Portfolio A1 Reconsiders DryShips (DRYS)

Last week I expressed my surprise that the portfolio had decided to sell out its position in DryShips (DRYS) after the stock registered a 27% gain in just four weeks in the portfolio. In retrospect, my skepticism looks warranted, as DRYS logged an 8.9% gain last week, while the stock it was replaced with, Shanda Interactive (SNDA), was only able to add 0.3% during the week. That differential, which meant a net of about 1.7% to Portfolio A1 last week, accounts for all of the 1.4% lost relative to the benchmark S&P 500 index last week.

Ironically, Portfolio A1’s stock ranking system has reconsidered this week and decided to add DryShips (DRYS) once again, while dropping the one other stock that has had two round trips in the portfolio: Terex (TEX).

While Portfolio A1 continues to try to run down the S&P 500, I am refining the next iteration of my public portfolio in the background and am readying for a January 1, 2008 launch. One of the most important changes is that this portfolio will not be a 100% mechanical system. It will be partly discretionary, so that I will be able to make decisions along the lines of overriding a sell signal in DRYS, if I don’t think it is appropriate.

There are no other changes to the portfolio this week.

A snapshot of the portfolio is as follows: