Mad Money Machine

Portfolio Thoughts

I’m bored with SLE, PCAR and TLM. I’ll re-evaluating these and thinking of replacing them with recent exciting Cramer picks. (And MO is smoldering too, but Jim still likes it…)

Here’s the breakdown…

Sara Lee (SLE) is one of three stocks that we originally purchased at the beginning of the portfolio smackdown. Jim said in December that it takes a magician to turn around a large company and CEO Brenda Barnes is “one of the best magicians in the business.” Cramer said Barnes is streamlining Sara Lee, which will increase operating margin, making the company more profitable. Barnes has already sold Sara Lee’s direct sales business, he said, and she has plans to spin off the company’s apparel businesses. That will leave SLE as a pure-play food and beverage company.

SLE announces earnings on May 9th. Let’s give Jim a chance to be right here, wait for the earnings release, see what the company says, then decide to keep it or jettison it.

Paccar (PCAR) was added on Feb 9th. Back on January 5th, Jim said, “Buy the stock at 71. Sell it at 77. … New engine rules start next year. Good for Paccar.” Well guess what, PCAR has not made it to 77 yet, but it is moving up. PCAR is in one of Jim’s Ten Bull Markets, but of the six stocks listed in bull market #9: Construction Equipment, it looks like CMI is the cheapest, using estimates from Moneycentral and average PE ratios. So why did we sell it? May have to swap back into it! Stay tuned…

Talisman Energy (TLM) is another of three stocks that we originally bought at the start (the third is MO). Jim made it his pick back in December because he believed that mutual fund managers would pour money into the stock in January.
“At the beginning of every year,” Cramer said, “mutual fund managers sit down and anoint stocks that in turn do well because mutual fund money pours into them.”

TLM did move higher in January peaking at 64.85, but then pulled back down and is trading around 57. TLM has scheduled a 3 for 1 stock split at the end of May. (Why???) First quarter results to be presented on May 10th. Again, we’ll wait and see what they have to say.

And in other portfolio enhancement news: I will add a SUMMARY VIEW table at the top of the page that shows just the active stocks in each portfolio, their percentage gain, and the current dollar value. Then below that I’ll keep the DETAILED view with all the data. This should make it easier to glance at the current state of affairs. Enjoy!