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Strategies & Market Trends : Value Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jurgis Bekepuris who wrote (46090)	1/4/2012 4:27:25 PM
From: Madharry	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78602

for those of you who own mil the the former terra nova the former mass financial, Mr.Smith bought an old iron mine today, the stock is up a bit, but still below book. it remains one of my largest holdings. I will give Mr. Smith a few more years of trying to earn the 20% returns that he has been able to do historically. I have been adding more silver positions in the last couple of days specifically cef and agq, and more axu again. we will see how silver does in 2012. somebody recommended MOS on cnbc but said he thought CF industries offered the most appreciation potential in the space. AAB.to own a couple of feritilizer companies in Brazil. They continue to sell at around 1/2 of there last reported book more or less. I continue to hold all my shares there too. I dont know if any of you noticed the rights offering on unicredit. apparently the italian bank offerred shares in a rights offering to existing shareholders at a 43% discount. on cnbc they announced that shareholder only participated in 26% of the shares. Given that European banks are afraid to lend to one another why would shareholders want to provide capital to such risky enterprises? Of course one can ask the same question about putting money into the black box we call a US bank. the MF global question of what happened to customer deposits still hasnt been answered. This is the greatest scandal as an investor that I have been witness to. A special prosecutor should be appointed to investigate both the MF global executives and their regulators. The bankruptcy took place four months ago and many accounts are short 1/3 of their value, and there are still no answers. Amazing. The lesson that I should have learned in 2011 but did not was that margin is a two edged sword, and that markets can stay irrational longer than i can stay solvent. As a result I was forced out of positions I would have rather kept.

To: Jurgis Bekepuris who wrote (46090)	1/25/2012 1:07:51 AM
From: Jurgis Bekepuris	Respond to of 78602

So far I am breakeven on high-shame GOOG / AAPL sells - win on GOOG, loss on AAPL. :) Still it might have been simpler just to hold. :)

To: Jurgis Bekepuris who wrote (46090)	2/3/2012 1:55:07 AM
From: Jurgis Bekepuris	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 78602

My top 10-ish positions in no particular order: UVIC, GLW, MHR-C/D, GST-A, EGY, GRVY, MSFT, GAME, DRAGF. Changes in top-10: GRVY - stock went up, GAME - bought more New positions: SLT Positions increased: PWRD, ADVC, MSFT, MOS, FRFHF Positions reduced: IDCC Positions eliminated: ENTR, LTUS, PETS, DLB Flip-flop: GAME New year so far started with risk-on stock movement up. It's not clear if Greece and Europe will manage to ruin the party soon. I might start selling some of the positions and raising some cash. However, so far I probably bought more than I sold. The big position change was GAME purchase to capture special $1.02 dividend. I decided to keep most of my position after the dividend. I believe that after SNDA goes private it's only a matter of time until GAME is taken private too. With divvie cash gone into its parents coffers, the buyout is pretty likely. I sold ENTR - lack of conviction, LTUS - one of the last crumbling Chinese RTOs, PETS - not attractive valuation anymore and DLB - generous repricing of management options. I practically sold IDCC keeping just a stub as they announced termination of company sale auction. Overall I did well, selling most of my IDCC at higher "buyout-on" prices. I bought more PWRD during the Chinese blog scare. Added some ADVC, MOS, FRFHF as well as MSFT at rising prices. IMHO, MSFT is still quite undervalued even at $30. I reentered SLT position. I sold my last position in SLT in late 2009 in $17-19 area. I missed the current sale at $6, but bought a starter position here. Biggest error so far? Selling some PMGLF for tax losses in December. The stock was super cheap and rebounded hugely.

To: Jurgis Bekepuris who wrote (46090)	1/2/2013 12:19:19 AM
From: Jurgis Bekepuris	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 78602

2012 results. Caveats: rates are from Quicken/IRR which I still believe is buggy/not reliable. One or two positions are wide spread micro caps that trade on appointment, so their prices are sometimes misprinted and therefore misaccounted. So reader beware. My portfolio results depend on whether I include 401(k)s where I can only invest in limited choice of mutual funds. With 401(k)s, returns are 9.7%. Without them: 8.5%. This pretty much shows that broad market outperformed my stock picks this year. On the positive side my 401(k) mix narrowly outperformed SP500, but that's not something I'd brag about. :) The negative side of being way below 13.4% SP500 return is more painful. What worked and what did not work this year: My various selling/buying blunders were somewhat documented in this thread. PERI/GRVY mistimings cost a lot. So did FBOD. In terms of securities still held: Tech stocks - all trailed indexes (MSFT, INTC, DELL, Chinese game companies, etc.) except ADVC. Energy stocks - mix: DRAGF, MAUXF good returns, STO, TOT lagged, PMGLF is biggest loss. Insurance companies - mostly trailed indexes, AFSI outperformed, BRK - narrowly beat indexes, Fairfax dropped a lot. Euro stocks: MGDDY, BASFY - great returns, AHONY, TSCDY lagged Banks: BAC provided great return, others were hohum. Materials: mostly underperformance (RIO, FCX) Industrials: ETN outperformed, CMI too, JOY not really. Looking at my top 10'ish positions: UVIC, GLW, MSFT, MGDDY, MHR-D, DRAGF, PWRD MGDDY and DRAGF outperformed the market. The remaining ones underperformed.