Selling 1 Losing Pick After 1 Year, Holding 1, Selling a Winner

Biovail (BVF), CCA Industries (CAW), and EPIQ Systems (EPIQ) have all lost money since being picked last December. I personally believe Biovail is still a good investment and hold it in my real-money portfolio, but it has been a loser. On the Magic Formula site, it's still listed as one of the top 25 picks, so it can be held for another year. It looks like Icarra is still down (it's been down for 3 days now, at least), so I can't update my portfolio there, but consider CAW and EPIQ sold.

Update 12/19
Well, it looks like EPIQ had a 3:2 split 6/8/07, so it's actually returned over 40% in the past year. So I'm ending up selling 1 winner after a year and 1 loser.

3 High-Yielding Picks

The recent sales in my Magic Formula portfolio, tracked at Icarra.com, have resulted in a cash position of $5126. Money market rates are dropping with Federal Reserve rate cuts. Zecco's CSAXX money market fund is now yielding just over 4%. However, the Magic Formula website is currently recommending 3 stocks that have yields higher than that, plus the potential for capital appreciation. Monday, December 3rd, I'll buy $500 worth of each of these 3 companies in my Icarra portfolio.

• Pacer International Inc (PACR) is currently yielding 4.4%, at $13.76 per share. It has a market cap just under $500 million and an Earnings Yield of 17%. It was trading as high as $30 a year ago, but there is concern for its future outlook, as it may be squeezed between its customers and supplier. Pacer is an intermodal freight shipper that will be renegotiating its contracts with the railroads from 2011 to 2015, and will be facing increased prices at that time. If currently high trucking prices come down in the future, Pacer will lose customers to its competition.
  
  
• Idearc, Inc. (IAR), the phone directory company, is currently yielding 7.3%, at $18.92 per share. It has a $2.8 billion market cap and EY of 12%. It traded as high as $38 in the past year, since its spinoff from Verizon (VZ). A recession could hurt its business, and its outlook for the future is clouded by the potential for local search competition from Google (GOOG) and Yahoo (YHOO).
  
  
• Wayside Technology Group, Inc. (WSTG), a software company, is currently yielding 5.6% at $10.70 per share. It has almost $4 per share in cash. Revenues have declined with competition for VMWare business, so the stock has been punished.