Update on Stockpickr Portfolio

I have been remiss the past two weeks as we have been busy post our ski trip. So time to pick up the blogging again. Our www.stockpickr.com portfolio fell -0.90% after rising 4.30% in January and 0.17% in February. YTD this portfolio is up 3.53% with dividends. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 is up 0.18%. In March, we added Starbucks (SBUX) and Famous Daves (DAVE) as new buys.

The only losing stock of note is Amgen down from $68.43 at the beginning of the year to $55.88. We will close out this name and look to reenter at a later date. We will be looking for new buy ideas this weekend.

Energized By The Mountains

Probably my favorite place to visit is the mountains of Colorado. This time we deviated from our normal haunt and headed to the San Juan Mountains and Wolf Creek Pass. This was "old school" skiing. Fantastic although many bad skiers due to the abundance of Texans on the mountain. No fancy lodges and attractions at the base of the mountain. In fact, I would compare Wolf Creek to Alta in Utah. This may change and that would be a damn shame. Texas billionaire Red McCombs wants to develop the "Village of Wolf Creek. To read about this one should visit the following website, www.friendsofwolfcreek.org. Go home Red!

The skiing was great with no one was injured beyond a few bumps and one dramatic bruise. More important there were many laughs, some friendly competition and shared meals where wide ranging subjects from whether global warming exists to who was going to win the NCAA tournament. Now I am back at my desk to opin on the current environment which is what we would call a "prozac market".

The funniest thing about this break is that I entered the www.cnbc.com stock picking contest two weeks ago. The first week I traded every day juggling my positions and ended the week in the top 37%. This past week, there were no changes and I moved up to the top 7% up 3.85% in two weeks. Say it ain't so? The Warren Buffet style seems to be working. Current positions include ATML, CHB and NE. Both ATML and NE are potential buyouts with CHB a turnaround value play. That is all for now as I u-turn my attention to the NCAA tournament and root on my hometown Badgers and their amazing coach Bo Ryan.

Hedge Fund Managers Are Not Operators

A new trend that has emerged is the the "activist shareholder". Simply an activist tries to make changes at a company. The playbook is typically pretty simple. Tricks include demanding that inept management be fired or companies buy back their outstanding shares with excess cash that they cannot seem to reinvest in the business or sell off/spinoff pieces of the company.

The problem with this approach is that most of these demands are driven by investors with little operating experience who simply know how to manage a portfolio. This strategy backfired big time on poker playing hedge fund manager David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital. He tried to have his way with New Century Financial (NEW) but failed to really understand their business and now has lost a ton on this stock and resigned from their board.

The lesson of this story is most hedge fund managers are nothing more than stock pickers and the thought that they know how to run a wide range of companies is a flawed approach. The skill set of someone who can run a portfolio is vastly different from someone who knows how to operate, build and constantly evolve the business model.

February Results For Stockpickr.com Portfolio

We made money in February! Up a whopping .17% but we will take those results. Through the end of February, this portfolio is up 4.48%. We will report on any additions to this portfolio tomorrow after we have had a chances to review new opportunities that may have arisen due to the markets sudden weakness.

Oops there goes gravity

In reading www.dealbreaker.com, we found a rather funny story on a sellside analyst with a sense of humor. Michael Masdea of CFSB put out a little imitation of Eminem's "Lose Youself". Here is the link:

http://www.dealbreaker.com/audio/Masdea.wma

The song is a must for anyone who buys and sells semiconductor stocks.