Tuesday, April 28, 2020

5 Years

5 years ago today I started this blog.  I can't believe it's been so long.  It has been the most amazing ride!

To anyone out there considering writing, please do.  Jump in full force.  I have improved more than I ever thought possible and so much is due to writing this blog.  It has improved my process, my speed, and my understanding.

I appreciate everyone reading this.  Love the comments and emails.  Thank you so much.  This blog lights up my heart
I had one single article idea in my head when I started and here we are 5 years later with 85 posts!  40 different stock write-ups.  9 articles on issues related to dark stocks, the SEC, OTCmarkets, and brokerages.

My preference is to write specific stock analysis rather than general investing process pieces.  I like to interlace explanations of my style within stock pieces.  In every post I try to be new, highlighting how I look at different situations.  I stay away from what's already been discussed.  This blog is my book, with each post a new chapter.

You know we have to see some charts!

This is my google analytics tracked user count over the past 3 years until my most recent post about 2019-2020 Portfolio Performance.  Kinda fun to look at.  All those spikes are blog posts.  About 50-100 users per day.  182k visits in this picture for an avg of 166 per day.

Now look at that same chart extended to today.  So crazy.  That giant spike is my 2019-2020 Portfolio Performance post.

Here is what google blogger tells me are my top ten posts of all time.  Two blog post groups are my most popular by far: Portfolio Performance and dark stocks/SEC/OTCmarkets/brokerages.  I take a lot of pride in both of those groups.  My most recent post has more views than any other in less than two weeks.  

My most visited blog pages tells the same story.  


The performance of every stock I write up is tracked on my Blog Performance page and below is the performance as of today.  It's fun to see the sink or swim nature of these stocks.  

Across the bottom you can see performance at different time intervals: 6 months after post, 1 year, 2 year, 3 year, and finally the current or my sold date.  IOMT is not included because the story of that post is so crazy with a market cap of two dollars.  

6 stocks down over 70% (CVV, DCAR, GIGA, SOFT, PRAC, VCON).  2 stocks up over 1000% (HEMA, SIMA) and 2 more with spikes up over 1000% that I missed (DPW, EKCS).  15 stocks up over 100% (IEHC, HEMA, QDLC, FORD, MRCR, COMX, EKCS, SIMA, BMRA, TCCO, DPW, HYDI, DEWY, MGTC, PEYE).  Biggest gainer of course is HEMA with 8367%.  Biggest loser DCAR with a 98.5% loss, HA!  Total gain adding up all posts is 12658%!  

Here's to the next 5 years.  Have a good one everybody.

--Dan
disclosure: thankful for all readers

17 comments:

  1. Congratulations, well done, and thank you! Here's to the next 5 years and next 1,800% (whichever comes first). Best, Chris

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great work, Dan.

    Personally, I'm not much of a "cigar butt" investor, and psychologically, I don't think I could bear holding a portfolio of money losing companies, even one that significantly outperformed the market.

    But I still find your approach to investing fascinating and intellectually stimulating, which is why I come back.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Do you have an explanation or is there a reason why the stocks that you have covered for the last 2 years according to the "blog performance" haven't performed so well?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I just took the average of the stock performance for the stocks that you covered since June 13, 2018. It was about 2%, so the S&P500 was better. So the stocks that you covered earlier performed much better. Hopefully this is not an early sign that your strategy stopps working.

      Delete
    2. Many reasons can be found if you look for them.

      Sometimes stocks take a while to work out. BMRA and IEHC took years. Patience is your friend

      Sometimes a stock moves and then comes back, giving you the chance to sell but not being reflected in this table. DYNT tripled and I sold some then bought more when it fell back.

      Sometimes a stock moves before I get the chance to write about it. I had a RDVA post started when the buying was announced. CLSI ran up hard before I finished buying.

      This table does not tell the full story of my strategy. As noted in the FRTN post I bought at much lower. That post was not a recommendation to buy but an example of why I do what I do

      Delete
  4. Dan I just found your blog and look forward to following it, but since I am new I don't know your approach. These micro caps, are they decent companies? Do they have a history of consistent profitability? What do you "screen for"?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. some are decent, some are good, some are crap.

      most of my stocks do not turn a consistent profit.

      I look for low price on the chart, low price in absolute terms, low share count. Less than $5 stock price. Low market cap. Few of my stocks are over $10M market cap. Cheap relative to revenue, book value, or earnings. Stocks the market has forgotten about. stocks people don't like. Stocks left for dead

      Delete
    2. Do you have a source for the low share count? A paper says it should be under 20 million, but I can't find anything else. If I invest, I buy a position/stocks for a certain amount. Then the share count doesn't really matter to me. Not sure if the share count is relevant.

      Delete
    3. I have no source. 20m is high and I prefer less than 10m.

      For your position size and the percent of the company which you own, I agree share count doesn't matter. That's not why I want a low share count

      I want low share count for two reasons. One is it shows quality of the business. If they are issuing shares all over and share count is rising over the years that is not the best capital management. Two is basic supply and demand. I buy boring, left for dead stocks in the hope of demand coming in some day. When that demand comes I want supply to be low so the price rises more. Few shares outstanding and lower float means the price will move more when people want in.

      Delete
  5. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us. I find it interesting. I use long range charts and look for stocks that most have given up on.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Do you have an opinion related to Canaf Investments (CAF). This stocks looks really cheap with a P/E of 4. However, I personally find it difficult to invest in such a small company with a trading volume of cero.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. mining and international real estate is not for me. stock does look incredibly illiquid which I like, if you can get shares. but the company it not my type

      Delete
  7. Did you ever look at shipping stocks? Some have totally crashed. E.g. Castor Maritime (CTRM) trades for a market cap of about 2.6 Mio. (according to my own calculation) and the profit for 2019 was about 1 Mio. This looks like a strong undervaluation. However, the risk of bankruptcy could be significant too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You better delete my comment and save your time. I just saw that this company has some nasty preferred stocks and in a liquidation or stock buyback, the company has to pay usd 25 per pref stock.

      Delete
    2. haha. No I haven't looked at shipping stocks

      Delete
    3. A more interesting stock is probably Paragon Technologies. It trades for a Market Cap of only 3 Mio, a P/E of 2.5, P/S of 0.03. This is an incredibly cheap stock. However, it trades now for usd 1.8 and I would prefer to buy it for usd 1 or so. Overall, it must be one of the cheapest stocks in us.

      Delete