Portfolio performance and diversification

November 20, 2007

I have recently finished the construction of my portfolio, with an aim of holding 10 stocks in diversified sectors. I had sought to build a value-oriented portfolio with moderate concentration. Today, I decided to take a look at how the portfolio and its various sectors are doing. As a whole, the portfolio is slightly up […]

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VPHM : Value in a pharmaceutical

November 11, 2007

Generally, I tend to stay away from pharmaceuticals, because I find it difficult to accurately handicap the odds of drug trials. However, I have decided to make an exception in this case, because Viropharma (VPHM) has been so severely beaten down that it managed to show up in my very conservative stock screens, and on […]

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CCIX : Update on Katy acquisition

November 9, 2007

A fellow Covestor member asked me what I thought about the Katy acquisition for CCIX. I decided to make use of the opportunity to do some more research and number crunching, and to crystallize my thoughts on CCIX. CCIX is pursuing the classic strategy of consolidating a fragmented industry, hopefully achieving both operational synergies as […]

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CCIX : Value in recent IPO

October 3, 2007

Coleman Cable (CCIX) is a company that has IPOed recently and is now trading at a very low and attractive price. Coleman Cable makes electrical wire and cable products in small retail sizes for consumers and small-to-medium companies and governmental agencies in diverse industries in the US. This is in contrast to other larger cable […]

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FMD : Multiple uncertainties hide underpriced stock

September 24, 2007

First Marblehead (FMD) helps lenders design and sell private student loans, then packages these loans into securities for sale in the secondary market. It is a deeply misunderstood company, facing multiple uncertainties and with a revenue stream that has a complicated accounting structure. Because of these factors, the strengths of First Marblehead have been ignored […]

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MWRK : A value trap?

August 28, 2007

I came across MWRK while reading this post at Fat Pitch Financials. I was intrigued by the thesis that MWRK could be falling below intrinsic value simply because Bear Stearns has a cash crunch and is being forced to liquidate stocks. Mothers Work is a niche retailer selling maternity clothes, and certainly seem to have […]

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AVCA : Management-shareholder standoff

August 21, 2007

Advocat (AVCA) is an operator of nursing homes. The stock has been badly beaten down recently as management has failed to reveal a bid for the company until after they had turned the bid down. The company has a shareholder rights plan which prevents takeovers over the management’s objections, as well as a staggered board. […]

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Fed Reserve Reg D

August 19, 2007

In the process of trying to move money into my stock brokerage account today, I bumped up against transfer limits laid out in Federal Reserve Regulation D. This regulation stipulates that the number of withdrawals from savings and money market accounts cannot exceed 6 in a single month. The aim is apparently to prevent the […]

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Akismet and PageRank

August 19, 2007

Did some additional site maintenance tasks today. For unknown reasons, the reCAPTCHA plugin is not stopping spam comments on one of my posts. Only that particular post is affected; non of my other entries seem to be getting swamped by comments. In frustration, I decided to apply for an API key at wordpress.com and activate […]

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CRWS : An update

August 16, 2007

Alerted by a commenter (thanks primorec) of a mistake in my valuation of Crown Crafts in my previous post, I decided to re-evaluate CRWS based on numbers in its latest 2007 10K. What is the free cash flow of the business after taking into account its one-time gain? From its income statement, if you reverse […]

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