Watchlist review & weekly perf, 1st week after Black Friday

When I underperform for a week or in a critical timeframe where a profit opportunity was much greater given the opportunities presented, I update the watchlist to determine how the best performers did and whether they may be a candidate for the trade or swing portfolio at some point.

Normally, I watch 100 stocks on 5 separate screens at a given time, but I've found in the most recent two years that when I'm doing really well, I'm able to condense it to one list of 20 stocks and watch only that list.

Given the lack of capital I put in the markets, I'm looking at about a $600-$700 gain before taxes. Although it is in the green, it is underperforming the market because it translates to a return on capital of about 1.21% pretax because I had at most 25% invested during the week. The averages are looking at gains from 3-4.5% for the week, so let's see what I missed and what I can do for next time.

1) Alternative Energy, Energy, Materials, Utilities

Ironically, solar was a dog for the week even when you include that one day pop. The weekly winners were four casy stocks and some familiar names:

FWLT - up 5.8%, new 52 week high, casy would be so proud.
POT - up 4.4%, new 52 week high
STLD - up 5.5%, new 52 week high, it would figure I would mention this one to a trader the night before it gaps up.
JOYG - up 3.2%, casy would wonder if I would get back in. It might be a industry bet for their earnings release later this month but I don't believe its the top pick in its sector.
BUCY - up 1.3%, fair warning, i have 300 shares, and I may add another 150 if its stays green.
ARD - up 4.5%, one of the traders has liked this stock at 22. This should show up on my watchlist for January 2008.
NOV - up 3.4%, the same trader rode the most recent bounce. Same for January 2008.
D - up 2.7%, a casy utility play.

2) Index ETFs

While I had difficulty with the sector ETFs in November; I've had success with the following:

QLD - up 4.8%, I think for the future that should I believe that there's an uptrend in the market and if I don't have any ideas, I should park 20% of free cash here just so I don't give up free money.
EWZ - up 3.6%, Ishares-Brazil, while RIO comprises 43% of this index, I would tend to trade both securities to ride its trading range.
FXI - up 2.5%, Ishares-China, the Jim Rogers safe play, just be aware of the quick 10 point moves in this etf.
MOO - up 4.5%, agriculture, the same trader who introduced ARD, mentioned this at 49. Seems to be a longer term candidate.
DBA - up 2.6%, agriculture, the Jim Rogers agriculture play. Although volume is thin.

3) Retail & one Financial

While casy would balk, yes I paid my $300 tuition for being stupid on PCLN, there were winners for two good reasons: a) Generation IPod can't balance a checkbook because I learned that the junior and senior high schools where I grew up no longer teach a personal finance class. b) Generation IPod will shop because they know they can always ask their parents to bail them out of anything. After all, if the U.S. government, aka we the taxpayer, are bailing out a couple of thousand imbeciles from paying mortgages that 90% knew they didn't qualify for, what kind of precedent are we setting the next time something like this happens in another industry.

GME - up 6.6%, the must have item for this Xmas, a Nintendo Wii. Nintendo trades as a pink sheet stock and is up about 170% ytd.
AAPL - up 5.0%, whether its laptops or IPods, it and Google represent the current shopping generation of tech-heads.
COST - up 3.5%, ironically I mentioned this to one of the traders before Black Friday that this is the only retailer I would consider going long for a trade. In hindsight, it has only made its weekly gain in the past two days. This past Thursday was the weekly sales numbers.
CMG - up 5.8%, people have to eat while they shop.
MA - up 2.7%, people don't have the money so obviously they're going to charge it.
BLK - up 5.9%, the only asset manager benefitting from all the subprime nonsense.

4) Special situations or possibly stubbornness.

ISRG - up 6.3%, this is on the ytd list for best performers
SIGM - up 3.2%, same as above, one of few tech companies outside of AAPL, GOOG, RIMM, to show big gains ytd.
ESRX - up .7%, fair warning, long 800 shares, they report mid-qtr guidance later this month.
BIDU - up .5%, the Chinese version of eBay and Google.