Interim update on my positions

This was an extraordinary two weeks and I did a lot more buying and selling than normal. This was really A LOT MORE BUYING AND SELLING THAN NORMAL FOR ME, but you don’t see many two week periods in the market like this either.

I’m reprinting my positions that I posted on April 26th and alongside them I’m posting in italics what I’ve done since. Remember if I haven’t bought anything of a stock, it doesn’t mean there was anything wrong with it, just that it hadn’t dropped as much, and thus wasn’t as compelling a buy as others (CELG is an example).

These were my position descending order, starting with the top six:

SYNA – I bought a small amount at about $57.75
CELG
UBNT – I bought a bunch at $31.95 and $30.92
BOFI – I bought a little at $80, and a lot at $78.50
AMBA
MTZ – I sold a little for cash at $38.85, as it hadn’t dropped much.

Next I had 10 positions ranging in size from 5.0% to 3.2% so you could think of them as centered around the average position range.

SZYM – I bought a little at $10.70 and then a lot at $9.03 to $9.27
WAB – I used part of this for cash. I sold a bunch at $75. I like the stock but there were a lot of extraordinary bargains floating around.
HZNP – I bought a moderate amount at $12.91 to $14.45
AFOP – I bought a little at $15.70 (I wish I had bought more! )
Z – I added some at $90.
CSGP
SCTY – I bought a tiny amount at $52.50
JCOM – I bought some at $47.80
CALL – I bought a bunch at an average price of $16.30 after the drop
PSIX – I sold a little at $77 for cash to buy other stuff (hadn’t fallen much and high PE)

JCOM had been a new position. Next we had two more new positions, Pandora (a Rule Breaker recommendation) and MANH (a two times Hidden Gem recommendation). MANH was not a very fast grower and I said I probably won’t make it too much larger. These were 2.5% to 2.1% so you could have called them half positions.

P – No change
MANH – I sold all my position to buy more enticing things

Next I had six small positions ranging from 1.5% to 0.9%. PFIE and INBK were new. LNKD, I had had before and sold at $240 or so, and bought back at these lower prices. ELLI was reduced in size as I had sold some to buy stocks that were way down or new purchases.

NGVC – I luckily had sold a third of my position at about $36.50 for cash, and then got out of the rest at about $25 after the conference call.
PFIE – I bought a lot, a tiny bit at $4.50 and all the rest mostly between $3.90 and $4.05
INBK – Added some little dribbles, half at $21.60 and half at $20.25
LNKD – I bought some at $150, and a little at $139, then ended up selling most of it at $145.30 for cash to buy stocks like BOFI
APPY – Sold out for cash.
ELLI – I continued to sell ELLI for cash and sold out.

Then two tiny positions at 0.65% and 0.38%. TSLA was smaller then it had been because I used it, like ELLI, for cash for purchases.

TSLA – I finished selling out for cash at $201
KRED – I’ve slowly added and it’s now about a 0.7% position, still by far my smallest position

To summarize,

I sold out of ELLI, TSLA, APPY, NGVC, MANH and now have just 21 positions, which is very concentrated for me. These weren’t really surprising sells. ELLI and TSLA I was already selling at the last report, APPY and NGVC were small positions, and as for MANH, I had already said I wouldn’t buy much. None of these came from my top 17 positions.

I reduced my positions in LNKD and WAB for cash to buy other things. LNKD because t was a very high PE and I had more confidence in BOFI, SZYM, etc. - WAB, because it hadn’t fallen hardly at all and the chances of seeing a 30% to 40% bounce in six months were nil, while I could hope for that with each of the five below that I bought a bunch of.

I bought a bunch of UBNT, BOFI, SZYM, CALL, PFIE

I bought a moderate amount of HZNP and JCOM

I bought a little SYNA, AFOP, Z, SCTY, INBK

The other nine positions you could say that I liked them enough to hold my whole position or almost my whole position, but that there were other positions that seemed like better purchases to add to right at the moment. AMBA and CELG I didn’t add to partly because they were already very large.

Saul

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Once again. Thanks for sharing. It really helps to see how one can manage raising cash, opening new positions and adding to existing ones in a portfolio. Good learning for newbies like myself.

BTW that is a lot of buying and selling. I’m assuming that you are doing these trades only in IRA accounts?

Hi Chandra,

I’m assuming that you are doing these trades only in IRA accounts?

Yes 80% or more in IRA’s and for the rest I chose sales where I didn’t have much short term gain. Also, if you take into account that my top 17 positions were mostly unchanged or added to, and that the sold stocks were small positions, all that noise amounted to only a small proportion of my total portfolio, and it was over two and a half weeks.

Saul

So as not to mislead people I felt I should tell you about a change of mind. For one of my small positions, INBK, I had written

INBK – Added some little dribbles, half at $21.60 and half at $20.25

Well I read Fletch’s quarterly update on INBK, posted just a couple of posts after I had posted my interim update. Fletch really understands banks in a way I never would be able to. It was an in-depth and excellent discussion. After reading it, I decided to get out of my small position in INBK completely. I put some of the money adding to my position in Bofi at $75.

Then I had written

PSIX – I sold a little at $77 for cash to buy other stuff (hadn’t fallen much and high PE)

Well I bought back the little I had sold and a little more at $70.60 and $71.10. (Don’t think of this as a trade. I sold it initially because I needed cash, not because I was trying to trade it. I bought it back because I like the company, the price was down, and I had cash from the sale of INBK.

I also added to SCTY at $51, Z at $99.20 and $96.70, and I keep accumulating little bits of SZYM and PFIE.

Saul

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Hi Saul,

Great board! Many kudos to you for being so generous with your time and expertise.

I think there are two screaming buys out there right now:

  1. UBNT – for all the reasons you have been saying. No need to repeat them here.

  2. AVO (Avigilon) on the Toronto Stock Exchange, AIOCF OTC. High growth, video surveillance soup-to-nuts products, great recent results, and stock price crushed by departure of CFO one day before earnings. CEO has since repeatedly said it was truly a health issue and that AVO is in great shape, the best ever.

I have recently bought full positions in both of these companies and, despite the overall elevated market, plan to buy trading positions if there are further dips.

For AVO, see:

http://news.morningstar.com/all/ViewNews.aspx?article=/CNW/2…

Also see the following excellent thread on MF SA boards (subscription required):

http://discussion.fool.com/1081/avigilon-fastest-growing-canadia…

I would truly appreciate any contrary thoughts; I fear I am too positive on these opportunities and thus may be missing something.

BA

P.s. You know, I thought my above humorous post about channel checks was just hilarious! I guess this may be another case where I am relying too much on my own views . . . .

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