2011 Long Term Contest

[tyfighter3]

Sometimes simple is the best way. I've always said that investing shouldn't be that hard as long as you have some common sense and a little time to do your DD on your investments. Don't pick to many stocks that take all of your time, you could get lost in trying to do to much. It's better to be a expert in a few than half ass in a bunch. WXYZ"s port is very good and Large Caps are going to do well this year.

[tyfighter3]

<< Previous Next >>
Current Rank «
Nickname
Net Worth
Today's Return
Total Return
Transactions last 40 days

1
wxyz
$2,308,320.17
+0.79%
+15.42%
14

2
beerfan
$2,214,852.70
+0.84%
+10.74%
1

3
braje
$2,126,822.36
+0.07%
+6.34%
38

4
tyfighter3
$2,110,005.09
+0.90%
+5.50%
10

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k64
$2,105,071.80
+0.66%
+5.25%
4

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2806rick
$2,076,127.35
+1.14%
+3.81%
0

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d1
$2,055,564.95
-0.06%
+2.78%
1

8
uncle.23
$2,004,064.51
+0.73%
+0.20%
4

9
Gettin Rich in IN
$2,000,000.00
+0.00%
+0.00%
0

10
fvbridges
$1,959,511.00
+0.38%
-2.02%
6

11
Yclept
$1,943,503.80
+0.02%
-2.82%
5

12
gdgyva
$1,734,196.15
+2.88%
-13.29%
6

[tyfighter3]

Current Rank «
Nickname
Net Worth
Today's Return
Total Return
Transactions last 40 days

1
wxyz
$2,241,343.75
+0.69%
+12.07%
0

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beerfan
$2,157,827.24
+0.14%
+7.89%
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k64
$2,085,962.85
+0.05%
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braje
$2,077,213.54
-0.36%
+3.86%
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d1
$2,057,800.95
+0.23%
+2.89%
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Gettin Rich in IN
$2,000,000.00
+0.00%
+0.00%
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2806rick
$1,978,402.35
+0.40%
-1.08%
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Yclept
$1,927,727.45
+0.31%
-3.61%
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uncle.23
$1,910,650.51
+1.36%
-4.47%
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fvbridges
$1,903,725.10
+0.26%
-4.81%
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tyfighter3
$1,882,064.19
+1.63%
-5.90%
12

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gdgyva
$1,649,511.15
-1.71%
-17.52%
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[fvbridges]

It's Monday May 9th and the virtual portfolio is screwed up. For some reason, they had a cost of $ and change for Caterpillar stock and it skewed the leader board big time. It put d1 in 1st and me in 4th. Hopefully they will fix it soon.

[fvbridges]

Tat 1st line should have read $4 and change.

[fvbridges]

Fingers are inoperative this morning...lol

[fvbridges]

Just rechecked......It is Citi and not Cat. I sent feedback to Marketwatch.

[tyfighter3]

They haven't accounted for the reverse split change yet.

[yclept]

Dividend: EVN; x/d 5/6; $1760.00

I believe that brings my dividend total to $105,741.50, for a portfolio total of $2,033,468.95, which is plenty bad, but at least not as bad as it appears from just the results the game reports. Had I not taken that flyer (out of boredom) a month or two ago on the leveraged ETF and lost about $20k, my high-dividend, buy-and-hold strategy in this contest would probably crawl all the way up to "completely unacceptable"!

	Total	$105,741.50
Date	Ticker	Div Amt
12/23/10	NLY	$17,600.00
12/29/10	MFA	$14,030.00
12/23/10	ANH	$15,040.00
12/27/10	AGNC	$11,900.00
02/08/11	EVN	$1,760.00
02/10/11	CLCT	$1,332.50
03/08/11	EVN	$1,760.00
03/14/11	PTNR	$4,400.00
03/10/11	FDI	$3,230.00
03/10/11	CLCT	$5,973.00
03/29/11	NLY	$8,866.00
04/07/11	EVN	$1,760.00
03/29/11	CMO	$9,430.00
04/07/11	MFA	$6,900.00
05/06/11	EVN	$1,760.00

[kadee79]

May 11, 2011 12:17:47 GMT -5 @wxyz said:

GAME is not being nice recently, half (6) of the investors have now gone RED for the year to date.

I don't think the game had anything to do with what they choose as investments!

Just so ya'al know....I haven't kept up with any dividends that were paid on any of my stocks in the game! I know I had a couple that paid some while I held them in the game.

[tyfighter3]

Previous Next >>
Current Rank «
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Transactions last 40 days

1
wxyz
$2,233,880.03
-1.32%
+11.69%
0

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beerfan
$2,147,228.18
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+7.36%
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fvbridges
$2,124,061.75
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k64
$2,073,064.25
-0.67%
+3.65%
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d1
$2,054,414.95
-0.55%
+2.72%
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Gettin Rich in IN
$2,000,000.00
+0.00%
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2806rick
$1,944,112.35
-1.33%
-2.79%
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braje
$1,906,568.17
-0.83%
-4.67%
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uncle.23
$1,903,552.51
-2.59%
-4.82%
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Yclept
$1,850,267.55
-4.90%
-7.49%
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tyfighter3
$1,810,328.54
-1.09%
-9.48%
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12
gdgyva
$1,617,798.15
-2.83%
-19.11%
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[kadee79]

wxyz, I've been investing (small) for about 20 yrs. & have watched the market for closer to 30. Anything I have learned...I taught myself or have picked up from boards like this.
I've gotten stung a few times, but that is how we learn!

Recently got an advertisement in the mail for a penny stock! Boy, can they make it sound good!!!, SENY.

[IPAfan]

I've been very passive in my investing this year. I really don't have time to investigate new special situations. I've got a pretty long term portfolio, and despite recent poor performance by ENH my real portfolio is acting about the same as the one in the game. When you include the dividends and KHDHF shares spun out of TTT (that aren't reflected by the game) I'm between 10-11% YTD.

I'm definitely prone to take a big loss if my main investments (particularly TTT) go south, but I do think my investments are pretty high quality, and with the exception of PM/MO they're trading at good valuations in respect to their assets.

I think all of my investments can at least double over the next few years if business goes well. In my real portfolio I used to trade a lot up until this year. We'll see if I can continue to earn good returns without trading as frequently going forward.

[tyfighter3]

Their is several kinds of ports in the Contest that are very good to look at. Some are large caps, some are dividend based, some are growth based. Depending on your Risk and age a person could reap some very good information from this Contest. I think I put together a growth port even with XOM and GE in it for stability and the rest of my port with Company's that have great growth potential over the next 10 years or so. Putting together this kind of port does take getting used to because of the fluctuation's that will occur in the course of a year.

[yclept]

A couple of more dividends came limping in to help keep this sorry portfolio from being a complete waste of time:


05/12/11 LPHI $11,200.00
05/11/11 CLCT $5,973.00
This should bring my dividend total to $122,914.50

	Total	$122,914.50
Date	Ticker	Div Amt
12/23/10	NLY	$17,600.00
12/29/10	MFA	$14,030.00
12/23/10	ANH	$15,040.00
12/27/10	AGNC	$11,900.00
02/08/11	EVN	$1,760.00
02/10/11	CLCT	$1,332.50
03/08/11	EVN	$1,760.00
03/14/11	PTNR	$4,400.00
03/10/11	FDI	$3,230.00
03/10/11	CLCT	$5,973.00
03/29/11	NLY	$8,866.00
04/07/11	EVN	$1,760.00
03/29/11	CMO	$9,430.00
04/07/11	MFA	$6,900.00
05/06/11	EVN	$1,760.00
05/12/11	LPHI	$11,200.00
05/11/11	CLCT	$5,973.00

As sorry as these results are, they are at least providing evidence that it wouldn't pay to just buy dividend payers (even big dividend payers like these) and try to rest on one's laurels. These stocks, just like all others, need to be bought when they are undervalued, hopefully held for a dividend or two, and sold when they approach being overvalued. Tracking that is a whole lot more work than I want to do for something like a contest that offers no return on invested time, except knowledge -- knowledge that should be old-hat to anyone who has studied the markets.
If the market tanks hard this summer, this portfolio will probably experience decent capital gains to go along with the dividends. If the market doesn't tank, it's going to remain dead meat.

[yclept]

"I here you there. Then again with all the Media hype about how any type of "buy and hold" is stupid, etc. , one is hard pressed to find someone doing just that."

That seems a strange statement to me. Most of what I see, read, and hear from journalists and advice sellers is "patience", "buy-and-hold" bullshit. It's exactly the line that Wall Street wants the investing public to follow so they won't try to run away from the raping. After all, they can't say something like "bite this bullet, bend over, and think pleasant thoughts" -- too many of them would smell a rat.

[IPAfan]

Buy and hold can be an excellent strategy with excellent investments. It's a losers strategy for the vast majority of stocks.

So is it worth trying to buy the top 1% of companies and holding on? Will the 30X returns outweigh the losses? Probably.

[tyfighter3]

Players 1-12 of 12

<< Previous Next >>
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Transactions last 40 days

1
wxyz
$2,219,272.31
-1.41%
+10.96%
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beerfan
$2,158,021.36
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+7.90%
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fvbridges
$2,097,874.45
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d1
$2,065,783.00
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k64
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Gettin Rich in IN
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2806rick
$1,932,654.85
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braje
$1,898,799.71
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-5.06%
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tyfighter3
$1,893,828.54
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-5.31%
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uncle.23
$1,823,429.51
-1.06%
-8.83%
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Yclept
$1,789,752.55
+0.26%
-10.51%
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gdgyva
$1,495,526.15
-3.64%
-25.22%
0

[Aman A.K.A. Ahamburger]

LOL, I think it's funny you think that most people have a lot of common sense. If that were true there would be no such thing as an asset bubble. Good on your grandpa!

I agree with wxyz. People get sour because they try and play the pro game, instead of the investing game. If you can make it trading good on ya.

Whats wrong with just having some staples like GE, XOM, VZ, and some decent mutual funds to collect some decent dividends? that way you always have powder to pick up a stock if you want. If your young with kids like me, I recommend a decent Life policy, for the insurance that your family will have some cash. 2 grand a yr and if something happens to my wife and me, my kids have 500k tax free. If we get to be old geezers it will be closer to a mil tax free(off of a 200k long term investment). Watch for the systemic banking issues, liquidate your funds and buy when there is blood on the streets! Anchor that with a 10% savings, and I think you have a decent plan.

[Aman A.K.A. Ahamburger]

So Yeah, all I was shown, all I have seen, All I have learned - tells me that this is a Solid way to go

Not saying that is isn't, good on ya!

[Aman A.K.A. Ahamburger]

Great points wxyz, with great logic. Especially this part.. Thanks for expanding it's very simple yet important!!

The way you do buy and hold is you buy quality stocks and funds hopefully on the "value" side and you hold them for the long term till they are not performing as you expected and the fundamentals that caused you to buy them no longer apply. You may hold a stock for 2-5 years or for 30 years. But it does not mean that you quit watching and evaluating what you hold as long term investments. If you go with quality odds are you will hold the investments for the long term. As DI has seen, quality held over the long term can compound very nicely with much less risk. (his grandfather example)

I am certainly not going to tell some new investor just starting out with little to no knowledge of investing that the way to go is to trade or market time. This is just one of those areas where some of us will just have to agree to disagree.

I agree, I would also never advise a new investor to time the market, or plan around banking problems.

[tyfighter3]

Buy and Hold GOOD stocks. If the Fundamentals are there in a down turn in them, they will come back. Buy the dips. JMO

[tyfighter3]

Current Rank «
Nickname
Net Worth
Today's Return
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Transactions last 40 days

1
wxyz
$2,212,817.98
+0.76%
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beerfan
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fvbridges
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k64
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d1
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Gettin Rich in IN
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2806rick
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tyfighter3
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braje
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uncle.23
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Yclept
$1,758,806.55
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gdgyva
$1,494,298.65
+2.16%
-25.29%
0

[IPAfan]

Well I put in some market sell orders on several of my positions. I'm trying to sell half my position in CNA, BRKB, and FRFHF.PK. I think most of these are still good deals (I don't own BRKB or CNA in my real account) but I'm seeing some other investments that are more my style. I'd probably buy these stocks in real life, but I'd have to sell one of my core holdings to raise the money. I'd consider selling FRFHF.PK to invest in these companies, but again I'm keeping my actual trading down to almost nothing. I'm trying to become more of a buy and hold investor, and I don't see the need to sell stocks like FRFHF just to buy another good company.

Anyway, two stocks I'm very interested in at these prices are:

NWLI (this life insurer is trading at less than HALF OF ITS NAV) - closely held and controlled by its CEO (who is getting old.) The company has managed to grow its NAV per share at a nice clip over 15-20 years. However, the company trades at a perpetual discount most likely because of the management that is not willing to buyback shares or pay dividends. I like companies that trade at perpetual discounts to book value so long as the underlying business is growing.

CSWC - This is an equity Business Development company - has a history of holding investments for the very long term. Overall the company has managed to grow net worth at a good rate over the long term. The company trades at a pretty big discount to NAV, but there is a LOT of deferred tax liability since the company is sitting on huge capital gains. A very interesting strategy that this company employs is to pay taxes at the 35% corporate rate on dispositions. Apparently because of the BDC nature of the company, investors can get a credit from the IRS for the difference between the 35% rate paid by the company and the investor's individual tax rate. So even though the company doesn't pay a dividend you can actually end up getting a pretty sizeable chunk back from the IRS in the form of a refundable tax credit. Obviously this advantage would not be reflected by the VSE game, but it's a company I'd be interested in holding in a taxable account.

[yclept]

I missed reporting a dividend when I looked at them early this month. PTNR 11,000 sh @ .33/sh = $3,630.

Should bring the total to $126,544.50

	Total	$126,544.50
Date	Ticker	Div Amt
12/23/10	NLY	$17,600.00
12/29/10	MFA	$14,030.00
12/23/10	ANH	$15,040.00
12/27/10	AGNC	$11,900.00
02/08/11	EVN	$1,760.00
02/10/11	CLCT	$1,332.50
03/08/11	EVN	$1,760.00
03/14/11	PTNR	$4,400.00
03/10/11	FDI	$3,230.00
03/10/11	CLCT	$5,973.00
03/29/11	NLY	$8,866.00
04/07/11	EVN	$1,760.00
03/29/11	CMO	$9,430.00
04/07/11	MFA	$6,900.00
05/06/11	EVN	$1,760.00
05/12/11	LPHI	$11,200.00
05/11/11	CLCT	$5,973.00
05/11/11	PTNR	$3,630.00

I don't intend to do anything more by way of trying to trade this portfolio. I'll just let it sit there and take it's beating this summer like a good little buy-and-holder and hope that the dividends can continue to offset some of the losses.
By far and away the losses in this portfolio are attributable to LPHI which losses (in this portfolio, over $200k so far with another $140k likely by the end of summer) were a slow moving freight train that even the slowest of traders could have stepped aside and let pass.

[yclept]

I wanted to explore whether high-dividend stocks could make a buy-and-hold strategy more feasible. So far it's clearly not the case (using this high-dividend tactic), but, generally speaking, we have seen only a rising market since the beginning of this year, albeit one that seems to have peaked. Before the end of this year, I believe there is a substantial risk of a large fall (ala 2008), and it will be interesting to see if these stocks fall less and the extent to which the dividends can offset the capital losses. You're right, it's not the type of thing I ever expect to do again with real money unless a study like this can convince me there are some classes of stock that mitigate (to the extent of offering positive returns) the effect of holding through a downturn.

[yclept]

I agree. D.I. you take all of this palaver too personally. I throw in comments about buy-and-hold being passé primarily to get wxyz's goat, just as I'm sure he extols the foolishness of active trading probably to get mine. Although I also sincerely believe b/h to be a suboptimal strategy.
My experience of holding stocks following the dot-com crash for several years (and losing more money than I ever expect to regain by doing so), convinced me that I never again want to do that. Actually, a few years after that I fell in love with Cemex and rode it far too long -- probably more out of fear and stubbornness than any rational person would have, so I guess the lesson of 2000 needed reinforcement. I missed a lot of the damage in 2008, but didn't have the guts to go short with conviction, so didn't make a lot of money on that carnage either. It should have been shooting fish in a barrel, but I guess I was afraid I'd get too wet, so I mostly sat on the sidelines.
Wxyz would be quick to point out that it's not just "buy-and-hold" that he endorses, but rather buying and holding the "proper" stocks (I'm not aware of his selection criteria, but they are primarily large-cap value holdings as far as I can tell), just as you favor your dividend payers as your selection criterion.
The selection criteria I used for this portfolio is one of choosing stocks that pay outlandishly high yield dividends. I just figured this would be an easy way to track them since early on when I asked about the dividend-tracking merits of Marketwatch, I was pretty sure someone told me they caught dividends. Turned out to not be true -- such is life. The year isn't over yet. If the market falls significantly the rest of this year, this strategy may still show to have some merit (at least with respect to other selection criteria).

"In Short the Game started out as an experiment to test some theorems I had, versus a hardset Trading Mindset - What it has ended up being is a Joke, at my expense which has made me look like a complete Idiot for even opening my mouth.
It does Not matter that I managed to hold up decently during the Downhill run, nor that my statistical probability models were proven true in Mar. 2009 - all folks here see is the Flawed result of an Experiment that was started based on theorems that were at the time it was incepted, incomplete and as such fudementally flawed."

I do not recall anyone here or at the old MSN Start Investing board having ever said any of these things about you (except you).

I think the back and forth banter is productive. Should some person new to investing somehow stumble upon this board (how that would happen is beyond me!) and decide to read some of these threads, they should come away with at least the realization that there are two sides to this coin (or maybe 6 sides to this die). I don't see how that can be a bad thing, and almost certainly is better than having read some columnist's interpretation of how Saint Warren did such and such or Crammer (spelling intended) is pushing this or that.

[tyfighter3]

I don't think there is one of us that is on this Board that hasn't held a stock or stocks to long, depending where you bought it to start at, that hasn't been burned once or twice. I know last years contest, I wanted to put my profits into a parking stock that paid some high dividends that I thought was a good fundamental stock. I was going to pick WHX as my parking stock but the game didn't allow for dividends so my theory at the time was out the window. I picked the stock up around $15 in the game which I thought was a good price for it and I was right since it has traded between that and as high as $24 and is still at $17 paying a 16% yield today. If the game wasn't flawed it would have been my largest holding by the end of the game. I like dividends but I also like stock appreciation to go along with them. It's a WIN WIN when you find that combination. I know how DI feels that it was probably a waste of time but I still think that there was still some good things that a beginner could gleam from watching the game.

[tyfighter3]

Everybody has their own style and most of us are set in the way we do things but knowledge helps us tweak our style even better. Mistakes, we all make them, it's just that we don't want to make as many of them as time goes by.

[Aman A.K.A. Ahamburger]

I agree Ty. Knowledge=power.