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Carmensfella's Quickies

Carmensfella's Quickies FAQ

Carmensfella's Quickies (CQ) is a list of shares selected in the hope of a quick 20% gain due to short term factors, with low risk on the downside. Each share has 90 days to make 20% (or lose 20%).
It is only open to registered users of The Motley Fool (TMF) discussion boards, and it has its own board.
Successful investor and Motley Fool poster Carmensfella, when he created the CQ board in 2007, said:
"For three years now I have been running a mini portfolio where every stock bought must be sold as soon as a 20% gain has been achieved.
Naturally that could take years in some companies and there can be periods of negative growth so the aim is to pick a company where the gain can be achieved in as short a time as possible.
Conversely in this mechanical portfolio I try to protect the downside so the stock has to be sold if it falls 20% even though in reality in another folio within a value situation I would be reassessing the fundamentals and newsflow and probably buying more.

The ultimate aim is to take this 20% gain in the quickest time possible and move to the next situation...each move increases the pot and the faster it can be done increases the annual rate of return."

How to make an entry

1. Read the CQ Prospectus. The most important point is that your selection must have a specific reason to rise within 90 days ie the current price does not fully value the share and you can identify a catalyst that will expose that value. It is not enough to say that you think for example, simply that the forthcoming results will be good. Most shares are efficiently priced by the market and discount expected good news.

2. Look up:
  • Share symbol (EPIC)
  • Normal Market Size (NMS) on the London Stock Exchange (it is now called Exchange market Size).
  • Currency the share is quoted in, £ or €
  • Capitalisation
  • Valuation ratios appropriate to the sector eg PE, PTBV, PSR, yield
  • Offer price or the price the share can actually be bought at at the time of entry
  • Next ex-dividend date and amount in p or €. If the ex-div is in the next 90 days your entry will have less chance of making the 20% gain if you don't enter the dividend.  The Motley Fool Fundamentals page (see above) may help - it has the most recent dividend dates and amounts
Notes: The share capitalisation (shares in issue x price in £/€) and share ratios can also be found at the same place. The minimum capitalisation for an entry is £10m..

3. Post your entry on Motley Fool CQ board. The Subject should be New entry: Company name. Give at least the information indicated in CQ Prospectus rules and include the numbers in section 2 above. Copy a link to your post once posted.
         Please use this template for your post to give a consistent style and help avoid rejected entries.
         Additional rules now apply:
  • Liquidity is at least £500 or €500. Liquidity = price x NMS
  • You must explain why the downside risk is low. The most common reason for a share not qualifying is having a downside as great as the hoped-for upside.
  • You may have only one active (ie unsold) entry at a time. The reasons are that the tracker spreadsheet can only hold 100 active shares and the restriction will hopefully improve the quality of the selections.
  • You may not choose a share that is active in the CQ Tracker.
  • Shorts (down bets) not allowed
4. Enter the share into the CQ Tracker using this form. You will need: share symbol, company name, your TMF name, NMS, currency of price quote, capitalisation, starting price, next ex-dividend date and dividend (if known),

What happens next?

Your entry will automatically appear in the CQ Tracker within 10 minutes. It will be vetted, usually within a week and removed if it does not meet the rules.
If within 90 days the share rises or falls 20%, based on each day's closing price, the share will be marked as sold and the profit or loss recorded. The CQ Tracker selling update is manual and may take up to a week to appear in the CQ Tracker, but the selling day and price will be correct. If the share is unsold after 90 calendar days the last closing price is recorded.

Contact

If you have a problem with the CQ Tracker use our contact form or post on the Motley Fool board.