RVB Value and Income (RVBVI) in top 1%

My Value and Income fund (RVBVI) has outperformed 99.2% of all Marketocracy funds in the past 6 months and 94.4% for the past year. For more about this fund, you can visit the
Since Marketocracy doesn't show the actual holdings, here they are:


I've gone defensive - as I noted in my last post, I am not terribly bullish right now. The sector bets aren't explicitly made, that's where the opportunities have pointed me. AEOS used to be one of the biggest holdings, but I have been trimming on the way up, despite the fact the stock still looks cheap to me. LUK and WDC are the only new positions - LUK being a bet on the management team and WDC being an internet video / DVR / MS-Vista play (that trades at a ridiculously low 10x earnings.

New economic data thoughts

From the stream of conscious thoughts desk:

Yesterday was "the big day" for the semester. Now I've three weeks to finish some reports and that's it. I expect my blogging will fill in the time gaps.

Today's PMI and jobless claims numbers are interesting. One data point does not make a trend, so I won't be writing that the world economy is collapsing. But, I'm not one to view the economy through rose-colored glasses either. I just go where the data leads me.

Our ASAP economic forecasting team has been neutral on the economy, but recognized that there was much more downside risk than up. We have been notably bearish towards housing and unemployment and continue to be.

My personal stance is that we're heading towards a mild '08 recession, similar to 1990. IF I am right, I hope it's far enough away so that finding a post-MBA job is still possible!

Profit taking today

Is today's action any surprise? With the frozen-rope-like upward action since August, we need a mini-correction. Today probably signals it, although the bulls will probably battle back.

Soon, I'll be posting my thoughts on a small-cap company, Haemonetics (HAE). The stock is a pretty interesting longer-term investment, in my opinion. I don't own the stock, although I believe the company I worked for this summer does own it. We own it in ASAP as well.

Housing Starts Chart, updated

The pink line is a smoothed expected price, based on a long-run average of inflation + 1.5%.

The blue line is the actual pricing data, adjusted by inflation. I start both lines at 100, and see where prices are vs. where they should be. In the background, you can see raw housing starts data from the Ecowin database, gathered via Factset.

Finally, the pink line ends where there is no more data - later data is my prediction.

One's got to think there's no bottom yet.

Kudos to CNBC

For all of the ragging on CNBC that the blogosphere does, I thought I would recognize something I am currently watching that I find to be very interesting. "Game On! The Unauthorized History of Video Games" is very engaging - I can't yet go to sleep.

I have often found these kinds of reports to be very good. David Faber's Wal-Mart documentary comes to mind as an example of another informative, well-presented, and engaging piece of work.

So, great job on this one, CNBC.

Pondering the future of my blog

Lately, I'm just not sure what the rules are. How much can I talk about the research I did this summer? What about positions we own in the ASAP portfolio?

Because it's muddy, I've shied away from much of what I used to write about - erring on the side of caution. And I'm not sure then, what that means for the future of this blog, for now. As I really begin to ramp up the job search, it will be interesting to see what happens.