Looking at this Year’s Changes

Now that I’ve given out the changes for next year’s Buy List, let’s look at how the changes for this year have worked out.

The new stocks I added for 2013 were Cognizant Technology Solutions ($CTSH), FactSet Research Systems ($FDS), Microsoft ($MSFT), Ross Stores ($ROST) and Wells Fargo ($WFC).

The five I deleted were Hudson City Bancorp ($HCBK), Johnson & Johnson ($JNJ), JoS. A Bank Clothiers ($JOSB), Reynolds American ($RAI) and Sysco ($SYY).

Here’s how the new stocks have done compared with the S&P 500 (black line):

Four of the five are beating the market. Only FactSet, with its recent drop, trails the market. The top new stock is Microsoft with a 37.8% YTD gain. Second is Ross Stores at 36.9%. Next is Cognizant at 32.9%. Fourth is Wells Fargo at 31.5%, and FDS is last at 24.3%.

Only two of our five deletions beat the market:

The top-performing deletion is JoS. A Bank with a 33.9% YTD gain, followed by Johnson & Johnson at 31.4%. In third is Reynolds American at 17.7%, then Sysco at 15.1%. In last place is Hudson City with a 13.1% gain. Hudson was supposed to merge with M&T Bank, but the deal has been delayed all year. The deal may take 28 months to complete.

Here are the combined new buys, deletions and S&P 500 this year.

Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on December 22nd, 2013 at 5:43 pm

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