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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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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Fall Information Technology Sector Update

Current Holdings: EBAY, IBM

We have identified that there are many opportunities outside our current holdings but because spending in this sector depends on the global economy we feel this is not the right time to invest in further companies.  Once we feel growth is imminent, we will look at companies like GOOG, which SMIF had previously owned but was sold off during the summer due to concerns about volatility.

SMIF is currently neutral with the S&P 500 but looks to change this position in the near future.

 

Access the full report here: Fall 2011 Information Technology Sector Report

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September 27, 2011

Today in Class:

Buy/Hold/Sell

  • EFA (Michael Sena): Uncertainty in the European and Far East regions, which compose a large majority of the holdings in this ETF, and negative holding period return (HPR) on a large number of the holdings as well.  Motion to sell entire position passes.
  • VDE (Toby Davis): HPR has been -16% since February, however, this security is largely a play on oil prices and with forecasted energy growth in China and India we believe the best decision is to hold until oil prices reach $90/barrel.
  • BLV (Vince Mistretta): This fund is composed of high quality U.S. credit with an attractive return.  Interest rate risk is too high for our fund due the very long duration, thus the class decided to sell our entire position.
  • IBM (Brad Mas): hold.  The company has been showing very strong revenues and has posted a 100% return over the past three years versus near 0% for the S&P 500.
  • HYG (Vince Mistretta): There is an undesirable amount of volatility in this ETF and it does not track its index well either, thus the class decided to sell our entire position.

Access full minutes here: 09-27