Hello everyone!  Well, I’m a little late in delivering my Portfolio Thoughts post.  I was vacationing in the D.C. area for about a week and thought I’d have no problem putting out the post upon my arrival home.  However, I came down with a virus on the way home and consequently didn’t feel like doing anything but lay around once I arrived.  I’m still not 100%, but I figure if I don’t get this post out today, it may not happen at all.  So, expect this month’s post to be a tad more brief than normal.

As usual, I’ll go over my purchases & sales from this past month, see what price movement there’s been for my Portfolio holdings, and take a look at the stocks I’ve got on my watchlist.

Mixed in will be changes I’m contemplating to improve the Portfolio.  This might be thoughts about stocks I want to overweight or underweight, or stocks I wish to add or remove.

Here we go…

 

Transactions

Once again, I have a couple of Portfolio transactions to report.  This past month, I closed out my one-and-only utility position, and added a tobacco company.

The utility I sold was SCANA Corp (SCG).  There’s so much to discuss with this company there’s no way to summarize it nicely.  I recommend you check out my Recent Sell – SCG post for my reasoning behind the sell.

Most of the SCG sale proceeds were used to establish a starter position in Altria Group (MO).  Check my Recent Buy – MO post for more information on this transaction.

 

Price Movement

I’d say most of my stocks trended up this past month, along with the market.  Leading the charge upward with over 10% gains were a couple of stocks – HanesBrands (HBI) and Nexstar Media Group (NXST).

HBI had a good run from $18 to $22.  This was nice to see after HBI spent most of the early part of this year sliding down in price.

NXST was a stock a bought in mid-April.  This past month It moved up fairly significantly, from $67 to $76, providing a decent cushion should it give back some of the gains.  It always a pleasant development when a stock you purchase moves up in price shortly thereafter.

A couple of other names showing good upward movement were CVS Health (CVS) and Pepsico (PEP).  They fell short of the 10% gain mark, but not by too much.

CVS rose from $66 to $72.  Note – the ending price was as of the close of last week, so it does not account for today’s haircut in price.

PEP has been recovering from its recent lows, and moved from $100 to $108.

As for Portfolio stocks on the decline, I had only one fall more than 10%.

That prime laggard was Starbucks (SBUX), moving down from $57 to $51.  Again, my ending price was as of the close of last week.  Most of that loss came in the past week as SBUX moved swiftly downward after updating comparable store sales estimates, which came in below expectations, and confirmed fears of slowing growth.  SBUX has moved even lower in price since then.  On the bright side, SBUX said they planned to increase shareholder returns moving forward, and started that by delivering an unexpected 20% dividend raise.

A couple of other notable decliners on a percentage basis were Abbvie (ABBV), which fell from $101 to $94, and Air Lease (AL), which dropped from $44.50 to $41.50.

 

Watch List

My watchlist seems to have more stocks appearing these days.

Let’s start with possible additions to my existing Portfolio positions…

As mentioned last month, I’m looking to add to two of my smaller positions, Comcast (CMCSA) and Texas Instruments (TXN), in order to have them reach a more desirable Portfolio weighting.

I recently sold another put option on CMCSA after the last one expired.  Should the new option get assigned to me (for trading below the $32 strike price by mid-July), I would double my position.

As for TXN, it’s pulled back a decent amount to around $110, but I’m not looking to add until it trades below $100 again.

SBUX is now on my radar after its recent drop.  I was contemplating adding some below $55, but the recent news has me lowering my desired purchase price to the upper $40s.  I’d like to add 50 shares, but may have to settle for fewer shares with funds not being too readily available at the moment.

I’ve been looking at adding to my Cardinal Health (CAH) position with the stock price hanging out in the $51-$56 range most of the past month.

The recent price drops in Bank of the Ozarks (OZRK) and Air Lease (AL) have me contemplating additions to those as well, even though I feel I’ve got full positions.

With regard to non-portfolio stocks that I’m watching…

I continue to watch KAR Auction Services (KAR) – 4 months running now.  I’m looking to add should it drop below $50, but it’s been trading in the $52-$56 range for the entire time I’ve been watching it.  If earnings continue to improve, initiating a position in the $52s could be a possibility.

3M (MMM) is still on my radar as well, but it will have to drop further before I purchase.  Something in the $185- $190 range might motivate me to initiate a position.

Coming onto my radar are aerospace and defense company General Dynamics (GD), and engine-maker Cummins (CMI).  GD would look interesting in the $180-$185 range, while CMI would look intriguing in the $125-$130 range.

 

Thoughts?

Would you say more stocks have recently gained your attention for possible purchase?  If so, what stocks are you watching these days?  Please share your thoughts!