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.
I would like to apologize for the paucity of posts these past two weeks. I did a real number on my back and after missing some work, have been avoiding sitting at the computer. Things are doing a bit better, and I shall try to catch up with the blog!
One thing that I try to do on weekends (which I missed last weekend) is to review stock picks from a trailing one year period. I simply look through the posts from that particular week and list all of the stocks "picked" and the price that week and the latest price. This review assumes a buy and hold strategy. In practice, I advocate and use a disciplined sale strategy whereby I sell my losing stocks completely and quickly and my appreciating stocks slowly and partially. This strategy will of course affect the return. However, for the sake of review, it is simplest to just determine the return based on a purchase and hold strategy.
On March 16, 2005, I posted Career Education (CECO) on Stock Picks Bob's Advice when it was trading at $36.35. Career Education closed at $32.94 on June 9, 2006, for a loss of $(3.41) or (9.4)% since posting.
On May 3, 2006, CECO reported 1st quarter 2006 results. Revenue for the three months ended March 31, 2006, increased 4% to $528.6 million up from $510.4 million in the same period the prior year. Consolidated net income came in at $52.7 million or $.53/diluted share, down (5.7)% from the $55.9 million or $.53/diluted share during the same period in 2005.
On March 18, 2005, I posted DRS Technologies (DRS) on Stock Picks Bob's Advice as a "revisit" when it was trading at $42.43. DRS closed at $50.44 on June 9, 2006, for a gain of $8.01 or 18.9% since posting.
On May 12, 2006, DRS reported 4th quarter 2006 results. For the quarter ended March 31, 2006, revenue came in at $645.7 million, up 79% from the $361.2 million in the same period last year. As noted in the news report, the large jump in revenue and earnings is attributable to a successful acquisition of ESSI on January 31, 2006. Net earnings for the quarter climbed 76% to $28.8 million or $.79/diluted share, (on 30% additional shares outstanding) compared with the prior year's results of $16.3 million or $.58/diluted share. The company also went ahead and raised guidance for 2007 earnings. So how did I do picking these two stocks? One pick lost ground, and the other did well. The average performance for these two picks was a gain of 4.75% since they were picked that week a bit more than a year ago.
Thanks so much for stopping by and visiting! If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to leave them on the blog or email me at bobsadviceforstocks@lycos.com. Also, please be sure to stop by and visit my Stock Picks Bob's Advice Podcast Site.
Bob