NoName Annual Performance 2023-2024

This year I gained 5.1%, bringing my CAGR to 33% since buying my first stock 11 years ago. I'm super happy and proud of my long term record, though losing to the S&P the past 4 years straight isn't great. I've been treading water recently and hopefully next year changes that.

You can read all my past annual performance posts here.

 

My strategy is totally dependent on capturing enough huge winners to make up for all the losers and that just hasn't happened recently.  I've had some nice multibagger wins like POLXF, OPXS, SCIA, and recently SLGD but I'm down on just too many losers.  Some have made me money on in the past like BMRA which I'm right now down 60% on my current position and DYNT which I'm down 80%.  Other's are just sad through and through.  I'm down >= 90% on LNDZF, PIRS, GIGA, SLNH, MOTS.  Down 60% on GVP.  I recently got back into FORD after some upbeat commentary and I'm already down a quick 30%.  Maybe Buffett was right that most turnarounds don't turn.  

But it's all part of the game.  When you're buying at the low end of the chart it's hard to find the bottom.  Some of the junk turns out to be just that and not all potential can be realized.  I'll keep trying.

Below you can find my current portfolio.  I am still buying the two unnamed stocks on the left.  My top 5 positions make up half the portfolio right now as result of them growing.  Fingers crossed to keep that up!

On to some charts

MRCR

I've owned Moro for many years, having first wrote about it at $0.40 in 2016.  It's a tiny construction company.  The stock sits at $1.70 and is about as cheap now as it was then.  Management turned over a few years back and the new leaders have acted rationally, selling off unprofitable divisions.  I've written about this one a few times over the years and still like it.  The share count hasn't changed in forever.  Margins have come up as they shed the fat.  Earnings are up so the question is will that continue or are we at a high point in the cycle.  I've been buying more as time goes on.  Right now we've got a PE of 5.5, P/BV of 0.6.  P/S is 0.2.  $0.96 in cash.  

BMRA

This is another I've written about a few times.  I've made money on it in the past and the story now is really pretty much the same as when I first wrote about it in 2017.  I sold into a huge covid spike in 2020 and the stock has been falling back to earth ever since.  I bought back in around $3.50 and have added as it keeps coming down.  

The company is a small biomedical company focusing on diagnostic tests, always introducing new stuff.  They've got tests for breast cancer, colon cancer, etc.  At home tests for sale at Walgreens and Walmart as well as point of care tests at your doctor.  The biggest potential is their IBS treatment product InFoods, which they gave an update on the other day.  

On the positive side is potential.  They are working towards a huge addressible market and with a market cap of only $13m it doesn't take too much to move the stock.  

On the negative they are always losing money haven't seen much growth.  Share count has doubled since I first wrote about BMRA seven years ago.  

The stock sits at the low end.  Maybe this is finally the year new products take hold.

PIRS
If you want to see a loser here you go.  Check out this 1-year chart:

And the 5-year showing when I first bought on some exciting news and wrote up the stock: 

This is my biggest money loser ever.  I bought on the great potential and looking back I should've sold when the uptrend ended a few months later.  The company was/is a money losing bio speculation.  As you can see in the chart the potential has not been realized.  

Recently the company came out with some interesting news they are stopping funding their own developments.  They've done a review and contacted 500 companies "regarding a strategic transaction"!  I've thought about buying more now that they're talking about returning cash to shareholders.  But I'm just not sure there is enough potential gain.  Maybe if the stock keeps dropping.  

Some quotes from that press release:

• "After considering an extensive range of options, the Company's Board of Directors decided to implement this new strategy along with relevant cost-saving measures that are expected to extend the Company’s cash runway into 2027. 
• 500 companies were contacted regarding a strategic transaction
• The Company ultimately determined that the Company’s planned repositioning offers the best opportunity to maximize stockholder value.
• future milestone and royalty potential, which could result in up to $75 million of milestone payments during the next several years, as well as potential significant downstream milestones and royalty economics is key to maximizing value for our shareholders
• discontinuation of all the Company’s research and development efforts, which is expected to be completed by the middle of 2024
• potential to pursue milestone and royalty monetization agreements with third parties to possibly accelerate cash distributions to shareholders"

OPXS
Let's end on one I've never written about but really should have.  Optex makes optical products mostly for the defense industry.  Dayton Judd of FTLF fame is one of the largest shareholders and sits on the board.  Over the past few years, new orders and backlog have grown impressively as the company transitioned from money losing into the promised land of profits.  The stock has responded:

The question as always is what does the future hold.  I've never sold a share and it's now one my largest positions.  If new orders drop off the stock will go back down where it came from.  But we are going to have some huge quarters coming up based on this expected delivery table from the most recent 10Q: 

I first bought the stock in late 2016 when it dropped from around $2 to $0.60.  I'm up about 10x now on those initial purchases but it was a small position at the beginning.  Several times I thought about writing it up but it just never looked cheap or ugly enough.

Actually the most interesting part of the OPXS story is their old warrants.  I really should've gone in hard and written up the stock in the summer of 2021.  In late 2016 the company issued 5 year warrants exercisable at $1.50 as they were struggling to survive.  They were even tradable under the symbol OPXXW and I bought some around $0.10-$0.15.  I figured of course over 5 years this stock will come back over a buck fifty and I'll make money.  The warrants peaked over a dollar as the company rebounded.  It seemed a sure thing.  The future warrant dilution was always an overhang on the stock though so even as the company was looking better it didn't stay up where it had been in the past, but it was consistently over the exercise price.  

The stock mysteriously sank to $1.50 as the we came within a few months of the warrant expiration.  It was crazy because the stock had been around $2 for years.  It just dropped down and sat there.  I looked at it and bought a little bit but not much.  I was thinking this is so strange, could someone actually be keeping this down to force all those warrants to expire worthless?  

Well turns out I should've backed up the truck.  It had to have been done on purpose.  Almost none of the warrants were exercised.  I lost my OPXXW investment because I'm such a savvy trader.  Right when they expired, the stock took off and hasn't been back.  

Cheers everyone!  On to the next year

--Dan
disclosure: long all the stocks in my portfolio picture

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