September 25th Investment Club Minutes

September 25th Investment Club Minutes
Meeting at Danita's Compound

Present: Shelia, Susan But, Susan Burr, Danita, Tina, Karen, Carol Frihart, Helen, Lisa H, Hiliary

Absent: Carol Fran, Lisa A, Julia

These are dramatic times….. Lisa H

Consumer Group ( Carol Frihart, Karen) gave their power point presentation on their stock selections. Their selections were influenced by the current state of the economy. They decided to focus on things that people still needed to spend money on – food, clothing, and shelter -- for after you pass away J ). Actually they looked at end of life services ( funerals, cremation etc). The decision to look at End of Life services was influenced by the number of aging baby boomers and the fact that it was a necessary “evil” (service) J

Difficult to identify stocks that were A rated that were in our price range.

Campbell’s – food products – carries a number of popular food brands that are either #1 or #2 in various food categories. Rated a B++ .

Aeropostale – clothing store – 10% increase in same store sales. However, may have topped out and may be difficult to sustain sales in light of economy and kids having less disposable income.

Service Corporation International – End of Life services. A leader in the industry. Shares were very inexpensive at less the $9.00 a share. People were not as enthusiastic about this stock.

Karen also informally presented Gamestop – (sells new and used video games) as another option. A leader in the industry ( Electronic stores) with a strong recommendation to buy from the analyst,

Hiliary then presented updates on
Unum – insurance industry. – recently ranked #5 on the 2008InformationWeek 500 for its product and service platform – Simply Unum, which was launched nationwide in 2008. Stock price has increased from $21.41 in July to $25.69 in September. People were impressed with its gain despite the economy and stock market. Shelia had commented that she had already purchased some shares after Hiliary had presented in July.
Amsurg - Operates ambulatory surgery centers. It was listed as one of the Top 5 Volume Stocks for Sept 19. July’s price $26.75 / Sept’s price $26.97.

Motion made by Susan But to purchase 20 shares of Campbells and Unum. All members present voted in favor of the purchase. Susan Burr shared that we had not purchased stock since February and we had a substantial amount of cash in our account.

Susan Burrthen asked for feedback about the Blog ( bucksforbabes19) and asked if people were getting their email notifications when updates were available. Susan asked everyone to take responsibility for a stock and send her updates to be posted to the blog. People signed up or were assigned the following:

Applied Materials – Lisa
Chesapeake – Tina
GE – Susan But
Immuncor – Susan Burr
Merck – Helen
Lifeway, Unum – Hiliary
Walt Disney – Carol Fri
Oracle – Danita
Synovis – Lisa A
Cisco – Carol Fran
Aon – Shelia
Campbell’s - Karen

Send your updates to Susan Burr who is serving as “gatekeeper” for the Blog. This is to ensure that outsiders cannot post anything to our blog.

Next meeting is October 30th. Danita had a speaker lineup to speak on Trusts, but unfortunately that person changed jobs and can no longer speak. She and Shelia will try to find another speaker for October. If they can’t, they will give a presentation on “How to run a Meeting” based on the presentation they heard at the last rotary club meeting.