Sunday, January 23, 2011

"A little Wilson family history and of course an investment angle, Ancestry.Com"

Dow Jones Industrial Average  11,872  (UP, 8th week in a row)  Week ending 01-20-2011

My Great-great grandfather was Thomas Bushnell Wilson. Back in 1870 he owned an estate in Rye/Harrison, WestChester County New York . It was north of the Highland Road and west of  Rye Park, Purchase Avenue, and Blind Creek. If he hadn't sold it, it would be worth millions today. He was married to Sara Whitney who was a descendant of the famous John Whitney family of Watertown, Massachusetts in the 1600's. This makes me a distant cousin of Eli Whitney and Stephen Whitney (second richest man to John Jacob Astor in his day). Stephen Whitney made his money speculating in Cotton, Real Estate and Alcohol.

It gets even better. My Great grandfather Stephen Whitney Wilson Sr. was in the New York State Militia , 7th Regiment. They were a.k.a the"Silk Stocking" Regiment, (due to the disproportionate number of its members who were part of New York City's social elite). Their primary mission back in 1881 was to guard the Stock Exchange.
They must have established my hereditary bond and interest in the stock exchanges, like a baby duck being imprinted to it's mother.

 Stephen was married to my great grandmother Anna Cornelia Beam. Anna is a descendant of the oldest daughter, (Mary Holmes Brown), of the Reverend Obadiah Holmes the pioneering Baptist minister. Abraham Lincoln, our 16th President, was a descendant of Lydia Holmes, who was the youngest daughter of the Reverend Obadiah Holmes. So "the Ancient" is a blood relative of mine also. Cousin Abe.

My grandfather, Stephen Whitney Wilson Jr. , was a member of the Ringling Bros. Circus of Baribou , Wisconsin. He was poor as dirt because his father died when he was 5. But he was rich in storytelling and good humor and has left our family with a written scroll with stories about his times traveling with the circus.

My father, Howard Hassel Wilson, was a bus driver. He passed  away when I was 5, just the same as my grandfather's father had. I never really thought about whether we were rich or poor. We were just happy.
And now you are here listening to me. I am the one speaking for all of them in this great time continuum. Interesting. 

 So is there an investment angle here? You bet there is! If I had written this article a year ago you would have been up 146% for the year on this stock.

ANCESTRY.COM INC. (Symbol ACOM, $34.23) is the stock with that 146% Total Return last year. Ancestry that fountain of growing and flowing information like censuses, pictures, historical documents and notes, immigration roles, family trees, birth, death, marriage records and a whole lot more. 2010 earnings are $.77 cents a share and 2011 is looking like $1.05 per share.  Ancestry's earnings are growing at an 18% a year pace. Revenues continue to grow at a steady rate and long term liabilities continue to drop at a rapid pace as the company pays down their debt from solid cash flow.

Ancestry is expanding out to a more global customer base and has added special searches for various ethnic groups.  They have also added connections to Facebook and Twitter social networking sites and elected Facebook's Mike Schroepfer to their Board of Directors just this week. You are also seeing TV shows where celebrities are researching their families, gaining public interest in the subject. There is plenty of room for revenue expansion here as Ancestry did only $225 million in sales last year. Once you get started with your research it is very addicting!

So buy some stock in Ancestry and hopefully you will make enough money to buy a few yearly subscriptions to their service and find out your heritage like I did above. Who knows who you could be connected to!

Stay warm in this cold winter,

Freewilly

Saturday, January 15, 2011

"GE: This isn't your daddy's old General Electric. This General Electric is rapidly transitioning to become a powerhouse again"

Dow Jones Industrial Average  11787.38  (UP) Week ending 01-14-2011

Sometimes things are right in front of our face and we can't see them. General Electric (Symbol GE, $18.82) under the guidance of Jack Welch from 1981 to 2001 was the largest sales company in the world. Welch joined General Electric in 1960. He worked as a junior chemical engineer in Pittsfield , Massachusetts, at a salary of $10,500 annually.  Later as CEO of GE, he had many successful tenants. He streamlined GE and created shareholder value. He wanted to be growing "fast in a slow-growth economy". His model design to do this was to be number one in market share in every division that GE conducted business in. He also had very good managers, but reduced the number of layers of management. 

Then after Jack left in 2001 the stock dropped down, then mildly rallied until January 2008 when the company stock price then dropped from $40.00 down to $7.60 in 2009, losing more than 75% of it's value and billions in market capitalization. Now it is two years later and GE has been rapidly making changes to the configuration of the company.  The time to buy the stock is now.

GE pays a 3.00% dividend , so it beats your money market right off the bat. Earnings for 2010 are looking like $1.12 per share and for 2011 , $1.29 per share. Improvements in Sales Revenue, EBITA , and rapidly improving Net Income from Operations should carry this this stock upward.

I am back in as a holder of the stock. I had owned GE and Cummins Inc. (Symbol CMI) back at the lows and then sold them at a decent profit. Cummins, of course took off into the stratosphere shooting up to $112.00,  while GE just lumbered along at a low price.


So if you are worried about market volatility, this may be a good 1-3 year investment for you that you don't have to worry about selling for a while. I am actually surprised that Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger have not got their calculators out on this one.  (the train picture made me think of them). These are certainly understandable businesses.

P.S.  JON C. OGG , at  24/7 WallStreet  list GE as their top conglomerate pick for 2011.

So add some "Good Things to your life" , and pick up some GE at $18 and change.

Freewilly  

Sunday, January 9, 2011

"CES Show 2011 ends in Las Vegas, and with it a new age of extreme viral communications begins and an increasing responsibility for the moderation of rhetoric"

Dow Jones Industrial Average  11,675  (UP) Week ending  01-07- 2011

 Smartphones, Tablets, HD Docking stations, Electric cars with on-board computers,  Microsoft's Kinect for X-Box, IPTV, I-Phone and Android custom applications, Apple I-pads, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WIKI, streaming of video, data, and games in 2011, present an unbelievable level of communications, beyond anything ever known in the history of man. Historically, it reminds me of the Civil War, when the weaponry had so far advanced and exceeded the human behavior and the old tactics of war, that it led to a mass devastating destruction of human life. I hope we can get a grip on this rapid information flow. 

I am sure the folks at the think-tanks like MIT, Harvard, Stanford and others are studying this new viral communications dynamic and trying to figure out its possible outcomes on world human behavior.  I hope that we can garner a level of understanding to use these communication devices as tools for improving the human condition. My fear is that this new viral communication will amplify extremism, intolerance, prejudice, and divisiveness of political and religious views.  I hope we can all get "smart" in a hurry, and use these smartphones and rapid communications for the good of our fellow man. (All our fellow men!).

I am not going to focus on the devices here, although I will be purchasing a Motorola Atrix when they come out from the new Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. (Symbol MMI, $33.06) because I am brand loyal and have always used Motorola cell phones. Instead my thinking is to let the hardware sort itself out, and focus on the Cellular Carriers, who will make money no matter which combination of hardware customers use.


  ROGERS COMMUNICATIONS B, (Symbol RCI, $34.57) is the traditional GSM carrier in Canada. I say traditional because Bell Mobility and Telus in Canada both have added HSPA 3G technology to their systems. Rogers has an 11 PE, and should have 2010 earnings of $2.84 a share and 2011 earnings of $3.14 each. Rogers has already started to charge Netflix an extra bandwidth fee for their streaming video delivery via Rogers.

AT&T Inc. (Symbol T, $28.85) has a 5.96% dividend yield and plenty of cash flow to keep it going. This stock has little downside risk with its gigantic revenue and earnings growth. AT&T has enjoyed a 24.45% 5 year sales growth and has enjoyed the exclusivity of having the Apple I-Phone but will be losing that advantage this year as the other carriers pick it up. This is the kind of steady stock you will want to own in your portfolio in 2011. 


 VODAFONE GROUP PL ADR (symbol VOD, $27.53) has a low PE of 10 and a 3.31% dividend. VOD has a one year Total Return of 34.4%. Vodaphone  has a great worldwide coverage over a diverse group of countries. Earnings look like $2.68 for 2011 and $2.84 for 2012.

A couple of names I cannot recommend at this time are
AMERICA MOVIL ADR L of Mexico because of the unsettled nature of that country with the drug cartels and the associated risk to business.   Verizon Communications Inc. has a balance sheet that has Current liabilities higher every quarter than Current Assets. Their balance sheet looks more like a cable company, with lots of depreciation, probably due to all their fiber deployment for FIOS. I just cannot tell what is going on here from the balance sheet. They do have a nice 5.43% dividend and seemingly good long-term implications with FIOS, LTE 4G cellular technology and adding the I-Phone from Apple.

Be careful buying stocks this year as there will be some sharp dips followed by periods of slow steady growth. Very nerve racking! 

Keep an open mind,

Freewilly



  

Saturday, January 1, 2011

"Freewilly's Stockpicker Blog Top 10 Picks for 2011 (In case you are keeping score)"

Dow Jones Industrial Average  11577.51  (UP)   Year Ending 2010

 Good morning and Happy New Year. Freewilly, the killer whale to the left, of movie fame and the namesake of this blog is always trying to get over the wall to the otherside and to freedom in the open seas.  Hopefully my stock picks during the year help you to gain some financial freedom. I think I had some good ideas in 2010 and hope to continue to provide independent insight to the stock markets.

I decided this year to put out a Top Ten list for 2011, in case you are comparing me to other stockpicker Gurus on a yearly basis.  These stocks based on a Fundamental analysis look to me to give you the best chance for success. It is diversified by industries and also by Large Cap to Small Cap size companies.

  Here they are:           Freewilly's Stockpicker Blog Top Ten List for 2011

                                 1.   Skyworks Solutions  (SWKS)
                                 2.   Apache Corp.    (APA)
                                 3.   Mastercard    (MA)
                                 4.   Google   (GOOG)
                                 5.   Alexion Pharmaceuticals  (ALXN)
                                 6.   Ceragon Networks  (CRNT)
                                 7.   Arch Coal   (ACI)
                                 8.   Carpenter Technology  (CRS)
                                 9.   Radware  ((RDWR)
                                10.  Amazon  (AMZN)

These picks are placed in no particular order. I think 2011 will also be a year that you need to start looking at more stocks from other countries for growth purposes in your portfolio. Do not be afraid to buy 10 or 15 shares of these higher priced stocks.
     

David A. Wilson  (A.K.A. Freewilly)
 I threw my picture in there so you would know who you are dealing with. The Pennsylvania mountains look good , I could stand to lose a little weight. My wife, Deb, is an excellent  baker and cook. I think I need to exercise more and run off the calories.

I look forward to a great year, 2011.

Make my blog the place where you make your 2011 Amazon buys!
(disclosure: shameless commerce plug)

Freewilly