I thought a lot over the last few days about how I should proceed on this website and I came to the conclusion that opening another Canadian portfolio in my "Underexposed - Canadian Stock Journal" was not really a good plan. I am very comfortable with Canadian stocks and have been quite successful in managing a Canadian Stock portfolio (in actuality I have 3 Canadian portfolios (standard, TFSA, RRSP) ... the latter two being tax sheltered.

I have had an American portfolio for about 10 years now but under-capitalized it from the get-go. I started with $10,000 and successfully whittled it down to $2,000 over 10 years long term trading.

I never blew the account during that time but most of the damage to the account was done in the first 5 years... the crisis of 2008-2009 did not help the cause any either.

$10,000 is not a great starting point for a long term portfolio. You cannot really build such a portfolio rapidly if you think about it. a nice 20% gain nets you a whopping $2000... at that rate it would take forever to reach $100,000 so I just dabbled in US stocks.

We are lucky in Canada....we have no restrictions about trading in American stock. Our brokers here accept orders and execute them almost as fast on American exchanges as they do on Canadian exchanges. We even have access to OTCB and PINKS if we want to waste our money down there...Actually it is not so much a waste if there are Canadian stocks in those exchanges.... A lot of Canadian companies list in the OTCB/Pink to increase their investor exposure and are reasonable buys though with a lot less volume. But if a stock is listed in Canada it is folly to buy an American version since you suffer from the variance of exchange rates by doing so... that and usually less trading volume.

When I started out, I liked stocks in the $1 - $5 range.... I still do in Canadian stocks.... but I could never make it work in American stocks. The reason why it is better in Canada is that the Canadian exchanges have the highest listings for O&G and Mining stocks in the world. We have far more choice that American investors who cannot get easy access to Canadian stocks ( that is why Canadian companies often list in the USA as well as Canada.... but American companies don't list on Canadian exchanges...no reason to incur that expense as Canadians have no problem investing on American exchanges.

Many start up companies for O&G and mining start in the $0.50 to $3.00 and if you are skilled in finding the good ones it can be quite profitable to invest in these companies. The good ones can develop into stocks worth many times their value in a few years...and/or be subjects for takeovers by larger companies as they demonstrate their worth.

I did not find this so in American stocks.... the old $5 penny status was certainly true and before I was skilled in my limited FA analysis I I picked a lot of bad USA stock in the $1 - $5 range

So, in fantasy mode, I will capitalize my portfolio better

I will give myself $100,000 USD and see what I can do with a portfolio of US stocks. I will run it much the same as I do in my other journal... the same charts apply as well as interpretation of financial data. I will focus on stocks over $10/share with perhaps a dabble or two in the $5-$10 range.

So.... I shall start this journey in the $US portfolio soon I will be looking for about 4-5 stocks ... I am not sure what sectors I will look in ... that is for future discussions.

I hope you find this interesting, constructive comments are welcome, as always

First of all, I won't be putting commodity type stocks into this $US portfolio. For me, as a Canadian I have as much or more choice in the Canadian market for such stocks as Oil & Gas and Mining.

The USA exchanges have commodities sectors of course in their "Basic Materials" sector but this does not attract me. However you cannot discount commodity prices when you are considering other sectors.

Oil prices have tumbled for now. One wonders how long this will last and when the bottom is found (I figure somewhere around $45/barrel...just a guess) How long will it stay down there? and how long will it take for oil prices to rise again? Is this some kind of geopolitical punishment for Russia? Some speculate as much but the collateral damage to other countries is hard to ignore.

So when you think of oil prices falling....it follows that Transportation industries should be benefiting from this fall... but is it true in all sectors???

Certainly Gasoline prices have plummeted, In Calgary AB, we have usually the cheapest gasoline in the country. Just 4-6 months ago we were paying about $1.20/liter of gas.... now the price currently is $0.85/liter. About a 25% drop in the cost of fueling my car.

Here is a comparison of Diesel versus Gasoline prices

For the USA

Gasoline and Diesel Fuel Update - Energy Information Administration

For Canada (actually Ontario which is pretty expensive compared to Alberta but they trend similarly)

Ministry of Energy » Fuel Price Data

I have heard the cry of diesel vehicle owners that the price of diesel is not pacing the price of Gasoline but when you look at their profiles you see that the price of diesel has been falling steadily throughout the year .... whereas the price of gasoline rose til about mid year then fell at a higher rate than diesel fuel.

So both fuel users are benefiting from the drop in price.... and will continue for some time to come.

So the transportation industry is a place I want to look at first..... Specifically the trucking industry

The trucking stocks in Canada are very limited

Stock Screener | Search stocks by screener criteria

on the other hand the USA market place has a quantum leap more in opportunity....

Stock Screener - Overview usa trucking

So clearly I can invest here in opportunities that are unavailable to me in Canada

But are all these companies viable... are they worth investing in?

I like FinViz.com for this type of screening

Here is the companies that fall out when I apply simple criteria of a positive ROI, low debt/equity, low LT debt/equity

Stock Screener - Overview u0.5 u0.5 pos usa trucking

Much better....we have chopped out obvious bad boys, eliminating over 1/2 the field in that simple test.

here is the status of my Due Dilligence to date





this is the first step... but I like the choices so far.

Ok...that was the first step in isolating potential long term investment... the first cull of trucking companies remove those that have higher debt and have a negative return on investment (ROI)

My next step is to look at how past returns vary since 5 years, 3 years and year to date.

To do this I use a tool that I was introduced to when looking for dividend stocks in my Canadian Journal

Underexposed - Canadian Stock Journal Ok...I have started my in-depth analysis using that Dividend Reinvestment Calculator that deaddog brought to my attention last week. I truly think this will revolutionize how I chose stocks for the future. I am most encouraged by the results I am getting …

I personally did not like the way it evaluated DRIPS as it used partial shares in its calculation of returns... in my experience with Canadian DRIPS I never received partial shares from a dividend reinvestment. I received a whole number of shares and the partial share value was given to me in the form of a cash payment.

Then I wondered.... Could this tool be used to calculate the Annualized Total Return [ATR] for any stock...or was it for dividend stocks only?? The answer was it could be used to evaluate all stocks.

This is the link to this calculator

Dividend Reinvestment Calculator

I left the END DATE at Dec 26/2014 and I ran the tool three times for each stock the first at Jan 2, 2010 (5 years), then again at Jan 3, 2012 (3 years) and Jan 2, 2014 (YTD) .... Note: I had to jiggle the start date by a day on the 2012 start as it gave no data for Jan 2

Here is the results of this test



What I have done is ranked each time period by the highest to lowest value then summed them up for each company ticker.

It is clear who are the better companies as the top five stand out from the rest. The ArcBest Corporation [ARCB] almost made the cut but not only did it score lower than the top 5 but also look at the progression... the 3 year and 5 year evaluation progression was fine but it dropped back from the others in the year-to-date value. I don't really like that... I like to see a progressively increasing ATR.

I might be wrong here in some cases but, hey! you have to make a decision somewhere and this seems like a reasonable one to me.

The next post will look at their last 5 quarterly financial reports to see the progression of debts and revenues.
Hopefully we can reduce our choices from 5 to at most 3.... from that reduced number we will look at which one would be the best choice NOW

Hope you find this interesting.... good trading

Ok...I have 30 minutes to post this message before the Bell as it is currently 7:00AM MST but I will place my order after the opening for the day when I see the direction of the price trend.

Ok ... we narrowed down the stocks to five potentials and now are looking at the fundamentals to see if there is an obvious winner there.

To do this I use a Canadian site that gives financial info on both Canadian and American stocks. It is just a site that I commonly use for Canadian stocks and one that I am familiar with.

here is the main page of one of the stocks of interest

Stock Market Quotes | Stock Market Quotes and Symbols

this is a nice summary page... you can see other companies by entering the ticker in the upper left box and selecting the appropriate symbol

This is the page for financials showing the income statement for the last 5 quarters... you can make adjustments to the numbers by clicking ",000" to show them in thousands, millions, billions

Stock Market Quotes | Company Financials, Financial Information

here is the end result for the 5 stocks that we previously chose



As you can see in this chart one stock came to the top Heartland Express Ltd [HTLD:Nasdaq Global Select] which is a short to medium haul general freight service. But close behind is Saia Ltd and Old Dominion Freight line Inc.

So using FA we have further narrowed our choice to 3 stocks now shown in dark green in this chart.

Now it is time to look at the TA of these stocks for the final pick.

I am not going to go into details as to how I developed these charts that I use... I have done that already in my Canadian stock journal already and you can read this discussion starting here if you want the gory detail of how I developed my "Trigger" chart... I really have not discussed the other charts in detail but these are less detailed.

Underexposed - Canadian Stock Journal Ok....now that we have that out of the way...let us discuss something productive. Those of you that seriously want to understand how I read a chart and how I use indicators will get a lot out of the following discussions. My goal here is to: 1. Get …

To summarize my approach though, I believe in indicators.... not individually but as a consensus. All indicators give false information at any given time in addition to the good stuff... but they usually do not give false info at the same time!!!

So the object of the game is to select a suite of indicators that are not similar in their output... for example MACD and TRIX give the same look even though they are not calculated the same.... so you choose one indicator not both and I prefer MACD without the signal line. (the reasons why is in my other journal in detail)

So I use 4 charts for a complete Technical Analysis, (P&F, Trigger, sentiment and Ichimoku plus several indicators and overlays)... I evaluate the bullish/bearish components of the charts and cancel out the bullish/bear and what is left is a consensus... I find this is quite reliable.

I am showing all three company charts at once so comparison visually is easy to see.

1. P&F Charts




I use P&F charts for an overall view and resistance/support evidence

As you can see here Heartland [HTLD] is the best chart here... the other 2 are in a triangle formation which are slightly bearish though not very predictable as to their final direction... HTLD on the other hand looks to have broken through a diagonal resistance...much more bullish.

2. Trigger Charts





I use this chart a lot. It is a "trigger" as the BBwidth combined with the MACD and Slow Stochastics (note changes to parameters) indicate when breakouts will occur.

note the circle in the HTLD chart (middle one).... see the current breakout with the pricing nicely marching up the upper bollinger band (bollie)... now look at the Slow Sto/MACD /BBwidth... see how the Slow Sto and MACD lead the way with a positive slope then BBwidth breaks upward.... this is a bullish breakout sign

On the other two stocks you see that the BBwidth is pretty flat.... the Slow Sto and MACD are encouraging but not definitive yet... if they turn down and the BBwidth rises then it would be a bearish sign of a drop in price. But currently they are relatively neutral...with a slight hint of Bullishness but not enough to confidently buy long term yet.

3. Sentiment Charts





[HTLD] is clearly superior here.... all three indicators are bullish.... the CMF (in the chart is at a higher high with a bullet, the RSI has got a strong slope headed for 70 (I don't believe in "overbought/oversold"...if you want a discussion on this it is in my Canadian journal... ask and I will shorten your search if you are interested in looking at my rational) and the ADX DI+/- is bullishly diverging.

The other two charts have bearish CMF ([SAIA} more so than [ODFL]...both have bullish ADX DI+/- and their RSI trends are neutral.

Where [HTLD} is full on bullish... the other charts are neutral with bull canceling bear values.


4. Ichimoku Charts





Again HTLD stands out head and tails above the other two charts.

In the main Ichimoku chart see how high the price is above the green cloud also look in that circle see the thin blue line rising above the red line....that is bullish

In the other 2 charts the thin red lines are above the blue one (bearish and the proximity of the price to their green clouds is much closer...this is neutral at present but if the prices enter those clouds it would be bearish.

the two indicators for [HTLD] ie. the On bal Vol and CCI are full on Bullish wheras the indicators for the other 2 charts are mildly bearish


Conclusion

This is not even close.... Heartland Express Inc [HTLD:NASD]is the clear winner here.... there is not a bearish sign in any of the charts

This will be the stock I will purchase for my fantasy American portfolio.... at about $28/share I will purchase 1000 shares.... the next post will show my rationale for the price

Hope you found this interesting.... good trading

Ok... I have just checked out my free L2 chart for HTLD



and I will place an order right now a limit buy for 1000 shares HTLD @ $27.35

it will be the first purchase for this portfolio

well I guess I could have gotten this stock a dime cheaper but obviously from this chart my order would have been filled at $27.35



well this is the start of this new portfolio and for those that have not followed my Canadian journal you now see the selection process that I use... I need to think about where I will find the other 3-4 stocks to fill out this portfolio but I am happy so far

Good trading

well, I certainly am having a difficult time finding suitable long term stocks for my American portfolio.

The problem is that I don't really know this market place as well as the Canadian one, so I am following some leads that end in blind alleys.

the Financial sector is one area that I will plumb but that is daunting as within that complete sector the complete listing of products according to FinViz.com is 990 stocks (I don't like exchange traded funds... if I added those in there would be over 2000 choices) ranging in price from several hundreds of dollars to less than a dollar.

[URL="http://finviz.com/screener.ashx?v=111&f=geo_usa,sec_financial&o=-price"][URL="http://finviz.com/screener.ashx?v=111&f=ind_stocksonly,sec_financial&o=-price"]http://finviz.com/screener.ashx?v=111&f=ind_stocksonly,sec_financial&o=-price[/URL][/URL]

By comparison, a scan for Canadian financial institutions produces only 400 listings total and if you sort by company name you will find that many of those selected are preferred share offerings from the same bank...which I don't want but cannot seem to eliminate from the scan.... The TD Bank has 11 listings of which 10 are of preferred shares.... so I would say that I could safely eliminate 100 of these returns (there should be an option on this screener to select common stock only)

Stock Screener | Search stocks by screener criteria

If I were to look at simply Banks there is no problem in Canada

Regional Banks which are the smaller banks in Canada... a total of 4 (eliminating the preferred shares)
Global Banks which are the larger banks in Canada... a total of 6 (eliminating the preferred shares)

All of these are pretty solid banks

I will be looking at JUST Money Center banks in the USA... which is about the same as Canadian Global banks there are 41 of these and this just includes USA banks ... not including foreign banks listing on the USA markets

Stock Screener - Overview usa moneycenterbanks financial price

Easy to choose a good Canadian bank.... much tougher to find a Money Center bank.... it gets worse if I am looking for a regional USA bank.... I won't do that right now

**************************************************

ok... let us apply my first basic criteria.... positive ROI and low debt...

well I just used Long term debt to equity ratio (< 0.5) and a ROI > 10% to narrow down the choices

Stock Screener - Overview u0.5 o10 usa moneycenterbanks financial o300 company

One would hope that all banks had a positive ROI...and they did... but banks like Citigroup, Bank of America, JPM and surprisingly Wells Fargo dropped out at a ROI setting of > 10%... and the Long term debt/equity setting did not help them either.

So now I am down to a manageable number of 9 stocks to evaluate further.... here they are

Well i did the rest of the analysis that I did for trucking and this is the result



I am not too excited about this group ... especially when one has a negative YTD ATR

But the next post will be a TA comparison.... unless there is a standout I am not sure I will pick one of them.

I may continue the search looking at regional banks.... we shall see

Well as promised here is the TA on the 3 banks I choose as finalists

1. P&F Charts

Again P&F charts for me are an overview of the stock, resistance/supports, and risk/reward





Comerica Inc [CMA] and Nara Bancorp [BBCN] show triangle formations. CMA is quite symmetrical and could go in any direction...right now it is looking to breach the upper resistance but it has a number of resistances if it does to limit its potential gain unless it can get above $52.00....BBCN is in a descending wedge or triangle or wedge...whatever.... this is traditionally a bearish formation but it could rise above and break through the resistance line...but there are several resistance lines above if it did... 15.20, 15.60, 16.40 and 18.00 any of which could stop any rise.

First Republic Bank San Francisco California [NYSE:FRC] has much better look to it. It is attempting to breach a resistance band from $52.50 - $53.00. It has only one resistance after that $55.00 - $55.50 to clear all problems... it could be a small swing if it passes $53.00 or a true long term hold...


2. Trigger Charts






All three charts show a potential movement to break their resistances. BBNC looks to me to be a head fake though.... in the small orange circle you see a small doji... indecision...the Slow Sto and MACD look fine but the BBWidth underwhelms me.

CMA is just not ready to pop yet... Slow Sto and MACD rise is encouraging but the BBwidth is flat

FRC looks better to me.... the Slow Sto is pegged over 80 but the MACD and BBwidth are relatively flat.... better but not definitive for a breakout.


3. Sentiment Charts





the thing that strikes you first in the first two charts is the amount of bearish mud in them.... BBCN is a little better as it is showing a bit of green now.... but not impressed yet that it has found good times. The RSI for CMA and BBCN are both neutral and not over 50....the ADX DI+/- looks like it might turn bullish in CMA...BBCN is slightly bullish in this indicator but looks to be recrossing if it has its way.

I like the green of FRC in the CMA... it has been in the mud but note how the instances are getting shorter and not as deep. The RSI is more bullish (slightly) with being above 50 with a positive slope... the ADX DI+/- is much more bullish though I would like to see more divergence of the green/red


4. Ichimoku Charts





the CMA chart is BEARISH. the price is below a red cloud with the thin red line far above the blue one... the OnBalVol and CCI look very weak to me.

The BBCn chart is better as the price is above a green cloud though reaching for it... the red/blue lines overlay eachother... the onBal Vol is quite bullish... the CCI is mildly bullish as it is falling out of the green

FRC is the best chart of the bunch. The price is far above the green cloud with red/blue lines overlayed and both CCI and OnBal Vol are both bullish


Conclusion

With a gun to my head I would choose First Republic Bank San Francisco California [NYSE:FRC]

of these choices it is the best... but it is not a no-brainer and I won't choose it right now. I am not impressed with these choices really. I think I will look at regional banks to see if there is something cheaper with more potential. FRC is pretty expensive at $53 to risk on a best-of-a-bad-lot analysis.

I will add FRC to the shakeout of the regional banks and see what I get.

A lot more work than dealing with Canadian banks for sure.