Tuesday, July 19, 2016

My Portfolio July 2016

I started this blog with the intention of posting an article about each stock purchase not long after I made it.  Well I have utterly failed.  I would love to blog more, not only for my readers but also myself.  I get to know, and remember, a company much better after writing so it's a big benefit to me personally to go through the blogging exercise.  Unfortunately life gets in the way.  I have a wife, kids, house, dog, full time job unrelated to stocks, '67 Firebird restoration a decade old, etc so I have to just accept my limitations. I've been averaging a little more than a post per month and that'll likely continue

This post is just going to be a list of my current portfolio.  I thought people out there might be interested.  I plan on writing posts on all of these stocks but who knows when I'll get to it.  I do have a post planned this week but 'planned' does not equal 'completed' so we'll see



Currently I am fully invested.  I have not always been and do not plan to always be, but there are just too many companies I want to buy to have cash sitting around.  I don't concern myself with the overall market, I just buy what I think is cheap then wait.  Most of these positions are a few percent of my portfolio except for HEMA which is much larger.  I did not plan on making HEMA so big, it just ended up that way as time went on.  I am very flexible with my positioning and purchasing.  I've actually been fully invested for quite some time and have bought new positions only as I sell parts of other positions; you know the old past time of selling cheap to buy cheap.

I'll just list these in alphabetical order and link to the ones I've already written about

  • ADDC: dark company selling for less than cash.  Profitable
  • BDR: selling at less than half of BV but not so great recent results.  
  • BLGA: way too many shares.  like the industry.  below BV
  • BMRA: board declared they'll be buying shares in the open market, promising new product
  • COMX: still cheap even after price increase since I wrote about it
  • CVV: has been dropping due to recent fall off in revenue and backlog but recently announced huge contract
  • EKCS: tiny security company with huge potential orders and recent PRs showing good orders
  • ELST: new CEO last year, instituted buy back this year
  • ESCC: cheap now with pension liability settled
  • FORD: I think they are turning around.  same story as when I wrote about them
  • GIGA: same story as when I wrote about them.  I think the future will be brighter than now
  • HEMA: I think the growth will continue
  • IEHC: revenue continues growing though not sure why earnings from recent 10Q didn't match NT10Q prediction
  • MICT: chugging along.  acquisition I wrote about fell through
  • MRCR: dark company very cheap
  • POLXF: biotech that recently started filing with otcmarkets from the darkness
  • QDLC: dark and likely super cheap though they haven't put out numbers in a few years
  • SKAS: too many shares but very cheap
  • SLGD: recently announced an acquisition and has been pushing higher
  • SOFT: tiny company turning around with some evidence the ship is moving in the right direction
  • STRI: selling for a fraction of cash on hand but losing money
  • TCCO: cheap with a very low float just waiting on the next big contract announcement
  • VII: cheap security related company with really big price swings recently
  • WPCS: in the middle of a turnaround and I think they'll do it
  • company I'm not prepared to discuss yet

--Dan
disclosure: long all of these stocks

10 comments:

  1. Just discovered your blog. Thanks for doing this post!

    If someone doesn't know any of these...Do you have a top 3 as of today probabilistic speaking, that one can start looking into? So not the "shots in the dark". Thanks

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    1. Unfortunately I don't think I can give you what you're looking for. There are some people who concentrate their investing and quote Buffett with his line about how you should only buy your top one or two ideas. I personally cannot do that. I mean I like all of them and think they could double tomorrow with the right news announcement. I just look for tiny, cheap, illiquid stocks then buy and wait. Long term some will die while some will flourish; who knows which will do what. If I were you I’d start reading my blog posts on the various companies and go from there.
      With that out of the way let me try to give you an answer. Obviously HEMA is my favorite because it’s my largest position but most of my buying was done around $0.35-0.40. ADDC and COMX are so obviously cheap it hits you in the face. FORD and WPCS are turnarounds with signs they’ve made it to the other side. QDLC may be the cheapest of them all but we don’t know. My most recent buys are probably BMRA, VII, SLGD, STRI, ELST, MRCR. I would buy CVV here as they’ve recently come off multi-year lows with a major contract announcement. Similarly SLGD recently had a major announcement and BMRA has huge potential with their irritable bowel syndrome test kit. TCCO, VII, and EKCS are small security related companies that’ll spike big someday with contract announcements (VII doubled twice in the past few weeks). This would be a great place to buy BDR if you think they’ll survive, as I do. Stocks currently trading for less than my purchase price: ADDC, BLGA, CVV, EKCS, ESCC, GIGA, MICT, MRCR, SKAS, SOFT, STRI, TCCO. Stocks trading around my avg purchase price: BDR, ELST, IEHC, VII, WPCS, FORD.

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    2. Appreciate the honest and detailed answer.

      where do you screen for this small caps? It's amazing how you've accumulated a portfolio of cheap ones in this market.

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    3. I don't have any specific screen. Almost every day I spend some time reading filings. I'm always checking my stocks and watchlists. I follow a lot of blogs and people on twitter. Just checking big movers up or down sometimes gives an idea. Mainly I have been very lucky to attract like minded readers generous enough to send me ideas. If I had more time I'd be scanning all the filings on otcmarkets. One thing I've wanted to do is review filings of all companies that have deregistered.

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  2. Well, TCCO is having a good day. Congrats! No idea why, I don't see any news?

    You definitely have a stronger stomach for cigar butts and turnarounds than me. Quite a few of these companies have negative book values and/or are losing money. But then again, TCCO has been losing money and burning cash as well and it did give investors a nice puff today.

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    1. HA! I would say all these companies have potential and in the end what else is there in the stock market. If you look long term at these tiny companies, sometimes the question is will they survive and if you think they might then the payoff could be huge. Of course some will not make it, that is the risk.

      On TCCO I don't see any news. Who knows what caused all the traders to pick it up but I'm not complaining. I sold out in the big spike this morning and am now waiting for it to drop down so I can buy back in

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  3. Hey Dan,

    Any update on your current holdings?

    Could you share performance info too? Either of individual names or your portfolio itself over the years? As a new investor, I'm curious on how these micro caps perform as opposed to the SPY, especially during these last few bull years? I have been saving this past 2 years and have about $10-15K I want to start growing and investing in these sort of names (finally), but have no idea how it performs...
    Thanks in advance

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    1. I haven't done much over the past 8 months or so mostly because my available money is all invested. Since this post I think my new additions are IOMT, SIMA, SCND. SIMA I already had but didn't want to mention it.

      A word of advice if you're going to buy stocks I mention is to diversify. These stocks as a whole I think will do well but any one individually may implode.

      As for performance I've only been investing for a few years. My performance can be tracked here: http://www.nonamestocks.com/search/label/Performance. I should probably break those posts out in their own page. As stated my goal is 12% so we'll see.

      If you are wondering about returns I suggest reading this paper from Tweedy Browne: What Has Worked In Investing. Really good read that lays out some reason I fish in the pond I do. http://tweedy.com/resources/library_docs/papers/WhatHasWorkedFundOct14Web.pdf

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    2. Thanks so much Dan. I think you're off to a great start. I hope to achieve something similar.
      Thanks for the paper. I'll read it this weekend.

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    3. Thanks. One more thing with these types of stocks is I intend to hold for years. I am not really trying to catch short term moves

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