There are still some good people in the investment industry, and I was fortunate to speak with a few real gentlemen this week: Bill Singer of RRBD Law, Marc Mayor of Inside ALPHA, and Mark Sullivan of First Trust. All offered some excellent suggestions, some of which I will be implementing soon. Herewith, a couple of updates:
- The new blogs. Sometimes it's harder to find people to do the simpler jobs than the more complex ones. Things didn't work out with the previous vendor and I have requested a quote from another one. Hopefully, these blogs will be up and running soon. I'd like to start the comment contest soon, because the first prize gift certificate is for dinner at a restaurant chain that has an Altman Z"-score in the distress zone. If I had more time and patience, I'd set these blogs up myself. I may end up doing that.
- Portfolio Armor. We are putting the finishing touches on it. I am excited. I think this will be a useful tool for a lot of investors, myself included.
Showing posts with label Altman Z"-Score. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Altman Z"-Score. Show all posts
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Bakken Black
U.S. Energy Corp. Announces Initial Production Rate of Approximately 1,544 BOE/D From the Lee 16-21 #1H Bakken Well.
I believe that's three-for-three so far on USEG's Bakken deal.
Incidentally, one thing you notice using ShortScreen is that a number of natural resources companies appear on its screener, including BEXP, USEG's Bakken partner. Indeed, when you consider the generous terms USEG got on this deal, it's not too surprising when you consider both companies' respective Altman Z"-Scores: USEG's score was in the financial strength zone and BEXP's was in the distress zone. Not surprising that USEG would get good terms on its deal given that it was negotiating from a position of financial strength.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
New site
If you're new here, please take a moment to read the post below, which is a message from our sponsor.
A few of you have already seen the demo version of this site, but the live version of it is up now: ShortScreen.com. This site features an automated calculator and a screener based on the Altman models. With the calculator, all you need to do is enter a stock symbol, and the calculator will instantly give you that company's Altman Z-score, or Altman Z"-score, if it's a non-manufacturing company.
The screener runs the Altman Z-Score model on all of the manufacturing stocks in the site's database, and the Altman Z"-Score on all the non-manufacturing stocks. You can pick a minimum share price and then see a list of the 50 most distressed stocks at or above that share price, out of the universe of roughly 3,000 stocks in the site's database. You'll find a couple of the short positions I've mentioned previously on this blog among the 50 most distressed stocks at or above $9 per share.
If, like me, you think it's prudent to include some short positions in your portfolio, perhaps you will agree that a list of stocks that the Altman models predict are headed for bankruptcy might be worth considering as potential candidates for short selling (or buying puts on them, if the particular stocks have options).
The site also has a message board system with a couple of unique features. The first is that, unlike other stock message boards, there will be no bias against skeptical or bearish comments. If you've ever posted one of those on a typical message board, you probably noticed that it quickly got deleted. That makes it tough to find a balanced discussion about any stocks.
The other unique feature is the premium ranking system. Premium members will have the authority to rank comments on a scale from one to five stars. Comments that have an average rank of less than two stars after several votes will be deleted, and the highest-ranked comments will move to the top. Although non-paying registered users and paying premium members will both be able to post on the message boards, the site limits the ranking authority to premium members to discourage anyone from creating multiple accounts in order to manipulate the ranking system (which is pretty common, unfortunately, on Yahoo's message boards).
Premium members will also have the opportunity to become affiliates, and get paid to refer other premium members to the site. When you become an affiliate, you'll get a unique bit of HTML code for an affiliate badge that you can copy and paste onto your site. When you do, it will look like this:
When visitors click on your affiliate badge, they'll go to a special version of the Shortscreen sign-up page where they will get a 5% discount off of the regular membership rate, and your affiliate account will be credited with the referral.
The image above was one of the later preliminary sketches by my logo designer. At that point we were refining the steepness of the hump of the bear's withers. I wanted it to be steep to connote aggression, but when it got too steep it looked too wolf-like.
A few of you have already seen the demo version of this site, but the live version of it is up now: ShortScreen.com. This site features an automated calculator and a screener based on the Altman models. With the calculator, all you need to do is enter a stock symbol, and the calculator will instantly give you that company's Altman Z-score, or Altman Z"-score, if it's a non-manufacturing company.
The screener runs the Altman Z-Score model on all of the manufacturing stocks in the site's database, and the Altman Z"-Score on all the non-manufacturing stocks. You can pick a minimum share price and then see a list of the 50 most distressed stocks at or above that share price, out of the universe of roughly 3,000 stocks in the site's database. You'll find a couple of the short positions I've mentioned previously on this blog among the 50 most distressed stocks at or above $9 per share.
If, like me, you think it's prudent to include some short positions in your portfolio, perhaps you will agree that a list of stocks that the Altman models predict are headed for bankruptcy might be worth considering as potential candidates for short selling (or buying puts on them, if the particular stocks have options).
The site also has a message board system with a couple of unique features. The first is that, unlike other stock message boards, there will be no bias against skeptical or bearish comments. If you've ever posted one of those on a typical message board, you probably noticed that it quickly got deleted. That makes it tough to find a balanced discussion about any stocks.
The other unique feature is the premium ranking system. Premium members will have the authority to rank comments on a scale from one to five stars. Comments that have an average rank of less than two stars after several votes will be deleted, and the highest-ranked comments will move to the top. Although non-paying registered users and paying premium members will both be able to post on the message boards, the site limits the ranking authority to premium members to discourage anyone from creating multiple accounts in order to manipulate the ranking system (which is pretty common, unfortunately, on Yahoo's message boards).
Premium members will also have the opportunity to become affiliates, and get paid to refer other premium members to the site. When you become an affiliate, you'll get a unique bit of HTML code for an affiliate badge that you can copy and paste onto your site. When you do, it will look like this:
When visitors click on your affiliate badge, they'll go to a special version of the Shortscreen sign-up page where they will get a 5% discount off of the regular membership rate, and your affiliate account will be credited with the referral.
The image above was one of the later preliminary sketches by my logo designer. At that point we were refining the steepness of the hump of the bear's withers. I wanted it to be steep to connote aggression, but when it got too steep it looked too wolf-like.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
New Short Position: KITD
In a post last year, I recommended a documentary from 2001 that was airing on Showtime again, Startup.com, which profiled the rise and fall of a dot-com called govWorks.com. A post on Fred Wilson's blog yesterday (NYC's BigApps Challenge) reminded me of one of the stars of Startup.com, Kaleil Isaza Tuzman (pictured above), the co-founder of govWorks.com. When I found through a quick Internet search that Tuzman was now the CEO of a public company (KIT digital Inc.; Nasdaq: KITD), I figured it might me a good candidate to sell short, so I ran the Altman Z"-Score on it. Its score was -4.17. Recall that a score below 1.1 indicates a high risk of bankruptcy. On the other hand, the financial data that score is based on doesn't take into account two recent acquisitions made by the company, which the company's management claims will be accretive, so bear that in mind.
I shorted this at $11.55 today.
The photo above of Mr. Tuzman is from KIT digital Inc.'s website.
Update: readers of this post may also be interested in this site, which offers tools and ideas for short sellers and includes an automated calculator and screener based on the Altman models: Shortscreen.com
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