In Investment Thoughts: Investing in Great Management and Strong Results for Disney (DIS) I detailed my thoughts on one way I select stocks to invest in -- find driven, smart CEOs and buy their stocks. Since this method has worked well for me several times in the past, I pick up a stock here and there when I feel like they have a really great CEO who's going to make things happen.
I currently have three stocks I bought for this reason and I thought I'd detail how they are doing so far. Here goes:
- Disney (DIS) -- Up 20.0% since purchase (bought at $25.04 per share, trading at $30.06 as of this writing.) Not bad for a stock I bought only seven months ago. And the Steve Jobs effect I wrote about hasn't even kicked in yet. Hopefully, there's a lot of upside for the House of Mouse.
- Home Depot (HD) -- Down 13.1% since purchase (bought at $42.11 per share, trading at $36.58 as of this writing.) The declining housing market isn't helping things out any, there's stiff competition from Lowe's, Nardelli hasn't been able to right the ship fully, and Tony Stewart is out of the Chase for the NASCAR Nextel Cup Championship. Man, nothing's going right for HD.
- J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM) -- Up 2.8% since purchase (bought at $45.33 per share, trading at $46.58 as of this writing.) Still lots of work to be done at this bank, but I'm still bullish on Dimon. If anyone can make this company a big winner, he's the one!
So, for now my track record is "ok" at best. I have one winner, one loser and one even so far. But I'm not in these stocks for a month or two. I think it will be a few years before the real impact of these CEOs hits the companies (at least for DIS and JPM, Nardelli has been at HD for a bit -- what's taking so long?) and I'm willing to wait.
BTW, I know Steve Jobs is not the CEO at Disney, but he's on the board, is the largest shareholder, and I know he'll have an impact. Besides, Iger seems to be doing a good job by himself anyway.
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