A buyout of STS was announced this morning at $21 per share by Wabash National Corporation.

I sold the position today at $20.95, as most of the gain from the buyout has already been realized in the price.

I purchased 144 shares of Steelcase Inc. (SCS) at a price of 17.9432 yesterday.  Steelcase has an earnings yield of 7.79%.  This makes my fund nearly 100% invested.

I will give the current portfolio investments a year to work out and re balance next December.

Additionally, this morning I received a $24.51 dividend on IDT.

PLEASE NOTE: The information provided on this site is not financial advice and I am not a financial professional. I am an amateur and the purpose of this site is to simply monitor my successes and failures.

I purchased 119 shares of Madison Square Garden Networks today at 21.40.  MSGN currently has an earnings yield of 10.11%.

Spin Offs

I became aware of MSGN because it is a spin off.  Spin offs are when companies take divisions of their firm and spin them off to operate as a separate entity.  Companies do this for many reasons.  They may believe that the firm will receive a higher valuation if valued separately.  They may want to unload debt on the entity.  Regardless of the reason, spin offs are an attractive area to invest.  Spin offs have been proven as a group to beat the market.

The best explanation of a spin off strategy is detailed in Joel Greenblatt’s book You Can Be a Stock Market Genius.  It is a great book despite the ridiculous title.  In the book, Joel gives many real world examples of spin offs he purchased for his fund and details his rationale for doing so.  It also explains in depth the reasons that spin offs outperform better than I can.

As stated previously, spin offs outperform the market.  If you don’t feel like doing the homework involved in investigating spin offs individually, there are ETFs that specialize in owning these entities.

With this said, proceed with caution.  My belief is that the metric which best captures risk is not beta, but the debt-to-equity ratio.  As mentioned earlier, while spin offs outperform for many reasons, parent companies like to load up these entities with debt.  It’s like divorcing your significant other and then saddling them with all of your credit card balances.  I’m sure there is a more complex explanation in corporate jargon that makes this sound better.  In a downturn, this debt can become a dismal drag on performance.  One of the spin off ETFs (exchange traded fund), the Guggenheim Spin Off ETF (CSD), saw a 2/3 erosion in price during the recession in 2008.  Even despite that loss, the ETF has still outperformed the market.  While they outperform the market, spin offs will require a healthy supply of Pepto Bismol during recessions.

For those who want to investigate spin offs individually, a great list is maintained at this site.  I will frequently take a look at this list as a starting point to do research.  I’ll then do a search to read news articles about the deal and any other analysis that has been done to evaluate the opportunity.

Why MSGN?

MSGN is the cable network division of Madison Square Garden.  This was spun off from the main MSG entity about a year ago.  The primary owner of MSG is the Dolan family.

It looks like the Dolans, who sold Cablevision a year ago, wanted to hold onto the prime iconic piece of New York real estate that is Madison Square Garden but simultaneously realize that cable is a dying business and want to rid themselves of it.  Hence their sale of Cablevision.

By spinning off MSGN, they isolate the entity for a potential buyout from another firm while continuing to hold onto the property that they feel has a future.

Earlier this year, Starz was bought out for 20 times earnings.  Why wouldn’t someone pay a similar multiple for MSGN, which is at half that valuation?

Even if I am wrong, MSGN has an attractive earnings yield and I am comfortable with it in my portfolio.  The only downside is the debt load, but considering that every other company I own has a healthy balance sheet, I am comfortable with this risk.

PLEASE NOTE: The information provided on this site is not financial advice and I am not a financial professional. I am an amateur and the purpose of this site is to simply monitor my successes and failures.

I was able to find some quality bargains over the weekend and purchased the positions effective today.

FNHC.  Federated National Holding Company.  103 shares @ 18.5

DDS.  Dillard’s.  40 shares @ 63.80

FAF.  First American Financial.  68 shares @ 37.26

IESC.  IES Holdings. 129 shares @ 19.5

STS.  Supreme Industries.  160 shares @ 15.85

PLEASE NOTE: The information provided on this site is not financial advice and I am not a financial professional. I am an amateur and the purpose of this site is to simply monitor my successes and failures.

I compromised a bit yesterday and took in some stocks with higher valuations than I would prefer, but I am comfortable with the overall valuation of the company vs. what I paid for it and its historical value.  Each pick also has a healthy balance sheet with little to no debt.

I hope that the Fed decision will prompt further selling through end of the month and I can find better bargains before year end.  Currently the fund is 65% invested and will likely stay that way until I can identify more quality bargains with appealing balance sheets.

American Eagle Outfitters (AEO) – 150 shares @ $17.065

Earnings Yield = 7.62%.

Sanderson Farms, Inc. (SAFM) – 29 shares @ $89.6

Earnings Yield = 6.98%

TopBuild Corp (BLD) – 67 shares @ $37.915

Earnings Yield = 7.8%

PLEASE NOTE: The information provided on this site is not financial advice and I am not a financial professional. I am an amateur and the purpose of this site is to simply monitor my successes and failures.

Today’s purchases were all companies trading at attractive yields with healthy balance sheets and consistent earnings.  Benjamin Graham recommended an earnings yield at least double the typical investment grade corporate bond, which is now 3.77%.  Double that would be 7.54%.

I’m finding that it is much harder than in past years to find quality bargains after the run up in the markets.  It figures that as soon as I launch this site, the markets are uncooperative!  I may not be able to become fully invested before January 2017 due to the lack of attractive options, but that’s okay.  I’m sure Mr. Market will be in a different mood eventually.

My objective is to complete my purchases on an annual basis and give the stocks a year to work out with an annual re balancing every December so I can take advantage of the January effect.  If I cannot become fully invested by year end, I will likely purchase some short term treasury instruments.  At the moment, 49.56% of the fund is now invested.

37 shares of Valero (VLO) @ $67.58

Earnings Yield = 7%.  Dividend Yield = 3.57%.  The earnings yield is bit lower than I typically demand, but when combined with the dividend yield, share buybacks and the apparent bottoming of oil prices I think it is a good value.

337 shares of Manning & Nappier (MN) @ $7.51

Earnings Yield = 8.9%.  Dividend Yield = 8.48%

129 shares of IDT Corporation (IDT) @ $19.75

Earnings Yield = 9.31%.  Dividend Yield = 3.92%

81 shares of Cato Corp (CATO) @ $30.70

Earnings Yield = 8.60%.  Dividend Yield = 4.34%

171 shares of United Insurance Holdings (UIHC) @ $14.90

Earnings Yield = 9.23%.  Dividend Yield = 1.59%

65 shares of Cooper Tire & Rubber Company (CTB) @ $38.80

Earnings Yield = 10.96%.  Dividend Yield = 1.08%

61 shares of Greenbrier Companies (GBX) @ $41.75

Earnings Yield = 14.08%.  Dividend Yield = 2.07%.

PLEASE NOTE: The information provided on this site is not financial advice and I am not a financial professional.  I am an amateur and the purpose of this site is to simply monitor my successes and failures.

Today I purchased 98 shares of Gamestop (GME) at $26.06 per share, or $2,553.88.  I also purchased 113 shares of Kelly Services, Inc. (Kelly Services Inc.) at $22.40, or $2,531.20.

Gamestop (GME)

Gamestop currently has a P/E ratio of 7.06, or an “earnings yield” (1/PE Ratio) of 14.16%.  The market capitalization is currently $2.7 billion and total revenues are $9.3 billion. There is no long term debt and the company is producing stable earnings.  Gamestop has lagged the performance of the S&P 500, losing 11.93%.

Kelly Services Inc. (KELYA)

Kelly Services is a staffing agency boasting an earnings yield of 15.27%.  The market capitalization is $870 million and revenues are $5.5 billion.  Long term debt is minimal at $8.7 million with assets of $2 billion.  Like Gamestop, the stock produces consistent earnings.

I typically prefer stocks that are down for the year, but Kelly Services has been on a tear, up 47.81% in the last calendar year thanks to a tightening labor market.  Regardless, one can’t ignore how cheap the stock still is relative to its earnings.

Earnings Yield

I prefer to express P/E ratios in terms of earnings yield.  Rather than saying the stock trades at 10 times earnings, I think it makes more sense to refer to it as a 10% earnings yield.  It would be helpful if more investors thought in these terms and they would be less likely to buy crazy overpriced stock.  Think about that the next time you buy a stock at 50 times earnings, or a 2% earnings yield!

PLEASE NOTE: The information provided on this site is not financial advice and I am not a financial professional.  I am an amateur and the purpose of this site is to simply monitor my successes and failures.

Current Account Size

As of 12/11/16, the brokerage account that I will track on this blog currently has a balance of $51,121.23.  The broker I am using is TD Ameritrade.  I used Ameritrade in the past and enjoyed the service, plus their commissions are reasonable ($9.99 per trade).  My first trade occurred on Friday, 12/9.  I purchased 103 shares of NHTC, Natural Health Trends Corp.

NHTC – Trade #1

I goofed a bit on the trade, a mistake I would like to avoid in the future.  I originally placed a limit order for the 103 shares at 24.70.  I grew impatient that the order wasn’t being executed in time and switched to a market order.  This actually caused me to incur an additional brokerage fee of $9.99.

In any case, the order was filled with 5 shares at 24.7 and the remaining 98 shares at 24.7847.  The stock closed on Friday at 25.16.

Why did I select NHTC?  The stock boasts an impressive price/earnings ratio of 5.89.  It also has zero debt and has been consistently producing earnings each quarter.  A look at the stock chart is quite terrifying, as the stock is currently down 46.62% for the year.

Of course, that’s Mr. Market talking.  Whenever a stock is as cheap as this one, the chart is bound to look terrifying.  The opportunity for the value investor is to ignore that noise.  A diversified portfolio of stocks like these should beat the market averages over the long run, even though at an individual level they will look quite terrifying.

Defining Risk

In finance classes, risk is defined as beta.  Beta, simply defined, is the amount of volatility in the underlying stock.  How volatile is the price movement in the last year?  A beta of 1 implies that the stock perfectly matches the risk in the overall market.

NHTC’s beta is 2.27.

I don’t care about beta.  Risk is the likelihood that I will lose money.  While NHTC currently has a high beta, it is also making money and has no debt despite its problems.  In my opinion, the debt-to-equity ratio captures risk to a far more accurate degree than the movement of the price on the chart.

Why 103 shares?

A rule I would like to stick with in this portfolio is that I will not purchase a holding that exceeds 5% of my overall account balance.  My position in NHTC was purchased for $2,551.50, or 4.99% of my total portfolio.  When fully invested, this will help me have a portfolio of at least 20 stocks at any given time for an adequate level of diversification.  If I cannot find a sufficient quantity of bargains, I will then at least have a nice cushion of cash to deploy when the market falls and bargains become more plentiful.

Another rule I will stick with is that I will not deploy leverage of any kind.  I will not borrow money to purchase stocks.  Leverage is nothing but trouble.

PLEASE NOTE: The information provided on this site is not financial advice and I am not a financial professional.  I am an amateur and the purpose of this site is to simply monitor my successes and failures.