Crow River Investment Club

Meeting Minutes of September 9, 2008

 

Opening

Diane Windingland called the meeting of the Crow River Investment Club to order at 6:30 pm on September 9, 2008.

 

Marion Marshall, Diane Windingland, Kim Windingland, Dan Vitez, Beth Silverwater, Mike Trisler and Ron Thorson were present with payment. Sheryl Sostarich arrived late. Lynn Ostrem, Carole Ripplinger and Gary Quernemoen were absent with notice and payment.

 

Special Provisions

We received a letter of resignation dated September 3, 2008 from Ron Thorson.

 

Secretary’s Report

The minutes of the August 12, 2008 meeting were approved as posted.

 

Treasurer’s Report (given by Diane)

Carole made a dues deposit totaling $430 (including forward payments from Marion Marshall, Lynn Ostrem, and Carole Ripplinger). We received $200 in a transfer from the brokerage account. We paid $332.44 to Eric Chlan and $330.64 to Stephen Smith for their buyouts from the club, leaving an ending bank balance of $81.80.

 

Carole purchased 10 shares of BestBuy for $463.75 and 9 shares of Abercrombie & Fitch for $483.50. She sold 39 shares of Lowe’s for proceeds of $891.99. We received dividend income of $6.46 and transferred $200 to the checking account, leaving an ending brokerage account balance of 83.25.

 

Unfinished Business--None

 

New Business--None

 

 

Stock Previously Presented

The PAR on BestBuy dropped precipitously from the date of the presentation to the time of our initial purchase. In the future, we will purchase newly presented stocks using a limit order.

 

New Stock Presentation

Cameco by Ron.  Cameco is the world’s largest miner of uranium ore and the largest producer of uranium fuel stock. Cameco has a majority stake in Centerra Gold and minority interest in Bruce Power, Canada’s largest nuclear power plant. Cameco is a cyclical company and highly volatile due to the ever-changing spot price for uranium. The industry is highly regulated and poses environmental and political risks. Cameco has a strong balance sheet with a reasonable debt to capital ratio. Ron chose judgments on the SSG as follows: 16% sales growth, 17% EPS growth, high P/E of 30, low P/E of 15.7, use the forecasted low price. Ron suggests that we review his report as a group at the October meeting.  

 

Portfolio Managers Reports

Ron Thorson presented scenarios for buying and selling stocks in our portfolio. Sheryl expressed a dissenting opinion for selling Wells Fargo.

 

Dan prepared two challenge lists of ten stocks: one list filtered from the StockCentral (Roster of Quality) and the other list filtered from the Manifest database. Dan chose Cameco as the new stock to present because of the strong fundamentals and because the materials sector is not represented in our portfolio.

 

Quarterly Stock Reports

Quarterly stock reports for Abercrombie & Fitch (Diane) and Lowe’s (Gary) were posted to the message board.

 

Portfolio Activity

Due to another resignation, we voted not to buy or sell securities in our club portfolio.

 

Education

Sheryl gave a presentation on the Manifest Quality Rating. She explained the four components of quality and used the fundamental forecasts for BestBuy and Cameco to explain how the rating is calculated.

 

Assignments for the October meeting:

1. Carole Ripplinger will give a new stock presentation.

2. Quarterly stock reports are due for BestBuy (Carole), FactSet Research (Kim) and Walgreen (Mike). Quarterly stock reports are to be posted to the message board no later than 2 days before the October meeting.

3. Ron Thorson will meet with Dan Vitez to work through the transition to Portfolio Manager.

 

Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 8:30 pm.

Sheryl A Sostarich, Secretary

 

The next meeting will be at Lynn’s in St. Michael on Tuesday, October 14, 2008.