Epiphany Investing

Searching Out the Optimal Portfolio of “Revelation” Stocks

Unruly Volatility Remains; Weekly Wrap up

Losing your bearings out there? Whether we think we have a working compass or not, stable markets are lost on the horizon. After rallying furiously into the close yesterday (and briefly breaching our lows for the year), major indexes gave up between 3 and 5% today, with notable under-performance from the NASDAQ on Friday.
Indeed, both [...]

More on this topic (What's this?)
How to Profit From Volatility Through One Simple Investment (Investment U, 1/19/10)
Yellowstone Rumbles a Warning to Be Prepared (Red Hot Energy and Gold - Global..., 2/4/10)
Volatility Tracker: Long Gamma Pays Off (Condor Options, 2/8/10)
Read more on Historical Volatility at Wikinvest

Macy’s, Best Buy Signal That Consumer Spending Still Decelerating (BBY, M)

Macy’s reported a $44 million loss in the 3rd quarter today on a 6% decline in comparable sales. While the comps result was slightly better than competitors like J.C. Penney (JCP) and Kohl’s (KOL), Macy’s somehow still felt it could reiterate its previous guidance for $1.10 to $1.30 EPS in the 4th quarter. But here’s [...]

More on this topic (What's this?)
How To Bag Triple-Digit Returns With Put Options (Contrarian Profits, 10/24/08)
More Short Candidates (Fund my Mutual Fund, 3/4/10)
An Easier Way to Unload Old Electronics (Michael James on Money, 2/15/10)
Read more on Best Buy, Macy's Inc. at Wikinvest

With Circuit City the Poster Child, Consumer Retail is Full of Land Mines

Today’s news that Circuit City would close 155 stores and re-negotiate leases on 566 others certainly isn’t shocking - the company has been an awful operator for several years and is one Hail Mary away from insolvency. That said, we shouldn’t ignore the potential harbinger of weakness across anything related to discretionary consumer spending.
I’m frankly [...]

A Note on Investment Strategy for the Secular Trends Portfolio

It has yet to be determined whether starting the Secular Trends Portfolio in September of 2008 was a unique blessing or a painful curse. From the outset I decided to create a long-only, all equity portfolio, and this is simply not environment for that. Volatility reigns the day for “economically sensitive” stocks, and apparently every [...]