Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Stock Of The Month: AAPL

One of the reasons that I go through the process of writing The Ongoing Concerns recap each year is that usually one stock "pops" as something that is deserving of an additional allocation.

For 2014, that stock is Apple (AAPL)...even though it was already my largest holding.

This might be a theme throughout the year: if some is good, more is better. i.e. I'm not going to try to be too cute with new investment ideas.

Without further ado...


Apple (AAPL)

Positives:
The greatest consumer electronics company in the history of the world.
Good margins (22% profit, 29% operating).
Good ROA (16%) and ROE (31%).
+$24B cash-minus-debt.
Massive $31B free cash flow lead to extremely well-funded 2.2% dividend yield.
An absurdly low 14 P/E, 11 forward P/E.

Negatives:
Huge market cap ($489B).
Weak revenue growth (4%), negative earnings growth (-9%).
Low insider ownership (0.04%).


Here's my current portfolio (growth, dividend, and speculative). As always, I believe in all of these stocks - until I sell them.

Apple (AAPL) 10.81%
Google (GOOG) 7.86%
Tesla Motors (TSLA) 7.64%
Baidu (BIDU) 6.96%
Amazon (AMZN) 4.61%
3D Systems (DDD) 4.12%
Ace Limited (ACE) 3.26%
Southern Copper (SCCO) 3.13%
Qihoo 360 (QIHU) 3.06%
Blackstone (BX) 2.77%
Under Armour (UA) 2.66%
Stratasys (SSYS) 2.65%
Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) 2.33%
Twitter (TWTR) 2.27%
American Software (AMSWA) 2.14%
Nike (NKE) 2.06%
Vodafone (VOD) 1.75%
Wynn Resorts (WYNN) 1.57%
DuPont (DD) 1.50%
Las Vegas Sands (LVS) 1.49%
Kinder Morgan Energy Partners (KMP) 1.47%
Apache (APA) 1.46%
Intel (INTC) 1.40%
McDonald's (MCD) 1.39%
Prospect Capital (PSEC) 1.38%
American Express (AXP) 1.23%
Starbucks (SBUX) 1.13%
Ansys (ANSS) 1.11%
ConocoPhillips (COP) 1.07%
Computer Programs and Systems (CPSI) 1.05%
Hershey (HSY) 1.05%
Wells Fargo (WFC) 1.02%
BlackRock (BLK) 0.97%
Cisco (CSCO) 0.92%
Coca-Cola (KO) 0.92%
Canadian National Railway (CNI) 0.91%
Microsoft (MSFT) 0.90%
Salesforce.com (CRM) 0.87%
International Business Machines (IBM) 0.86%
ExOne (XONE) 0.86%
The Distressed (BEBE, GSOL, LZB, MSI, TMUS) 0.82%
F5 Networks (FFIV) 0.82%
China Mobile (CHL) 0.81%
Whole Foods Market (WFM) 0.74%

Saturday, January 4, 2014

2013 Stock Recap: The Ongoing Concerns

In case you missed it, I said some nice things about my portfolio in the "Departed" recap.

And now, let's look at all the stocks I've held going into this year, from worst to best - based solely on 2013's performance, while mostly ignoring any intra-year volatility:

Southern Copper (SCCO)
Year-opening price: $37.86
Year-closing price: $28.71 (-24%)
Struggled along with every other materials stock.

Intuitive Surgical (ISRG)
Year-opening price: $490.37
Year-closing price: $384.08 (-22%)
2 lousy years in a row. Still in fine shape long-term.

Cisco (CSCO)
Bought: Aug @ $25.80
Year-closing price: $22.43 (-13%)
Going to need a lot of patience with this one.

China Mobile (CHL)
Year-opening price: $58.72
Year-closing price: $52.29 (-11%)
Maybe the iPhone will spark a better 2014.

ExOne (XONE)
Bought: Jul @ $64.87
Year-closing price: $60.46 (-6%)
My one 3D-printing dud.

F5 Networks (FFIV)
Year-opening price: $97.15
Year-closing price: $90.86 (-6%)
It's now or never for these guys.

International Business Machines (IBM)
Year-opening price: $191.55
Year-closing price: $187.57 (-2%)
Zero concern here - about as good of a proxy for technology as there is.

Whole Foods Market (WFM)
Bought: Oct @ $59.01
Year-closing price: $57.83 (-2%)
I can't buy Wegmans, so I bought these guys instead.

Hershey (HSY)
Bought: Aug @ $97.05
Year-closing price: $97.23 (0%)
Waiting for Buffett (or a Buffett-wannabe).

Kinder Morgan Energy Partners (KMP)
Year-opening price: $79.79
Year-closing price: $80.66 (1%)
Saved by the 6.7% dividend yield.

Coca-Cola (KO)
Bought: Apr @ $40.45
Year-closing price: $41.31 (2%)
Black gold. Long-term hold.

Prospect Capital (PSEC)
Year-opening price: $10.87
Year-closing price: $11.22 (3%)
Saved by the 11.8% dividend yield.

Apple (AAPL)
Year-opening price: $532.17
Year-closing price: $561.02 (5%)
Poised for an excellent 2014.

Salesforce.com (CRM)
Bought: Oct @ $52.26
Year-closing price: $55.19 (6%)
Finally bought - after years of watching it go up, up, up.

Starbucks (SBUX)
Bought: Aug @ $73.50
Year-closing price: $78.39 (7%)
The best-run retail operation in the world?

Apache (APA)
Year-opening price: $78.50
Year-closing price: $85.94 (9%)
Has under-performed for several years running; I still like it anyway.

McDonald's (MCD)
Year-opening price: $88.21
Year-closing price: $97.03 (10%)
Seems to be succeeding, in spite of its CEO.

Canadian National Railway (CNI)
Bought: May @ $48.41
Year-closing price: $57.02 (17%)
Trains are awesome.

BlackRock (BLK)
Bought: May @ $261.69
Year-closing price: $316.47 (21%)
Ought to be doing well...they own most of the market.

Motorola Solutions (MSI)
Year-opening price: $55.68
Year-closing price: $67.50 (21%)
The boring half of Motorola keeps chugging along.

ConocoPhillips (COP)
Year-opening price: $57.99
Year-closing price: $70.65 (22%)
Deserves more respect as an elite energy stock.

Computer Programs and Systems (CPSI)
Year-opening price: $50.34
Year-closing price: $61.81 (23%)
Should benefit from continued modernization of health care.

Ansys (ANSS)
Bought: Jan @ $69.79
Year-closing price: $87.20 (25%)
A semi-forgotten 3D-printing play, that nonetheless did OK.

Global Sources (GSOL)
Year-opening price: $6.48
Year-closing price: $8.13 (25%)
"B2B in China? Yeah!"

Intel (INTC)
Year-opening price: $20.62
Year-closing price: $25.95 (26%)
Nice bounce-back year. Another good tech proxy.

American Software (AMSWA)
Year-opening price: $7.76
Year-closing price: $9.87 (27%)
Nice bounce-back year.

Ace Limited (ACE)
Year-opening price: $79.80
Year-closing price: $103.53 (30%)
Approaching 10 years as part of my portfolio.

Wells Fargo (WFC)
Year-opening price: $34.18
Year-closing price: $45.40 (33%)
The best bank money can buy.

bebe stores (BEBE)
Year-opening price: $4.00
Year-closing price: $5.32 (33%)
Have they finally turned things around?

Las Vegas Sands (LVS)
Bought: Aug @ $57.18
Year-closing price: $78.87 (38%)
Macau is hot, part one.

Microsoft (MSFT)
Year-opening price: $26.71
Year-closing price: $37.41 (40%)
Ballmer's gone.

Twitter (TWTR)
Bought: Nov @ $45.10
Bought more: Nov @ $40.47
Year-closing price: $63.65 (41%)
Probably in for a wild 2014. Buckle your seatbelts.

Wynn Resorts (WYNN)
Bought: Aug @ $137.45
Year-closing price: $194.21 (41%)
Macau is hot, part two.

DuPont (DD)
Year-opening price: $44.98
Year-closing price: $64.97 (44%)
Continuing to execute, 5 years and running.

Nike (NKE)
Bought: Feb @ $54.00
Bought more: Dec @ $79.35
Year-closing price: $78.64 (46%)
A good proxy for human activity, really.

Vodafone (VOD)
Year-opening price: $25.19
Year-closing price: $39.31 (56%)
Thank you, Verizon. Thank. You.

American Express (AXP)
Year-opening price: $57.48
Year-closing price: $90.73 (58%)
Probably the most surprising yearly performance of any stock I own.

Stratasys (SSYS)
Bought: Jul @ $85.03
Bought more: Sep @ $109.23
Year-closing price: $134.70 (58%)
Glad I bought this to complement DDD.

Google (GOOG)
Year-opening price: $707.38
Year-closing price: $1120.71 (58%)
Firing on all cylinders. Market will probably be "afraid of heights" with stock price in thousands.

Amazon (AMZN)
Year-opening price: $250.87
Bought more: Mar @ $265.36
Year-closing price: $398.79 (59%)
Will be fun to watch Amazon and Google innovate over the next decade.

3D Systems (DDD)
Bought: Jan @ $58.18
Bought more: Jun @ $48.55
Year-closing price: $92.93 (60%)
Living up to the 3D-printing hype.

Baidu (BIDU)
Year-opening price: $100.29
Year-closing price: $177.88 (77%)
I hear China is making a comeback!

Under Armour (UA)
Year-opening price: $48.53
Bought more: Dec @ $81.77
Year-closing price: $87.30 (80%)
Market is beginning to recognize the next Nike.

Qihoo 360 (QIHU)
Bought: Jun @ $44.12
Bought more: Sep @ $82.25
Year-closing price: $82.05 (86%)
Bought to complement Baidu; ended up outperforming it.

Blackstone (BX)
Year-opening price: $15.59
Year-closing price: $31.50 (102%)
These guys are good.

T-Mobile (TMUS)
Acquired: May @ $16.56
Year-closing price: $33.64 (103%)
Acquired from MetroPCS merger. So far, so good.

La-Z-Boy (LZB)
Year-opening price: $14.15
Year-closing price: $31.00 (119%)
Makes me wish I owned more of it.

Tesla Motors (TSLA)
Year-opening price: $33.87
Year-closing price: $150.43 (344%)
Simply put, the best year ever for any stock I've ever owned.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

2013 Stock Recap: The Departed

This year's "Departed" post is fairly short, meaning I am generally pleased with my portfolio as it is presently composed.

My portfolio's return (+34.7%; my 3rd best year since I started this investing thing in 2000) topped the S&P 500's total return (+31.9%). You take that 2.8% surplus and run with it, folks.

It's been 3 years since stating so and 13 years overall, but I think I'm closer than I've ever been to having the portfolio that I've always wanted: an overwhelming collection of awesome stocks, devoid of crappy stocks. But this is not a "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner-worthy moment. Every month, I have to do the work to ensure that I keep this good thing going. Let's hope I can.

Here's a look at all the stocks I've sold in the past year, from best to worst - based solely on 2013's performance, while mostly ignoring any intra-year volatility:

White River Capital (RVR)
Year-opening price: $21.25
Sold: Mar @ $22.03 (4%)
Bought out by private equity firm Parthenon Capital Partners.

BreitBurn Energy Partners (BBEP)
Year-opening price: $18.47
Sold: Jul @ $15.94 (-14%)
Year-closing price: $20.34 (10%)
Ditched the worst of my natural gas stocks. If you bought when I sold, congrats.

Annaly Capital Management (NLY)
Year-opening price: $14.04
Sold: Jul @ $11.30 (-20%)
Year-closing price: $9.97 (-29%)
My failed REIT's, part one. (This one's failed twice.)

American Capital Agency (AGNC)
Year-opening price: $28.90
Sold: Jul @ $20.37 (-30%)
Year-closing price: $19.29 (-33%)
My failed REIT's, part two.