3 Stocks to Get on Your Watchlist

By Sean Williams | More Articles
November 9, 2011 | Comments (2)

Watch stocks you care about

The single, easiest way to keep track of all the stocks that matter...

Your own personalized stock watchlist!

It's a 100% FREE Motley Fool service...

Click Here Now

I follow quite a lot of companies -- some closer than others -- so the usefulness of a watchlist to me cannot be overstated. Without my watchlist, I'd be unable to keep up on my favorite sectors and what's really moving the market. Even worse, without my watchlist, I'd be lost when it came time to choose what stock I'm buying or shorting next.

What I intend to do as an experiment is to make today the first "Watchlist Wednesday," where I'll discuss three companies that have crossed my radar in the past week and at what point I may consider taking action on these calls with my own money. Keep in mind these aren't concrete buy or sell recommendations, nor do I guarantee I'll take action on the companies being discussed weekly. What I can promise is that you can follow my real-life transactions through my profile and that I, like everyone else here at The Motley Fool, will continue to hold the integrity of our disclosure policy in the highest regard.

Groupon (Nasdaq: GRPN )
I quickly added Groupon to my watchlist this week with the intention of shorting the stock or buying puts if the company rallied significantly past its first-day closing price of $26.11.

Much as I described in my "5 Reasons I'm Not Buying Groupon," I see very little longevity to the company's products and think consumers are easily swayed by deals at competing daily deal sites. Adding fuel to my argument are the ballooning losses at Groupon as it attempts to expand, all while its quarter-over-quarter growth rate slows dramatically. I'm personally thinking Groupon could make for a good short-sell heading into the lock-up period six months from now. Plans by insiders to sell shares clobbered both Molycorp (NYSE: MCP ) and Tesla Motors (Nasdaq: TSLA ) over the past year, and I strongly suspect the same will happen with Groupon.

Golden Star Resources (AMEX: GSS )
I already own shares of Golden Star Resources in my portfolio, and I'm strongly inclined to add more to my position. Like an idiot, I chose not to add when the stock dipped below $2 last month and, hindsight being 20-20, now I'm regretting that decision.

Golden Star has been an underwhelming company to own thus far. The high costs associated with mining and its inability to meet its own production forecasts has kept its stock price at bay. However, I strongly suspect the company is going to get its act together in 2012. Relative to nearly any other junior miner in the sector, Golden Star is dirt cheap at 1.3 times book and six times forward earnings. I will not be sitting on my hands again if Golden Star dips below $2.

Aeterna Zentaris (Nasdaq: AEZS )
Just in case you think I forgot about Aeterna Zentaris, think again! The stock has taken a 40% hit since May and still represents what I feel is one of the most undervalued pipelines in the business.

Sometime before mid-2012, I would expect to see the results of the company's phase 3 clinical trial for its leading cancer drug candidate, perifosine. Despite having outlicensed potential North American sales of the drug to Keryx Biopharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: KERX ) , Aeterna Zentaris could easily double on approval of the drug by the FDA. Even if the drug fails to impress the FDA, Aeterna has 10 other compounds currently in its pipeline. A $144 million market cap for 11 compounds under development is just too cheap to pass up. If this drops significantly below $1.50, I may consider buying in.

Is my bullishness or bearishness misplaced? Share your thoughts in the comments section below and consider taking my cue by adding these three companies to your free and personalized watchlist to keep up on the latest news with each company.

Add Groupon to your watchlist.
Add Golden Star Resources to your watchlist.
Add Aeterna Zentaris to your watchlist.

The Steve Jobs Betrayal
You may already know that in the final year of his life, Jobs revealed a stunning betrayal — and told his biographer, "I will spend my last dying breath... and every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank to right this wrong." What was it that made Jobs so irate — and why could it make a few in-the-know investors some major profits over the coming months and years?

Enter your email address below to find out what made Jobs so enraged!

Fool contributor Sean Williams owns shares of Golden Star Resources, but has no material interest in any other companies mentioned in this article. He's a total nerd when it comes to making lists. You can follow him on CAPS under the screen name TMFUltraLong , track every pick he makes under the screen name TrackUltraLong, and check him out on Twitter, where he goes by the handle @TMFUltraLong. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools don't all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy that believes transparency comes first.

Read/Post Comments (2) | Recommend This Article (5)

Comments from our Foolish Readers

Help us keep this a respectfully Foolish area! This is a place for our readers to discuss, debate, and learn more about the Foolish investing topic you read about above. Help us keep it clean and safe. If you believe a comment is abusive or otherwise violates our Fool's Rules, please report it via the Report this Comment icon found on every comment.

Report this Comment On November 09, 2011, at 3:10 PM, kmacattack wrote:

I think you are wrong about Groupon and am buying a little 100shares today. The reason? I've bought Groupons and have been extremely pleased. Their parthership with Travelocity will be a win win for both. It's a great deal for any merchant who sells a service, i.e. Parasail rides in a resort, amusement park tickets, etc which are high margin products, and it won't hurt the merchant to sell groupons which will automatically put new customers in their place of business. Unlike Living Social, their prime competitor, you don't lose your money as a groupon customer if you don't get to the place of business within 6 months or so. I had two Living Social coupons expire, and you forfeit your money on their site, which is probably illegal, and is certainly immoral business practice. With groupon, if your groupon expires, you lose only the discount, not the price paid for the groupon. They are the world leader and are spending a lot of money right now to make sure they dominate the market. In a year or two, they will be profitable, because they won't have to expand their sales force so rapidly as they do now, and will have a huge loyal merchant repeat customer base. And the same will be true for the retail users, who will keep coming back for more deals. Groupons won't work for low margin retail products like consumer electronics, appliances, etc. because the merchants can't afford to discount them by half. However, for merchants offering a service, such as a day spa, amusement parks, resort attractions such as para-sail rides, show tickets, etc. this is a great deal. They are able to bring in new customers at a very low cost, and since they are pre-paid, the business is assured that the customers will in fact respond to the advertising. For restaurants, groupons are almost as good, because even if they discount a $20 meal to $10 with a groupon, they have snared a potential repeat customer with a one time discount, and possibly a salesman for their restaruant if the food and service are good. If the customer spends $30 instead of $20, the restaurant collects another $10 with no discount. The wait staff is more apt to stay with a restaurant who accepts groupons, because groupons bring in more tips for them. I just bought 100 shares 5 minutes ago @ $23.91, and placed an order for another 100 @ $20.00 if the price drops. I believe the risk versus potential reward for this company is very small. Groupon turned down a buyout offer of, I believe $7 billion nearly a year ago, and their business has increased tremendously since then.Check out their sales history in the very young life of this company. It's more than impressive.
Report this Comment On November 17, 2011, at 9:06 AM, leaderoftheback wrote:

Re; GSS
Not to beat a dying horse, but it's not execution of late that has been seriously rotten. Execution has always been rotten. GSS is always on the cusp of making money. I first owned GSS in 2005 on this very premise (gold was $400, soon to soar over $600). That is 24 quarters of bad history. Zero quarters of execution that live up to the promises management makes. I'm sure Sean has a limit to what he's put into GSS in real life, and if GSS finally comes through it'll be an excellent payday. I'm totally doubtful and only because of history. But then, past history is no indication of future performance, right? That's what I thought for 24 quarters.
from a 2005 10-Q:
During the first quarter of 2005, we incurred a net loss of $(1.4) million or $(0.010) per share on revenues of $18.1 million, versus net income of $5.2 million or $0.039 per share on revenues of $19.9 million during the first quarter of 2004. Several items contributed to the lower income in the current quarter. Lower gold output at Bogoso resulted in $2.6 million less gold revenues than a year earlier, but royalty revenues were $1.1 million for the first quarter compared to nil in the first quarter of 2004. Bogoso operating costs were also $3.0 million higher than in the same period of 2004 due to a change in ore type since the first quarter of 2004. See below for additional details of Bogoso operating costs. A $1.1 million impairment charge related to the Mininko exploration project also contributed to the loss during the quarter. Realized gold prices averaged $426 per ounce for the quarter, a 4% increase from the $408 per ounce realized in the same quarter of 2004.
Operating costs net of revenues continued to be capitalized at the Wassa mine during the first quarter of 2005 and as such did not impact the reported results. We placed the Wassa mine in service on April 1, 2005 and from that date will recognize revenues and cost of sales in the statement of operations.
GSS sold $126mm in Q3, 2011. Gold is now 4-5 times the price and production is some multiple, and they can't even make a few pennies in earnings? This 10Q looks just like the other 23. Look 'em up.
Caveat emptor.

Add your comment.

Compare Brokers

Fool Disclosure

DocumentId: 1586564, ~/Articles/ArticleHandler.aspx, 5/26/2012 8:17:11 PM

Report This Comment

Use this area to report a comment that you believe is in violation of the community guidelines. Our team will review the entry and take any appropriate action.

Sending report...

Today's Market

updated 23 hours ago Sponsored by:
	DOW	12,454.83	-74.92	-0.60%
	S&P 500	1,317.82	-2.86	-0.22%
	NASD	2,837.53	-1.85	-0.07%

Create My Watchlist

Go to My Watchlist

You don't seem to be following any stocks yet!

Better investing starts with a watchlist. Now you can create a personalized watchlist and get immediate access to the personalized information you need to make successful investing decisions.

Data delayed up to 5 minutes