Investment

09/18/2009:

Every stock which we purchased in mid to late July is up. All 3
had better than expected quarterly earnings reports, and fairly low P/Es. CSH is up 18% from $25.30 to 29.89. DLX is up 5% from $16.53 to $17.39. GS is up 21% from $159.69 to $183.18. In addition, TUP, was up a whopping 56% from $25.68 to $40.06. We continued to hold it, but did not buy more on its great earnings report, TUP's P/E is now up to 16, so we are watching it closely, and may have to sell soon. Note, GS's P/E is 41, but that is due to a loss of $4.97 in 2008 Q3. We are holding it, assuming it will continue to earn about $4.00 a quarter which would give it a P/E of 11. Still, we are watching it closely, and will sell at any sign of weakness. We do not think we will have to sell soon.

We have posted a new group of stocks which we will be watching for for the next set of earnings reports for 2009 Q3 in mid to late October. Look here.

08/06/2009:
Windstream Corp. issued a fair quarterly earnings report of $0.21 compared to $0.32 expected by analysts and $0.23 for the year ago quarter.

07/31/2009:
Snap-on (SNA) issued a good quarterly earnings report of $0.65 compared to $0.58 expected by analysts and $1.15 for the year ago quarter. We hold about 3.2% of our portfolio in SNA. We did not buy more. Too bad. It was up over $2.00 on a flat day for the market. SNA's P/E is holding around 10, but it will head up if earnings do not improve soon.

Chevron (CVX) issued a poor quarterly earnings report of $0.87 compared to $0.95 expected by analysts and $2.90 for the year ago quarter.

07/24/2009 trade:
Purchased enough Delux Corp (DLX) at $16.53 to start it at about 1.65% of our portfolio. For a $100,000 portfolio, that would be about $1,650 or 100 shares. For a $1,000,000 portfolio, that would be about $16,500 or about 1000 shares. DLX's consistently good earnings performance have outweighed our concern over their high Debt/Equity ratio, and our fears of a bad economy.

07/23/2009:
Leftovers anyone? Tupperware (TUP) issued a delectable earnings report of $0.86 per share compared to $0.75 a year ago, and $0.61 expected by analysts. We would love to buy more, but the stock was up around $2 before we could pull the trigger. Perhaps we should have puled the trigger anyhow since the stock is up almost $4 as of 10AM. Well, we do have about 3% of our portfolio in TUP, so we will just have to be satisfied with that for now.

Goodrich (GR) reported good quarterly earnings of $1.15 compared to $1.44 for the year ago quarter, and $1.11 expected by analysts. Considering their 9.2 P/E and 2% dividend yield. We are probably not a buyer right now.

07/23/2009 trade:
We put an additional 1.2% of our portfolio into Cash America International (CSH). They issued a decent quarterly earnings report of $0.52 per share compared to $0.67 a year ago, and $0.52 expected by analysts. We now hold about 3.7% of our portfolio in CSH.

07/23/2009:
Deluxe Corp (DLX) reported earnings of $0.57 compared to $0.56 for the corresponding year ago quarter, and $0.55 expected by anaylsts. We are thinking about buying some. However, we suffer anguish due to its large amount of debt in this potentially bad economy. We will listen to their conference call on the web. Stay tuned we may yet pull the trigger.

07/22/2009:
Pfizer (PFE) came out with a decent earnings report of $0.48, compared to $0.55 for the year ago quarter, and compared to $0.47 which analysts were expecting. We are holding a substantial position in PFE (about 6.6% of our portfolio), and continue to hold it for now.

07/14 and 07/15 /2009 trade:
We purchased a small amount (about 2.3% of our portfolio) of Goldman Sachs (GS) for an average price of $151.69. Based on a total portfolio of $100,000, we would have purchased about 15 shares for about $2,334. Based on a total portfolio of $1,000,000, we would have purchased about 150 shares for about $23,340.

07/14/2009:
Goldman Sachs (GS) reported excellent quarterly earnings of $4.93 compared to $4.58 for the year ago quarter, and $3.30 expected by anaylsts.