And our Annual Review proceeds apace… on a day when the market is showing signs of actually having a meaningful correction, thanks to Friday jitters and inflation worries and rising interest rates… so cross your fingers for better prices in the week to come (I did buy a couple positions this week, but as I go through my holdings I continue to find that the vast majority of the stocks are at prices 10-15% above what seems to me to be a reasonable “buy” valuation).

I’m getting through the list of all the stocks in the Real Money Portfolio to make sure that I update my thinking on each stock at least once per year (usually I end up at least touching on them all more often than that, but it’s good to check in). Today we’ve got a bunch of mostly tech stocks to follow up on, some of which have reported this earnings season and some which haven’t, as well as a couple buys — both add-ons to existing positions.

First, let me “react” a bit to the earnings from the biggies this week — I provided some pre-earnings throughts on a few of these earlier in the week here, in case you missed it, and the earnings reports didn’t change my opinion dramatically for any of them… nor did the prices come down enough, post-earnings, for me to add to my positions.

Facebook (FB) after earnings — my small risk-reduction sale turned out to be unnecessary in the short term, as Facebook’s initial post-earnings weakness turned quickly to strength after investors began digesting the conference call information and analysts started upgrading their price targets. The final 2017 numbers were a very strong “beat,” as pretty much everyone should have expected (and I did), but the forward commentary was not nearly as cautious as it could have been. In fact, COO Sheryl Sandberg’s comment on the impact of Facebook’s changes to prioritize “meaningful social interactions” over business postings and spam and viral videos was perhaps the most important part of the call for investors: “We’re not doing this to be positive or negative for revenue. We’re doing this because is the right thing for our community. But the impact that has on monetization is certainly not clearly negative.” (my emphasis)

Facebook is still a phenomenal growth story, they will grow more slowly in 2018 than they did ...