Student Managed Investment Fund

Bucknell University College of Management

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Dow Jones above 13,000

[wikichart align=”right” ticker=”INDEX:DJI” showannotations=”false” livequote=”true” rollingdate=”6 months” width=”300″ height=”245″]

For the first time in nearly three years, the Dow Jones has closed above 13,000 points.  SMIF has positions in several of the equities on the Dow, including American Express, Chevron, GE, Intel, IBM, Coca-Cola, and Verizon.

To date, the SMIF portfolio stands at $936,339.63, aided in part over the last week by Las Vegas Sands, Apple, and Intel.

 

[WSJ]

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January 19, 2012

Today in Class:

We welcomed ourselves back for the second semester of SMIF and the final semester for all of the seniors, noted that Chris Brown and John Luthi would come to visit class on February 14, and began Buy/Hold/Sells

Buy/Hold/Sells

  • GE by Jordan: Hold
  • CELG by Aleem: Hold
  • TJX by Jason: Hold
  • JNJ by Brendan: Sell.  Sold at Market unanimously for $65.00
  • GIS by Mark: Hold.  After further discussion the class voted (17-4)  instead to sell at market.

See the full minutes here: 1-19-12 Minutes

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October 4, 2011

Today in Class:

The layout of the Fall 2011 Newsletter was discussed and the publish date was set for November 1, 2011.

Sector Reports

  • Healthcare (Holdings: CELG, TEVA, BMY) – BMY and CELG are both out-performing the S&P 500, yet TEVA is struggling.  Healthcare consumption has been rising every quarter in the past few years, however we see possible political risk present in several lawsuits that are challenging President Obama’s Healthcare bill.  Overall, we judge this sector to be risk averse, not volatile, and presents opportunities for high dividend yields.  The class has decided to overweight this sector.  See full sector report here.
  • Industrial (Holdings: GE, FSTR, UPS) – Industrials has been under-performing the S&P 500 but due to a 1.4% increase in construction spending in August and a full point increase in the PMI, we feel that it is best to stay neutral with the S&P 500 sector weighting.  See full sector report here.
  • Information Technology (Holdings: EBAY, IBM) – IT is a sector SMIF is very interested in, but we are wary of negative returns in the short run.  As spending is tied to global demand, we feel increasing our weighting and holdings would be ill-advised.  As such, we feel it is best to stay neutral.  See full sector report here.
  • Telecoms (Holdings: VZ) – Telecoms have high dividend yields and we will investigate diversifying our holdings, but will remain neutral with S&P sector weighting.  See full sector report here.
  • Utilities (Holdings: ED) – While the sector’s performance has been exemplary, we feel that prices are inflated and increasing in our position in utilities would result in future losses.  We will remain neutral with the S&P 500 sector weighting.  See full sector report here.

 

Read the entire class minutes: 10-04-11 Minutes

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Industrial Sector Update

Holdings: GE, FSTR, UPS

Industrials has been under-performing the S&P 500 since mid-summer.  We feel this slowdown is temporary and expect a positive long-term trend by Q2 2012.  Until recently, the Purchasing Manager’s Index (PMI), a measure of the health of the manufacturing industry, has been trending downwards below 50, however there was news yesterday that PMI increased an entire point and construction spending was 1.4% higher in August.

We have identified that there is a large need to diversify and increase our holdings in the sector so that more large cap industrials are part of our portfolio.

Given our research, we feel that the best course of action is to stay neutral with the S&P 500 weighting.

 

Access the full report here: Fall 2011 Industrials Sector Report

 

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September 15, 2011

Today in Class:

New procedures for taking and approving minutes were implemented to increase value for our stakeholders.  The accounting committee presented that the beta of our portfolio was 0.61 compared to the S&P 500.

Buy/Hold/Sells

  • Andrew Van Valkenburg – JPM: hold to price target of $41, possibly into 2012.
  • Jordan Donaldson – GE: hold to price target of $18, possibly purchase more at $15.
  • Ryan Tomasello – FSTR: hold to watch litigation.
  • Mark Ayoub – GIS: motion to purchase 200 additional shares.
  • Monica Wu – TEVA: hold due to uncertainty about company operations.

Download full class minutes: 09-15