The Third Pig

A sound selling discipline is an oft-neglected part of a sound investing approach. A sell discipline will get the investor out of situations that show little promise and allow him to be available for situations that do. One of the sell criteria we employ at Brick Financial imparts us to sell a stock if “we have made a mistake in calculation or judgment.” Last August the clients of Brick Financial saw the criteria at work.

In August I wrote,

"We were cautious when we bought JetBlue: JBLU back in the spring of 2003… at the time it was trading at about 35x earnings which we thought was expensive… What we did not fully appreciate were some of the challenges that JetBlue faces. One was its vulnerability to rising oil prices. Although all transportation businesses were affected, airlines seemed to be especially so, and JetBlue was no exception. The other issue was the realization that although JetBlue’s operating and labor costs are presently low - as planes age, as employees become unionized, as new markets become more scarce – the company’s costs are bound to rise... We made several mistakes on this purchase... [ultimately] we did not provide ourselves a wide enough margin of safety [and] we should have weighed JetBlue’s rich valuation more heavily in our analysis…”

Since then, JetBlue has declined from a split-adjusted price of $12.71 to $9.69 at today’s (May 2nd) close. That move represents about a 24% decline. The company’s last two quarters were net losses, with the latest loss reaching $32 million. I would not say that I am clairvoyant, but some of the concerns I covered last summer have come to fruition. Larger competitors are pilfering the company’s business model and the company’s costs are catching up to it. The company, though nimble compared to other carriers, could not escape the ever-increasing rise in oil prices. It has also been forced to scale back on its expansion plans, sell some of its planes and shorten many of its routes.

A recent Wall Street Journal article underscores the company’s difficulty:

“ ‘We haven't done a good job at managing our business’ with aviation fuel costing more than $2 a gallon, said David Neeleman, JetBlue's founder and chief executive officer. The company's fuel bill rose 85% in the first quarter compared with a year earlier, and the average cost per gallon jumped 43% to $1.86. But the ‘silver lining’ in the record fuel price is that it is ‘helping us focus on becoming a better company,’ he said.”

 A sound sell discipline, and the ability to admit I was wrong, saved some money.