Investment "Logic"

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. The purpose of this discussion and review is to analyze the trades I made in 2015 - what went bad, what went well, and what's still undecided.  Hopefully we'll be able to glean some lessons from the experiences I've had and use those to become better in 2016 - so let's dig in.  Below are all of the trades I made this year.  I'm going to try to break things down stock by stock, not trade by trade, but I'll do my best to keep all of this straight. Trades Made in 2015 I'll start with the easiest topic to discuss, which was my "win" with NPS Parmaceuticals (NPSP).  As I went into the year, I was up significantly o...

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. I have sold the remaining lot of shares I owned of Encana at $13 and took a significant loss.  This has been a tough stock the entire time I've owned it and I made a lot of novice moves in the process.  While the stock has some potential for short-term gains, I feel it's more appropriate to take the cash when the stock was up over 2% and prepare myself for next moves while the market is behaving erratically.  This also reduces my energy position, which for the time being, aligns with my overall expectations of the markets.  With oil still struggling to find a bottom, I anticipate it will be awhile before it will be beneficial to have a...

So the holidays are past us and it's time to get into the swing of my portfolio routine.  The year has started out a little on the volatile side of things.  The expected "Santa Claus Rally" was a complete flop this year as the last 5 days of 2014 and first 5 days of 2015 were met with more losses than gains in the S&P 500.  Oil continues its painful descent as it's reached new multi-year lows and related companies slowly begin to slash dividends and production forecasts.  Likewise, retail and restaurant companies have seen continued interest as we continue to get evidence that consumers continue their recent strength.  Finally, we received a jobs report today which stated that the country grew more jobs in December than people expected (250k vs. 240k), however, wages were down.  Apparently this was something people wanted to get concerned with, however, I'm not.  While it's not great for individuals that wages aren't growing, it's great for st...

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. Begin Text Here I wanted to take some time to overview my portfolios performance for 2014, then have a brief conversation regarding the holdings I currently have and my future plans as I get a clean slate to start anew and attempt to outperform the performance of the S&P 500 index.  Before I begin, I want to establish some common thoughts throughout this post.  First all gain/loss percentages discussed are based upon either feedback from my portfolio tracking software or by pulling up tickers on the Google Finance web page and looking at 1 year charts as of Jan 1 2015.  Numbers I state have the chance of being off a few percentage poin...

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. The purpose of this discussion and review is to analyze the trades I made in 2014 - what went bad, what went well, and what's still undecided.  Hopefully we'll be able to glean some lessons from the experiences I've had and use those to become better in 2015 - so let's dig in.  Below are all of the trades I made this year.  I'm going to try to break things down stock by stock, not trade by trade, but I'll do my best to keep all of this straight. Trades Made in 2014 The most obvious place to focus consists with the 4 trades of Broadwind Energy (BWEN) that I made in the year.  Simply put, there isn't a single thing I ever di...

This week's middle name was "volatility," as we saw a wild swing to the down side to start the week only to finish very strongly to the up side from then through the end of the week.  There are two key drivers being attributed to this.  First is the fact that oil halted its sell-off and quickly started rebounding.  I can't say there is any driver to why this has happened.  Additionally, I can't say that we're done going up or that it won't go back down.  Still trying to figure all of that out.  Oddly enough, this all started when the "Santa Clause Rally" traditionally starts on Dec 17.  Regardless, when this happened, the Russian Ruble stopped dropping precipitously, the High Yield Corporate bond ETF (HYG) stopped falling in the same fashion, and everyone started feeling better it seems.  Both the Ruble and the HYG were causes for concern as there were fears of the impact that would come if Russia became insolvent as well as if oil continued...

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. Encana held a conference call to discuss their capital expenditure plans for 2015 this morning.  To my surprise, they actually announced an increase in production on a day where oil stocks appear to have taken a breather from their descent and bounced some - in the case of Encana, at least 10% at one point during the day before settling back down on a 7.4% gain.  Was the news really that good, or are we looking at something more deceiving.  I'll be honest, I'm not skilled enough to really know.  However, I'll break down what I saw and heard and give my thoughts.  Then we'll see where things go - at least as long as I hold the stoc...

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...