Happy New Year to all the fans of the Slice.  I hope you all had a great holidays and are beginning down the path of forgetting all about 2008.   Did you know we were in a recession for the entire year last year?  If you follow the Slice you sure did, based on what individual investors were doing throughout the past 12 months.

Each month, I highlight stocks/mutual funds/ETF’s that experience the biggest swings in their grades- what we call the Cake Take.  The Take is automatically calculated based on whether good investors are buying, selling or holding.  Last month, I discussed 16 holdingsthat went from an “F” to an “A” rating, which our internal analysis have shown to consistently outpace the markets.  For the month of December, this remained the case as they returned just over 6% as compared to Dow    -0.60%, NASDAQ    2.70%, and S&P 500    0.78%.

Here are the details:

Symbol    Change
AIB    -31.13%
AMZN    20.09%
EBAY    6.32%
GD    11.46%
JRCC    34.95%
LCC    29.70%
LM    23.22%
MKL    -2.92%
ORCL    10.19%
SKF    -23.72%
URE    -0.78%
VDSI    -1.05%
VNQ    13.62%
VTV    0.41%
VWO    2.34%

Total Return    6.18%
Dow    -0.60%
NASDAQ    2.70%
S&P 500    0.78%

I also posted about the positions identified on Cake as going from an “A” to an “F“- and that perhaps the run was over.  Well, it looks like I spoke too soon as these 13 positions continued to see outperformance in December.  Collectively this basket returned nearly 13%, handily beating the markets.  You can see for yourself here:

Symbol    Change
AFAM    2.32%
BX    4.31%
CVI    14.29%
IBN    35.18%
SSRI    55.51%
SWHC    10.19%
TRN    5.99%
UUP    -7.01%
UWM    2.73%
VEU    5.76%

Total Return    12.93%
Dow    -0.60%
NASDAQ    2.70%
S&P 500    0.78%

The takeaway seems to be that “A” rated Cake holdings exhibit a strong alpha signal- at least in the short term.

Check back tomorrow when I will reveal the January stocks to watch.