Buy List Update

Now that we’re winding up the first quarter, I thought this would be a good time to look at how well our Buy List has done.
If you’re not familiar with our Buy List, this is a list of 20 stocks that I select each year and start tracking on January 1. The hitch is that the list does not change all year. So I’m stuck with the good, the bad and the ugly. I do this to show investors that you don’t need to do a lot of trading to be a successful investor.
So how well are we doing? The good news is that we’re up slightly for the year. The bad news is that we’re trailing the market by nearly 2%.
Through yesterday’s close, our 20 stocks are up an average of 2.46% (not including dividends). The S&P 500 is up 4.38%. Our daily volatility is 8.7% greater than the market.
We were slightly ahead of the market through mid-February, but this latest surge caught our stocks a bit flat-footed.
Here’s how our stocks have done:

Ticker Stock Profit
EXPD Expeditors International 23.55%
DHR Danaher 12.59%
VAR Varian Medical Systems 12.59%
SEIC SEI Investments 9.38%
GDW Golden West Financial 8.56%
BRO Brown & Brown 5.86%
DCI Donaldson 4.78%
HD Home Depot 4.40%
BBBY Bed Bath & Beyond 2.63%
SYY Sysco 0.00%
BMET Biomet -0.08%
RESP Respironics -0.27%
AFL AFLAC -0.37%
FDS FactSet Research Systems -1.21%
DELL Dell -1.30%
FISV Fiserv -1.92%
HDI Harley-Davidson -2.91%
MDT Medtronic -7.68%
UNH UnitedHealth Group -7.72%
FIC Fair Isaac -11.66%

Fair Isaac’s (FIC) troubles started just two days ago, but Medtronic (MDT) and UnitedHealth (UNH) come in at #18 and #19. In fact, there’s a good deal of space between them and #17. So much for safety with size! MDT and UNH are two of the largest stocks on the Buy List.
While I’m a very competitive person, I’m not ready to panic just yet over trailing the S&P 500. Given the short time period, our performance to date is completely normal.
I still see lots of great bargains on the list. Dell (DELL) below $30 is a good buy. I’m in shock that Bed Bath and Beyond (BBBY) cracked $37 yesterday. Fiserv (FISV) and Harley-Davidson (HDI) are both good buys. The only stock I’m leery of is our best-performing one. Expeditors (EXPD) is a great company, but it looks a wee bit rich at this price.
As always, my advice is to buy and hold great companies. Don’t worry about oil or moving averages or the Federal Reserve or whatever else we’re being told to worry about.
Worry about your friends and family. Our Buy List stocks are terrific companies. The great Benjamin Graham said that the market acts like a voting machine in the short term, but a weighing machine in the long term. The voice of reason is quiet, yet persistent.

Posted by on March 16th, 2006 at 5:58 am


The information in this blog post represents my own opinions and does not contain a recommendation for any particular security or investment. I or my affiliates may hold positions or other interests in securities mentioned in the Blog, please see my Disclaimer page for my full disclaimer.