Hello Friends! Thanks so much for stopping by and visiting my blog, Stock Picks Bob's Advice. As always, please remember that I am an amateur investor, so please remember to consult with your professional investment advisors prior to making any investment decisions based on information on this website.
As I like to remind readers, the weekend is a time for reflection for me here on this blog. I like to review both past stock picks as well as actual holdings in my trading portfolio. The review of my past picks assumes a "buy and hold" strategy. In fact, I employ and recommend using an investment approach that involves selling losers quickly and completely and gaining stocks slowly and partially. However, for the sake of this blog, the "buy and hold" strategy is easier to evaluate and this is what I am doing in these reviews each weekend.
On February 7, 2005, I posted Manor Care (HCR) on Stock Picks Bob's Advice when in was trading at $34.90. HCR closed at $43.85 on April 28, 2006, for a gain of $8.95 or 25.6% since posting.
On April 26, 2006, HCR reported 1st quarter 2006 results. Revenues for the quarter came in at $869 million, down from $879 million in the same quarter last year. Net income was $25 million, down from $40 million or $.30/diluted share, down from $.46/diluted share the prior year same period. The company offered several good explanations within the report for this change in performance, however, I am stuck on the bottom line and for my purposes this stock gets a "thumbs-down" on this quarterly report.
On February 11, 2005, I posted Trex (TWP) on Stock Picks Bob's Advice when Trex was trading at $48.46. Trex closed at $29.88 on April 28, 2006, for a loss of $(18.58) or (38.3)% since posting.On April 27, 2006, TWP announced 1st quarter 2006 results. For the quarter ended March 31, 2006, sales came in at $105.3 million, up from $89.9 million in the year-ago same period. Net income, however, came in at $4.2 million or $.29/diluted share compared with net income of $8.4 million or $.56/diluted share in the same quarter last year. Apparently, this is one company that is suffering from the increased cost of plastic raw materials.So how did I do with these two stocks for that week a little over a year ago? Well, HCR showed a 25.6% gain and TWP showed a loss of (38.3)%. Thus, the average performance for these two was a loss of (6.35)%.
A couple of comments. First of all, this shows how seemingly strong companies can lose money over time! And that I am completely capable of posting a stock that can lose money! And how it is important imho to establish loss limits on your stocks. If I had in fact actually purchased these two stocks in my portfolio, I would have sold my TWP quickly and it would have been gone long before this particular loss, and my HCR would have been still in my portfolio biasing my performance to the gain. (I do NOT own either of these stocks in my trading portfolio....I believe I did have some shares of TWP in the near past in a managed account....I am not sure if it is still there.)
Anyhow, thanks so much for stopping by! If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to drop me a line at bobsadviceforstocks@lycos.com or feel free to leave your comments right here on the blog. Also, please be sure and drop by my Stock Picks Bob's Advice Podcast Website wehre you can hear me talk about many of the same stocks I write about in my blog!
Bob