Symantec / NortonLifeLock - It Goes Down In The DM

It's December and I wanted to recap my best performers this year. I hope these notes serve as a way to help develop a strategy and display that it's not hard to invest in things you know.  Ironically, I trade enough that I don't know exactly who were top dawgs until I began doing a little bit of data analytics over the year. So I'll let you know who surprised me and why they made the list from my notes.

Symantec Corp. (SYMC) now known as NortonLifeLock NASDAQ : NLOK

In 2019, Symantec Corp. stumbled onto my radar. Quick background, they are one of the old guards in the IT and cybersecurity space.  They are huge and in almost every large companies data center and for consumers like you and me...many of us use their Norton Anti-Virus system on our home computers. I started hearing rumblings that the financials have not been good and the CEO was stepping down, which led the stock to fall, over 10% I believe (May 2019).  So hear is a name I know is in every large company across the globe and in many households.  So I put my alert to buy Symantec and being a little greedy I waited to pounce at an even lower price. This example shows investing is about both timing and price. 

How my trade unfolded:

Early July 2019 - News hit that Broadcom Inc. had DM'd (my version of trying to hookup) with Symantec Corp. for somewhere around $28 a share. I was right YES! But only on the time of the stock, being greedy on the price, I did NOT own any shares and the stock had probably moved up from around $22 to $26. It wasn't official because Symantec Corp. said if you like it put a bigger ring on it...$28 ain't good enough. For me, watching this was tough because it made sense, but you win some and will lose many. But never forget about the ones that got away.


July 15 2019 - News broke that Broadcom Inc. was officially no longer in Symantec Corp.'s DM. They wanted no part of a golddigger, reaching for more money. Symantec Corp. was officially left at the alter and the stock dropped big time over 15% and was back where I first found it. A song popped into my head: "You don't know what you've got until it's Gone" and I decided to finally
buy Symantec Corp. Why, it was like Broadcom Inc. had done all of the hard work of getting the phone number and then giving it to me to make the call. So I went in big because I knew Symantec Corp. should be trading around the $28 dollar range. Now that's what I call a wingman.

August 8 2019 - Yup you guessed it Broadcom Inc. had the same song in their head too and wanted Symantec Corp. back. But they were more cautious and only wanted to buy Symantec Corp.'s enterprise business which supports those big companies that I talked about...NOT the anti-virus business they sell to consumers like us. How much: $10.7 billion deal, the stock move up to the 24-25 range.

November 5 2019 - Symantec Corp. (SYMC) is no longer in the enterprise space so they are "Feeling Good As Hell" with their new focus on consumer security products and identify protection and change their name to NortonLifeLock NASDAQ : NLOK   (Note: they bought LifeLock a few years ago)

December 10 2019 - Saw news today that McAfee (owned by Intel now) and a few Private Equity Firms are DMing NortonLifeLock. So the stock has jump above $26 dollars on the news

I wanted to thank Symantec / NortonLifeLock, Broadcom, Intel McAfee, and the Private Equity Firms for giving me my best position of the year and all the drama that unfolded better than a scripted drama show or TMZ news feed because I can make $$ of this drama.  Thank you Yo Gotti and Lizzo for songs that popped into my head as I wrote this. Reminder, if I can do it you can too.  I'm tagging Symantec / NortonLifeLock because I think other suitors may be lining up. #investandchill   #investingintheDM #hookupalert

Should I Buy These Stocks ~ May 2010

I hope that my efforts both here on the web and in person begin to slowly impact the way that people think about some of the daily decisions they make in a different light. As you know, my reasoning tends to have an economical twist to it..."If it don't make dollars, it don't make sense". And the outcome doesn't always have to involve money, but it does need to make sense to you and the people you care about.

So I am glad whenever friends and readers ask me about the economy or in this case to analyze a few stocks they are interested in buying. So in this round I received four stocks from a close friend who works in real estate. Here were the stocks he presented:

• Bruker Corporation
• Reliant Steel
• British Petroleum
• Unilife

Bruker Corp (NASDAQ: BRKR) - Biotech toolmaker (X-ray, MRI,etc)
- Barrons Article, "Biotech toolmaker Bruker Corp's shares could climb as business and the economy improves this year, financial weekly Barron's said. The paper reported in its April 12 edition that Bruker shares could rise from a current $15.20 to $18 as its sales rise 10 percent a year -- twice as fast as its rivals."

- I really like the medical device segment. I have written about these types of companies and think they have room especially with the recent changes in health care. I would reference my reviews of Boston Scientific
- Recommendation: This meets some of my screening criteria, nice call. BUY @ $13.91 – 14.08

Reliant Steel (NYSE: RS) – Steel Maker
- Steel is a solid play if you are a believer that the economy, more importantly the world economy is stabilizing and rebounding. I personally and not fully sold. A good chunk of steel would need to be bolstered by China and they may be reigning in a hot economy over there. Manufacturing and real estate are at divergent ends and you may need both (i.e., signs of a growing to really buy this play)
- Dissapointing Outlook: http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/story/10733603/1/reliance-steels-outlook-disappoints.html?cm_ven=YAHOO&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA

- Recommendation: Not Buying

British Petroleum (BP) – Oil
- I like your enthusiasm here and slowly over the years have played the contrarian play more than any other. Buying the guy that’s down and out or that got clobbered by some negative news. Need a recent example, Boston Scientific got hammered by the FDA and I waited then bought after the story played out. The difference is this story hasn’t played out and the government needs a whooping boy and BP is it. No one is happy about what’s going on in the Gulf, even the oil lovers down in the Gulf!
- Recommendation: I personally would wait until a little more news comes out. I think it may be safe to buy at the 52 week low levels of $44, because a 7% dividend is paying you to wait for this stock to rebound. But your downside risk still exists big time…which could lead to a dividend cut and no one likes that.

Unilife – Medical Devices
- I like this sector don’t like this stock. In 5 minutes outside of the sector they are in I can’t find a reason to love this stock. Being a contrarian, I tend to want to buy these guys because it looks like they been beat down…like they stole something. But I can’t do it:
- Negative news (got sour around Apr) and changing of management and board members tells me something wasn’t going right.
- Recommendation: I personally would not buy this company, even if it was with your money. LMAO