Program Update

I went to an ASAP alumni event in Milwaukee last night. A decent turn out (20+) it was just to hear what Mark Ready has planned for the program.

• 820 Intermediate Investment Theory - they are integrating it with 4 ASAP alumni presentations (Betsi Hill, Corporate Credit Analysis, Julie Van Cleave, Sector Weighting/Rotation, Phil Gross, ?, Tom Stevens, Quantitative Strategies). They will actually have assignments that tie in with those topics.
• 635 Security Analysis with Mucklow- required course in the 2nd semester of the first year.
• On Fridays they have alumni come in for the second years. Someone from the second years (rotating) has to give them a pitch and then answer questions. There is also a segment where the alum reviews the portfolio and randomly selects names to question.
• The students have meeting on their own. They are to take minutes (part of their grade) and pass that on to Mark. He then will have the student that pitched a stock into his office to go over the pitch to him and answer any questions.
• Mark and the dean indicated that the target class size with increase going forward. They would like to get to 20-25, but only with quality candidates
• There were several initiatives they mentioned related to recruiting, particularly in targeting candidates from NY and women.

I don't have my notes with me so I may add some things later through comments. We will have to see how it works out. They still are inflexible on waiving core requirements and no FI course yet. Alisa Robertson (alumni relations) was already asking me whether I would be coming to the Fall Investment Conference next year.

One year checkup

So, one year later, let's see how we're doing:

Anything we touched that was tech has been gold. Even WDC has come back to make a new high. And AMD? The short covering did come, but it wasn't very painful. Meanwhile INTC is still rippin'. Times are good for Intel. Adam's IBM and Silent Dan's CTXS still movin'. And why the hell didn't we buy google? Now that I cover it - best business model out there. ZERO competition so far.

My healthcare stocks have been a mixed bag, but fortunately no losses. HAE is up about 10% above our cost. The CPSI trade shorted against the SPY has been about even money. Thank the dividend. Cost of financing may help that small cap...maybe hospitals will spend? UNH did surprise. Stock hasn't budged, actually down 2 bucks. DGX is up about 8%. Oh, and then there's CYTC up 50%, then taken out. 75% gain, thanks. Man, that was a big fat pitch... a 30% grower at 19x? Duh...

How about our econ stuff? Unemployment? Off, but not terribly. Market Forecast? 7-12%? Up 15%. Ok. Fed Cuts? Sweetness. Housing? Dead ringer. Inflation? Got that one a bit off. Just watch the CRB...seems to work alright.

I think we batted a decent average. Let's keep it up!

For posterity

I just wanted to say that we were right. BJ Rowe, Karnes and I forecast that the Fed would be cutting 1 or 2 times by year end. They start the cutting tomorrow.

Has the economy fallen into the crapper? No not yet, and yet they will still be cutting. OK board, you need to call up the people in charge of the US economy and the markets and tell them that what is going on is inconsistant, just like ASAP 2007's forecast.

I had to post it because there are only rare moments in this business where you can say I told you so. Plus no one is reading this anyway.