Mechanical Investing for August 2005
I’m a day late for trading. I started to review the mechanical trading stocks yesterday but my head wouldn’t cooperate. 
Investments improve yet again this month. I’m up 7.9% for the last weeks and up 1.0% for the year. The Dow is down 1.0% this year.
Holding for another month:
| Ticker | Bought | Now | Months | Return | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BMHC | $55.40 | $82.65 | 3 | +49.2% | Building Materials Holding Corp. I sold off 20% of my shares, though, to keep the portfolio in balance. |
| KBH | $75.20 | $80.98 | 1 | +7.7% | KB Homes. |
Selling these:
| Ticker | Bought | Sold | Months | Return | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ADCT | $21.66 | $26.85 | 1 | +24.0% | ADC Telecommunications. Yay.  |
| AQNT | $17.78 | $19.28 | 1 | +8.4% | aQuantive Inc. |
| CAE | $44.24 | $43.79 | 1 | -1.7% | Cascade Corp. |
| DENN | $5.45 | $5.8601 | 1 | +7.5% | Denny’s. Yumm. |
| FTO | $31.62 | $29.15 | 1 | -7.8% | Frontier Oil Corp. Yuck. |
| JWN | $35.29 | $36.87 | 1 | +4.5% | Nordstrom, Inc., the fashion store. JWN, of course, stands for “Nordstrom,” but using different letters. |
| LCAV | $47.24 | $46.52 | 2 | -1.5% | LCA Vision Inc. Gave back last month’s gains, pfft. |
| LUB | $12.23 | $14.65 | 1 | +19.8% | Luby’s. Yumm. |
| OO | $16.87 | $18.64 | 1 | +10.5% | Oakley Inc., the sunglasses manufacturer. |
| WLDA | $12.43 | $12.58 | 1 | +1.2% | World Airways, Inc. They have 12 airplanes! |
New stocks for this month:
| Ticker | Bought | Sold | Months | Return | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AN | $21.84 | $N/A | 0 | N/A% | Autonation Inc. Is the used car market booming? |
| BZH | $66.67 | $N/A | 0 | N/A% | Beazer Homes again. |
| CRUS | $7.98 | $N/A | 0 | N/A% | Cirrus Logic Inc. |
| KELYA | $29.73 | $N/A | 0 | N/A% | Kelly Services Inc. |
| MCK | $45.66 | $N/A | 0 | N/A% | McKesson Corp. again, healthcare. |
| MDC | $86.17 | $N/A | 0 | N/A% | MDC Holdings Inc., again. |
| MSTR | $78.74 | $N/A | 0 | N/A% | MicroStrategy Inc. |
| NSIT | $20.65 | $N/A | 0 | N/A% | Insight Enterprises Inc., an information services company. |
| RT | $19.89 | $N/A | 0 | N/A% | Ryerson Tull Inc. Looks like a heavy trucking company. |
| RYL | $82.01 | $N/A | 0 | N/A% | Ryland Homes. Home builders keep making a good return. |
New options for this month:
| Ticker | Bought | Sold | Weeks | Return |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No new options until October. | ||||
The next trade will be August 29th.
August 2nd, 2005 at 1:00 pm
Um… no habla espaniol? I really ought to learn how to understand stock basics if my 401k is to do anything worthwhile.
August 2nd, 2005 at 2:30 pm
Once a month I trade stocks based on a series of formulas found on the Motley Fool’s Mechanical Investing Forum.
For most people, buying an index fund that mimics the S&P 500 or the Russell 2000 is a less time-consuming way to participate in the stock market.