Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Kimberly Clark Update (KMB)/Added 100 of the CEF APF/Bought 50 SUTR at 2.81 as Speculative LT/Added 50 GIW at 6.55



Whenever I add a name or shares to an existing position in this basket containing regional banks, I will post a revised table of the stocks. When I have several adds, I am using the average weighted cost in the price paid column, and I am using the date of the last shares acquired in the trade date column. The yield shown is at the current price, not the price paid by me. And, I am not including shares bought in the retirement accounts, including the 100 shares of NYB.

Cramer was predicting a downdraft in the market once Congress passed the health care legislation. I thought that he was hyperventilating and had become too immersed in the kind of thinking frequently found in WSJ reader comments. It is not surprising that his latest rant found a receptive audience at NewsBusters.org, a site viewed as providing some of the best entertainment on the net for those who are truly fair and balanced.

1. Added 50 GIW at 6.55 (Regional Bank Stocks Strategy) (See Disclaimer). Wilber is a small bank doing business in the Catskill region in NY. I previously discussed it in Item # 10, /Bought 100 GIW at 7.03. I currently have noting to add to that discussion, except the stock is cheaper now than when I first purchased it, so the dividend yield has gone up and the P/E down some since my purchase at $7.03. I have not seen any news to account for the weakness when the other regional bank positions are rising in value. It is one of the few positions in the regional bank strategy where I have an unrealized loss.

2. Kimberly Clark (own-dividend strategy): KMB held its conference with investors yesterday. Kimberly Clark was a recent addition to the dividend growth strategy after it announced a 10% increase in its dividend. /Bought 100 KMB at 60.58 The stock thereafter went ex dividend. The starting yield at my cost was about 4.3%, comfortably in excess of my preferred starting yield of 3.5+% for the dividend growth strategy.

Soon after purchasing the stock, Goldman Sachs placed KMB on its conviction sell list, based on concerns about KMB lowering its forecast for 2010 at an upcoming investor confidence, which was held yesterday. This is what I said in an earlier post about that GS analyst: "I would not pay any attention to an analyst who bases a recommendation on a spike in a commodity price due to the Chilean earthquake and a Finnish dock strike, and view that kind of approach to investing as ludicrous." KMB The company maintained its guidance for 2010 yesterday. The guidance remains $4.8 to $5 dollars per share on an adjusted basis. Through 2015, Kimberly-Clark expects sales to grow on average to range between 3 to 5%, dividend increases in line with earnings growth, and earnings growth in the mid to high single digits.

3. The True Believers Gather in the Halls of Congress: Like an anthropologist, I have studied the True Believers in their natural habitat here in the SUV Capital of the World and elsewhere for almost four decades. I do not want to brag, but I may be the world's foremost authority on this particular tribe. Over the weekend, we learned from the Texas school board, the intelligentsia of the TB tribe, that Thomas Jefferson really had nothing to do with the Declaration of the Independence. No it was Rush Limbaugh with an assist from John Wayne.

LB tries to document the sayings of the TBs whenever it has the time to digress from the few billion tasks assigned to it by Headknocker each day. The reasoning and thought process of the TB tribe members are a constant source of interest to the LB. Yesterday, while watching the evening news, LB noticed a congregation of TBs captured on film in the halls of Congress making their views known to the Democrats who have not yet felt much love from the American people for their work on "health reform". One GOP congressman referred to a Democrat colleague as a "baby killer". Other TBs use the "N-word" fifteen times as John Lewis walked by them. Others hurled anti-gay slurs at Barney Frank. CBS News

While the efforts to mislead the American people about this legislation will soon begin in earnest as the mid-term elections approach, several news organizations have prepared summaries of what is actually in this legislation: CBS USATODAY Every GOP member voted against the bill and that party will do whatever it can to repeal it. NYT If the Democrats succeed in the next two years in convincing independents that this bill is in the best interest of the nation, the GOP will eventually pay a price for their united opposition and their well known desire to repeal it once they have the votes and the Presidency. Ultimately, it would not be difficult to foresee the campaign commercials in 2012 from the Democrats and in 2010 for the GOP. Three Democrat congressmen in Tennessee voted in favor of the bill, two are in the heavily Democratic districts that include Nashville and Memphis respectively. NYT

4. Added 100 of the CEF APF in the Roth at $15 (see disclaimer): I bought this CEF in the main taxable account last Friday. I have nothing to add to the prior discussion: Bought 100 CEF APF at 15.08 I would note that the discount widened some yesterday. The market price close of $14.99 (APF) was 8 cents lower than the Friday close while the net asset value increased by 3 cents to $17.43. Daily Prices - United States : Individual Investor - Morgan Stanley The discount as of yesterday's close was 13.99%.

NAV information can be found at the sponsor's web site or at the Closed-End Fund section in the WSJ Market Data Center. APF is not listed in the WSJ. The weekly Friday numbers can be found in Barrons Free Tables. Lastly, the CEF association maintains a database about this funds: CEFA This is a link to its page on APF. This site does have daily numbers but posts them later than the WSJ.

I did notice that one of my CEFs held in the Roth, JSN, has shrunk to a less than 2% discount to its NAV. This one has a cost basis of near $9, on the original shares, and those shares were bought at a significant discount to NAV around March 2009. Normally, this would be a candidate for a sell due to the narrowing of the discount on top of substantial rise due to the market. However, the dividend is high so I will hold on to it, unless it starts to sell at more than a 5% premium to NAV. JSN - Nuveen Equity Premium Opportunity Fund I would not buy a stock CEF trading this close to its NAV.

5. Bought 50 SUTR at $2.81 (Speculative Lottery Ticket Category) (SEE DISCLAIMER) It is extremely important to keep the RB occupied on matters that can not conceivably cause any harm to the Headknocker's capital base. Thus, the LT category was created to keep the RB from causing any real damage, and occasionally it has somehow in its lame brain way actually advanced the HK's capital. But we will never give it too much rope as the saying goes.

Sutor Technology Group is a Chinese steel company. Recently, I have not had much luck with these small Chinese companies. I have not lost anything yet, but the only one with a significant gain, quickly harvested, was VIMC. /Sold 100 VIMC at $3.53/ Lottery Ticket Purchase 100 of VIMC AT 1.97: EXTREMELY SPECULATIVE. Two other small buys, Action Semiconductor and Advanced Battery, are at break even. LOTTERY TICKET PURCHASES: LINKS IN ONE POST

I am not going to discuss Sutor too any significant degree. It came up in a screen searching for potential LT buys. The price to sales ratio is .3 and the price to book is .69: SUTR: Key Statistics for Sutor Technology The one analyst following the company has a .39 cent estimate for the F/Y ending in 6/2010 and .6 for the 2011 F/Y. SUTR: Analyst Estimates for Sutor Technology Group YF shows the market cap at 107 million and that analyst has estimated almost 630 million in sales for F/Y 2011. This Chinese company files reports with the SEC and this is the link to its last 10-Q which I did review: www.sec.gov _10q. The firm earned 11 cents in the Q/E 12/31/2009 versus 9 cents in the year ago quarter. The company recently sold some stock to institutional investors: www.sec.gov/ _8k. The price was $2.7 with a warrant to purchase .25 shares at 3.76 within five years. That is why I went from 100 shares to just 50 shares. LB is not going to allow the RB to spend more than $150 on this one.

No comments:

Post a Comment