More Gains Ahead: Reasonable Index Levels, Attractive Stock-Specific Opportunities

It may feel like the market is rising to extreme levels, but index valuations are reasonable, and highly attractive stock-specific opportunities persist. This is our monthly performance update whereby part 1 shares our overview of current market conditions, and part 2 reviews the continuing powerful long-term gains of our three investment strategies (they were all up again over the last month), as well as a performance review of every individual holding (we currently have 65 individual positions across three separate portfolios), and more details on some specific highly-attractive high-income opportunities.

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For starters here is a look at how the market performed in over the last month. And to make a long-story short, the S&P gained 2.17% (total return, including dividends), healthcare stocks finally got a little LOVE, and energy stocks are still HATED!!

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Regarding healthcare, we’ve recently made some good calls (so far) on AbbVIe (ABBV) and Pfizer (PFE) (members have access to those reports, which are both about 1-month old since we shared the details of those opportunities).

Regarding Energy, we also shared a bunch of recent opportunities in that sector, but energy stocks (most of them) continue to be HATED, and lower oil prices are a big driver of that (see chart below).

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Also worth mentioning, one of our favorite sectors this year (thanks to the attractive yields) has  been REITs, and those real estate stocks have continued to be a dominant sector this year (as you can see in our earlier sector performance table).

Interest rate expectations moving lower has helped many REITs this year, but how much longer can that persist? In fact, we diversify by investing in attractive opportunities across sectors (not just REITs) because it helps us reduce risks and keep returns and income high. Here is a look at changing interest rate expectation this year.

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Yet, despite strong performance for REITs this year, as well as strong performance for the overall market in general (as measured by the S&P 500), market valuation remains reasonable. Here is a look at forward Price-Earnings ratios for the S&P 500.

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Worth mentioning, a big part of the strong returns for the market this year has been multiple expansion. If you recall, the 4th quarter of last year was terrible for the market, and a big part of the market’s gains this year have just been the rebound in multiples. For perspective, here is a chart demonstrating multiple expansion for both the US and abroad.

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And in case you are wondering, here is the recent performance of non-US equity markets, as well as bonds and preferred stocks (which have also been surprisingly resilient).

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Part 2: Blue Harbinger Holdings and Performance:

Here is a look at the strong continuing performance and income of our three investment strategies.

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As a reminder, “Income Equity” and “Income Via Growth” each hold 25 unique stocks, respectively, and the Alternative Fixed Income portfolio has 15 positions (consisting of attractive fixed income Closed-End Funds and individual highly attractive preferred stocks—preferred stocks pay high income and generally behave more like bonds than common stocks).

And here is a look at the growing track records of the strategies, by month.

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Next here is a look at the weightings and performance of every single position (all 65 of them) across multiple time periods (including the last month), and separated by portfolio strategy (followed by a review, more details and attractive opportunities).

Current Holdings:

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Also, for your reference here is a downloadable Excel spreadsheet of all our current holdings (including the additional 50+ names on our watchlist that we continue to follow.

Noteworthy, all three strategies posted gains for the month. And in additional to the yield column and the performance columns, please also consider the “beta” column at the end. This is basically a measure of how much an individual security tends to co-vary with the overall market. By definition, the S&P 500 has a beta of 1. Lower betas are very good for diversification and reducing volatility. High beta stocks can do very well when the market is going up, but then they can sell off hard when the market is going down. You can consider beta as part of the whole “risk-reward” trade, and you may want to consider it when you build your own investment portfolio. Note also, the low beta of the Alternative Fixed Income Strategy, and the higher betas for many of the Income Via Growth holdings.

Tsakos Energy Navigation (TNP) is one of our holding that was up a lot in October. The explanation is basically that oil tanker rates have improved markedly. We own both the common shares as well as preferred shares (TNP.PE) of Tsakos (be sure to check out our recent members-only writeup on Tsakos.

Teekay Offshore Preferred (TOO.PB) is another shipping company we own that experience a huge gain. However this gain was mainly due to an improved deal as well as increased clarification regarding Brookfield’s acquisition of Teekay Offshore. Be sure to check out our recent members-only write-up on Teekay. We continue to own these shares and expect more price appreciation and more big dividends ahead.

GrubHub (GRUB) is a higher beta stock we own that got absolutely slaughtered over the last month. We own it in our Income Via Growth portfolio, and it is one of several high growth stocks we own. The reason we hold more than one of these types of stocks is because they offer high return potential, but also high risk as we just saw with GRUB. Just note, other high growth stocks we own (for example Shopify and Paylocity) have posted increadiblty strong returns this year. This is why we diversify, and we try to pick more winners than losers. GRUB sold off because they announce a growth rate slower than the market expected. We continue to own the shares.

Phillips 66 (PSX) Despite the continued extreme weakness for many energy stocks, PSX is an energy stock we own that was up big over the last month. Specifically, PSX beat the market’s expectation for earnings thanks to strong fueld margins. We continue to own these shares.

Procter & Gamble (PG): While P&G did not have a particularly strong or weak October, it has put up amazing returns this year (+39.3%), especially considering it’s a low beta consumer staples company. We purchased shares of P&G a few years back when the dividend yield was near all time highs, however it’s now closer to all time lows. Rather that selling P&G (this is a “forever” stock for many investors) P&G is becoming increasingly attractive as a “covered call” stock (i.e. generating additional income by selling out of the money call option on your existing P&G shares). We’ll likely have more to say about this trade soon.

Conclusion:

Despite the market’s strong gains this year, valuations remain reasonable. And despite reasonable valuations, plenty of attractive security-specific opportunities persist. It’s important to be opportunistic as pockets of the market get emotional and irrational, but don’t go overboard, and don’t ever lose sight of your personal goals as an investor. Disciplined, goal-focused, long-term investing has proven to be a winning strategy over and over again throughout history.

Note: You can read all of our recent members-only investment ideas here