In my introductory post I forgot to give a timescale for my stock picks. I'm aiming for a short- to medium-term improvement: for my Shortlist I will replace each stock after 12 months; for my Portfolio I will acquire 20 stocks, and then sell one each month, on a first-in first-out basis.
In January the Shortlist dropped by 7.4%. (The FTSE All-Share fell by 3.1%). Only one stock survived the onslaught, Majestic Wine, which rose by 19%.
Meanwhile, the Portfolio fell by nearly 16%. Pendragon was doing okay until it fell out of bed on January 15th, exactly on the day of its Mars return. I must look into Mars returns in more detail later: perhaps it suggests a time to buy or sell.
For February, only two stocks meet the astro criterion, Castings (LON:CGS) and Senior (LON:SNR), so both of these are added to the Shortlist.
Fortunately Castings has a high StockRank (92), so I am happy to add it to my Portfolio (current price 470p).
