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Being a confident investor implies that you have enough money to invest. I am constantly getting requests from my site or via Twitter regarding how to get started investing. Many people appear to understand that it is important to invest but do not currently have the funds to do it.

If you read my book, The Confident Investor, you will learn that I recommend that you take 10% of your income out of your paycheck and move it to a separate savings account for investment purposes. I have also discussed this concept on this site. This 10% comes out before you spend a single dime on expenses. You are effectively cutting your income by 10%.

To cut your income by 10%, you will likely need to cut your expenses by at least that much. Recently, I read an article on CNN about the 10 biggest money wasters. These might be areas to consider for you:

  1. ATM Fees
  2. Lottery tickets
  3. Gourmet coffee
  4. Cigarettes
  5. Infomercial impulse buys
  6. Brand-name groceries
  7. Eating out
  8. Unused gym memberships
  9. Daily internet deals
  10. Bundled cable or phone services

In each of the above, CNN explains the common waste and suggests a way to save the money. Following all of these suggestions (if you were guilty of all of them) would probably knock of $50-100 per week. $100 per week means $5,000 per year towards your investment portfolio.

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

MANAGEMENT EXECUTION

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

ANALYSIS

Confident Investor Rating Poor
Target stock price (TWCA growth scenario) $25.45
Target stock price (averages with growth) $31.33
Target stock price (averages with no growth) $29.72
Target stock price (manual assumptions) $29.51

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

Paychex, Inc. is a provider of payroll, human resource, and benefits outsourcing solutions for small to medium-sized businesses. As of May 31, 2012, the Company serviced approximately 567,000 clients, including approximately 2,000 clients through four offices in Germany. The Company offers a portfolio of services and products that allows its clients to meet their diverse payroll and human resource needs. These include payroll processing; payroll tax administration services; employee payment services; regulatory compliance services (new-hire reporting and garnishment processing); Paychex HR Solutions; retirement services administration; insurance services; eServices, and other human resource services and products. In January 2012, the Company acquired Icon Time Systems, Inc. In December 2012, the Company acquired ExpenseWire from Rearden Commerce Inc.

 

Confident Investor comments: At this price and at this time, I do not think that a Confident Investor can confidently invest in this stock.

If you would like to understand how to evaluate companies like I do on this site, please read my book, The Confident Investor

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Several hundred people read my site because they are subscribed to my RSS feed. Most of those RSS readers are using Google Reader to read the content.

Google has recently announced that they are ending the support of Google Reader. This change will occur on July 1, 2013.

I have personally signed the petition to request that Google reverse this decision.  At the time of this writing, there were almost 70,000 other people that also signed the petition. There is weight in numbers so I suggest that everyone that uses RSS (with Google Reader or not) sign this petition.  Here is the link:

https://www.change.org/petitions/google-keep-google-reader-running#share

Please share this link with your friends.

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Company name Myriad Genetics, Inc.
Stock ticker MYGN
Live stock price [stckqut]MYGN[/stckqut]
P/E compared to competitors Good

MANAGEMENT EXECUTION

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

ANALYSIS

Confident Investor Rating Fair
Target stock price (TWCA growth scenario) $27.41
Target stock price (averages with growth) $31.67
Target stock price (averages with no growth) $23.44
Target stock price (manual assumptions) $27.16

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

Myriad Genetics, Inc. (Myriad) is a molecular diagnostic company. The Company is focused on developing and marketing predictive medicine, personalized medicine and prognostic medicine tests. It performs all of its molecular diagnostic testing and analysis in its own reference laboratories. These technologies include the cornerstone technologies of biomarker discovery, high-throughput deoxyribo nucleuc acid (DNA) sequencing, ribo nucleic acid (RNA) expression and multiplex protein analysis. The Company uses this information to guide the development of new molecular diagnostic tests that are designed to assess an individual’s risk for developing disease later in life (predictive medicine), identify a patient’s likelihood of responding to drug therapy and guide a patient’s dosing to ensure optimal treatment (personalized medicine), or assess a patient’s risk of disease progression and disease recurrence (prognostic medicine).

 

Confident Investor comments: At this time, I think that a Confident Investor can cautiously invest in this stock as long as the price is correct. Most of the fundamentals of this company are good but there are some concerns.

If you would like to understand how to evaluate companies like I do on this site, please read my book, The Confident Investor.

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Company name Mercury General Corporation
Stock ticker MCY
Live stock price [stckqut]MCY[/stckqut]
P/E compared to competitors Fair

MANAGEMENT EXECUTION

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

ANALYSIS

Confident Investor Rating Poor
Target stock price (TWCA growth scenario) $21.05
Target stock price (averages with growth) $21.04
Target stock price (averages with no growth) $19.58
Target stock price (manual assumptions) $26.06

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

Mercury General Corporation (Mercury General) is an insurance holding company. The Company is a parent of Mercury Casualty Company (MCC), which is an automobile insurer. Including MCC, Mercury General has 21 subsidiaries. Mercury General, along with its subsidiaries, is primarily engaged in writing personal automobile insurance through 13 insurance subsidiaries (the Insurance Companies) in a number of states, principally California. The Company also writes homeowners, commercial automobile and property, mechanical breakdown, fire, and umbrella insurance. The Company offers collision, property damage liability, bodily injury (BI) liability, comprehensive, personal injury protection (PIP), underinsured and uninsured motorist, and other hazards to the automobile policyholders. The Company has reinsurance through the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Trust Fund (FHCF).

 

Confident Investor comments: At this price and at this time, I do not think that a Confident Investor can confidently invest in this stock.

If you would like to understand how to evaluate companies like I do on this site, please read my book, The Confident Investor.