This week’s Weekly reviews the latest iteration of our portfolio tracker tool. It lists holdings by portfolio with real time position pricing. It also has “buy under” prices, position performance and a variety of additional bells and whistles. It is designed for your convenience. The link to the Portfolio Tracker Tool is Below.
Please keep in mind this tool continues to be a work-in-progress, and we appreciate your patience and feedback as we work to continue to improve it. For your reference, here are some important notes about the tool:
Real-Time Prices:
To help track positions, the pricing data is pulled from Google Finance, and it should update automatically each time you launch the tool.
Buy-Under Prices:
As mentioned previously, the “buy-under” prices are set subjectively based on our view and research for each position. We also reality check them by comparing to the average Wall Street Analyst price target per data from FactSet.
Ratings:
If you are a guru, you’ll notice the ratings (e.g. “Buy,” “Strong Buy,” “Hold” and “Review”) are set by a mathematical function. For example, more than 20% under the “Buy-Under” price is a “Strong Buy.” We are continuing to work to get this right, and acknowledge the formula works better for Income securities than it does for “Income via Growth” stocks because the growth stock prices are more volatile and ofter have more long-term price appreciation potential considering they’re generally paying very small dividends or no dividends at all.
% +/-:
This column is the percent by which the current price is under the “buy-under” price. It is to help youy quickly guage each postion.
1-Day and 5-Day Returns:
These returns are pulled from Google Finance, and they are intended to help you quickly gauge recent performance. In particular, it can be helpful if you are building a portfolio, and you want more current price movement info. We also use this data to help us identify potential income-generating options trade opportunities, as we often write about. Please note, the 5-day return number is “wonky” considering it is not adjusted for dividends or stocks splits, so be cautions when using this number.
52-Week High/Low Vs Current Price:
The last three columns of the spreadsheet show the 52-week low in red, the 52-week high in green, and then the current price is shading more red or more green depending on whether it is closer to the low or the high.
Muni Bonds:
You’ll notice we separate muni-bonds within the Alternative Fixed Income portfolio. Muni-bonds are generally expempt from paying taxes, so make sure to own these in a taxable account (not a tax-free IRA) so you can get the full benefit of these tax advantaged investments.
And a few real-time things worth noting this week:
Energy Transfer (ET) and Simon Property Group (SPG): We continue own both of these position. And we believe both of these high-income opportunities remain attractively priced. We’re happy to keep collecting these big safe income payments, and we expect significant future share price appreciation for both.
Grubhub (GRUB): We continue to own Grubhub, and you’ll notice the share price has been a big-mover in the last week. There were rumors that it was looking to sell itself (that caused the price to jump), and then the company denied it (and the shares gave back only some of those gains). We continue to believe the online food ordering and then deliver industry is attractive. Further, we’ll not be surprised to see Grubhub acquired by a competitor at a much higher price within the next year. The business and the industry continue to grow attractively.
Shopify (SHOP): as we alluded to earlier, the “buy-under” prices tend to work better for income stocks than for growth stocks. Case in point, Shopify. We own this stock, and the business continues to grow rapidly and is extremely attractive. As such, the share price has moved from a buy to a hold based on continuing price appreciation. We do continue to hold the shares. Near-term, the price has been very strong. Long-term, we expect volatility, but also a lot more growth and long-term price appreciation.
Bottom Line:
That’s it for this week’s Weekly. We’ll continue to work to improve the Tracking Tool, and we’ll continue to work hard to identify attractive long-term investment opportunities.