Welcome To The Sand Box!

Cover Story, by Mark Robertson, Managing Partner May 1st, 2011

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This month we celebrate the enhancements to the Manifest Investing web site.

This month we celebrate the enhancements to the Manifest Investing web site. Some of them are relatively invisible, enabling us to do some intriguing things with content management, etc. Others are clearly focused on the reason we’re here. We’re here for the returns. We’re here to deploy the results of our stock studies in a mission to stack the probabilities in our favor and achieve superior long-term returns. Explore the VERY VISIBLE enhancements to the “what if” capability of dashboards using the worksheet approach. StockSearch now includes MANIFEST Rank. All funds have been updated and will be continuously refreshed … and “listen to your friends” using …

… the magnifying glass now visible on the Fundamental Forecasts page for any company. This might be the most powerful feature when all things are considered. Why? Because it’s a gateway to the thoughts and decisions and current educational commentaries of a like-minded community of long-term investors. Think of it as similar to seekingalpha.com but with a strong filter applied that delivers only the notions and information that George Nicholson told us were important.

From Dashboards to Worksheets

And back. We’re here in the pursuit of superior returns. It makes sense to start our discussion at one of the destinations. That being our efforts to continuously build and maintain the most effective portfolios whether we’re talking about individuals or investments clubs. The accompanying figure displays a dashboard where we’ve clicked on [Copy to Worksheet].

We’re whisked to a place where we can engage and indulge in “what if” explorations without affecting the original dashboard (until we want to do so.)

The green arrows place a stock in limbo during our analysis. The red “x” marks the spot where holdings can be deleted. Both changes make LIVE adjustments to cash (% of assets) and the diversification pie charts (see other accompanying figure.) Holding levels can be edited with the pencil icon (also reflected in the % cash).

Any column can still be sorted by clicking on the column header. As always, we’ll demonstrate sorting by PAR in the Tin Cup model portfolio column — supporting our emphasis on studying the companies at the top for buying opportunities and those at the bottom as “challenged stocks” or those that may represent selling opportunities. None of our portfolio-centered philosophy or process has changed with the enhancements.

Laser-Guided Shopping

Seek what the portfolio needs.

And if you listen/look, it will tell you. In this case, the average sales growth forecast is 12.7% and the accompanying pie chart (with Medtronic in Worksheet limbo) displays a lack of large companies. So our hunt might/should emphasize companies with growth rates less than 7%. With MIPAR at 7.4%, the sweet spot for target returns is 12.4-17.4% and since 7.4% is in the lower portion of the multi-decade range for MIPAR, we urge maintaining a relatively high quality level for the portfolio and financial strength ratings of 70 (B++) and higher. Based on the sector diversification, we’d prefer to avoid adding more companies from the Discretionary sector and Technology should probably be avoided. This can sometimes serve as a tiebreaker as we sift through the results of a search.

In this case, Lilly (LLY) looks pretty good (so would Solomon Select feature TEVA if we shopped near the high end of the sweet spot for high-quality companies and were OK with a little more growth) and it can sometimes make sense to replace a healthcare holding with another healthcare candidate.

The StockSearch now supports saving your favorite hunting jaunts and the selected criteria is also displayed on the right sidebar. Investors will also notice that the index page for Fundamental Forecasts includes a default screen for your consideration as the hunt begins.

Your portfolio will nudge you to selling analysis and will tell you what it needs. Learn to look for, and fill, the gaps.

Dessert, Anyone?

The StockSearch and Dashboard worksheets are a solid enhancement for our community. Explore the magnifying glass on the Fundamental Forecast page to see what we mean about community conversations and relevants articles. There is now a single [Search] function for the entire web site — grabbing from articles and columns and also checking for Forum entries of relevance.

As Cy will cover in the fund feature, all funds (mutual, exchange-traded, and closed) have been updated and will have a continuous updating process going forward. It’s a new day for this resource and frankly, we’re going to have a blast and we’re going to make a difference.

Work has started on an update of the User’s Guide. The Forum is slightly changed but continuing to expand. The doors are now open to some additional features involving things like alerts, online Equity Analysis Guides and be sure to find the video index in the Resource Center board on the Forum.

You may send comments, suggestions or Thank Yous to kurtk@manifestinvesting.com. Full speed ahead as we identify and build out the things we need with a suddenly more flexible foundation but unwavering time-honored philosophy.