Fightin Phils Win and a fantasy baseball lineup of stocks

Well you should have had your Dicks Sporting Goods, (Symbol DKS), stock in hand from last week's blog because once the Phillies "Little Red Machine" won, (that is what Jimmy Rollins has coined them as, since they are the first NL team to repeat since those '75 REDS), Phillies fans have swarmed into DKS stores buying up shirts,hats($30.00 bucks right now for a Phillies red hat), and all merchandise RED.
I thought it would be fun to put together a fantasy baseball lineup made up of stocks based on the current Phillies positions in their lineup with speed being faster growing companies and power the steady consistant players. We will need a powerful lineup to take our revenge finally for the 1950 World Series loss to the Yankees ,(4-0 sweep no less, three consecutive one-run decision games,Fightin's scored no more than 2 runs), to Joe Dimaggio and the series MVP "Scooter" Phil Rizzuto.
The '49 and '50 Yankees had a wicked good pitching staff with Raschi, Reynolds, Lopat, Byrne, and Whitey Ford.
Well here is the lineup by position:

Batting order:

1. InterDigital Corp. (IDCC) SS
2. Adobe Systems (ADBE) CF
3. McDonalds Corp. (MCD) 2ND
4. Conoco Phillips (COP) 1ST
5. Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) RF
6. Nucor (NUE) LF
7. Gilead Sciences Inc. (GILD) 3rd
8. SPX Corp. (SPW) C
9. Urban Outfitters Inc. (URBN) P

Well Harry Kalas would say that ball is out-of-here! Whitey Ashburn played
on those 1950 World Series Phillies and both their spirits will be here with us in that booth in the sky above that sees all.

Go Phils!

Freewilly

How about those Gun Ammunition stocks - is there an investment opportunity here?

Some of my gun toting relatives tell me that the ammunition business is going hot as a pistol right now and wanted me to investigate opportunities that might exist for making some money on the craze. Well there are lots of companies in this space. Corbon/Glaser-Dakota Ammo Inc., Hornady Mfg., Remington Arms Co., and PMC/Eldorado are all privately held or part owned by venture capital partnerships. The two you can invest in are Federal Cartridge Corp. which is owned by Alliant Tech Systems inc. (Symbol ATK) and Olin Corporation, (Symbol OLN). Neither of these are pure plays, and the stocks are just about even for the last 3 years.
If you really want to eye up your scope on the gun and ammo area, the stocks that are benefiting from this action and also the general rise in interest in sporting goods and hunting are the following: Big Five Sporting Goods,(Symbol BGFV), up 162% for one year, Cabella's, (Symbol CAB), up 77.6% for one year, and Dicks Sporting Goods, (Symbol DKS), up 57.5 % for one year. Smartmoney as of 10/10/09 rates BGFV and DKS as a "moderate buy" and CAB as a "hold" right now. Bass Pro Shops, as a side note, does not appear to trade on an exchange and should probably take their company public.
One other thought may be to buy Sturm Ruger, (Symbol RGR), the firearms manufacturer that trades for around $12-13 a share. This stock is up 81.5% over the last year. Financials look pretty good.

Happy Shooting,

Freewilly

Investing in the old 5 & 10 store concept - now inflated to $1 dollar

This is a picture of Sines 5 & 10 cents store in downtown Quakertown, Pa. that was in our Pennsylvania magazine July/August issue. They are fine example of a long time retail concept of putting a whole fun store together of inexpensive items. Woolworth's and Ben Franklin stores are my personal favorites. So I thought in these hard times with 10% unemployment and no Olympics coming to Chicago, that I would see how these stores were doing from an investment standpoint.
The company doing the best with just tripling earnings is Dollar General Stores. 8300 stores.The only problem is they are owned by privately held KKR Kohlberg Kravis, & Roberts. You can purchase on the Euronext Amsterdam exchange, (symbol KKR) for $8.96 cents a share. That symbol represents a 30% interest in KKR and its whole porfolfio of 49 companies, so that is pretty diluted ownership of the "dollar store".
Over a three year period your best bet would have been to own Dollar Tree , (symbol DLTR). It has been up 47% over that period. This one would be the best long term investment for an IRA account. 99 Cents stores , (symbol NDN) , would have had you up 9.6% over the last 3 years. Family Dollar Stores , (symbol FDO), is down <-3.9%> over the last three years, but that was mostly because of a last quarter miss on earnings and downdraft of the stock. This investment may be the best from a value purchase standpoint, with decent earnings per share, ($2.02 in 2009/$2.26 in 2010 forecast) and pretty good growth , 12-13% projected sales growth. So if your not spending your $1.00 on a lottery ticket, go and buy something at your local 5 & 10 store . One worth a visit is the Jolly Trolley store, in sunny Dushore, PA. It is at the corner where the only stop light exist in Sullivan County, PA.

Happy shopping,

Freewilly