Orange Portfolio's Weekly Review

The Orange Portfolio's first set of results will come next week when Check Point Software Technologies (Nasdaq: CHKP) reports second-quarter earnings. But earnings season is already under way, and there's plenty of news out there moving global markets. Here are the earnings results that have stood out the most so far, along with a look at how I'll be measuring the Orange Portfolio's performance.

Earnings season takes over
Bond yields and bailouts from Europe still dominate the news, but it was earnings from Cummins (NYSE: CMI) that moved the market this week. The soft results and sales guidance reduction from 10% growth to flat with last year initially took shares of Cummins down more than 11%. Komatsu (OTC: KMTUY.PK), Joy Global (NYSE: JOY), and other global industrial leaders also saw their shares fall 10% this week.

The slowdown in China is one reason why industrial firms are seeing weaker demand, but the damage hasn't been limited to industrials. Luxury retailers have been hit hard in the last few weeks, and the news from Burberry (OTC: BURBY.PK) this week wasn't great. Sales were up 11%, a strong performance, but below last year's 34% revenue growth in the same quarter and the 24% posted for all of last year. Growth in Asia was also down from 62% last year to 20% this year. The slower growth has Burberry shares down more than 20% in the past three months. That's enough to get my attention, but at 20 times earnings, they're still a bit too expensive for now.

Pockets of strength
It wasn't all bad news in the markets or even from Europe. Enterprise software giant SAP (NYSE: SAP) reported sales up 18% and operating profits up 15%. SAP's results are fairly consistent because it's expensive and difficult for companies to change software platforms. So while the growth has started to slow, it's worth noting that SAP talked up the strong sales from its mobile and cloud offerings. If SAP is going to continue to succeed in the long term, this is the part of the business that needs to be driving growth.

Measuring performance
With all four purchases showing price declines since they were purchased, there is no reason for cheer yet in the Orange Portfolio. I'm disappointed but not alarmed. At this point the portfolio is less than 2 months old and trailing the market by just a couple of percentage points. As I'll be measuring the performance over years and not weeks, it's far too early to be too concerned with returns.

While I think it pays to be patient, I also want to be sure I'm tracking performance and re-evaluating holdings that are well ahead of or badly trailing the market. The Orange Portfolio will be buying companies of all sizes from all around the world, so the index I'll be using to track my performance is the global, all-country iShares MSCI ACWI Index. For simplicity and familiarity, I'll also track results against the S&P 500, but it's the ACWI that I consider as my primary bogey.

Here's how the portfolio is stacking up so far. You can see the returns against the S&P 500 here.

You can follow along with all my real-money Orange Portfolio trades and updates here.