Joshua Byrini's Market View
Byrini's obeservations should not be considered recommendations, advice or suggestions to buy, sell or hold securities, commodities, commodity contracts, options, futures, warrants, insurance contracts, real estate, gemstones, art work or derivatives, as he is neither a registered securities, commodities or real estate broker, diamond merchant, art dealer, or investment advisor. These observations are for informational purposes only. In other words, you are on your own chief.Wednesday, October 12, 2005
4.4% - Altria Group 4.0% - Anheuser-Busch Companies
3.9% - British American Tobacco
3.7% - Constellation Brands
3.4% - Diageo PLC
3.4% - International Game Technology
3.3% - L-3 Communications Holdings
3.1% - Shuffle Master Inc.
2.8% - United Technologies Corp.
2.8% - Imperial Tobacco Group
Have you ever seen such a dirty portfolio? Well, that's because you are looking at the top ten holdings of "the vice fund", which is a registered no load mutual fund operating from Dallas, TX, sybol "VICEX".
The fund is ranked 56th by Lipper, out of 750+, and has done swimmingly this past year (21%, stomping more market indexes). It has large positions in Gaming, Tobacco, Booze and Defense, for sectors Josh will not be looking to lay down shorts. Click here for a list of it's holdings as of, June (a little dated).
25.18% - Gaming
23.49% - Defense
21.86% - Alcohol
15.85% - Tobacco
13.62% - Other
We feel it's a good list of companies to start sniffing out some Callops, if you are not morally bound to avoid these types of enterprises. You'll find the stocks in the "other" bin are interestings inclusions, such as a pool company, Harley Davision motorcycles, Electronic Arts, Guitar Centers, Playboy, and something called Rick's Cabaret International.
All fine proxies for the lost hours American's "spend" not doing homework, or designing useful things in their garages for Ron Popeil to sell in three easy payments.Nonetheless, it sure seems like a good place to park some duckets, and just "set it, and forget it", until the war is over, and everyone in the world swears off drinking, smoking and gambling (and the the radical islarmrists have their way).
It even has our favorite "Dirty Dog," CG, Lowe's Carolina Group, makers of the ubiquitous stinky Newport brand. . We glombed it when the yield was 8, after an exhaustive Yahoo stock screen for highest yields (the yield monger's favorite, aka, "yield whore"). Now the yield has cheapened, as yield mongers have bid up the shares to a yield of 4 to 5%.
Of course there are other places looks for profits from vice, such as the missing gaming plays, including Hilton, and various online gaming companies, such as new issues, Empire Online Ltd. (EOL.LN), and PLC (SBT.LN), and PartyGaming PLC's (PRTY.LN), which recently hit the london market with an IPO that ended 4% up on the offer. But not beats the Vice Fund for a one stop shop.
posted by BoxedMerlot # 2:41 PM 
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