Buy Low Sell High

Results for Week

As of close yesterday the portfolio is at $53,710.50. That is +7.42%.

Trades last week included purchasing Dollar General at 12.29, Navteq at 24.72, LTX Corp at 5.49 and Olin at 14.48. Of these I picked LTX and Dollar General from shares that had earnings announcements scheduled. The Olin and Navteq were simply purchased from the list of new lows that are few and far between on the NYSE right now.

The big miss was Micros Systems that jumped up from $39 to $48 for the week after its earnings announcement. I will listen to their broadcast.

The big mistake was LTX which I purchased as it was rising earlier in the week, and then got somewhat smashed at the end of the week. It is better to stick to the discipline of buying only those shares that don't show any sign of rising, I think. This mistake alone cost me $630 or 11.48% of that investment. Nevertheless, I did listen to their earning report and I think I will hold it a bit longer to see if it goes back up some. I will put a Stop Loss in, however, as well.

I have also placed stops for all of the other purchases which would protect me from any loss on those which all went up.

Coming Earnings Week Aug 28

These are stocks for this week with access to charts. I will look for those that are beaten down.

Tuesday: Sanderson Farms, ADC Telecomm, Dycom Indus, Novell, Semtech, Micros Systems

Wednesday: United Natural Foods, JDS Uniphase, LTX Corp.

Thursday: Brown Forman, Ciena, HJ Heinz, Tiffany, Zale Corp, Dollar General, Esterline Tech, H&R Block, Kellwood Co., Wind River Systems

S & P 500

Notable gainers: El Paso Electric, Symbol Tech, E-bay, Amerisousrce Bergan, Andrew Corp., Qualcom, Eastman Kodak, Dow Chemical, Tenet Corp.

Notable losers: Harman, QLogic, St. Jude, PerkinsElmer, Starbucks, Genzyme, Sanmina

Coming Earnings

			Consensus Estimate	Year Ago
M	Kensey Nash Corp	4Q	0.25	0.32
	Bob Evans Farms, Inc	1Q	0.32	0.20
	Lowe's Companies Inc	2Q	0.61	0.53
T	Toll Brothers, Inc.	3Q	1.04	1.27
	Medtronic, Inc.	1Q	0.54	0.50
	Applied Signal Tech	3Q	0.18	0.15
	Borders Group, Inc.	2Q	-0.28	0.02
	Intuit Inc	4Q	-0.04	-0.04
	Henry, (Jack) & Assc	4Q	0.27	0.23
W	Brown Shoe Company,	2Q	0.40	0.21
	Dollar Tree Stores,	2Q	0.27	0.25
	Payless Shoesource	2Q	0.53	0.40
	Smithfield Foods Inc	1Q	0.36	0.44
	Tech Data Corporatio	2Q	0.03	0.27
	Eaton Vance Corp	3Q	0.33	0.29
	Michaels Stores, Inc	2Q	0.19	0.22
	Nordson Corporation	3Q	0.60	0.50
	Regis Corp	4Q	0.59	0.64
	Chico's Fas Inc	2Q	0.30	0.27
	Phillips-Van Heusen	2Q	0.47	0.43
Th	Hormel Foods Corp	3Q	0.42	0.37
	Fred's Inc	2Q	0.09	0.09
	Genesco Inc	2Q	0.21	0.27
	Patterson Companies,	1Q	0.32	0.31
	Toro Company (The)	3Q	0.87	0.74
	Williams-Sonoma, Inc	2Q	0.23	0.26
	Gerber Scientific	1Q	0.07	0.05
	Quanex Corporation	3Q	1.13	1.14
	Credence Systems	3Q	-0.03	0.00

Blue Coat Systems

I have a second account which I have not been tracking here but will add in. After I posted the comment about Blue Coat, I checked on when its earnings would come out and found out it would be that day. I then purchased Blue Coat at 13.153. At the end of the week my return was 25.07% with the week's close at 16.45. I placed a Sell at 15.00 STOP, but I plan to just sell it at the open on Monday.

I will need to have some rules that I use. I have found that a few stocks that I have sold, I did prematurely. That was when the gains were not major at first, and slower to evolve. However, a 25% gain in a week is sufficient. So my rule will be, sell any stocks where the gain is 5% or less or 25% or more during the first week. For those between 5% and 25%, I will place stop orders.

The other company I placed in with Blue Coat was Sono Site. That hit another new low on Friday. I will research that one a bit more. There are few new earnings reports for next week, so I may stay out of the market rather than try to use some other method of selecting the BUY LOW's.

Week Results

My results for the week were not quite as good as last week, but still very satisfactory.

Total (USD) Close 8/14/2006

52,480.00

+2,480.00

4.96%

Total (USD) Close 8/18/2006

53,320.66

+3,320.66

6.64%

The value increased by 940.66 for a 1.8% gain for the week. This compares to 2.6% for the week for the Dow and 2.8% for the S&P. However, again, I only had about 1/3 of the portfolio invested. Cash at the end of the week was 36,432.66. This meant that of the amount actually invested the gain was more in the 6% range. At the same time the risk was considerably lower with that much in cash than had I had it all invested in the DOW, S&P or anything else.

The purchases for the week were on 8/14 were 200 Sysco [SYY];  200 Home Depot [HD]; 300 Gap  [GPS]; 100 CACI [CAI].

The sales for the week were Sysco [SYY] on 8/16; Gap [GPS] on 8/18. The only money loser was a small loss on the Gap, but I liquidated this at the open on 8/18 avoiding a bigger loss.

The percentages are net, with commissions not included. In my case I pay commissions on a percentage basis for the year at 1% annually.

New Lows: Blue Coat Systems and Sonosite

I have owned and sold Blue Coat Systems in the past and have found it a quite volatile stock. Now that it is hitting new lows, I would tend to watch especially when earnings reports come out in the future. Also, Sonosite is of interest. It is a very popular portable ultrasound machine, but it has obviously fallen out of favor with investors. I will follow this also.

Blue Coat Systems [BCSI]

Sonosite  [SONO]

Weeks Results +4.96%

Total (USD) Close 8/14/2006

52,480.00

+2,480.00

4.96%

The results for the first week were quite good, especially considering I invested less than a third of the $50,000.  Yesterday I purchased

Yahoo Link

I found a new link for upcoming earnings. It is more complete that Barron's, but Barrnon's has the advantage of identifying fewer, bigger companies. http://biz.yahoo.com/research/earncal/today.html

Next Week Possible Buys

Here are the companies that will announce their earnings in the coming week, listed by day of earnings report.

I have reviewed each of them as to whether I would consider buying them or not. My criteria come from looking at the chart.

I avoid stocks that are not at or new new lows. I don't want midrange stocks or those that are going up.

I have listed next to each one whether it is something I would consider buying for the week. I will not buy all of them, but indicate in a subsequent post those that I did actually buy.

Monday  - Sysco Corporation - BUY

               Agilent Technologies - BUY

               CA Inc - PASS

Tuesday - Deere and Company - Buy

               Staples - BUY

              TJX Industries - Pass

               Wal-Mart Stores BUY

               Applied Materials BUY

               Barr Pharmaceuticals Pass

               Harman Intl. Indus BUY

               Home Depot, Inc. BUY

Wednesday - Estee Lauder Pass

                Big Lots, Inc. Pass

                Hewlett-Packard Co. Pass

                Network Applicance Pass

Thursday - Limited Brands Pass

                Sears Holdings Corp Pass

                The Gap  Buy

                Nordstrom Pass

                Autodesk  Pass

                Dell,Inc., Buy