentage points compared to reality.  I will be doing various comparisons of my stocks against the performance of the S&P 500, excluding dividends.  Additionally, I'll be comparing the performance against the sectors which the stocks are a part of.  To do this, I'm using Spider (SPDR) ETF index funds, as these ETFs are known to track extremely close to each of their respective sectors.  These sector performances likely include the benefit of dividend yields whereas my s

Once again, I've been failing to keep up on my portfolio.  We're now entering into the end of the year and this will likely be the last summary I put out as we head into the Holiday season and I prepare my end of year documents that I've been doing.  Despite my inability to keep up with documenting things along the way, I have been staying on my stock research for the most part.  I did miss listening to an earnings call or two, but those that I missed were great quarters and need less attention, for the most part.  I do recognize I need to change these behaviors if I'm to keep doing this, though, as the homework and documentation is important to having a successful portfolio. I would like to take a little time to note some key events that has happened since last I reported out.  First has been jobs reports.  We've had multiple positive jobs results or better than expected results despite things like the hurricanes and California fires impacting them.  Despit

Today I decided trim a small portion off of my Citigroup position in order to build up some cash reserves as well as take advantage of the sudden and dramatic price moves we've recently seen.  This sale is a matter of both discipline and fear.  The stock has moved about 8% in the last week on news that a Tax Bill has been formed and approved in the senate.  The bill is exceptionally favorable for businesses and high income earniners and therefore you're seeing quite the surge in the banks.  At the same time, you're also seeing a rotation out of technology - particularly the semiconductors.  This move doesn't feel normal or natural - despite the fact that Citigroup is cheaper than its peers and I was feeling I was taking on too much risk of a downturn.  Combine that with the size of the position in the portfolio (approximately 15.6% of my portfolio), I felt it was time to protect some gains to rebalance my portfolio some and have some cash for the next downturn. I

Back on November 2, Cedar Fair announced the results of their third quarter fiscal 2017 earnings results.  Results were a little mixed as they missed on the top line slightly, but provided a nice beat against earnings expectations.  EBITDA guidance confirmed what was already expected last quarter, with the company decidedly unable to meet its $500M target a year early.  Despite this, the board decided to increase its annual distribution (remember, this is an MLP, not a regular stock with a dividend) by 4%.  That sets the payout at $3.56, or approximately 5.27% as of today's price.   Revenues came in at $652.69M compared to estimates of $652.97M, which were revised down during the quarter.  Despite this, earnings beat expectations of $3.24 by eighteen cents, showing strong cost and expense discipline.  Despite management's desire to avoid using it as an excuse, weather clearly was a factor prior, considering how Hurricane Harvey rolled through the Midwest and East coast wh

On Friday, Honeywell announced third quarter results for fiscal 2017.  After preannouncing results last week there's not a lot of new information here, so my analysis will likely be fairly brief.  Headlines will say that the company met expectations, but that's only after the new expectations were set with the preannounced results.  The company delivered earnings of $1.75, which were at the high end of their guidance in July.  Sales came in at $10.1B with organic growth of 5%, led in part by aerospace.  It was back at the beginning of the year that everyone was panicking as to whether the company would be able to get any organic growth.  Free cash flow growth was excellent at 18%, providing plenty of funding for the spinoffs that were just announced.   Fourth quarter projections continue this growth as the company expects to have 4% - 6% organic revenue growth resulting in earnings in the range of $1.79 - $1.84.  To put things simply, the spinoffs are going to allow Honey

Thursday morning, Citigroup announced third quarter earnings results.  They topped analyst expectations by delivering earnings of $1.42 and revenues of $18.1B.  Expectations were at $1.32 and $17.89, raised slightly more from where it was at when I previewed the results in my last weekly summary.  The company returned $6.4B in capital over the course of the quarter, a majority of that represented through the repurchase of about 81 million shares of stock.  The TBV also rose 6% from a year ago, landing at $68.55 which is in line with my estimates for where that key measurement is going.  Despite the solid beat, the stock's price has fallen about 5% since the announcement. In Global Consumer Banking (GCB) we saw revenue increases across all regions, with Latin America leading the way.  in North America, the Costco card acquisition provides much of the experienced strength, but it also brings much of the increase in Net Credit Loss (NCL) growth.  Expenses and gross margins also

Before the opening bell yesterday morning, Honeywell announced the results of its portfolio analysis, an analysis that was spurred by activist investor pressure.  Third Point's Dan Loeb challenged Honeywell, shortly after new CEO Darius Adamczyk took the helm, that the company isn't doing enough to capture shareholder value and that they should spin off the Aerospace division.  After the company has done deep analysis of their portfolio of products, they agreed to do not 1, but 2 spinoffs from the company.  Neither spinoff, however, is the one that Third Point asked for.  Instead, the company is going to spin off their homes business - essentially the HVAC and fire protection products which they have (thermostats, filters, other equipment for home and businesses) as one business.  This business will be worth approximately $4.5B.  The second spinoff will be their transportation business, which is primarily rooted in their low-margin, but highly successful turbo chargers, w

As we enter the final quarter of the calendar year, we prepare for third quarter earnings reports season.  Pepsico announced their results earlier this week and you can see my thoughts on that here .  The portfolio continues to perform well, but you'll notice a few things have changed since last time as well  First, I sold the remaining investment I've put into ON semiconductor.  As such, I've inserted a new icon into my blog to identify stocks where I'm playing with the house's money, which you'll see noted just before we talk about my rankings.  You'll continue to see me do some research an post on the stock, but my homework will not necessarily be as deep as it has been in the past.  . Since I was no longer invested in a tech stock, I wanted to find the right opportunity to get reinvested there and happened to come across the stock of Apple at just the right time, seeing it drop significantly from new highs after people started worrying about iPhon