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grow your investment portfolioDo you want to grow your investment portfolio?

That probably seems like a silly question. I doubt any investor under the age of 70 would answer the question about the desire to grow your investment portfolio with an emphatic, “No!” If you think of the opposite of that question (“Do you want your investment portfolio to get smaller?”) the original question becomes even more sillier.

But what if I told you that in order to grow your investment portfolio, you will quite often be wrong in your decisions. In fact, you need to be okay with having the wrong opinion on a given stock. You need to be okay with it only because you need to figure out what to do AFTER you are wrong.

When a company doesn’t perform the way you want it to perform, you need to cut your losses. Some investment advisers may suggest that you double down on the stock and buy it at a lower cost. That is likely a fools errand. Yes, you will lower your break-even point if the stock rebounds, but what if it doesn’t rebound. What happens if it continues to go down? In order to grow your investment portfolio, you need to cut your losses.

Understanding the stock market is as much of a study of human behavior as it is a mathematical exercise. You need to understand that the herd mentality of the market means that loser stocks tend to continue down until they hit a lower plateau.

In nearly every stock, there is a virtual floor and a virtual ceiling. In most cases, you can assume that the virtual floor and the virtual ceiling is the 52-week high and the 52-week low (this is a generalization). If the stock that you are doubling up on has broken through the floor, you don’t know where the bottom is! You will need to look at inflection points over the last 5 years to know the floor.

So how do you grow your investment portfolio after a drop?

Typically, you will not quickly recover a major drop in the value of a stock by staying with that stock.  You will need to cut your losses on that loser stock and invest in another stock that is increasing in value. At any given time (except for massive market corrections) there are stocks that are increasing in value while others are dropping in value. You need to be able to cut your losses to grow your investment portfolio and move to a growing stock.

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Company name JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Stock ticker JPM
Live stock price [stckqut]JPM[/stckqut]
P/E compared to competitors Good

MANAGEMENT EXECUTION

Employee productivity Good
Sales growth Poor
EPS growth Good
P/E growth Good
EBIT growth Good

ANALYSIS

Confident Investor Rating Good
Target stock price (TWCA growth scenario) $66.87
Target stock price (averages with growth) $76.65
Target stock price (averages with no growth) $65.08
Target stock price (manual assumptions) $57.76

The following company description is from Google Finance: http://www.google.com/finance?q=jpm

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPMorgan Chase) is a financial holding company. The Company is engaged in investment banking, financial services for consumers and small businesses, commercial banking, financial transaction processing, asset management and private equity. One of the Company’s principal operating subsidiaries in the United Kingdom is J.P. Morgan Securities plc. JPMorgan Chase’s activities are organized into four business segments, as well as Corporate/Private Equity. The Company’s consumer business is the Consumer & Community Banking segment. Effective January 7, 2014, JPMorgan Chase & Co acquired an undisclosed minority stake in Chi-X Global Holdings LLC. In March 2014, Aurora Oil & Gas Ltd announced that JPMorgan Chase & Co and its affiliates has ceased to be substantial shareholder of Aurora Oil & Gas. In March 2014, Slater & Gordon Ltd announced that JPMorgan Chase & Co and its affiliates has ceased to be substantial shareholder of the Company.

 

Confident Investor comments: At this price and at this time, I think that a Confident Investor can confidently invest in JPMorgan Chase & Co.

If you would like to understand how to evaluate companies like I do on this site, please read my book, The Confident Investor. You can review the best companies that I have found (and I probably invest my own money in most of these companies) in my Watch List.

How was this analysis of JPMorgan Chase & Co. calculated?

For owners of my book, “The Confident Investor” I offer the following analysis (you must be logged in to this site as a book owner in order to see the following analysis). If you have registered and cannot see the balance of this article, make sure you are logged in and refresh your browser.
[s2If current_user_can(s2member_level1)]
In order to assist you in using the techniques of this book, the values that I used when calculating the Manual pricing above were:

Stock price at the time of the calculation: $54.62

Growth: 0.12

Current EPS (TTM): $4.06

P/E: 13

Future EPS Calc: $7.15

Future Stock Price Calc: $93.01

Target stock price: $57.75

I hope that this makes you a better investor. [/s2If]

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Company name Jarden Corp
Stock ticker JAH
Live stock price [stckqut]JAH[/stckqut]
P/E compared to competitors Good

MANAGEMENT EXECUTION

Employee productivity Poor
Sales growth Good
EPS growth Good
P/E growth Good
EBIT growth Good

ANALYSIS

Confident Investor Rating Good
Target stock price (TWCA growth scenario) $88.35
Target stock price (averages with growth) $114.72
Target stock price (averages with no growth) $93.38
Target stock price (manual assumptions) $76.37

The following company description is from Google Finance: http://www.google.com/finance?q=jah

Jarden Corporation (Jarden) is a global consumer products company. The Company operates in three segments through a range of brands, including: Outdoor Solutions: Abu Garcia, Aero, Berkley, Campingaz, Coleman, ExOfficio, Fenwick, Gulp!, K2, Marker, Marmot, Mitchell, Penn, Rawlings, Shakespeare, Stearns, Stren, Trilene, Volkl and Zoot; Consumer Solutions: Bionaire, Crock-Pot, FoodSaver, Health o meter, Holmes, Mr. Coffee, Oster, Patton, Rival, Seal-a-Meal, Sunbeam, VillaWare and White Mountain, and Branded Consumables: Ball, Bee, Bernardin, Bicycle, Billy Boy, Crawford, Diamond, Dicon, Fiona, First Alert, First Essentials, Hoyle, Kerr, Lehigh, Lillo, Loew-Cornell, Mapa, NUK, Pine Mountain, Quickie, Spontex and Tigex. On December 31, 2012, American Capital Ltd sold its portfolio company Lifoam Holdings, Inc. to the Company. In October 2013, Jarden Corporation completed its acquisition of Yankee Candle Investments LLC from a fund managed by Madison Dearborn Partners, LLC.

 

Confident Investor comments: At this price and at this time, I think that a Confident Investor can confidently invest in Jarden Corp.

If you would like to understand how to evaluate companies like I do on this site, please read my book, The Confident Investor. You can review the best companies that I have found (and I probably invest my own money in most of these companies) in my Watch List.

How was this analysis of Jarden Corp calculated?

For owners of my book, “The Confident Investor” I offer the following analysis (you must be logged in to this site as a book owner in order to see the following analysis). If you have registered and cannot see the balance of this article, make sure you are logged in and refresh your browser.
[s2If current_user_can(s2member_level1)]
In order to assist you in using the techniques of this book, the values that I used when calculating the Manual pricing above were:

Stock price at the time of the calculation: $57.17

Growth: 0.17

Current EPS (TTM): $1.87

P/E: 30

Future EPS Calc: $4.09

Future Stock Price Calc: $122.99

Target stock price: $76.37

I hope that this makes you a better investor. [/s2If]

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Company name Intuitive Surgical, Inc.
Stock ticker ISRG
Live stock price [stckqut]ISRG[/stckqut]
P/E compared to competitors Good

MANAGEMENT EXECUTION

Employee productivity Good
Sales growth Poor
EPS growth Good
P/E growth Poor
EBIT growth Good

ANALYSIS

Confident Investor Rating Fair
Target stock price (TWCA growth scenario) $314.69
Target stock price (averages with growth) $448.4
Target stock price (averages with no growth) $470.31
Target stock price (manual assumptions) $392.66

The following company description is from Google Finance: http://www.google.com/finance?q=isrg

Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (Intuitive) designs, manufactures and markets da Vinci Surgical Systems and related instruments and accessories. A da Vinci Surgical System consists of a surgeon’s console, a patient-side cart and a high performance vision system. The da Vinci Surgical System translates a surgeon’s natural hand movements, which are performed on instrument controls at a console, into corresponding micro-movements of instruments positioned inside the patient through small incisions, or ports. The da Vinci Surgical System is designed to provide its operating surgeon with intuitive control, range of motion, fine tissue manipulation capability and three dimensional (3-D), high-definition (HD) vision while simultaneously allowing the surgeon to work through the small ports of MIS. In January 2014, Luna Innovations Inc announced the sale of its shape-sensing technology for medical applications to Intuitive Surgical, Inc.

 

Confident Investor comments: At this time, I think that a Confident Investor can cautiously invest in Intuitive Surgical, Inc. as long as the price is correct. Most of the fundamentals of this company are good but there are some concerns. I am removing Intuitive Surgical from my Watch List.

If you would like to understand how to evaluate companies like I do on this site, please read my book, The Confident Investor. You can review the best companies that I have found (and I probably invest my own money in most of these companies) in my Watch List.

How was this analysis of Intuitive Surgical, Inc. calculated?

For owners of my book, “The Confident Investor” I offer the following analysis (you must be logged in to this site as a book owner in order to see the following analysis). If you have registered and cannot see the balance of this article, make sure you are logged in and refresh your browser.
[s2If current_user_can(s2member_level1)]
In order to assist you in using the techniques of this book, the values that I used when calculating the Manual pricing above were:

Stock price at the time of the calculation: $365.47

Growth: 0.12

Current EPS (TTM): $13.29

P/E: 27

Future EPS Calc: $23.42

Future Stock Price Calc: $632.38

Target stock price: $392.65

I hope that this makes you a better investor. [/s2If]

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Company name IBERIABANK Corporation
Stock ticker IBKC
Live stock price [stckqut]IBKC[/stckqut]
P/E compared to competitors Fair

MANAGEMENT EXECUTION

Employee productivity Fair
Sales growth Fair
EPS growth Poor
P/E growth Good
EBIT growth Good

ANALYSIS

Confident Investor Rating Fair
Target stock price (TWCA growth scenario) $76.87
Target stock price (averages with growth) $85.25
Target stock price (averages with no growth) $63.7
Target stock price (manual assumptions) $69.19

The following company description is from Google Finance: http://www.google.com/finance?q=ibkc

IBERIABANK Corporation (IBKC), incorporated on November 21, 1994, is a financial holding company. IBKC is the holding company for IBERIABANK, a Louisiana banking corporation; Lenders Title Company, an Arkansas-chartered title insurance and closing services agency (Lenders Title); IBERIA Capital Partners, LLC, a corporate finance services firm; IB Aircraft Holdings LLC, a holding company for its fractional investment in an aircraft; IBERIA Asset Management, Inc. (IAM), which provides wealth management and trust services, and IBERIA CDE LLC (CDE), which invests in purchased tax credits. It offers commercial and retail banking products and services to customers throughout locations in six states. On July 31, 2012, it acquired Fort Myers, Florida-based Florida Gulf Bancorp Inc and its subsidiary bank, Florida Gulf Bank.

 

Confident Investor comments: At this time, I think that a Confident Investor can cautiously invest in IBERIABANK Corporation as long as the price is correct. Most of the fundamentals of this company are good but there are some concerns. I will be removing IBERIABANK Corporation from my Watch List.

If you would like to understand how to evaluate companies like I do on this site, please read my book, The Confident Investor. You can review the best companies that I have found (and I probably invest my own money in most of these companies) in my Watch List.

How was this analysis of IBERIABANK Corporation calculated?

For owners of my book, “The Confident Investor” I offer the following analysis (you must be logged in to this site as a book owner in order to see the following analysis). If you have registered and cannot see the balance of this article, make sure you are logged in and refresh your browser.
[s2If current_user_can(s2member_level1)]
In order to assist you in using the techniques of this book, the values that I used when calculating the Manual pricing above were:

Stock price at the time of the calculation: $62.4

Growth: 0.13

Current EPS (TTM): $2.88

P/E: 21

Future EPS Calc: $5.3

Future Stock Price Calc: $111.43

Target stock price: $69.18

I hope that this makes you a better investor. [/s2If]