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Chasing Value: 2008 picks -- the last nail

I made it through mid-year of tracking my 2008 picks from last December and then -- Wham! -- I went from a slight advantage to being humbled badly by the market. However difficult it is to display your failings, once again I will share all of the horrors since I posted the original story Chasing Value: Final list -- 8 stocks for 2008.

The master is still the master, Warren Buffett and his life's work Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.B) beat me easily as well as the three indices I tracked.

For the most part, unless you started shorting stocks, there was no place to hide and most of my picks were big losers. There were two that beat Buffett and the market. The defense sector was the defensive sector it was supposed to be with Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) doing well on a relative scale. The other place you could have a morsel of stability was utilities and Huaneng Power International (ADR) (NYSE: HNP) lost less but not by much.

Continue reading Chasing Value: 2008 picks -- the last nail

Chasing Value: Lorillard Inc. joins the S&P 500

Loews Corp. (NYSE: LTR) just split out Lorillard Inc., which will trade under the ticker LO. Standard & Poors has announced that it will make Lorillard the newest member of the S&P 500, dropping Ambac (NYSE: ABK) from the index. (I mentioned this in early January when I posted Chasing Value: Loews Corp. has all the right pieces making it one of stock picks for 2008; for the latest on that, see Chasing Value: 8 stocks for 2008 -- May beats all).

The transaction will close as of trading on Tuesday, June 10. Lorillard is being distributed to the public via a two-tier process involving: 1) the retirement of the tracking stock Carolina Group (NYSE: CG), in exchange for which approximately 62% of Lorillard's common stock will be issued, and 2) an offer in which shares of S&P 500 constituent Loews Corp. can be exchanged for the remaining shares of Lorillard

It was a smart move by Loews company management to separate the tobacco company from its other interests in hospitality, oil exploration, real estate and insurance.

Continue reading Chasing Value: Lorillard Inc. joins the S&P 500

Symbol Lookup
IndexesChangePrice
DJIA+44.138,324.87
NASDAQ-9.121,787.40
S&P 500+2.30898.72

Last updated: July 06, 2009: 08:16 PM

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