Sweet 16

Stock Screen, by Mark Robertson, Managing Partner June 1st, 2014

Returning To Our Favorite Soapy Screen

Returning To Our Favorite Soapy Screen

Our “Ivory Soap” Screen where we search for study candidates with the right blend of return forecast (PAR) and quality ranking is still one of our favorite go-to resources for discovering candidates that deliver just what our portfolios need.

99.44% Pure

Does that mean that the suggestions are right 99.44% of the time?

No.

Market Expectations (5/31/2014). The median return forecast (MIPAR) for all 2400+ stocks followed by MANIFEST is 6.5%. The multi-decade range for this indicator has been 2-20% with an average of 8-9%.

Very few things in the investment world exhibit that sort of reliability. In fact, an outperformance accuracy of 60% while delivering positive relative returns would be closer to what we hope to see.

The 99.44% in this case refers to seeking the top half of the top percentile of all of the companies that we cover based a combination of return forecast and quality. Both characteristics are basically equally-weighted in the composite that we build and encourage subscribers to use for screening purposes. The accompanying “Baker’s Dozen” is shown here for this month’s screening results.

Companies of Interest

CaesarStone (CSTE) was featured by Susan Maciolek during the February 2014 Round Table. Simply put, the company is an alternative to granite counters that stands to benefit from the repair/renovation surge that seems to be taking shape in the housing industry. You can track down Susan’s summary under the archived recordings under Events.

Coach (COH) faces serious challenges and we recently featured in Solomon Select. We still don’t think Coach is dead yet and that the speed bumps have possibly been discounted (factored into) the stock price. Proto Labs (PRLB) first appeared in the Forbes small company discovery and still is a compelling supplier and study related to 3-D printing. Several other recent community favorites round out this month’s results.

Sweet ‘16’ (June 13, 2014). Screening results based on the combination (MANIFEST Rank) of return forecast (PAR) and quality rank. Growth: Top-line growth or book value growth. PAR: Projected Annual Return. * – Not covered by Value Line Standard Edition.

Mark Robertson

Mark Robertson is founder and managing partner of Manifest Investing, a source for research and portfolio management focusing on strategic long term investors.