Posts from the ‘Atna Resources (ATN)’ Category

Mar 17

Week 141: Portfolio Allocation

Portfolio Performance

See the end of the post for the current make up of my portfolio and the last four weeks of trades.

Recent Developments

I’ve been on vacation and so am a couple weeks late getting an update out.

My portfolio had a big move up, thanks mostly to the movement of Pacific Ethanol and MagicJack. Pacific Ethanol had a one day gain of 67% last Thursday, and is nearly a 4-bagger since I bought in. MagicJack is nearly a double.

But what has really helped is that even before the run-up Pacific Ethanol was my largest position. MagicJack was my fourth largest position.

One of the ironies of writing about the stocks I own, is that what I write about most is often not what I have the biggest position in. The stocks I have the most to say about are the one’s that are on the cusp, where I am constantly debating whether to hold on to them or not. My biggest positions; Pacific Ethanol, Yellow Media and MagicJack, for example, I have written only a single post about. That post states the thesis, and as long as that thesis is valid I don’t have much else to say.

Yet the stocks in my portfolio are far from being of equal weighting. I usually have a lot of stocks. Unless the market is going down, the stocks number at least 30 and has recently approached 40. But most of the positions are quite small, in the 1-2% range. These as starter positions; enough to keep me interested and following the company, but not enough to hurt me too much. If my thesis for these companies plays out, or if, as I learn more I become more comfortable with the idea, I add. If not, if the company materially lags or sometimes if time simply passes and I lose interest in the idea, I drop the position and move on. Read more

Jun 2

2 Comments

Atna Resources and the Importance of Following my Rules

Things have turned out poorly for Atna Resources (ATN.to). A combination of (not atypical) mine development delays, a precarious cash position and a falling gold price have coincided with each other to crush the stock. That crushing reached a culmination on Thursday when the share price tumbled 43% to 25 cents.

Its crazy to think that I was adding to Atna as little as 3 months ago.

Fortunately I did see some of this coming. My losses have been mitigated from what they could have been. As I tweeted in mid-March.

in my April 1st update I described the reason I was getting out of gold: Read more

Apr 28

8 Comments

Week 95: Setting the table (hopefully)

Portfolio Performance

See the end of the post for a full portfolio breakdown.

Update

Since my last update I exited Radian Group, Arkansas Best and MBIA. The sales reflect a desire to redeploy cash in other opportunities as well as some lingering concerns about each company.

With Arkansas Best, its my uncertainty about the outcome of union negotiations. The negotiations were extended this week for a second time. An escalation to a strike does not seem out of the question. If a strike occurs the stock price may or may not get hit; while a positive resolution could be quite good for the stock in the long-run (see my original post about how Arkansas Best would benefit from a contract structured in a similar manner to the one that YRC Worldwide operates with) the uncertainty may drive panic selling. I’ve decided to wait this one out for a few weeks and see how it plays out. Read more

Apr 1

1 Comment

Week 91: Consolidating

Portfolio Performance

Consolidation

Patience is a difficult virtue. I’ve had 3 weeks of pretty so-so performance, some stocks going up and some stocks going down and overall not much of anything happening. With the market going up seemingly every day its hard to not let that play on your mind.

But you have to have a balance of patience and impatience to do well in stocks. You need to have a healthy level of impatience so that you don’t hold onto positions for too long, but tempered with an equal dose of patience because, as I read some time ago from a cagey market veteran, you will make 80% of your gains for a year in 2-3 weeks, and figuring out which weeks those are is nearly impossible.

In the last few weeks I think I demonstrated a little bit both; witness impatience in my selling of gold stocks and of my position in Tricon Capital and patience as I held on to falling positions in MBIA, Impac Mortgage and watched YRC Worldwide and Yellow Media correct substantially from their highs. Read more