CTSH

MANIFEST 40 (3/31/2016)

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Your Most Widely-Followed Stocks: An Update

Our MANIFEST 40 is a celebration of collective excellence in stock selection, strategy and disciplined patience.

The 40 stocks are something of a barometer because we know that these community favorites are not simply followed … most of them are also widely owned, with considerable diligence and vigilance.

MANIFEST 40 (March 2016). Performance Results. These are the most widely followed stocks by Manifest Investing subscribers. Current leader Apple (AAPL) was added on 9/24/2009 and steadily climbed the ranks while generating a relative return of +20.3% (annualized) since then. Figures in parentheses are the ranking back in December 2015.

The rate of return is 9.0% since inception (9/30/2005). Bottom line? On an annualized basis, your community favorites have beaten the Wilshire 5000 by +3.6 percentage points — a relative, or excess, return that probably portends outsized success with our actual portfolios.

Quality (90) is solid and the overall return forecast (8.9%) is positioned to outperform the Wilshire 5000. At an average sales growth forecast of 6.8%, we’d to see some faster-growing companies adopted by our community.

Capturing Attention: Chargers

Gilead Sciences (GILD) moved from #25 to #22 as most of the list remained rather steady. Visa (V) is a new addition at #40. The results of $100 positions investing in any of the Top 40 companies can be viewed at any time via the public dashboard on the home page.

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

Fave Five (1/22/2016)

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Fave Five (1/22/2016)

This week’s Fave Five includes (4) repeat selections and one recent favorite, the #1 ranked company in this year’s Best Small Companies listing a couple of months ago.

Our Fave Five essentially represents 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), Cognizant Technology (CTSH), Forward Air (FWRD), F5 Networks (FFIV), and Under Armour (UA).

Context: The median 1-year total return forecast (via ACE) for the Value Line 1700 is 32.0%. The median 5-year return forecast (MIPAR) is 9.9% (annualized).

The Long and Short of This Week’s Fave Five

Weekend Warriors

The relative return for the Weekend Warrior tracking portfolio is +2.6% since inception. 60.0% of selections have outperformed the Wilshire 5000 since original selection.

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)
  • Forward Air (FWRD)
  • 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 (1/8/2016)

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Fave Five

Our first Fave Five for 2016 — in the face of staggering downside pressure — are five stocks with solid long-term perspectives … relatively stable profitability trends and expectations … and top shelf financial strength. 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 Scripps Networks (SNI), Stericycle (SRCL), Cognizant Technology (CTSH), Priceline (PCLN) and Apple (AAPL).

Context: The median 1-year total return forecast (via ACE) is 18.0%. The median 5-year return forecast (MIPAR) is 9.4% (annualized).

The Long and Short of This Week’s Fave Five

Weekend Warriors

The relative return for the Weekend Warrior tracking portfolio is +0.9% since inception. 53.3% of selections have outperformed the Wilshire 5000 since original selection.

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

The Stocks We Follow (MANIFEST 40)

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We launched the MANIFEST 40 in October 2005, built from the stocks that most frequently appear on subscriber dashboards, and this active and continuously maintained tracking dashboard has delivered a rate of return of 9.2% since inception.

The 40 stocks are something of a barometer because we know that these community favorites are not simply followed … most of them are also widely owned, with considerable diligence and vigilance. Bottom line? On an annualized basis, your community favorites have beaten the Wilshire 5000 by +3.4 percentage points — a relative return that nurtures smiles and bolsters the returns of our actual portfolios.

The average sales growth forecast of the portfolio (6.7%) suggests that it is dominated by the “Up, Straight and Parallel” core contributors. Quality (90) is solid and the overall return forecast (9.7%) is positioned to outperform the Wilshire 5000. We’d like to see the community discover and follow some smaller, faster-growing companies.

Performance Results

The absolute rate of return for the trailing 10 years is 9.2%.

Capturing Attention: Chargers

Gilead Sciences (GILD) moved from #29 to #25 as most of the list remained rather steady. Fastenal (FAST) shuffled up to #4 and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) dropped a couple of positions. 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

Our MANIFEST 40 is a celebration of collective excellence in stock selection, strategy and disciplined patience.

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

Fave Five (12/11/2015)

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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 Five Below (FIVE), Akamai Technologies (AKAM), Jazz Pharmaceuticals (JAZZ), Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS-TO) and Cognizant Technology (CTSH).

Context: The median 1-year total return forecast (via ACE) is 18.2%. The median 5-year return forecast (MIPAR) is 7.9% (annualized).

  • Five Below (FIVE) is a retailer that offers a broad range of merchandise targeted at the teen and pre-teen customer. All products are priced at $5 or below. Its products are in the following category worlds: Style, Room, Sports, Media, Crafts, Party, Candy, and Now. And here we pause to catch our breath because many investors are loathe to consider fad-sensitive apparel-related stocks. (1) We’ll only retain in the tracking portfolio for as long as it makes sense to do so. Consider it a prenuptial promise. (2) If you need a reminder about why this might make sense, see: And The Children Shall Lead Us… — note the returns to shareholders from some of these retail companies that we often avoid. (3) Five Below was featured prominently among our 50 Best Small Companies for 2016 holding down the #38 position.
  • Akamai Technologies (AKAM) provides cloud services for delivering, optimizing and securing online content and business applications. It provides its services to improve the delivery of content and applications over the Internet.
  • Cognizant Technology (CTSH) is an old friend to most of us by now. The company is a provider of information technology, consulting and business process outsourcing services. Its core competencies include Business, Process, Operations and IT Consulting, Application Development and Systems Integration, Enterprise… CTSH is the second most widely-followed company by our subscribers (AAPL is still #1) and was added to the MANIFEST 40 on 12/15/2008. (CTSH has beaten the market by +22.9% — annualized — since then.)

Weekend Warriors

The relative return for the Weekend Warrior tracking portfolio is +2.5% 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)

Transactions

Skyworks Solutions (SWKS) was removed, or “sold” from the tracking portfolio after beating the market by 10 percentage points over the last few weeks. The SWKS PAR had dropped below our Sweet Spot.

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

Create an account and launch a FREE, fully functional 30-day test drive at http://www.manifestinvesting.com today.  Explore features like the Stock Search, Dashboards and Sandboxes … and our weekly features that highlight threats and opportunities for stock watchers and shareholders. The weekly features present a number of actionable stock study ideas. We’d be happy to give you or a friend a FREE test drive. Let us know via manifest@manifestinvesting.com (All we need is name, email address and zip code to establish an account.) Discover Manifest Investing today for only $79/year.  Create your account today.  

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.

Stocks to Study (4/18/2015)

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Screening Results (April 2015)

Shopping In Prairie Dog Mode

If you’ve been to Devil’s Tower, watched enough Animal Planet and/or visited your local zoo, you’ve seen vigilance. Think about the images or scenes of prairie dogs where a “town” or “clan” hears an unusual noise. Immediately, several of the critters will stand on their hind legs and they’ll generally look East, West, North and South as they collaborate to detect potential danger.

Vigilance in Context

Same thing here. Although we’re reluctant to refer to our community of investors as animals, we know that we’re well served when we remain vigilant.

In this case, we’re continually mindful of the parade of opinions from the rhinos that cover and exude/spew opinions on our companies. For this month’s screening results, we hit the ejector button on any qualifying companies that failed to exceed the averages of a number of forecasts.

“Ignore the words issued by analysts (buy/sell/hold) but heed their numbers and homework.” — Walter Kirchberger

The companies in the accompanying list are sorted by MANIFEST Rank Descending and therefore have strong return forecasts and quality rankings. Every week we check our update batch for drifts (downward and upward) in expectations — heeding their numbers. This is little different as we value consensus and elevated financial strength under these market conditions. For perspective, the average Value Line low total return forecast is 3.7%. The average P/FV at Morningstar is 104% and S&P checks in at 99%. The average 1-year total return expectation from ACE is 13.5%. S&P sees the year ahead at 9.5% and Goldman Sachs (GS) is a little more grumpy and pessimistic at 7.0%.

All of a sudden, this whole investing thing was no longer just a hobby. (grin)

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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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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