Portfolio Update
Guess a lot of the info that moves share prices comes from the companies' quarterly and annual reports? And then all the quarterly and annual earnings estimates (that have been relying on) get adjusted as well?
So my process for finding stocks to invest in three months ago was to look at the estimates for the current quarter/year at the time (2016 year end and 4Q). And now that the actual earnings for Google, Amazon, and Facebook have been reported, guess the process starts all over again for the current quarter, now that the analysts have adjusted all the earnings estimates to take all the new info into account? Maybe should have even gotten started looking at the numbers at the *beginning* of the quarter ... or even earlier?
But didn't think of that at the time - so hopefully better late than never?
Facebook (FB) - estimating 1Q share price increase
Looks like it's a bit easier to use the graph at my subscription site GuruFocus at the end of the year - and for the first quarter, had to do a little bit more?
Step 1. Get the EPS estimate for 2017 1Q from Nasdaq.com
Step 2. Get last year's actual EPS for 2016 1Q from GuruFocus
Step 3. Add the difference to the EPS TTM (trailing twelve months) graph
It looks like Facebook is *still* underpriced ... but not totally sure? In the very least, it looks like the share price should rise to $140 (or higher) sometime between now and the end of March or April?
And today the FB rose 1.8% for no apparent reason - guess maybe the increase might happen sooner rather than later ... so sold my ULTA today, because it looks like that's already peaked for the quarter? And tried to buy some Facebook instead - but the price kept going up so will try to buy some again tomorrow?
Barrick Gold (ABX) - first 'Trump Trade'
And then, decided to give trading on current events a try, rather than relying solely on expected earnings. Not sure if this might be too much of a gamble? But this stock is up 22% for the year
The bad news is that it seems to be quite a bubble-prone stock, whose share price seems to have kind of a weak relationship to actual earnings?
It already went up 1.35% in like the last 8 minutes of trading of the day So it's quite volatile, because sometimes the daily drops can be just as wild. Have used a stop-loss that will (hopefully?) sell it if it drops more than 3%?
The other alternative was to buy shares of a gold ETF that's backed by a vault of actual gold bars - they're doing quite well for the year as well:
Guess gold tends to do well when people feel anxious about what's going on in the world? So maybe investing in gold is kind of can't lose - like if people the world over don't feel as anxious, then that'll be a win; and then if people the world over start feeling even more anxious ... well, at least will have $ thanks to skyrocketing gold prices?
So here's the update of my portfolio, with ULTA sold and ABX added. And will hopefully be able to add the Facebook tomorrow:
Turns out my estimate that Domino's still had room to grow was a *mistake* - was looking at the wrong chart
But then it started rising really fast, and now it's up almost 5%, so guess will just hold onto it? lol!!
My thread feels way more fun when am posting every day
But it's been kind of lovely taking a break to focus on my portfolio for a bit - it's up over 10% for the year already ... and that's even with all my constant moving around and miscalculations and nervousness and all that. Guess the stock market's more forgiving than poker where there's hardly any room for error, so that's been nice ...
PS. Also, guess Amazon probably won't drop any more - maybe it just won't rise so much this quarter though?
Last edited by TrustySam; 08-28-2017 at 11:21 PM.