The Bloodhound System Blog

While I generally don't like to prognosticate the future, I've been forced into it by the spat of recent user requests for me to comment on what I think will happen in 2012.

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn has resorted to an unsolicited buyout attempt for Commercial Metals (NYSE: CMC) after the board rejected his cash bid for the company.  The $15/share bid requires the support of at least 40 percent of shareholders to succeed, that would give Icahn a majority when combined with his current stake of about 10 percent.

Investment management and real estate ownership firm W.P. Carey and Company, has recently become a top 10 pick of our investment strategy inspired by Warren Buffett.  Thanks in large part to very health margins, an EPS growth rate of over 10%, and generous yield of over 5%; this stock looks attractive to nearly every investor looking for safe current income.  However, what makes this a Buffett stock is the aforementioned statistics combined with the fact that WPC trades at just over 12 times earnings.  No other U.S. listed company that can boast those kind of statistics.  

Wall Street always seems to have the advantage over self-directed investors when it comes to equity investing; teams of analysts, insider information, “channel checking”, and high frequency stock trading to name a few. Most self-directed stock investors feel they simply cannot compete.

    In a previous blog you were introduced to 6 of our 12 new model investment strategies. In this posting you will get the first look at the 6 new strategies that were inspired by legendary investors.  While the success of a professional investor can rarely be broken down into one single equity investment strategy, we have attempted to offer users a way to easily identify and invest in companies that fit the investment philosophy of some of the most highly regarded investors.  Additionally, as with any model or custom strategy, users can analyze historical performance of the new model strategies for risk and return characteristics.

In an effort to bring Bloodhound subscribers even more investing options, the creators of the bloodhound system have added 12 new investment strategies that are suitable for a wide range of investment objectives. These new strategies will likely be familiar to most users as they are all inspired be either a well known investment approach or a highly regarded professional investor.  In this blog entry we will outline the 6 new strategies that are based on notable investment systems and philosophies. All of the newly added strategies are intended to act as either a comprehensive investing strategy or an investing idea generator.

The first 220 trading days of 2011 have provided some of the most volatile market conditions in the past 50+ years.  In fact, half of the trading days since the beginning of August have seen a market move of greater than +/-1%.   So what’s the result of this extreme market volatility?  What have traders and investors received in return for suffering through this market whiplash?  Year to date the market is nearly unchanged (down slightly as of 11/4/11).  That was a long painful ride to get nowhere.