Time for a Safe One

As I review my portfolio, and sit through a day like Friday I remind myself that small growth companies offer a lot of potential, but also carry more risk. I can't complain up to this point. I'm currently sitting at a 60% return on Garmin, a 63% return on Armor Holdings and I'm off to a quick 8% return on my recent purchase of QSII. The rest of my portfolio has been on the upswing as well (IBM has had a great run recently). The point is though that a lot of my stock picks have been in small fast growing companies. The key to surviving the stock downturns (and yes there will be one eventually), is to have a balanced portfolio. My one "safe" stock I purchased on this blog, SJT, with it's ~8% yearly dividend has had a nice 10% return so far and has done exactly what I expected of it (slight stock price gain with excellent dividend return).

With that said, instead of making a second investment into QSII when it hits a 10% return (as I did with Garmin), I will instead put this money into a safer, large cap company with a strong history of earnings and profit. Currently on the list are JNJ, MSFT, GE, MMM, or BA. I'm definitely leaning towards JNJ. It's in a stock price valley, is well diversified in product and in location, and it has an excellent history of solid growth with a steady 12% average rate of return. Stay tuned for the G. pick.

Another thing I've been battling with is whether to sell a part of my purchases and take some profits. Two things keep me from doing this, thinking about all those people that sold Microsoft the first time it doubled in price way back in it's beginning, and paying short term taxes on those gains. For now I'm going to simply sit on them but I will be keeping a close eye on the market.

Quality Systems Incorporated (QSII)

Ever walked into your dentists office and had the receptionist spend 5 minutes clicking away at the computer, patiently waiting for some archaic dos based database retrieval program to pull up your records? Or better yet, ever had the receptionist pull out an old folder from when you first started coming, overflowing with old x-rays and your address and telephone numbers from when you were two? The same can also be true when visiting your old family doctor. I've always felt there's a good business to be had in the dentist/doctor office software business, especially as a lot of these business's start actively moving to better electronic systems to try and improve cost. QSII provides this exact software. I've put my updated spreadsheet here with QSII numbers. Lets do the G. questions!

G, what does this company do?

From google finance:

Quality Systems, Inc. develops and markets healthcare information systems that automate certain aspects of medical and dental practices, networks of practices, such as physician hospital organizations (PHOs) and management service organizations (MSOs), ambulatory care centers, community health centers, and medical and dental schools. The Company is consisted of the QSI Division and a wholly owned subsidiary, NextGen Healthcare Information Systems, Inc. (NextGen Division). The QSI Division focuses on developing, marketing and supporting software suites sold to dental and certain niche medical practices. In addition, it supports a number of medical clients that utilize the QSI Division's UNIX-based medical practice management software product. The NextGen Division focuses on developing and marketing products and services for medical practices.

G, where did you find this company?

I found this company while browsing a "double it's price" in 5 years column on cnn finance.

G, why do you like this company?

It reminds me a lot of Garmin (my first favorite stock). It's a fairly small company with room to grow. It's consitently growing revenue and sales each year, and it's a business area I've always felt has a lot of potential.

G, give me the details.

Look over the numbers in the spreadsheet, I'll review in my next post.

G, what did it cost you?

I bought at $37.53 on 6/26/2007.