Portfolio again

- First Time

- Last Time

Good News

First, some college stuff. I don't know if anyone's keeping track, but I am a senior this year, so will be graduating high school in one term - 2 months and twelve days actually.

I only applied to one college, but my aunt and two cousins went there, plus I got a 28 on the ACT so I was admitted :-)The college is Westminster which is a small liberal arts college in Salt Lake with a like a 10:1 student to teacher ratio.

The business school was named after the guy who invented Gore-Tex - an alum pretty snazzy, huh.

At the open house for admitted students they had a 30-minutes class about picking companies - you wouldn't believe my relief that was companies not stocks. In the class the professor went over some stuff to look thru on Yahoo! Finance, like earnings growth, margins and PEG, then through some stuff on Factset - the software they had in the lab.

Unsurprisingly, I knew the answers to all of her questions and was even conviniently reading One Up on Wall St. (5th time I'm trying to set a record ;-) when she started talking about Peter Lynch.

Surprisingly, but very OK in my book is the fact that my admission to a college with a value program pretty much fell into my lap. They also have one of like three stock tickers west of the Mississippi, which is a fun-fact.

Bad News

I still have a term left in High School. Currently, I am taking Art and Photography which are totally and utterly worthless, but I have to take them to graduate. For example, even though (I'm pretty sure, but not 100%) 0% of Americans use pin-hole cameras, then develop them in a dark room. Also, if you didn't know a line can also be known as a moving dot, and making a cube and cylinder out of play-dough for an hour and a half qualifies as High School art.

And, if that wasn't the worst of it I also have to re-do English 9 because Utah has something against homeschoolers.

But, to the stocks:

Positions

I don't think I put the portfolio or positions sizes in the last posts, but I'm going to so I can track it easily.

Current total portfolio: $7,915.75 (up to $12,000 at one point has been mostly between $7,900 and $8,500 over the past month)

American Express $917.62 12%

Not to brag - or give away anything - but, let’s just say this is like the 4th time one of my holdings as been picked by a current newsletter ;-) Anyway, not a whole lot of change in the general thesis since last time so I won't bore you with anymore details.

Also, I think 12% allocation may be a little high for a large cap since I only have eight grand and all, but it is too cheap to sell any of it now, if this goes up to like $50 something soon I'll probably sell some of it to invest in special situations.

Assorted Special Situations $973.66 12%

This is spread over three different situations (currently), but because I get my ideas from Fat Pitch Financials so I won't go into them.

K-Swiss $703.2 9%

Still heinously undervalued.

I've seen some good commercials from them lately - mainly on ESPN and MTV which is good. I have a feeling the tides will change sooner than people are predicting, but I also have a crapload of cash and margin of safety to back me up if it takes longer - best of both worlds, huh.

Netflix $923.72 12%

Has had a little bit of a run lately, which has kept me from shooting my computer. It's a great company, I'm actually a very satisfied customer (only a few of their predictions for star ratings for me have been off, and never by very much) and still see a lot of room for them to expand. The valuation isn't as appealing for a first-time, but not near high enough for a sell.

Overstock.com $843.72 11%

Ya, this one's getting kind of annoying. Not gonna go over the stuff I've written about 1200 times so far. But, two quick good things, also improved commercials with overstock and I heard Byrne sometimes speaks at Westminster which is a plus.

Sears Holding $1,524.3 19%

WOOOO SAAAH

Tandy Leather $582.06 7%

Good story, small company with local niches. I need to learn more though, have general knowledge, and an annual report I haven't gotten around to reading.

Western Sizzlin' $1,430.7 18%

Was the biggest holding until I added some to Sears and it dropped. Biglari and Cooley got on the SNS board, but for some reason it dropped $3 per share. Even if they own a small percent of the company, doesn't this prove they have shareholders on their side, and at the very least they'll know when to sell if that's what it comes to?

Cash $16.69 very negligible%

Gettin' pretty lonely, but I'm finding a lot of attractive special situations.

Stuff I got rid of

Cryptologic

Kinda sick of wondering what was going on here. I know the business, but don't have the time or patience to figure out all the laws and different countries it’s involved with.

I sold this one a while ago and it’s gone down from there. If I get time in the summer to learn all about it I may buy it again.

Washington Mutual

Thought I could figure out its business and involvement in everything and stuff in spare time, didn't happen.

On the bright side it will go up a lot soon because I sold it and we can hear Nygren's 80/20 stuff all over again.

Pfizer

I'm not really sure if I ever actually said I bought this. I did and decided that special situations had better returns then this did with basically no growth and 5% yield.

Potential Stuff

This will be short because I have to read acts 2&3 of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead, then write about its diction. Which is at the epitome of excitement.

Penn National

Merger Arb. I need to figure out the Wachovia stuff, but really want to get involved with this so I can het some hands-on experience.

Good stuff here: http://www.fwallstreet.com/blog/114.htm

Google

Really good business, that I think people may be underestimating - long shot I know. But, I saw a YouTube thing about android and read a book about them.

Unfortunately, there is no logical way to value them - people who say they can are lying, or stupid you pick - and this is probably a negative.

Best Buy

I wrote about them a while ago.

I got a gift certificate for them a while ago and decided that Best Buy is the best possible store for a gift card, which is most likely a positive.

Pep Boys

Read some stuff about them being an asset play combined with a turnaround which i am unusually obsessed with, but the asset stuff is probably too complicated.

McGraw-Hill

Wrote about this and posted here a while ago. I'm not sure about what may happen to it ratings business so I haven't purchased any of it yet.