Friday File: Annual Review Part 3 (plus PANIC, SPCE and more)

by Travis Johnson, Stock Gumshoe | February 7, 2020 4:43 pm

Checking in on more Real Money Portfolio holdings, including thoughts on GOOG, TTD, SPCE, MKL, DIS, COR and SLP

This is premium content. To view this article (and to have full access to the rest of our articles), sign up. Already a member? Log in.

Source URL: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/2020/02/friday-file-annual-review-part-3-plus-panic-spce-and-more/


22 responses to “Friday File: Annual Review Part 3 (plus PANIC, SPCE and more)”

  1. mike_d says:

    Travis,
    THANK YOU very much for your insight and analysis and all that you do to save all of us members boatloads of money on these newsletters that just want to rob us of our hard earned dollars, that continue to depreciate, on stocks which usually don’t perform as they saw they will . Your response to the new member is sincere, thorough, and thoughtful. OH! Thank You to the Thinkolator as well. 🙂

  2. eleanorxduval says:

    I concur with Mike. Thanks for all you do. The valuation of the entire market is insane and it’s impossible to predict when the collapse will occur and by how much. Last year I sold a portion of my tech ETF and only watch it going up another 30% since the sale. The higher the market goes the harder it is to get back in, worrying about the potential crash.

    Having said that, do you have any REIT you like beside COR?

  3. bigorangedave says:

    Thank you for the great explanation on the warrants for virgin galactic. I got in at $2.40 so your examples were quite helpful.

  4. tanglesome says:

    Hey Travis,

    Speaking of all-time-highs for the stock market, how much do you recommend in cash holdings for retirement and non-retirement accounts?

    I held 10% for awhile in cash until ~3 years ago when I upped it to 15 percent.

    Curious as to your input.

  5. allang43 says:

    Simulations Plus in my opinion is a very good company.
    I bought it on 5/28/10 for $2.45 and sold it on 7/11/19 at $30.74 .
    My reason to sell-age and owning too many atocks.
    It was a recommendation of The Bowser Report.
    Value Line Special Situations recommended it on 12/18 at 19.36.
    They have a stop loss at 27.
    I don’t buy stocks based on take over basis, but I think this could be candidate.
    Good luck, Travis.

  6. julian_satran says:

    Simulation Plus has definitely great and useful technology for the Pharma (human and vet) industry.
    The problem I see is that they serve a very limited market and many of its customers might be tempted to develop the technology inhouse (things would have been different if the tools provided by SLP would have had a generic and a specialized layer – allowing Pharma to add their proprietary components). While looking at the Health Care another company is mentioned often Accelerated Diagnostics (AXDX) – It addresses a larger market a has seen a lot of volatility. Do you have an insight on it?

  7. julian_satran says:

    What is the Netflix Killer mentioned by Motley Fool?

  8. Trade Note:

    MGM Resorts (MGM) reported earnings, which missed by a bit, largely because of weakness in Asian visitors to Las Vegas and the slowdown in baccarat in that area (which predated the coronavirus, that’s been a challenge throughout Las Vegas recently). That jibes with what I saw in Vegas in early January — the city is crowded, but the gambling floors in the casinos are not… and if the high roller rooms of slot machines and baccarat aren’t full, the casinos aren’t making as much money as they’d like.

    So is it time to sell? Las Vegas is a little disappointing, Massachusetts is well below expectations, China is closed, and it’s almost certainly going to be a bad year overall. It will certainly be an unpredictable year, since the Macau casino reopening and the slowdown in global travel are certainly temporary but aren’t on a preset schedule, and MGM pulled their 2020 revenue and earnings guidance.

    Investors may look past that to good years ahead, and there’s something to be said for MGM’s strategy of de-levering and shifting the business model to being a hotel operator instead of a property owner (it worked great for Marriott, though that’s a different story and relies more on franchisees than on just offloading real estate), but unless they really try to leverage their brand more aggressively, are able to build out their US sports betting business a lot faster than I suspect will be the case (sports betting is going to rapidly go almost entirely online, I expect), or they get a meaningful deal going for expansion into Japan, all of which are possible as they transition to a new CEO, things will probably be pretty moribund at least for this year. This is a small position, and I don’t have a lot of conviction about the long term strength of the company, so I’ll take my profits and leave the table instead of sitting around for a few more watered-down whiskys while the pile of chips erodes.

    I originally invested in MGM because of the transition to selling off real estate and the participation by Starboard Value a year ago that helped to “shake up” management, but I conclude that the easy “close the gap on valuation” money has now been made, I’m cashing it out for about a 22% gain in a little over a year. I didn’t hit the top, but I don’t have any certainty that we’re near the bottom in this one either — I do like the brand and their leadership in Las Vegas, but with Vegas also disappointing and the stock still trading at a premium to the broader market, with all of their huge real estate deals now done, I’ll wait until pessimism settles in again to consider buying back into MGM Resorts.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.