I've followed the market since I was 14.
I've lost money and made money, and on the whole I'm ahead.
On this page I will be talking about things I like and why. Some of these are investments I'm making, some are investments I wish I was making but have no free funds at the time, and some are just plain fun to talk about and share what I know.
I tend to look at fundamentals in terms of what to buy, and technical analysis as to when. I don't like stocks with poor earnings/dividend yields or high debt levels, no matter how fashionable they might be. Truth is, there are plenty of sound companies out there and no-one controls the market.
DISCLAIMER: This blog is not intended as investment advice! Always do your own research and have regard for your own circumstances, financial goals and risk profile before making any investment.
Here's a couple of things that I'm looking at.
The first is Bradken. There's an old saying, that the people who make money in mining are the ones who sell the shovels to the miners. Basically that's what Bradken does: they sell mining equipment, rail cars to get the ore from mine to market, and related products and services. Amongst other developments they recently bought a large Canadian outfit that will give them an avenue to break into the north American market. It's a long-term investment. I don't have a price target as yet: there's a huge, 3 year flag formation in this thing with a long term uptrend from the Feb 2009 low point, and a downtrend (resistance) from the last couple of months of 2008 that hasn't been broken on the upside yet but came very close on Friday. We're getting right into the pointy bit of the flag and it's only a matter of time before it breaks either on the upside or the down and my bet is it will be on the upside.
I'd be tempted to sit back and watch this for a few days or maybe weeks, but I feel an entry point is very close now. Probably looking to pick it up if retraces close to the $8 mark as a long-term investment (looking for it to double or better over 3-5 years). It did gap in recent days and I would expect the gap to be 'covered' over the next few days, suggesting that it will retrace but who knows how far? In any case, I feel that prices much below $8 are pretty much history now.
UPDATE 14/8/2011: so much for prices below $8 being history. After a superb year to June 30, 2011, the price of this one whipsawed and made a low well below $7. I still like it long-term but I'm wondering what the rest of the market knows that I've missed? Suspending judgment until I have time to look at it more carefully.
Another thing I like is TabCorp Holdings. They just 'demerged' (i.e. split off) their casinos. The casinos were producing a third of the turnover and a third of the profit, so I would expect their profit and dividend to drop by a third, but the price has dropped by half. I'm not sure what the market knows that I don't but to me the current price looks like a cheap entry into what's still a very large, profitable business.
There's a couple more that I'm watching on purely technical grounds but I'll save them for another day.
