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:

Portfolio A1 Makes Big Bet on Brazilian Telecoms to Start Year

For the first time in awhile, Portfolio A1 gave back some ground to the benchmark S&P 500 index last week. Even with last week’s sub-par performance, since the February 16, 2007 inception, Portfolio A1 now has a cumulative gain of 20.7%, compared to a 3.7% loss for the SPX.

After falling 7% last week, Sinopec, a.k.a. China Petroleum & Chemical Corp (SNP) has been dropped from the portfolio, victim of a rule whereby a position is automatically closed once it falls 20% from its high during the ownership period. Also dropped were Norwegian energy and aluminum giant Norsk Hydro (NHYDY), but in this instance as a result of a declining rank from the stock ranking system. The ranking system partly reflects several technical factors and picked up on the fact that NHYDY’s stock has also struggled and is down about 17% for the first two weeks of 2008.

Replacing SNP and NHYDY in the portfolio are returnee Fresh Del Monte Produce (FDP) and a second Brazilian telecom company: Tele Norte Leste Participacoes (TNE), an integrated fixed line and mobile telecom provider with a $9.5 billion market cap. TNE joins long-time favorite BRP to give Portfolio A1 an unusual mix of 2/5 Brazilian telecoms in this five-legged portfolio. By design a focused five stock portfolio is intended to make significant bets in specific sectors and regions, but it is unusual to find this type of concentration in the portfolio, which uses a maximum sector weighting of 30% to place sector limits on all new purchases. The reason there are currently two telecom companies in the portfolio is that Mosaic (MOS) has had such a strong run (up 175.7%) that it now comprises 42% of the portfolio, so that it is possible for the other four holdings to split the remaining 58% with two companies in one sector that do not total to 30%.

Note that the portfolio has no provision for limiting the concentration of holdings by country or region.

There no other changes to the portfolio this week.

A snapshot of Portfolio A1 is as follows:

Portfolio A1 Moves Up Smartly

It was a very good week for Portfolio A1 – and an excellent week for the portfolio’s top three holdings. With Mosaic (MOS) gaining 13.4%, Sinopec (SNP) up 13.7%. and DryShips (DRYS) surging 22.8%, it is not surprising that the full portfolio tacked on 10.6% in a remarkable week.

With less than a month to go in the trading year, Portfolio A1’s cumulative 12.2% gain is 10.4% better than the meager 1.8% gain in the benchmark S&P 500 index.

Despite the recent success, the portfolio is not standing pat, as beverage company PepsiAmericas (PAS) is being swapped out for Fresh Del Monte Produce (FDP) in a move that I cannot attempt to explain. As fun as it has been watching and commenting on the doings of this mechanical portfolio, I am looking forward to rolling out a discretionary portfolio at the beginning of the new year.

There are no other changes to the portfolio this week.

A snapshot of the portfolio is as follows: