AAPL

Fave Five (12/28/2015)

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Fave Five

Here are five stocks that could be studied over the Christmas holidays. They essentially represent a listing of stocks with favorable short term total return forecasts (1 year, according to Analyst Consensus Estimates, or ACE) combined with strong long-term return forecasts and good/excellent quality rankings. This week’s Top One Percenters are Team Health (TMH), Hain Celestial (HAIN), Dick’s Sporting Goods (DKS), Under Armour (UA) and Apple (AAPL).

Context: The median 1-year total return forecast (via ACE) is 21.0%. The median 5-year return forecast (MIPAR) is 7.7% (annualized).

The Long and Short of This Week’s Fave Five

  • Team Health (TMH) is the supplier of outsourced healthcare professional staffing and administrative services to hospitals and other healthcare providers in the United States.

Weekend Warriors

The relative return for the Weekend Warrior tracking portfolio is +0.1% since inception.

Here are some links to fairly recent monthly stock features, Round Table discussions and/or analysis updates for companies in the tracking portfolio:

  • Apple (AAPL)
  • Stericycle (SRCL) Feb-2014 Round Table nomination by Nick Stratigos (starts at 18:33 of session)

Tracking Dashboard: https://www.manifestinvesting.com/dashboards/public/weekend-warriors

Fave Five (12/18/2015)

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Fave Five

Here are five stocks that could be studied going into the weekend. They essentially represent a listing of stocks with favorable short term total return forecasts (1 year, according to Analyst Consensus Estimates, or ACE) combined with strong long-term return forecasts and good/excellent quality rankings. This week’s Top One Percenters are Inteliquent (IQNT), Team Health (TMH), Skyworks Solutions (SWKS), Magellan Midstream Partners (MMP) and Apple (AAPL).

Context: The median 1-year total return forecast (via ACE) is 18.3%. The median 5-year return forecast (MIPAR) is 8.3% (annualized).

  • Inteliquent (IQNT) was one of the more successful Round Table selections of the past few years as the company has rebounded from severe lows.
  • Team Health (TMH) is the supplier of outsourced healthcare professional staffing and administrative services to hospitals and other healthcare providers in the United States.
  • Magellan Midstream Partners (MMP) is embroiled in the oil patch wars. The company is engaged in the transportation, storage and distribution of refined petroleum products.

Weekend Warriors

The relative return for the Weekend Warrior tracking portfolio is -0.2% since inception.

Here are some links to fairly recent monthly stock features, Round Table discussions and/or analysis updates for companies in the tracking portfolio:

  • Apple (AAPL)
  • Stericycle (SRCL) Feb-2014 Round Table nomination by Nick Stratigos (starts at 18:33 of session)

Tracking Dashboard: https://www.manifestinvesting.com/dashboards/public/weekend-warriors

Fave Five (12/4/2015)

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Fave Five

Here are five stocks that could be studied going into the weekend. They essentially represent a listing of stocks with favorable short term total return forecasts (1 year, according to Analyst Consensus Estimates, or ACE) combined with strong long-term return forecasts and good/excellent quality rankings. This week’s Top One Percenters are Apple (AAPL), CVS Health (CVS), Jazz Pharmaceuticals (JAZZ), Atwood Oceanics (ATW) and Stericycle (SRCL).

The five all rank in the top percentile by Manifest Investing ranking — based on a combination of quality and return forecast. We were also nudged by former Groundhog Challenge Champion Anne Manning to limit the field to the top quartile when it comes to earnings stability. And yes, that tightens things down to a field that we’d generally consider more favorably.

Context: The median 1-year total return forecast (via ACE) is 19.0%. The median 5-year return forecast (MIPAR) is 7.2% (annualized).  PAR stands for Projected Annual Return and uses a constant 5-year time horizon.

Weekend Warriors

Here are some links to fairly recent monthly stock features, Round Table discussions and/or analysis updates for companies in the tracking portfolio:

Tracking Dashboard: https://www.manifestinvesting.com/dashboards/public/weekend-warriors

Fave five 20151204

September 2015 Round Table

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What: Round Table Discussion of Favorite Stock Study Ideas

When: Tuesday, September 29 at 8:30 PM ET

Where: Online. Register via https://www.manifestinvesting.com/events/178-round-table-september-2015

Who: Kim Butcher, Ken Kavula, Herb Lemcool, Hugh McManus and Mark Robertson

Why: Because we like to share ideas for successful investing. The selections made by Round Table participants have beaten the market over the last five years with a relative return of approximately +3.0%

Stocks Likely To Be Covered: Apple (AAPL), Illumina (ILMN), McGraw Hill Financial (MHFI)

The session (webcast) is FREE. Please invite your friends and family to attend.

If you’d like to be added to an email reminder list for this and all future (monthly) Round Tables, send a request to nkavula1@comcast.net

National Waffle Day

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Going Gets Tough — Gone Shopping

Fear tends to manifest itself much more quickly than greed, so volatile markets tend to be on the downside. In up markets, volatility tends to gradually decline. — Philip Roth

Today is National Waffle Day.

And did the markets ever waffle. Although our focus is always on individual stocks, it was hard to ignore that the Dow Jones Industrial Average toppled from 16459.75 to 15370.33 at the open — a plummet of 6.6% before most people finished their morning coffee.

Apple (AAPL) opened at 105.76 and dropped to 92.00 — a swoon of 13.0% in a matter of minutes.

As we complete the update of our weekly batch, we’ll present a roll call of high-quality study candidates that could be worthy of pouncing — as the wafflers waffle. Our investing friends don’t let friends waffle because volatile markets often deliver out-sized opportunities.

Stocks to Study In A Volatile Market

We set a limit of Quality Ranking > 90 so that we’d be looking at only the excellent companies in our database — only those companies falling in the top decile of all companies based on ranking of financial strength, earnings consistency and relative growth forecast and profitability vs. peers/competitors.

There are number of reasons for this. If the correction deepens, it’s likely that the highest-quality companies will suffer smaller price drops. High company quality can be a life insurance policy. This is particularly true for companies with thin (low) profit margins if recessionary conditions develop. For poor quality companies, recessions can be fatal. (For more on this subject, review the high quality discussion of Arnold Bernhard’s 1958 Best Companies that we covered last year.)

Volatile markets can create opportunity because frankly, average investors do stupid things.

When asked, I’ve been urging young assertive investors with understanding and risk tolerance to shop assertively. One friend bought Apple (AAPL) in the low $90s this morning. One of our favorite market barometers ($USHL) has now entered “yellow light” cautionary territory and for those thinking capital preservation, it could make sense to convert lower-quality companies and/or low return forecasts to cash just in case we get another 25-40% price drop. Raising cash equivalents isn’t done so much for defensive purposes — because the swoon could stabilize and the secular bull market could trudge on. It really could be a situation of building reserves to take advantage of future opportunities.

  • Cognizant Technology (CTSH) — Highest MANIFEST Rank
  • Fresh Market (TFM) — Highest MANIFEST Projected Annual Return
  • Joy Global (JOY) — Highest Low Return Forecast (VL)
  • Joy Global (JOY) — Lowest P/FV (Morningstar)
  • Fresh Market (TFM) — Lowest P/FV (S&P)
  • Joy Global (JOY) — Best 1-Yr Outlook (ACE)
  • Baidu (BIDU) — Best 1-Yr Outlook (S&P)
  • Apple (AAPL) — Best 1-Yr Outlook (GS)

Note: The price targets from Goldman Sachs are from public releases and represent a partial sample. The price target is logged as of the most recent public analyst report. Although every effort is made to keep this information as current as possible, some of the ratings may not reflect more recent research and updates.

The Stocks We Follow (MANIFEST 40)

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Perspectives

MANIFEST 40 Update

Our MANIFEST 40 is a celebration of collective excellence in stock selection, strategy and disciplined patience. We continuously monitor the 40 most-widely followed stocks by our community of subscribers at Manifest Investing.

“We have always believed that the collective decisions made by our community of like-minded, long-term investors are worth huddling over … a place where ideas are born.”

This managed “tracking portfolio” of your collective favorites has outperformed the Wilshire 5000 by +3.3%. The absolute rate of return for the trailing 9.5 years is 9.6%.

Capturing Attention: Chargers

QUALCOMM (QCOM) continues to ascend, moving from #12 to #11. CVS Health (CVS) has been bolstered of late and moves from #38 to #37.

The results of $100 positions investing in any of the Top 40 companies can be viewed at any time at: http://www.manifestinvesting.com/dashboards/public/manifest-40

Newcomer

T. Rowe Price (TROW) is a newcomer to the MANIFEST 40. The company was featured in Solomon Select in the July 2014 issue and has been discussed during a number of Round Tables and during other events. The asset manager is highly regarded in this long-term investing community and has been a favorite for decades.

Strongest Performers

The three top performers in the MANIFEST 40 since inception, based on annualized relative rate of return, are Cognizant Technology (+30.7%!), Apple (27.5%), PRA Group (20.2%).

The charter members of the MANIFEST 40: Microsoft (3), Stryker (4), AFLAC (5), Johnson & Johnson (6), General Electric (7), Cisco Systems (10), Walgreen (12), FactSet Research (13), Oracle Corp (17), PepsiCo (18), Teva Pharmaceutical (20), Intel Corp (22), Medtronic (23), Danaher (27) and Wal-Mart (33).

We’ll continue to pay the most attention to these community favorites. Keep up the good hunting!

More Fun With The MANIFEST 40

Here’s the listing (ranked from Most Widely Held, Descending) with a display of Opinions on Parade courtesy of Manifest Investing (consensus-based), Value Line, Morningstar, Standard & Poor’s, Analyst Consensus Estimates and Goldman Sachs.

Mi 40 opinions 20150410

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Heavy Hogs (2014): Invest With Your Friends

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Heavy Hogs (2014)

The Groundhog Challenge is our 9-year running stock picking contest that runs from Groundhog Day to Groundhog Day.  The results over the years have been pretty special and we’ll be back soon with the 2014 finish line results. The “Heavy Hogs” is the annual tracking portfolio for the consensus favorites.

The overall results for Groundhog VIII (2014) were … for lack of a better word, a little stinky. (I have high expectations and you’ll see why when we report the comprehensive results)

Collectively, we stumbled to multi-year lows for relative return and accuracy.

Not all of us were blessed with the luck of the Irish like Mr. McManus, so it probably makes sense to remind ourselves that there seems to be better performance in “numbers.”

As of 2/1/2015, 10-of-the-20 (50%) most frequently chosen stocks by 2014 Groundhoggers had outperformed the general stock market over the annual contest – racking up an average return of 18.1% (+3.9% RR) led by Apple (69.4%)

When nobody else is selecting that hidden gem you’ve identified, be careful. Confirm your assumptions. And when legions of our your friends hold their nose at your selection (think BODY) — you might be right, but ignore them at your peril. It’s also worth noting that there’s no escape hatch in this contest version. You’re stuck with the selections made in early February for 52 weeks until Punxsy Phil stirs again.

Don’t get me wrong. This lack of an escape hatch is often a virtue. We generally believe that hyperactivity in “investing” is erosive and history rhymes with us.

But when the consensus selections outperform the vast majority of hundreds of participants, it’s probably worth heeding the group. Investing with your friends can be a very good idea.

Heavy hogs 2014 20150202

The Stocks We Follow (December 2014)

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 MANIFEST 40 Update

“We have always believed that the collective decisions made by our community of like-minded, long-term investors are worth huddling over … a place where ideas are born.”

This managed “tracking portfolio” of your collective favorites has outperformed the Wilshire 5000 by +3.3%. The absolute rate of return for the trailing 9 1/4 years is 9.6%.

Our MANIFEST 40 is a celebration of collective excellence in stock selection, strategy and disciplined patience. We continuously monitor the 40 most-widely followed stocks by our community of subscribers at Manifest Investing. We think it’s more than a fair assumption that many of these are in your real money portfolios … and for that, we’re optimistic and grateful. This managed “tracking portfolio” of your collective favorites has outperformed the Wilshire 5000 by +3.3% (relative rate of return, percentage points). The aggregate absolute rate of return has been 9.6% during a period when the annualized rate of return for the general stock market has been 6.3%.

Capturing Attention: Chargers

Schlumberger (SLB) moved from #39 to #34 and continues to attract interest despite the current challenges in the energy sector. Buffalo Wild Wings (BWLD) returns to the MANIFEST 40 at #36 as chicken wings, beer and sporting events continue to deliver for investors.

The results of $100 positions investing in any of the Top 40 companies can be viewed at any time at:

http://www.manifestinvesting.com/dashboards/public/manifest-40

Strongest Performers

The three top performers in the MANIFEST 40 since inception, based on annualized relative rate of return, are Cognizant Technology (+27.4%!), PRA Group (25.8%) and Apple (24.8%).

The charter members of the MANIFEST 40: Microsoft (3), Stryker (4), AFLAC (5), Johnson & Johnson (6), General Electric (7), Cisco Systems (8), Walgreen (11), FactSet Research (14), Oracle Corp (18), PepsiCo (17), Teva Pharmaceutical (16), Intel Corp (21), Medtronic (22), Danaher (26) and Wal-Mart (31).

We’ll continue to pay the most attention to these community favorites. Keep up the good hunting!

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Round Table: Last Call!

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The February Round Table will get underway at 10:30 AM ET as our noble knights and damsels gather on the red carpet and mingle in the Green Room — sponsored by Caesarstone. The Pavilion management team would like to thank the overnight campers for not building a campfire on the red carpet and for maintaining order while celebrating with your “tailgate among the Golden Knights.”

Stocks likely to be discussed:

  • Apple (AAPL)
  • Caesarstone (CSTE)
  • Cognizant Technology (CTSH)
  • Fossil (FOSL)
  • Stericycle (SRCL)
  • Walgreen (WAG)

Come out for this FREE webcast and see how many Golden Knight statues that Ken Kavula and Hugh McManus abscond again this year.

Register via: http://www.manifestinvesting.com/events/143-round-table-march-1-2014

State of the Round Table (January 2014)

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State of the Round Table Portfolio

We took a look at some of the stocks that have delivered a solid long-term performance for the tracking portfolio as well as sharing our favorite current stock ideas and some analysis. What is your favorite stock idea right now?

The state of the Round Table tracking portfolio is SOLID. The relative return (internal rate of return minus the Wilshire 5000 since inception, July 2010) is +3.6% with an out performance accuracy of 56%. The objective is 60% and for context, the “average” investor generally achieves a 30-40% accuracy based on observations of the Motley Fool CAPS program.

Keep in mind that the tracking portfolio has a permanent home at:

http://www.manifestinvesting.com/dashboards/public/round-table

Stock Studies:

  • Apple (AAPL)
  • Computer Programs & Systems (CPSI)
  • McDonalds (MCD)
  • Shoretel (SHOR)

Fundamental Screening Results

Technical Analysis & Second Opinions On Parade

Hugh’s Noodling for Deeper Value

The audience selected Computer Programs & Systems (CPSI) as their January choice.