Investment "Logic"

Stocks took another beating this week as the constant drop in oil prices has pulled the market along with it like a giant commodity.  This was especially painful to my portfolio which has been overly levered to energy, unintentionally, for a very long time now.  As such, I vacated my holding of Broadwind Energy.  I expect more downside to the stock due to a failed or extremely minimal PTC passing before the end of the year as well as decreased earnings and balance from both tower selling and service requests for their gearing division, which has been mostly levered to the oil and gas patches. Oddly enough, the stock is now higher than I sold it at.  No time to dwell, though, and my vision is longer-term than a day or two.  NPS Pharmaceuticals also presented at an Oppenheimer conference, but as expected, there wasn't anything new to help the stock rise. Looking forward, we have a big week ahead.  On Monday, Honeywell presents on what their 2015 financ...

Notes: Stock Ratings: 1 = buy at current stock prices, 2 = buy on a 5-10% dip in stock price, 3 = sell on a 5-10% increase in stock price, 4 = sell at current stock prices to raise cash.  Ratings are based upon 12-18 month outlook on stock direction and not necessarily related to moves I make due to financial positioning. Extremely painful trade and lesson today.  I sold all of my shares of Broadwind Energy to raise cash for more fruitful endeavors.  This stock was and has been a total loss for me.  With energy prices and a likely failed PTC renewal in front of us, I don't see any upside to keep fighting the down trend on the stock.  To make things worse, I went through a painful lesson of having to slow down and make sure I have my trade set up properly - I lost my tax-loss benefit and additional transaction fees because I accidentally purchased shares, instead of selling them, then had to sell all of the shares I had.  Don't ever do this, peopl...

As this week closes off, we find ourselves a midst some old patterns and some new information.  First of all, we continue to see energy-related names sitting in the slaughter house as all 3 of my names that have any relation to that sector were beaten up badly.  Additionally, retail and consumer goods still show some strength, however, we did see that strength lighten up some while industrials and banks appear to pick up some steam.  Finally, we received a jobs number today that was so far off from where I guessed that I'm frankly ashamed of my prediction that we'd see a gain in jobs, but less than was expected.  These strong results indicate that our economy continues to strengthen and the strength appears to be accelerating.  This is at the same time that the vast majority of the rest of the world struggles to find its footing - making the USA a more desireable place to invest.  This creates a potential for changes in how big money managers...

A holiday shortened week has passed us, but it was anything but a slow week - at least for my portfolio, which easily under performed the S&P 500.  The primary cause for the lack of performance?  My energy sector holdings got taken to the back forty and shot not once, but at least twice for good measure.  First SeaDrill announced their third quarter on Wednesday and wiped out their dividend, which was well over 10% going into the quarter and was regarded to be dangerous.  Despite this, it didn't stop anyone from taking it, and anything related to it, back to the wood shed.  Then on Thursday, OPEC had their meeting and as I had started to expect, stated that they would not be slowing their production numbers at all.  Apparently this surprised traders and energy related companies were beaten down again, as was oil.  Anything that has any correlation to oil and gas going down being a negative is being hit hard.  This includes alternative ene...

The markets, and fortunately my portfolio, had a strong week.  Key drivers came on US economic news from the Philly Fed, stating the economy is improving much better than people are thinking.  Additionally, we were surprised to hear China's central bank is cutting interest rates to stimulate growth and the ECB's Draghi made public statements yesterday that have many traders believing he'll be making moves to help stimulate the European economies.  Add this in with the fact that the US stock markets have always gone up from November 15 to the end of the year for the last 10 years, you find the market has some legs.  At the same time, I believe some caution must be maintained.  The S&P 500 has been making a very fast and dramatic run and is approaching the top of the channel it's maintained since 2012, as the below 5 year daily chart shows.   I'm not big on technicals, however, they need to be acknowledged and respected as well.  While it's ...

The week goes by as the averages push to new heights again.  Meanwhile my portfolio improves some, but continues to be clearly weighed by my position in stocks impacted by the price of crude oil, which dropped more again this week.  NPSP announced disappointing numbers, but was able to help instill some confidence in their future prospects.  Meanwhile the numbers for Encana were mixed and their future prospects are in question - namely because of oil and gas commodity risk as well as bold comments stating they will be pushing for more capital spend and production next year despite what we've been seeing in those commodity prices. In the week ahead, Home Depot will announce their 2015 third quarter financial results.  Despite this being the first earnings announcement being led by new CEO Craig Menear, I really don't expect us to see much of anything different from the past.  The management team is strong and well prepared.  As such, I expect strong q...

Another week has passed and a few major events have come and gone.  First, the mid-term elections have completed and we now have ourselves set with a republican majority congress and senate.  While having a majority, they don't have enough to override a veto from a democratic president, so we're looking at a government that might be mostly out of the way.  Additionally, the October non-Farm payroll numbers (jobs) came out and missed expectations, but weren't "bad."  The country continues to grow jobs, but it's happening slowly and there aren't any wage increases to go along with this.  This means the odds of inflation taking off are quite slim and I believe this will be a key driver to rates going higher. Looking into the week ahead, I have 2 companies in my portfolio that report.  The first is NPS Pharma, which announces on Monday after the close.  The second is Encana, who has their call Wednesday morning.  Both will be calls th...

Notes: Stock Ratings: 1 = buy at current stock prices, 2 = buy on a 5-10% dip in stock price, 3 = sell on a 5-10% increase in stock price, 4 = sell at current stock prices to raise cash.  Ratings are based upon 12-18 month outlook on stock direction and not necessarily related to moves I make due to financial positioning. Yesterday Broadwind Energy announced their third quarter 2014 results.  I can't mince words here.  To call the quarter disappointing would be foolish.  It was a downright disaster and the stock price was obliterated for it.  Earnings came in at $-0.12 - yes, that's a negative - on revenues of $60.3M.  That's a miss from guidance of 40% !  That wasn't enough bad news, though.  To finish us off with the upper cut, they also downgraded 2014 guidance on revenues and earnings.  So we've gone from expectations of the company making a profit in 2014 (albeit only a few cents per share) to a loss of around 30 cents.   A...