WTI Falters and Is Dropped From Portfolio A1

After racking up gains of 26.4% in just three weeks in the portfolio, it only took one week for W&T Offshore (WTI) to falter and be dropped from the portfolio. The culprit, as it often is, was earnings. More accurately, it was an analyst downgrade following WTI’s earnings report that helped to push the stock down 8.7% on Friday and trigger a sale. Interestingly, WTI’s stock traded up following Thursday morning’s earnings report and a generally successful conference call with analysts later that morning. It wasn't until Friday that the analyst's comments took their toll.

Friday’s slump in WTI and the rest of the portfolio undid what had been a very successful week to that point, with the result that Portfolio A1 end up losing 0.86% to the benchmark S&P 500 index for the week. Over the 1 year and 2 weeks since Portfolio A1’s inception, the cumulative return stands at 9.9% vs. -8.6% for the SPX.

In addition to WTI, Fresh Del Monte Produce (FDP) also bows out after several lackluster weeks. Replacing these two holdings are returnee StatoilHydro (STO), the state-owned Norwegian oil giant, and a new addition, San Juan, Puerto Rico-based Oriental Financial Group (OFG), a $500 million (market cap) bank whose stock is up almost 150% since August 2007.

There no additional changes to the portfolio this week.

A snapshot of Portfolio A1 is as follows: