April 2016 Picks

Welcome to the January update of Plan 5 Picks. We’ll start with the Plan 5 Monthly results for December:

Plan 5 Monthly: March 2016 Results

March 1 Open March 31 Close % Change
Amazon.com (AMZN) 556.29 593.64 +6.71%
Facebook (FB) 107.83 114.10 +5.81%
Google (GOOG) 703.62 744.95 +5.87%
NVIDIA (NVDA) 31.44 35.63 +13.33%
Post Holdings (POST) 70.16 68.77 -1.98%
Plan 5 Monthly: March 2016 +5.95%
S&P 500 1937.09 2059.74 +6.33%

Two of this month’s picks showed a modest gain, but that was more than balanced out by the others, most especially Netflix’s 8.11% drop, and Pegasystems’ 7.16% slide. The overall loss of 3.61% was further than the S&P 500’s 1.87% loss.

There are two substitutions this month, with Nuance Communications and Pegasystems being replaced by NVIDIA and SINA. Here are the January 2016 Plan 5 Monthly picks:

Plan 5 Monthly: January 2016 Picks

Company Symbol
Activision Blizzard ATVI
Amazon.com AMZN
Google GOOG
NVIDIA NVDA
Nasdaq NDAQ

If you’re following along with Plan 5 Monthly, you’ll want to rebalance your portfolio at this point. You can find a refresher on how to do that right here. Or, even easier, you can try out the Balance Calculator tool that will do the math for you.

If instead you’re following Plan 5 Quarterly, it’s not time to make any trades this month, but let’s take a look at how the current picks are doing two months in. Here are the results so far:

Plan 5 Quarterly: February-March 2016 Progress Report

Feb 1 Open March 31 Close % Change
Activision Blizzard (ATVI) 34.60 33.84 -2.2%
Amazon.com (AMZN) 578.15 593.64 +2.68%
Casey’s General Stores (CASY) 120.03 113.32 -5.59%
Facebook (FB) 112.27 114.10 +1.63%
Google (GOOG) 750.46 744.95 -0.73%
Plan 5 Quarterly: Feb-March 2016 -0.84%
S&P 500 1936.94 2059.74 +6.34%

Plan 5 Quarterly is so far doing pretty well this quarter, with its 4.93% gain easily beating the S&P 500’s 1.77% loss. Four out of five picks have showed a gain so far. Xoom, which completed its purchase by PayPal in November, locked in its small 0.32% gain by finishing at a value of $25 per share. We’re not done yet though; there’s one more month to go until the current Plan 5 Quarterly period will be over, and it will be time for a new set of picks.

Finally, here’s a look at Plan 5’s overall progress from the beginning:



That’s all for this month. I’ll be back at the end of January with the next update.

Thrive!

Mike Ferrier