I’ve mentioned before that I don’t trade, but will do relatively short-term swing trades if I believe something is undervalued, but don’t love it enough to give it permanent residence in my portfolio Just wanted to put on display my lack of patience and what it cost me this time.

I bought $DDS mid-July @ ~$197/share. Sold $DDS around August 5th ~$250. Took a peek the other day and noticed it had shot up to $300 already. I saw my other retail got a little pop today so checked on Dillard’s again; it’s up to $324 already🤯. Nice 70% gain in 30-35 days if I’d held. I’m okay with 25% in 3 weeks; but patience, at least in this case, would’ve rewarded me.

I just wanted to make note here to track my decisions live.

Seems a little crazy looking at the price of these retail companies now compared to pre-Covid levels and how high they’ve got. Specifically the ones I’ve dabbled with recently; $WSM , $DKS , $DDS , $SCVL , and $BKE.

Just finished “The Triumph of Value Investing”, time for the next book; any recommendations?

“Damn Right” is highly recommended. I’ve read the Lynch book but it was a decade ago, going to reread and highlight before giving to kids, so no rush there.

“Security Analysis” is obviously a must; someday🤣

As a fundamental value investor, I would probably learn the most “new” information with the T. Rowe Price or William O’Neil books.

Any thoughts on any books in this pic are appreciated. Thanks!

Having trouble posting from my phone again so got to be quick. Almost back into the top 5% of Tip Ranks’ 554,000 publicly tracked portfolios and closing in on 4/5 months outperforming the S&P 500, with returns of almost 14% since May 21, 2022.

And my portfolio Beta is 1.63, which makes it a high risk portfolio. Buffet says Beta is a poor indicator for risk and I agree completely. Why a measure of volatility gets confused with risk is beyond me. Volatility creates opportunities for the educated, not risk. This is why there are winners and losers. As much as I love academic studies; they’re next to worthless in finance.

Looks like I missed the crypto bottom while raking up all the deals in the stock market. Still plenty of room to run, never had to hit a perfect bottom to make money.

Ridiculous 1 month performance.

Just lost this post; so gonna be short n sweet. $UFPI & $MLI are close to or at 52 week highs. But I sold $MLI while holding/adding to $UFPI. Here’s why: Mueller Industries is sporadic, UFP Industries is anything but.

While revenue, profit margins, operating margins, and ROIC have improved almost linearly since 2012, the P/E has continued to decline, while earnings have seen increases annually since 2017 (date when my data stops).

Sorry I can’t give all the details to 2012 on all data, but I refuse to pay for information. So sometimes I have to stitch together data from different sources😉

Company is trending in the right direction with metrics I care about. Hard to find outside the tech industry in my experience.

My buy the dip candidate was $SCVL. Trading at pre-Pandemic prices, around $20, with ATH around $40 post-Covid, without much change in underlying fundamentals (other than the Covid induced decrease in revenue); I thought it’d be an easy 25%-50% gain. I’m not greedy, so I’ll take my 27% monthly return and redeploy the capital with lower hanging fruit.

Bought on July 13, sold on August 12 at a 27% gain. Plenty of stocks are up 20%-30% the past month, so it’s nothing special.

It was never intended to be a long-term holding or something I thought would double. A good portion of my portfolio is made up of shorter-term buys that will be sold when closer to fair value.

The more I read, the more I realize how Ben Graham I really am. We both don’t read company filings, only financial data. We buy lots of securities and sell at an acceptable gain of 20%-50%. Im not as rigid as he was because I’ve read as much about Buffet, Lynch, and Dreman as I have Graham; acquiring their tools as well. But it’s Graham’s principles I credit for rarely losing😉

Reading “The a triumph of Value Investing” and there is a quote about IPO’s I wanted to share.

“In a study of 2,895 IPO’s between 1968-1998, the average annualized returns were a horrifying negative 45%”

And

“But one thing is fairly clear: a rash of IPO’s often signals a high point in a bull market”

So I decided to check that out. As end 2020 and early 2021 we’re as overvalued a market as I’ve seen, here’s what I found:

I will be paying attention to IPO issues during the next bull market😉

I gave these guys a shout out the other day @ The Canadian Investor podcast; one of the better ones I’ve listened to. One of the guys founded Stratosphere.io when he couldn’t find the data he was looking for online. I love the free package of data they offer and am actually considering paying for premium content; something I’ve always refused to do.

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This is another example of what I find so useful there. Rather than just showing me a decade of average analytics or financial metrics, they break down business segments better than any free source I’ve found.

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As someone who has spent a decade developing sources to give me a quality overall snapshot, that I then use as one data point, they’re another strong tool in the utility belt. Somewhere I can spend 10-30 minutes and get quality insights.

I like as many sources as possible giving me unique analysis and data in easy to read graphs. Actionable, useful data.

Here’s a few examples of some of the data available free @ Stratosphere going back to 2012:

Can anyone tell me why this used book is $299? Hoping someone has read it here.

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I’m reading “The Triumph of Value Investing”, where Seth Klarman’s book was mentioned. I had no idea he’d written a book. Since he’s one of the men from Graham & Doddsville, I’d love to read anything he’s written. However, I usually get my books for $1-$5 thrift shopping. I’m not against paying full price for a book but $300 seems a little wild for a modern book. What’s with that price tag? I’ve seen some Graham classics for $200+, but they’re almost 100 years old.

And I see the price goes from $179-$2,250🤯

I’m not much for short term action but I do watch daily just to see if I can add anything on bigger dips. Funny to see how the market acts to whatever catalysts it may be driving any particular action. My retail holdings all went like this today:

$BKE +4%

$SCVL +7% (my buy the dip candidate, up 20.6% since purchase)

$DDS +8%

$BBW +6%

$DKS +4%

$WSM +5%

$LULU was flat, held in kids’ custodial account (I’m a value investor)

My picks are value positions and mostly for the swing trade/shorter-term part of my portfolio; not one of my core holdings like Google or Microsoft. Positions I buy to hold, not forever, but until they reach a price closer to fair value and providing a sufficient ROI. I figure after tax Buffet numbers are a nice goal to shoot for. I always intend to hold for 1-3 years, until market sees the value, but sometimes it happens a little quicker than I expect. These positions are all up 20%-28% since purchase in May, June, and July, however, $WSM is the only retail I intend to hold long term currently, the rest I will be watching closely to sell the position at a nice gain. I’d rather be early than late, that’s usually one of the weaknesses of value investors. But I always remembered the quote I read early on that ends with “pigs get slaughtered”. I’d rather take a 28% gain in 40 days than wait on 40% or some other arbitrary number that I thought I should see.

Keeping this journal after the Covid rebound and subsequent correction will be a great tool for the future me. Knowing what I was thinking and when will be priceless.

It is fun to be a spectator and watch the market swing prices wildly up & down every quarter based on fears of recession, the joy of no recession after all, inflation, wars, etc.; all problems the market has faced before and things I don’t let affect my investment decisions. Watching entire industries swing almost 10% in a day shows the irrationality of the market; whether there are legitimate macro fears or not. History has proven problems are short term for excellent businesses. This is what makes it easier, IMO, to take advantage of. It seems the algorithmic bot trading and rise of day trading EVERYwhere, has made it easier for broad (longer-term) swing trading, driving the price irrationally high or low, creating a feedback loop of retail investors and bots chasing each other up or down.

I’ll continue to spectate most days rather than participate in the folly. I said my goal was Buffet returns; Buffet gained ~20% annually, I assume 28%-40% pre-tax gains should be sufficient to come close to that. I look at each position to meet that goal; if it happens in 2 months, it just gives me time to find another under valued position to compound my returns.

As for $WSM they will be in the Berkshire Hathaway wing of my portfolio. Excellent businesses I collect with impressive track records and long histories of execution, that I just occasionally check in on.