Article on Forge Group

I’ve written an article on Forge Group on The Motley Fool website. Forge is still looking good with plenty of growth to come.

Austock portfolio versus my model portfolio update (as at 31st Jan 2012)

Six months (the half way mark)  are up since I started the challenge of a model portfolio I picked in five minutes, versus Austock’s list of preferred stocks (at 6th July 2011). My model portfolio is comfortably beating Austock’s preferred stocks by more than 5%, and also outperforming the ASX 200 Accumulation Index by 0.8%. Had you followed Austock’s recommendations, you’d now be facing an un-realised loss of $29,181, compared to a loss of $12,836 if you had followed my tips.

Vocus Communications – New Post on Motley Fool site

Vocus Communications Limited (ASX:VOC) recently updated the market with its expected half year results. I wrote an in-depth article for the Motley Fool, which you can view here.

Austock portfolio versus my model portfolio update (as at 31st Dec 2011)

So, five months are almost up since I started the challenge of a model portfolio I picked in five minutes versus Austock’s list of preferred stocks (at 6th July 2011). My model portfolio is comfortably beating Austock’s preferred stocks by more than 4%. Sadly, the model portfolio is lagging the ASX 200 Accumulation index by 1%.

Billabong International Limited (ASX:BBG) – Capital raising on the cards

Billabong released a trading update on Monday 19^th December, announcing a profit downgrade, an operational review and a strategic capital structure review. Billabong’s share price subsequently fell by 40%.

The company said that sales in Europe have been affected by “Sovereign debt issues and fears of a global recession, impacting consumer spending patterns significantly”. Europe is also being affected by bad weather due to limited snowfalls.

Sales in Australia have been significantly affected by unseasonably cold summer weather, despite the November rate cut by the RBA.

My first article for the Motley Fool

I recently started freelance writing for the Motley fool in Australia. My first article “ 5 safe haven stocks for 2012” can be seen here. I can certainly recommend having a look at the article and having a browse around the site. There’s definitely some very good articles on the site. I will still be adding articles to this blog, but my main focus will be articles for fool.com.au.

Spotless Group (ASX:SPT) – Arbitrage opportunity or trap?

Spotless Group Limited (ASX:SPT) received a takeover offer from Pacific Equity Partners Pty Ltd (PEP) for $2.50 per share on 9th May 2011. The Offer was revised to $2.68 on 30th November 2011. What is unusual is that SPT’s shares haven’t traded above $2.50. Buyer’s today could make 18 cents per share (8%) return by buying shares today and holding until the deal completes. The question is, what is the risk of the takeover not-proceeding?

Movie Review: Inside Job

Not what you really expected is it? A movie review on a site about value investing.

I accidentally started watching the “Inside Job” the other night and was glued to the screen for two hours until the finish. The movie is a 2010 documentary on the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), but focuses on the CEOs of Wall Street investment banks and the US regulators and their actions.

Austock portfolio versus my model portfolio update (as at 2nd Dec 2011)

Its been a while since I gave an update on the performance of my model portfolio versus a selection of stocks made by Austock. This is mainly due to me being exceptionally busy rather than not wanting to provide an update. In the last update on 28th Oct 2011, the model portfolio was lagging behind the ASX200 accumulation index by almost 3%, but still 2.4% ahead of the Austock portfolio. In the latest update – see picture above, my model portfolio is now leading the Austock portfolio by over 4%, and trailing the Accumulation Index by less than 1%. Performance is still not that good when you consider that my return since 6th July is  down 6.4%. I would’ve been better-off putting the cash in the bank. Having said that, the Austock portfolio is down more than 10% since July 2011.

A review of Skaffold.com – Yet another black box trading system

You may or may not be aware of Roger Montgomery’s site www.skaffold.com. It’s basically Roger’s ideas on rating and valuing ASX listed companies in a web application. You can think of it as a black box that indicates which companies are cheap/expensive and which are good/bad/average. And that’s the issue. There is no insight into how those ratings and values are arrived at. This is where Skaffold fails, and becomes yet another black box stock system.