Posts from the ‘Swift Energy (SFY)’ Category

May 11

Week 149: Earnings Update on a few companies

This isn’t a complete portfolio update. I won’t be posting my performance or trades; I will leave that for another week. I just want to give a short update on some of the earnings reports that have come out or are still to come out while the thoughts are still fresh in my mind. Here is a quick snapshot of the top positions in my portfolio as of Friday’s close.

MagicJack

MagicJack earnings come out Monday after the market close. I’m nervous about them, because the stocks action has been poor, it is a large position for me and because I’m not convinced the numbers will be great.

The company lowered advertising spend significantly in the quarter in anticipation of the release of the new version of the device and the app. That will help costs, but it will also probably hurt revenue. On the fourth quarter call the company said that they expected the first half of the year to be “soft”. Read more

Feb 2

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Week 135: Retail Changes

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

During the Christmas break I began to focus my attention on the Canadian market, searching out stocks that had not yet participated in the bull market or that had further room to run. I started to call these stocks my “Venture” ventures but that is not really accurate; I’ve actually only invested in a couple of companies that trade on the Venture exchange. But they do tend to be small and micro and even nano cap companies, so many of them are Venture in spirit if not name.

My thesis was based upon a few pillars. First, the Canadian markets severely underperformed the US markets in 2013 and given the tie between the trade of the two countries I didn’t think this disconnect could continue forever. Second, The Canadian markets were dragged down by a rout in commodity stocks, particularly gold, and I wondered how much of the general downdraft had resulted in non-commodity businesses being dragged down unfairly. Third, the Canadian dollar had fallen 10% and I had to think that this made any kind of export based business much more attractive.

The fall of the Canadian dollar also provided me with another reason to return to my home-country market. I have done really well in the past year owning stocks in American dollars. Its been a 10% gain across the board, even if a individual stock did nothing. But this force can work two ways and I am wary of a 5% correction to the upside that causes my portfolio to take a hit. Read more

Apr 28

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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