Hello Friends! It is Sunday and we are facing a new week and a new year! In fact, I am going to try to spice up my posts with some actual links to the articles I refer to. I am TOTALLY a newbie with HTML, so bear with me, PLEASE :).
During the week of June 23, 2003, I made a selection of Factual Data Corp. at $19.18 on 6/23/03, and posted Fresh Del Monte Produce at $26.14 on 6/23/03, picked Biosite at $48.15 on 6/25/03, and Digital Insight (DGIN) on 6/25/03 at $17.96, and BankRate (RATE) on 6/25/03 at $10.40. On 6/26/03, I posted Biovail (BVF) at $49.30, and finally I posted Online Resources (ORCC) at $6.17 on 6/27/03.
FDCC was acquired by Kroll so we can no longer follow. FDP closed at $23.80 on 1/2/04. This was a loss of $(2.34) or (9)% during this period. On October 23, 2003, FDP reported their third quarter earnings on Yahoo.com. EPS were $.60/share vs $.57/share in 2002. Net sales rose to $563.7 million from $498.5 million last year. The company appears to be on track.
Biosite took a tumble during the past six months and closed 1/2/04 at $29.07. This is a drop of $(19.08) or (40)%. On October 22, 2003, BSTE reported their third quarter 2003 results which showed that total revenue grew 48% and diluted earnings per share were up 60%. In spite of this price setback the underlying company appears to be doing fine.
Digital Insight closed 1/2/04 at $25.10. This stock has been a star among our other disappointments with a gain of $7.14 or 40% during this period. On October 23, 2003, DGIN reported their third quarter results on Yahoo. Revenues were up 16% to $39.4 million from $33.9 million, and eps was at $.14/diluted share vs $.05/share last year. These were very nice results!
BankRate closed 1/2/04 at $12.43 for a gain of $2.03 or 19.5%. RATE reported their third quarter results on October 28, 2003. Revenue for the quarter was up 31% to $9.5 million from $7.2 million last year. On a diluted basis, eps was $.16/share in 2003 vs $.11/share last year. This company is doing fine but certainly is an interest-rate sensitive industry in my opinion.
Biovail (BVF) has been our other disappointment, closing at $22.00/share on 1/2/04. This represents a loss of $(27.30) or (55)% during the last 6 months. Biovail reported their third quarter results on 10/30/03 at revenue was up 3% from 2002, however eps was $.22/share vs $.47/share last year. However a recent article on Forbes highlighted the uncertainty on BVF which along with the marginal earnings results, the SEC probe, make this a very questionable prospect going forward.
Finally Online Resources (ORCC) closed 1/2/04 at $6.59 for a gain of $.42 or 6.8%. On October 21, 2003, ORCC released their third quarter results with revenue up 14%, and eps at $.02/share up from $.01/share. This stock appears to be on track.
In conclusion, this was a rocky week for me for stock picks. We have had lots of GREAT stories on this website, but I try to report the ACTUAL results, and these were mediocre. The average performance for all of these (minus the FDCC which was acquired) was a loss of (6.28)% for the six month period.
In actual practice, it is essential to stop losses as close to 8% as possible, to allow the winners to compensate and grow. However, in our review, we look at stocks as if we would hold all of them through the period without any sales!
Thanks again for stopping by! If you have any comments, questions, or words of encouragement, please feel free to post them here on the site or email me at bobsadviceforstocks@lycos.com
(I hope all of these links WORK!)
Bob