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[Matt Gruber]

7.97! up 6.69% in 3 days! hit 8.17
more clues,
has 20 broadcast stations, NBC CBS ABC FOX CW etc
trades on NYSE
$9 target
$800m market cap
forward pe under 9!

Looks like BLC is down 10% since Feb 03, are you still hot on this stock?

i still have it. it went X-div .05 so i'm getting paid while i wait. their conference call was boring. mgt can't seem to decide what to do with their extra cash. if IF they would announce a plan to gradually increase the div, that could really help.
it did spike to 9.00 and fell back. I'm holding out for april-may to sell. might not beat that 9, but will try.
hgg shot up so fast, while i'd like to own it 5 years, i have to watch it, if it hits ~15 i'm out.
syx has inched up 20+ i plan to sell some before the next eps report.
and i have 1 LOSER FTR which in OCT said they expected to RAISE the div from .75 to $1, now they CUT it to .40
so on my cost the new yield is 7%, while i'm mad at them, it is hard to beat even 7%.
and i have CMT (lightweight fglass truck fenders for good mpg)
Point being, with several stocks there is often plenty of action!
my plan is to sell some by may. or whenever i see a price i judge more likely to retreat than rise. Stocks could pop after the election, and, often pop in Dec. My motto: take profits every year, otherwise they may disappear!
Thanks for asking! I don't think 2 investors ever have the same picks, not at the same buy/sell for sure! As long as there is a plan for what to do if things go wrong, it is worth the effort. Plenty can go wrong old saying STOCKS CLIMB A WALL OF WORRY

[Matt Gruber]

HD turned in great eps! .50 not .42 expected.
the warm winter helped sales. what a surprise!
that was beyond the comprehensen of the analysts!
kudos to HD buyers that noticed the weather!

[Matt Gruber]

saw a chart on NBR comparing a pres. election year, and it was surprising. the sept-oct dip was UP, and there was a dip in the spring instead(if the past predicts the future, a dip is due soon).
BLC raised the div by 60%! to .08Q, about 37% of eps. yield is now 4.5%, not exciting, but better than any bank CD.
CM said the S&P 500 historic average div payout is 52%, but is now only 30% of eps. so there could be higher div for blc and many others, as time goes by.
as i said in my 1st post, the time to buy is when everybody is gloomy. lots of bargains after the 2001 tech bubble, for example... SYX got up to $50, fell to $1. I paid $1.43 12-30-02,
syx paid $2.75 in special dividends! just sold some, 2-23-12 for $20.44. Note my cost after div is NEGATIVE. That is a ONCE in a LIFETIME event! and a long time, 9 years!
A commercial REIT with a possible similar upside is RAS. Book value $22+ for under $6 with increasing dividends. I'm dreaming of $1 to $1.50 div in a few years. Just raised it to .32 from .24/yr. But it is too difficult(complicated) for me to analyze RAS, it is just a book value play. REIT's are tax exempt, but have to pay out 90% of earnings!
Good Luck!

[Matt Gruber]

David Stockman isn't buying it - good article!
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-david ... 59897.html
Reagan Budget Director spills beans
someone well known that shares my view that the past GDP growth is just from borrowed money,
and bush cuts should expire, and cap gains are just ordinary income.

[Matt Gruber]

one of my dreams is to buy a stock that goes up 100X quickly.
it is a great hobby because it is an immense challenge.
Decades ago i read about a guy that bought polly packs for $1, and it went to $100 yet he didn't sell any. Eventually they went bankrupt and he lost it all
So i always keep an eye out for a possible 100 bagger. But i dont tolerate losses well, and i see lost profits as losses.
In 09 i picked up SCSS for 22 CENTS. they make matresses.
4 months later i sold for $1. It was too nerve wracking during the fin. crisis. scss had 1 foot in the grave and had to sell stock way too cheap with credit lines cancelled.
The risk was extreme dilution to survive, and possible/probable bankruptsy. But, they made it with tolerable dilution!
Today it is $32! a 144 bagger! I'm proud i found it, and i'm working on a plan to not be so risk adverse. Not easy! But can be fun, at least when green shoots appear!
i only had 600 shares, a $140 high risk investment that now would be worth $19,200!

[Matt Gruber]

nobody asked the next Q
it is critical where the money goes after a sale!
just because my nerves were frazzled with scss doesn't mean i gave up!
so where did i put the scss money?
that very day, 4-2-09 it went into CMT at 1.60
just sold some at 9.49, so a 30+ bagger for the 2 trades compounded. and no worries at all over the 3 years. CMT doesn't pay any div so i had to sell some or risk never getting paid.
AAPL up 30% since i mentioned how cheap it was at 447. any buyers?
even HD up to 49, up 10+% any buyers?
BLC lagging, may have to wait to 2013 to sell.
Bank stocks shot up lots too, any buyers?

[Cogburn]

lvlt goes up and down in a cycle about 30%. I could have made a lot on it but alas my $ are tied up.

Sometimes a stock looks like it goes way up but it is due to a reverse split like lvlt. 33 for 1.

[MDHovland]

To the OP –

Don’t believe what you see at the stores. Try to understand the price action of the stock instead. I like your thinking… that the lines are shorter now at Home Depot than they were at the market top in 2006-2007. That could be one hint/nudge that things are improving if you are a contrarian. (I am.)

The stock price being taken to the woodshed since late ‘99 does not mean it is or is not “all clear,” but it is important to recognize how its stock price has behaved against its retail and home-building peers and also against the overall market.

The lines at HD were backed up just for the reason that it was a bubble/boom. It was a real estate mania and many consumers didn't realize they were about to become poor, unemployed and/or homeless. However, the stock was peaking in the low-mid 40's in 2004-2006 and became controlled by supply soon after... before the bubble burst (smart money voting with sales of the stock).

Things are more “normal” now. The stock price is finally saying something important. Just what it is saying about the company/economy remains to be heard.

Last September, HD’s stock price confirmed its out-performace of its peers. This past January, it confirmed its out-performance of the general market. It is gaining strength. This strength is the result of that same smart money casting their vote with purchases of the stock. Most people (and especially the HD employees) won’t get that part.

I will add that this month’s (March) increase to new annual highs – and nearly decade long highs – is impressive, but it is stretched and overbought. Money flow into it has also waned over the past few weeks. In other words, its price advance is not proportionate to the degree of its volume (trading activity). There has not been as much excitement to the rally over the past month compared to the first part of 2012.

I’ll be honest – it caught my attention with its peer relative strength breakout to the upside last fall, but I would not chase it here. Almost all of the buying in the market has been completed and now the last few buyers want in because they feel they’ve missed the train. Also, I don’t own it, never have, and am not recommending it. But it has my interest.

50% of your investment risk is a result of overall market performance, 30% is the result of the industry group’s performance and 20% is due to company/corporate performance… (Booth School, Univ of Chicago study circa late 1960’s).

Currently, 7.6 of every ten stocks on the NYSE are controlled by demand. This is rare air, and usually an area where the market will correct. How far? Nobody knows. True buying opportunities come about when only 2-3 of every ten stocks are controlled by demand. This happens often enough that one can be patient, and it can be quantified.

In a market correction, HD could slip to the low 40’s and still be in decent shape. You’d simply not want to see it perform worse or decline more than the market or its peers in that event. Buyers have driven it beyond the 2011 $39 price peak this year, and with some fair conviction, I might add – taking it even above the 2004-2006 peaks. It may come back into those areas in a correction… where the recent buyers overpowered previous sellers.

On the other side (the upside) it had an early 2011 vertical price objective into the mid 60’s, and now has a current count/objective based on last fall’s sell-off and subsequent rally which suggests a price in the low-mid 80’s.

In a bull market such as from 1982-2000, those price objectives would have a reliable chance of being fulfilled. We are not in a market like that right now. This doesn’t mean it can’t reach that price level, however.

I guess what I’m saying is this: don’t trust your gut instinct or your senses – what you see at the store. You will be deceived. Do trust your flight instruments – the price performance. Don’t chase HD at this level. Wait for a market correction (turbulence/downdraft) and observe how HD behaves. If favorable, then look for a low risk/high reward entry (based only on price – ignore the news and only cast a shallow glance at the fundamentals).

[Matt Gruber]

sold some BLC. got 8.93 plus .57 in divs past year, total= 9.50. thats a 27% gain from when i recommended it. now pays .08 per Q Had a .25 special div in dec.
I put the $$$into PSEC, a BDC that pays $1.32 div's or 11.6% at 11.38. they have 106 investments.
.
RAS raised div to .40/yr. over 7, but true book value is much lower than i thought. no free lunch at ras