My Year End Buys and Sells

Here’s the Crossing Wall Street Buy List for 2009:

AFLAC (AFL)
Amphenol (APH)
Baxter International (BAX)
Becton, Dickinson (BDX)
Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY)
Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTSH)
Donaldson (DCI)
Danaher (DHR)
Eaton Vance (EV)
Eli Lilly (LLY)
FactSet Research Systems (FDS)
Fiserv (FISV)
Jos. A Bank Clothiers (JOSB)
Leucadia National (LUK)
Medtronic (MDT)
Moog (MOG.A)
Nicholas Financial (NICK)
SEI Investments (SEIC)
Stryker (SYK)
Sysco (SYY)

Once again, I’m only making five changes to the Buy List. The five new buys are:

Baxter International (BAX)
Becton, Dickinson (BDX)
Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTSH)
Eaton Vance (EV)
Eli Lilly (LLY)

Three of the new buys are in health care.

The five sells are:

Clarcor (CLC)
Harley-Davidson (HOG)
Lincare (LNCR)
WR Berkley (WRB)
Unitedhealth (UNH)

I’ll start tracking the new list this Friday, January 2, 2009, the first day of trading of the new year. I’ll assume that all of the stocks are equally weighted with the closing price as of December 31 as the buy price. As usual, the rules state that I'm not allowed to make any changes to the Buy List throughout the year.

My purpose is to show investors that by buying and holding a well-diversified portfolio of high-quality stocks, you can do well in the market. With only a few days left in 2008, we’re heading toward our second straight year of beating the S&P 500 while using less risk. Plus, our turnover is only 25% which is far less than most professional money managers.

Disclosure: You can assume that I own any of the stocks on the Buy List. I won't buy any of the new names until the new year.

Comments

[Glen Bradford:]

I like Factset FDS and Cognizant CTSH based on historical revenues and earnings growth and current stock price. By this same analysis I don't like Stryker SYK. Unsure about the rest of them.

So, you're selling Harley Davidson (HOG) when gas prices are plummeting through the floor? I'm not sure if I can agree. Looks like it could be a steal. It's priced to shrink and it's paying a good dividend. The CEO is retiring. Your call.

2008 Dec 29 09:14 AM

[axelrod608:]

Glen - I started riding 50 years ago and have yet to meet anyone who bought a Harley for the gas mileage. HD makes tons of money in good times, not so much when the economy's sickly. It appears our economy is in for a very long case of the economic flu.

The faithful will keep buying Harleys, if they can keep their jobs. Many won't get to keep either.

2008 Dec 29 11:15 AM

[stox2buy:]

I'm buying Thermogenesis(KOOL), a cell processing and preservation leader has virtually no competition in its field and was way overly sold by a mutual fund who owned 15% as it dipped under $1 at the peak of market craziness.

Not many companies can grow revenue 10-20% this year and turn profitable for the 1st time in this kind of economy.

No debt, plenty of cash.

Do your dd before investing as always.

2008 Dec 29 10:02 PM

[Donald Johnson:]

I think buy and hold is a bad strategy, even for a year. A better strategy, I think, is to buy the stocks on the list and hold them until they go down 5% to 7% from your buy point or until you have a better idea and the stock looks like it's topping, as they all do.

2008 Dec 30 09:15 PM