Stock Holdings Update and Current Purchases

I've been evaluating my portfolio and my current holdings and amounts.  As stated previously, I sold off the majority of my stocks to help fund the purchase of a new home.

I have a certain dollar amount which I call a full position.  Sometimes I overweight on a stock if I feel particularly confidant that it has potential.  Other times I underweight a position if is more speculative and risky.  A lot of investing involves investing money amounts that you are comfortable with.  If you put amounts that are keeping you awake at night.  You then need to rethink your philosophy and how much you put in.

For the record, my current portfolio contains the following holdings:

• Arctic Cat (ACAT) - currently acquiring shares for a full position.
• Ameresco (AMRC) - currently acquiring shares for a full position.
• Activision Blizzard (ATVI) - holding full position
• Dolby (DLB) - holding full position
• Momenta Pharmaceuticals (MNTA) - holding a third of a position.  Currently evaluating whether to continue to acquire shares.
• National Oilwell (NOV) - overweight 17% above a full position due to dividend reinvestment.
• Seaspan (SSW) - overweight 5% due to dividend reinvestment.

In my stock search, LinkedIn has move to the top of my list.  Next week's stock order will include my last purchase of ACAT to complete a full position.  It also included my first purchase of LNKD.  

LNKD will be an addition to my Thundercougarfalcon Fund.  That fund was started two years ago to track my own selections outside the newsletters.  Unfortunately, I neglected my own stock research so currently the fund holds one stock.  I wanted to add three to four stocks a year to it.  If I had followed through, I'd probably have a 8-10 stock personal fund.

Next post, I hope to have my reasons and some research on why I'm buying LinkedIn.

New Watch List for 2012

So what?  The year is starting the sixth month.  I'm sticking with the old adage that it's never to late to invest.  Since I purchased the house, I've neglected my portfolio.  Now is the time to start rebuilding it.

Today I was pleasantly surprised when I took a peak at my brokerage account.  I have a little more than I thought I did.  That's always nice.

I decided to start a new watch list.  It's been so long that I actually updated my old watch list that I decided it is better to start from scratch.

The new watch list consists of:

Regis (RGS)

Retail Opportunity Investment Corp (ROIC)

Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (BIP)

Builders FirstSource (BLDR)

From the Motley Fool article, 3 Unappreciated Stocks To Buy Hand Over Fist in 2012, , the three stocks mentioned are:

Regis (RGS) - Owns hair salons including Super Cuts.  

Article Notes:

1. Old ownership wasted shareholder capital  on bad deals and bloated middle management.

2.  Starboard Capital won a proxy fight and installed three members on the board. 

3.  Due to Starboard challenge, CEO-elect and COO resigned.  Middle management cut and company looking to sell non-core business such as beauty schools and hair restoration business.

4. North American operations is a cash cow.  Cuts of management, sell of non-core assets and other moves could leave it with plenty of cash.

Retail Opportunity  Investment Corp (ROIC) - a REIT that prefers property in affluent areas with a high traffic retail anchor store.  Also buys depressed commercial real estate and low prices.

Article Notes:

1.  CEO Stuart Tanz experienced with REITs.  Ran Kimco Realty that earned investors over 800% in ten years.

2. $600 market cap, 4% dividend, payout of 70-80% of funds.

Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (BIP) - owns a wide variety of assets such as "timberland, railroads, ports, power transmission assets and coal terminals."

Article notes:

1.  Looks to invest in high quality assets with steady income streams.

2. Lists acquisition of two Chilean toll roads and Australian Prime Infrastructure as examples of types of assets BIP invests in.

3.  Also states that company has goal of capital appreciation of 12-15% a year along with a payout growth of 3-7%.

From one of my newsletter subscriptions:

Builders FirstSource (BLDR) - supplies raw materials to home builders mostly in the South and East United States.   Basically anything a builder needs, from materials to contractor services,  BLDR will sell or install it.  Insiders are buying on the open market. 

In my opinion, this is a very risky stock.  With prices ranging recently from $3-4, it almost looks either like a garbage stock or undervalued.  Only more research will tell which direction I will go.

Note on subscription watch list stocks:  I don't feel obligated to not divulge watch list stocks from newsletters.  The stocks are mentioned as ones to keep an eye on and for further research for subscribers.  The stocks are not recommendations and are not tracked with sell, hold or buy and updates like the formal recommendations are.  A stock may only be mentioned once in a newsletter and never heard from again.  Thus, I feel free to discuss those stocks on my blog.

Finally I ran a stock screen on the Wall Street Journal website: WSJ Stock Screen 6-9-2012 (pdf file).

Investing Update

Long time since my last investing check in.  Obviously much has changes since then.

First off, I sold off the vast majority of my holdings and at a profit.  Then second move stems from the first. With the proceeds from my investments I purchased my new home.

Now that I'm settled in my home and the necessities bought, I can once again focus on rebuilding my portfolio.

I've often read that one should have investment goals and a philosphy. It doesn't have to be complex, wordy or fancy. A simple statement to give one general direction to a goal. A philosophy of what type of investments will help someone keep focused and avoid buying unfamiliar securities.

In short, my goal is to make money. More long term, I want to invest to supplement my retirement or pay off my home house at retirement.

Philosophy-wise, I prefer small to mid cap stocks. They can be more volatile and risky but rewards can be higher.  I also look to mix in a few microcaps to try to juice my returns.

The Current Plan

I use two newsletters for stock ideas. Each newsletter provides four stock ideas. I can't afford to buy stocks a month so I evaluate one or two stocks with for best return.  Since both are subscription newsletters, I often delay announcing my buys. I don't think it is fair to newsletter subscribers, writers and me to give away the information immediately.

Aside from the newsletter buys, I plan on doing stock screen searches and other sources to build a watch list for research for future buys. Since those will be my independent research, I will post those as without delays.

The final goal is educating myself. Along the way I will make mistakes. I hope to learn from those mistakes and make better investing decisions. On the flip side, I hope just as much to learn from what I do right.

Stay tuned for further developments.