Just as I catch up on some of the favorite stocks in the Gumshoe universe at least once each year, so too I need to check in with all of our watchlist companies — but first, a trade to note for you:

Among the non-watchlist stocks that I own or have covered recently, I’m tempted to buy more Apple with it getting under $500 again, even though it’s already one of my top couple holdings, and also tempted to buy Invensense (INVN) personally after the price dropped on a weak quarter. But the trade I did make today is that I just sold my shares of Americas Petrogas (BOE.V, APEOF) on a stop loss order — that was one that I had speculated on based on the possibility that the Vaca Muerta shale in Argentina would inspire the big players to throw some money at them, given the somewhat more outsider-friendly talk coming out of the Argentinean government … but with the country trending down again the fears of government seizures or rule changes have hit and perhaps scared off dealmakers. I have never been committed to the stock for real fundamental reasons, it was just a speculation that the sentiment was turning and a big deal might get done as they were shopping themselves, but without any other information to rely on the price is telling me to get out of the speculation at a small loss.

And now, on to updated thoughts on some of our watchlist companies (in alphabetical order):

C&J Energy Services (CJES) — It was clearly a good idea to drop Canyon Services last year and look at C&J instead, largely because C&J was cheaper and was more broadly focused on well services and not just on the oversupplied frac pumping market. At current prices, without having ever gotten around to buying shares myself, I think it’s now a “take profits” sell just based on expectations — analysts see them boosting earnings to $1.50 or so next year, but that means they’re trading at a forward PE of over 15, fairly high for their sector. They were for quite a while cheaper than most, now they’re about the same and growth looks fairly tepid. There is probably opportunity for CJES to outperform given the huge interest in the Cline/Wolfcamp shale and other unconventional areas of the Permian Basin, among other unconventional oil ...