Archive for September, 2007

  • West Side Story at 50
    , September 28th, 2007 at 7:36 pm

    West Side Story opened 50 years ago this week.

  • Bed Bath & Beyond’s Earnings
    , September 28th, 2007 at 12:55 pm

    I didn’t have a chance to write about this before but Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY) earned 55 cents a share for its fiscal second quarter.
    Here are the earnings results going back a few years:

    Quarter Sales Gross Profit Operating Profit Net Profit EPS
    May-99 $356,633 $146,214 $28,015 $17,883 $0.06
    Aug-99 $451,715 $185,570 $53,580 $33,247 $0.12
    Nov-99 $480,145 $196,784 $50,607 $31,707 $0.11
    Feb-00 $569,012 $238,233 $77,138 $48,392 $0.17
    May-00 $459,163 $187,293 $36,339 $23,364 $0.08
    Aug-00 $589,381 $241,284 $70,009 $43,578 $0.15
    Nov-00 $602,004 $246,080 $64,592 $40,665 $0.14
    Feb-01 $746,107 $311,802 $101,898 $64,315 $0.22
    May-01 $575,833 $234,959 $45,602 $30,007 $0.10
    Aug-01 $713,636 $291,342 $84,672 $53,954 $0.18
    Nov-01 $759,438 $311,030 $83,749 $52,964 $0.18
    Feb-02 $879,055 $370,235 $132,077 $82,674 $0.28
    May-02 $776,798 $318,362 $72,701 $46,299 $0.15
    Aug-02 $903,044 $370,335 $119,687 $75,459 $0.25
    Nov-02 $936,030 $386,224 $119,228 $75,112 $0.25
    Feb-03 $1,049,292 $443,626 $168,441 $105,309 $0.35
    May-03 $893,868 $367,180 $90,450 $57,508 $0.19
    Aug-03 $1,111,445 $459,145 $155,867 $97,208 $0.32
    Nov-03 $1,174,740 $486,987 $161,459 $100,506 $0.33
    Feb-04 $1,297,928 $563,352 $231,567 $144,248 $0.47
    May-04 $1,100,917 $456,774 $128,707 $82,049 $0.27
    Aug-04 $1,273,960 $530,829 $189,108 $120,008 $0.39
    Nov-04 $1,305,155 $548,152 $190,978 $121,927 $0.40
    Feb-05 $1,467,646 $650,546 $283,621 $180,980 $0.59
    May-05 $1,244,421 $520,781 $150,884 $98,903 $0.33
    Aug-05 $1,431,182 $601,784 $217,877 $141,402 $0.47
    Nov-05 $1,448,680 $615,363 $205,493 $134,620 $0.45
    Feb-06 $1,685,279 $747,820 $304,917 $197,922 $0.67
    May-06 $1,395,963 $590,098 $148,750 $100,431 $0.35
    Aug-06 $1,607,239 $678,249 $219,622 $145,535 $0.51
    Nov-06 $1,619,240 $704,073 $211,134 $142,436 $0.50
    Feb-07 $1,994,987 $862,982 $309,895 $205,842 $0.72
    May-07 $1,553,293 $646,109 $154,391 $104,647 $0.38
    Aug-07 $1,767,716 $732,158 $211,037 $147,008 $0.55

  • Stocks and Bonds Unite
    , September 28th, 2007 at 10:29 am

    Here’s an unusual recent development.
    From July 3 to September 19, the stock and bond markets moved in opposite directions 80% of the time (I’m using the SPX & TLT).
    But in the six trading days since, they’ve moved in different directions just once.
    Obviously, it’s too early to read any major significance into this, but it’s something worth watching. There’s also the question of what the consequences are.
    If the stock and bond markets are indeed, converging, I’m inclined to think it’s a healthy sign for both markets.

  • Paul Kedrosky on Wall Strip
    , September 28th, 2007 at 9:23 am

    Paul Kedrosky runs Infectious Greed, one of my favorite blogs. Here he is on Wall Strip.

  • How to Make a lot of Money in Five Easy Steps
    , September 27th, 2007 at 7:04 am

    Step #1: Sell everything you own. Sell it all. Stocks, bonds, real estate. eBay your couch, you dog. Everything.
    Step #2: Then convert it all into pre-1982 copper pennies.
    Step #3: Meltdown the pennies.
    Step #4: Sell the copper.
    Step #5: Now use your proceeds to buy back all the stuff you sold. You’ll have more than enough left over.
    The material in a pre-1982 penny is currently worth about 2-1/2 cents.
    Update: It’s not exactly legal.

  • Integrity Boosts Returns
    , September 26th, 2007 at 10:28 am

    Hmmm.

    People know that integrity will help them in the business world. It can also boost their investment results. That’s the finding of a recent survey of advisers at Ameriprise Financial Services. The study sought to find out the impact of various adviser traits on their investment results.
    It studied 12 emotional and moral competencies, such as client service and self-confidence.
    The results showed that the adviser’s level of integrity played the biggest part in posting strong investment returns.
    “Most people we deal with are high performers,” said Rick Aberman, a founding partner of consulting firm Lennick Aberman Group, which like Ameriprise is based in Minneapolis and assisted with the survey. “We wanted to look at what differentiated those who are successful from those who are really successful.”
    Ameriprise paid for the study. It sought to find out whether emotional competency and integrity led to better performance, says Kris Petersen, the firm’s general manager of financial planning and advice.
    “I assumed the results would be better (for those who had more integrity), but not by as much as it was,” she said.
    Integrity showed up in advisers’ ability to act the way they believe and to do what they say they will, Aberman says.

    During my career, I’ve worked for three different brokerage firms and there I met some of the most dishonest people I’ve ever met in my life.

  • Biomet Trades No More
    , September 26th, 2007 at 9:58 am

    Biomet was taken off the market yesterday for $46 a share. Here’s a look at the stock’s amazing run. In 23 years, the stock went up by more than 200-fold.
    image530.png
    I have to do a little housekeeping for my Buy List. This will be a dull post, but since we now know how important integrity is to our returns, I want to be as thorough as possible.
    I’ll go over the rules again. At the start of each year, I pick 20 stocks for the Buy List. I’m not allowed to make any changes during the entire year. I assume a portfolio of $1 million, with $50,000 invested in each position.
    For track record purposes, I’m going to take the Biomet proceeds and invest them equally in the 19 other stocks. I thought about keeping the proceeds in cash until the end of the year, but that doesn’t seem right.
    At the start of the year, the Buy List had 1211.5338 shares of Biomet at $41.27. With the $46 buy-out price, that gives us a total of $55,730.5548. Divided 19 ways, that means we invest $2,933.1871 in each stock.
    Here’s how I calculated the new number of shares:
    Stock……..9/25 Close……..New Shares…….Starting Shares……..New Total
    AFL………….$55.94………….52.4345………….1086.9565………….1139.3910
    APH…………$39.22………….74.7880………….1610.8248………….1685.6128
    BBBY………..$33.20………….88.3490………….1312.3360………….1400.6850
    DCI………….$41.52………….70.6452………….1440.5071………….1511.1523
    DHR…………$83.82………….34.9939……………690.2264…………..725.2203
    FDS………….$66.10………….44.3750……………885.2691…………..929.6441
    FIC…………..$36.11………….81.2292………….1230.0123………….1311.2415
    FISV………….$50.46………….58.1290…………..953.8344………….1011.9634
    GGG………….$38.10………….76.9865…………1261.9889………….1338.9754
    HOG………….$46.51………….63.0657………….709.5218……………772.5875
    JOSB………….$35.08………….83.6142………..1703.5775………….1787.1917
    MDT…………..$56.26………….52.1363………….934.4048……………986.5411
    NICK………….$8.93………….328.4644…………4237.2881………….4565.7525
    RESP………….$48.74…………60.1803………….1324.5033………….1384.6836
    SEIC………….$25.92………..113.1631………….1678.9792………….1792.1423
    SYY…………..$34.70………….84.5299………….1360.1741………….1444.7040
    UNH………….$49.48………….59.2803…………..930.5788……………989.8591
    VAR…………..$39.09………….75.0368………….1051.0826………….1126.1194
    BER…………..$28.99…………101.1793…………1448.8554………….1550.0347

  • The Dow By Each Day of the Week
    , September 26th, 2007 at 9:31 am

    Here’s how the Dow Industrials have performed by each day of the week going back to 1896.
    image532.png
    Note that the lines aren’t exactly lined up because there aren’t the same number of trading days for each day.
    Yuck, that Monday line is horrible. In fact, the Dow is down 58% for Monday, Tuesday and Thursday combined. So much Efficient Market Theory! To be fair, Monday has recovered a lot since 1987.
    The big winner is Friday, but Wednesday has slowly closed the gap over the past few decades. And as I’ve written before, Wednesday has been the big winner of the past few years. In fact, all of the market’s gain has come on Wednesday.
    Here are the average returns for each day:
    Monday…………..-0.0784%
    Tuesday…………..0.0379%
    Wednesday………0.0550%
    Thursday………….0.0220%
    Friday………………0.0634%
    Here are the standard deviations:
    Monday…………..1.3849%
    Tuesday…………..1.0616%
    Wednesday………1.1106%
    Thursday………….1.0350%
    Friday………………1.0536%

  • Wall Strip on United Industrial
    , September 26th, 2007 at 9:07 am

  • Smithtown Bancorp (SMTB)
    , September 25th, 2007 at 3:04 pm

    Here’s a small one. Check out these numbers for Smithtown Bancorp (SMTB).
    Date EPS
    1997 0.29
    1998 0.31
    1999 0.4
    2000 0.47
    2001 0.59
    2002 0.79
    2003 0.92
    2004 1.02
    2005 1.13
    2006 1.43
    The bank earned 73 cents a share for the first six months of this year.