Pick Of The Year Contest

[billyjoe]

I just looked back at the BEL thread and saw Lye in there about 6 times over several months pleading with everyone to look at ECOL , but did I listen ? No , and now I'm flagellating myself with a cat- o- nine tails, ooooo that smarts. Better me than Lye putting his 300lb.+ behind the whip.

-------------billyjoe

[billyjoe]

Doug,
Someone at the IBD forums is questioning the CSSGX fund but he's having a one way conversation. Nobody wants to talk about it. Maybe it will just go away. Recently CSSGX held 97 different non cash positions. As Poormans said "you'd be hard pressed to find 2 out of 8000 stocks that meet all the canslim qualifications" . How did they find 97 and still mess up?

------------billyjoe

[IIC]

Doug,
Someone at the IBD forums is questioning the CSSGX fund but he's having a one way conversation. Nobody wants to talk about it. Maybe it will just go away. Recently CSSGX held 97 different non cash positions. As Poormans said "you'd be hard pressed to find 2 out of 8000 stocks that meet all the canslim qualifications" . How did they find 97 and still mess up?

------------billyjoe

There really isn't a whole lot to say about it...I said the fund wouldn't work from the beginning...I still say it won't...Why would this fund fare any better than the old New USA fund?

I rather doubt that the fund is strict CS...In fact it can't be....But Poorman is wrong...I just ran a screen at DailyGraphs...I clicked the suggested parameter for every criteria that they have a suggested parameter.

Well, 3 stocks came up. Unfortunately the rules say you can't share your screen results...And you know I never break the rules...So I can't tell you which ones they are....But in looking at Investors.com and the CSSGX holdings as of yesterday they only own one of them.

Now speaking of Canslim...Does anybody REALLY follow Canslim? Let's take the IBD 100...Now, I always thought that Canslim calls for an ROE of at least 17%. I personally don't use that figure because I think ROE is industry specific and also does not take into account leverage.

Anyway...How come 49 of 100 of the IBD 100 have ROE's of less than 17%???

That is just one example of many I could come up with. Actually, I think a lot of CS theory is helpful...But I believe the problem is that IBD presents it as a strict system that must be followed to the T...I've heard them say that at seminars/expos...That is a real shame, because they probably lose a lot of subscribers who try to follow the letter of CS...lose money and give up or go elsewhere...That's my opinion anyway...Doug(IIC)

[billyjoe]

Doug,
Don't you think "following it to the T" is their way of denying any responsibility when the plan fails?

-------------billyjoe

[IIC]

Doug,
Don't you think "following it to the T" is their way of denying any responsibility when the plan fails?

-------------billyjoe

Well...it is impossible for anyone to follow it to a T on every trade anyway...But people try.

I've called for an overhaul of the CS system since 2000...Yes, they've made a few changes...But volatility kills the system IMO. And this statement that a Breakout doesn't necessarily have to have volume as printed in IBD a couple of October's ago really discredited the system IMO...I cut that article out and saved it for a long time...But I can't find it now...I pretty much followed CS from the late 70's till 2000 when I started making adjustments. I have no complaints up till 2000.

Doug(IIC)

[IIC]

Well...it is impossible for anyone to follow it to a T on every trade anyway...But people try.

I've called for an overhaul of the CS system since 2000...Yes, they've made a few changes...But volatility kills the system IMO. And this statement that a Breakout doesn't necessarily have to have volume as printed in IBD a couple of October's ago really discredited the system IMO...I cut that article out and saved it for a long time...But I can't find it now...I pretty much followed CS from the late 70's till 2000 when I started making adjustments. I have no complaints up till 2000.

Doug(IIC)

I searched the Net for an hour looking for that article...but I can't find it...However, I ran across an interesting article from 1997:

IBD Chief Hammers Another Nail in Momentum Coffin

By Steven Syre and Steve Bailey
theStreet.com
3/17/97

Being an investment icon and succeeding in the mutual fund business aren't always the same thing.

Case in point: momentum investor William J. O'Neil.

O'Neil, founder and publisher of Investor's Business Daily, quietly folded his tent last week, ending a second attempt to build a mutual fund around the famed investment system he laid out in his book, How to Make Money in Stocks.

With the market caving in on momentum investors, O'Neil's decision is more bad news for the growth-at-any-price crowd. Not only did O'Neil decide to get out last week, but another big name in momentum investing, Louis Navellier, resigned as manager of an equity fund that bears his name after a disagreement with the fund's trustees.

Is this the beginning of the end for the momentum funds?

"That is dumb,'' the 63-year-old O'Neil growled at us on the phone last week.

O'Neil says his decision to transfer the assets of his fund into the MFS Emerging Growth fund ( MEGBX) says nothing about momentum investing.

Instead, O'Neil says he wants to concentrate on his three other faster-growing businesses -- his core institutional research firm, Investor's Business Daily and his commercial printing business.

Certainly no one would accuse his New USA Growth fund ( NUSFX) of being a growth business. He started the fund in 1992 and had attracted an impressive $170 million after just a month on the basis of his near-cult following. Five years later he had just under $200 million in assets when he punted last week.

The fund was based on his so-called C-A-N-S-L-I-M system. His seven principles of investing: current earnings; annual earnings gains; new products; supply and demand; leaders or laggard performance; institutional ownership; and market direction.

The system had made him rich enough to pour tens of millions of dollars of his own money into chasing The Wall Street Journal with his Investor's Business Daily.

But because O'Neil's finances are private, no one had ever been able to track his results.

His fund offered the best proxy to date -- and the results have been decidedly mixed.

Over the life of the fund, New USA Growth gained 90.0% versus 98.4% for all growth funds, ranking it 162 out of 276 similar funds tracked by Lipper Analytical Services. Over the last year it was up 15.4% versus 18.3% for all growth funds, putting it at 498 of 705 growth funds. Like other momentum funds it was getting hammered this year: down 4.0%
versus a gain of 5.0% for all growth funds, ranking it an ugly 772 of 786 growth funds tracked by Lipper.

Morningstar calls New USA Growth "a study in extreme investing." The fund, managed day-to-day by O'Neil protege David Ryan, is willing to pay high prices for its stocks, even by growth fund standards, says Morningstar analyst Jon Hale.

The fund's turnover rate is a high 400%, and the expense ratio exceeds the group average by almost one percentage point. While the aggressive growth group tends to be volatile, "this fund has been even riskier than its average peer," says Hale.

This isn't the first time that O'Neil has tried and failed in the mutual fund business. His O'Neil Fund ran up big gains in the bull market of 1966-67 but crashed along with the market in 1968-69. When the market came back his fund didn't, and he sold it in 1975 with just $6 million in assets, down from a peak of $49 million.

The good news for O'Neil investors is they will be getting one of Boston's best investors to manage their money. John Ballen, who will roll O'Neil's assets into his MFS Emerging Growth fund, currently gets four stars from Morningstar, and his fund has managed to finish in the top third or better in seven of its nine full calendar years.

In O'Neil's book, 'How to Make Money in Stocks', he left readers with this parting advice: "Have courage, be positive, and don't ever give up. ... You'll find that little acorns can grow into giant oaks."

Sometimes, however, they just wither away.

Steven Syre and Steve Bailey write a financial column for The Boston Globe.
__________________________________________________ ______

[billyjoe]

Doug,
So O'Neil has failed at this more than once. I still think they should base a fund on #101- #200 or even #201-#300 if IBD rates stocks under #100 and you'd have to think they do. They should be far enough under the radar so not to be effected by sudden swings as in the recent case of their ZUMZ and HANS among others.

--------------billyjoe

[IIC]

Doug,
So O'Neil has failed at this more than once. I still think they should base a fund on #101- #200 or even #201-#300 if IBD rates stocks under #100 and you'd have to think they do. They should be far enough under the radar so not to be effected by sudden swings as in the recent case of their ZUMZ and HANS among others.

--------------billyjoe

A scan is a scan and nothing more...Nothing is absolute...Even IBD admits that the Weekend Review and IBD 100 are not BUY recs...My lists are not Buy recs either...Just ideas to check out...Doug

[billyjoe]

Doug,
Although I can't back this up I assume that a good number of the 97 stocks held in CSSGX fund are in or have been in the IBD 100. If this is correct and the YTD performance of the individual 100 is so much greater than the -10.42% YTD of CSSGX it seems that a watch list of stocks on the horizon of making the 100 would be better candidates for the fund than those already showing big gains.

-----------billyjoe

Not to beat a dead horse but Morningstar has CSSGX rated in the bottom 10% of category for similar funds.

[IIC]

Doug,
Although I can't back this up I assume that a good number of the 97 stocks held in CSSGX fund are in or have been in the IBD 100. If this is correct and the YTD performance of the individual 100 is so much greater than the -10.42% YTD of CSSGX it seems that a watch list of stocks on the horizon of making the 100 would be better candidates for the fund than those already showing big gains.

-----------billyjoe

Not to beat a dead horse but Morningstar has CSSGX rated in the bottom 10% of category for similar funds.

The results I report are just for the top 10...I don't know what the results of the whole 100 would be???...BTW...CSSGX only holds 75 stocks right now...Doug

[IIC]

Billy...I would expect that many of the IBD type stocks would have high % gains over a 52 week period because they like High RS. I don't know how they weight RS in their IBD 100 but I just looked and the lowest RS rating they have is 85. Most are in the 90's. EPS seems to be the same.

On my list I also use RS. In looking at last week's IIC 100 top 20...17 had 1 yr gains of over 100%...the other 3 were all over 45%. Now, I don't use EPS rankings...In fact, I don't even have the ability to run a scan like that...And I'm not about to go check all 100 of my IIC 100 at IBD to find out the EPS rank.

However, I did check the top 10 and the lowest EPS rank I have is 74...I'm sure some are much lower though because I only use the latest quarter and projections...whereas the IBD EPS rank goes back 3-5 yrs.

My RS ranking is not exactly the same as IBD's. Mine goes from 1-100...I have less stocks in my database and we probably treat IPO's differently. But my lowest RS ranking in this week's IIC 100 is 80. I've found that my RS rank is usually within 3 of what IBD has although on the very low RS stocks I have found a difference of 5 in the past. But I really have not checked that many against IBD.

Anyway...I believe one of the IBD theories is what is moving up tends to continue up in many cases...That's what momentum investing is all about. So it is not surprising to see CSSGX buy stocks that have high YTD or 52 week gains.

When I was at the Expo in Vegas last December I went to a free IBD seminar...They asked how many people bought stocks that reached new highs...Only one person raised their hand...Me. And there were over 300 in the room...So you see..."You can take the boy out of Canslim...But you can't take Canslim out of the boy"...LOL

[billyjoe]

Doug,
I see no problem buying stocks reaching new highs as long as it is not what I call an irrational high examples : TZOO HANS TASR . We know the axe is going to drop on these we just don't know when. It's different with the oil companies , maybe with most of the large caps.

-----------billyjoe

[IIC]

Mr Market Stock Contest 2006

Close on 9/1/2006

Mickey is still $$$HUGE$$$

Short report as I'm preparing to get outta the country on vacation...But our A/D/U for the week was 15/10/0 raising us to 12/13/1 YTD

Not much has changed...we are collectively down a little over 2% YTD...The CSSGX still sux...Next week's results will be late too.

The last few days I was thinkin' I'd have to praise SKI for GLG...Tonight I realized he has GLD...He's a GREAT guy anyway

I use the open on 1/3/06 for the indices and the close on 1/3/06 for the CSSGX because funds are only priced at eod.





Here are little charts of all our pix:

http://trimurl.com/4PW

http://trimurl.com/4PX

http://trimurl.com/4PY

Here are little charts of the Indices and CSSGX:

http://trimurl.com/4PZ

[billyjoe]

Pick of the Year Contest Celebrity Division Week Ending 9/1/06

Our celebs had 11 up and 6 down this week with nobody new going green or red. Overall 7 remain in positive territory and 10 show a loss YTD. This week advancers were led by #14 SGR +11.51% and #5 STX +10.12% followed by #10 ESLR +7.06%, #15 ELOS +5.83%, #3 ATI +5.49%, and #16 IPAS +4.14%. Worst loser was #2 FTO -14.72% with #4 SU -3.91%.

STOCK-------PICKER-------1/3/06---------9/1/06--------%GAIN/LOSS

FMCN--------Wyatt--------34.58----------59.82---------- +72.99%
FTO--------- Hesler--------19.02----------32.83---------- +72.61
ATI----------Cramer-------36.40----------59.97----------- +64.75
SU-----------Navellier------63.67----------78.35----------- +23.06

STX----------Unknown-----20.07----------22.59----------- +12.56%
RSG----------Fisher--------37.40----------39.28----------- + 5.03
XTO----------DMaille-------44.56----------46.23----------- + 3.75

MSFT---------Carlson------26.25----------25.84----------- -1.56%
ERTS---------Gardner------52.44----------51.24----------- -2.29
ESLR----------Rothstein----10.77----------10.13----------- -5.94
FO------------Zellman------77.75----------72.17----------- -7.18
CSSGX--------O'Neil--------10.46----------9.49------------ -9.27
GOOG---------Kramer------422.52---------378.60---------- -10.39
SGR-----------George-------29.09----------25.65---------- -11.83

ELOS----------Gillespie------32.07----------23.60---------- -26.41%
IPAS----------Hutheesing----6.53-----------4.54----------- -30.47
MWY-----------Schaeffer----18.87----------8.92----------- -52.73

YTD return is 5.63%

------------billyjoe

[Lyehopper]

Bwng....

You fellas watchin' Mickey's BWNG? That sucka looks ready to rock again....