The short term investing stock picks blog

Welcome to Festival of Stocks #45.  I am happy to be posting nearly twenty worthwhile blog posts related to Stock Analysis, Market Analysis, Personal Investing, etc from the previous week.  Five Percent Stocks is a blog with a simple purpose: Pick stocks that will return 5% in one month or less.  I’ve had good success since sharing my posts back in November 2006.  I’ve also tried to create some basic free resources for investors including a simple foreign stocks search engine and a RSS aggregator of social stock picks sites/blogs.  I hope these are of use to other individual investors. 

STOCK ANALYSIS
Dividend Analysis - Walgreen Company (NYSE:WAG) at Dividends Matter
I was somewhat surprised to see a detailed post on (NYSE: WAG) on a dividend focused site, but Average Joe puts together a nice analysis of Walgreens. I agree that this is a solid stock. However, if I had to make a list of the Top 25 growth and income plays, I’m not sure WAG would make the cut. Going back for more DD thanks to Average Joe.
Stocks: WAG

Free Stock Pick-Week of 07/11/07 at Fifawcs’s Weekly Stock Picks
Welcome Steven Seagal, Fifawcs, Jeff, or (enter pseudonym here). This is a great stock analysis post that if replicated over time will turn this blog into a success.
Stocks: DIVX,KEP,BRLC,AOB

Aiful Adapting to Change at CONTROLLED GREED.com
As I have been analyzing the 13Fs this past week, I’ve seen a lot of money going back into Japanese stocks. If that is smart money, this pick will be an absolute gem. Great analysis from John over at Controlled Greed.
Stocks: AIFLY

Results-Based Pharma (JNJ)(GSK) at 24/7 Wall St.
Personally, I think (NYSE: JNJ) is going to surprise some people, but am I not sure I would have called it "innovative." Until now… read up on an interesting project with their cancer drug Velcade. Love it!
Stocks: JNJ,GSK

Reader Request - Heartland Express Inc. (NASDAQ:HTLD) at Investment Jungle
According to Average Joe, Heartland Express is a Rule #1 company that Mr. Market has currently priced too high.
Stocks:  HTLD

MARKET ANALYSIS
Going Without the Flow: The Changing Dynamics of this Bull Market at Trader Feed
If you aren’t reading Dr. Brett, you’re probably missing out on something, at the very least, one of the most fundamentally sound market and trading perspectives on the net. This is an interesting article on this recently confounding bull market.

Saturday Bullish Percents at Headline Charts
I recently subscribed to Headline Charts and have been quite happy with the decision. It has made me all the more aware of the BPI, which has helped my intraday trading decisions. This post is a nice graphical look at where the industries ended up on the BPI this weekend.

Week in Review #28 (2007-07-14) at Bill Cara
In-depth review, with graphs of the entire market, commodities, and sectors.

PERSONAL INVESTING
Systematic Investing Could Yield Greater Returns at The Mad Money Analyst
Fantastic advice from another Mad Money dude. It blows my mind how many investors will systematically take out for their 401k (even above their company’s matching %), but fail to do so for their personally-managed investment accounts. Even if its $50 a month (or year!) make a plan and do it. Don’t be a reactive investor.

Beware of Credit Card Fraud at Trading Stocks - Self Investors
I almost didn’t include this post, but then I figured that might violate some weird karma principle or contribute toward my own invincibility attitude. Anyway, let’s all take a moment to consider our personal finance security measures. Let’s hope everything works out for Tate.

A DEEPER LOOK AT…
Do You Need Trading Rules? at Smart Trading For Profits
Having trading rules and following trading rules are two entirely different things. I believe that no rules are inviolable to the market, but good rules (and more importantly the execution of the rules) lead to successes that more than cushion moments of aberration. Smart Trading for Profits takes a deeper look at these ideas.

Alternative Investment Opportunities at Debt Solution
A nice review of the current energy situation relative to alternative energy production and investment. I recently posted a book review that explored the "clean tech" sector, so this article was especially interesting to read. The author quotes the Calvert Groups stat that 85% of investors believe that there is money to be made in the sector, but only 20% have taken action.
Stocks: FSLR

Innovative Companies - Spectacular or Duds at My Wealth Builder
A brief look at some Large Caps based on their innovative characteristics. Author used Business Week’s top 50 innovative companies special as the impetus for this article.
Stocks: MSFT,WMT,DELL,GOOG,AAPL,AMZN

Private equity, corporate governance and vampires at Sox First
Private Equity is a vampire! Hah, don’t tell that to Congress, lest they get any ideas. Interesting article on the private equity boom. And folks… it’s not over yet. Thanks for contributing, Leon.
Stocks:

Friday (the 13th) Blog Muzak and some stuff! at Trading Goddess
I’m adding this post from the Goddess, because she is so cute! And I don’t just mean the pictures, her approach the writing, investing, and life shared on the blog make it a wonderful read.
Stocks: AAPL

Interview: Investment Opportunities in Healthcare with Alan Brochstein at Bio-Health Investor
There is a growing buzz about Bio-tech in the second half of this year. I have had a less than spectacular record with investing in any pharma type equities, so I am going my best to read up as much as possible. This interview is a great start.
Stocks: ISRG,PPDI,CVD,MYGN,MHS,HOLX,CYTC,WCG,WLP,DNDN

Earnings Gains Critical For Stock Success at stockbee
Fantastic article from one of the hottest emerging bloggers of 2007.

Stock Puppets at Calculated Risks
Calculated Risk shares his thoughts on I believe, is one of the most fascinating stories of the week: Whole Food’s (NASDAQ: WFMI) Mackey’s discussion board forays.
Stocks: WFMI

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Thanks for reading!  Be sure to contribute toward next week’s Festival #47 or get more information on the festival.

Many institutional investors have been submitted their 13F forms this week with the second quarter ending on June 30.  I decided to take a couple filings from today and review some of the movements in their key positions.  This is really just a fun experiment, but isn’t a bad exercise for you to review your important positions with each submitted form (I scanned the entire form for each).  Simply use the EDGAR text file report and search for your name on this filing and the previous filing to see if any large moves in or out have been made by multiple institutional investors.  One holding that sticks out for all of the institutions reporting this week (through today) is YUM! Brands. 

Yum! Brands (YUM) -
Increasing position (4 of 4, 100%):
Advantus Capital Management (+227%); Cohen Klingenstein & Marks Inc (+101%); Franklin St. Advisors (+48%); Park National Corp (+13%)

My little tool that helps investors find exposure to foreign stocks within US exchanges, eforeignstocks, got a bit of an upgrade this week.  I had been meaning to add Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) for some time and I finally got around to it today.  The search engine now allows you to search for an ETF by country, region, and exchange.  I added around 200 ETFs to the database, including fixed income ETFs.  I also made some upgrades to the search engine that was preventing some results from being reported or reporting a non-pertinent results in with correct ones.

My whole purpose for the site is to help investors quickly find exposure to foreign markets.  When I first started exposing myself to international stock markets, I found it difficult to find say telecommunications stocks in Asia or mining stocks in Africa.  This search engine should help get you started so that the next time you hear "you need to be exposed to x country" — you can quickly find US-based securities to research.  Hope this is worthwhile for some of you.  I hope to add some bells and whistles once traffic picks up to the site.