Ken Deen's THE AGGRESSIVE TRADER(tm) "Seeking double-digit profits in one to four months" BUY/SELL ALERT P.O. Box 4791 Vol. 1, No. 97 Santa Barbara, CA 93140 October 23, 1992 (805) 565-2039 3:00pm New York time CompuServe: 72020,2050 Stock+Options Account (editor's personal account): No trades Stock-Only Account (editor's personal account): * Today I sold 350 Columbia First Bank at 14. I bought these shares on July 15 at 14 3/4. DESI(tm) Account (a computer-simulated hypothetical account): No trades DESI(tm) Buy/Sell Signals: None Other Trading Ideas (these will not be tracked in monthly reports): * Buy CSF Holdings Inc. (CSFCB, $35.75) Columbia First Bank I am selling at a slight loss because: + I have held the stock for over 3 months. + Earnings were reported recently. Although they were very strong (63 cents vs. 18 cents), the market reacted very little. + It is not a DESI(tm) stock, and I want to raise cash in anticipation of more DESI(tm) buy signals over the next few weeks. CSF Holdings Inc. The DESI(tm) market barometer is giving a red light; however, red lights are wrong about 50% of the time (green lights are much more reliable). If the DESI(tm) market barometer were favorable, CSF Holdings would be a DESI(tm) buy tomorrow. The stock has been trading from the high 20's to the mid 30's since mid- July. Yesterday it broke out of this 3-month base to close at 35 3/4, a new closing high, on 2.8 times average volume. This breakout coincided with a very strong earnings report, the latest in a series of very strong earnings gains. According to today's Investor's Business Daily (p.16): "The Miami-based banker has been busy making acquisitions this year, taking advantage of the Resolution Trust Corp.'s large inventory sale. In March, CSF made two acquisitions in Richmond, VA worth more than $100 million in deposits. It also bought two branch offices and $74 million in deposits in Miami." I have profitably traded this stock with my own money earlier this year. It appears now to be starting to make another run. The P/E two weeks ago, when the stock was at 33, was 4.6. As of yesterday's close, even though the price is higher, the P/E dropped to 4.0. Here are the outstanding earnings numbers for the last four quarters. (The stock is splitting 3-for-2, payable Monday, and the earnings numbers reported in today's paper are post-split. I am converting these to pre-split numbers because today's stock price is pre-split.) Quarter Ended Earnings-per-share ----- ------------------- Sep 30 2.90 vs 1.31 +121% Jun 30 2.67 vs 0.48 +456% Mar 31 2.58 vs 0.27 +856% Dec 31 0.68 vs 0.01 +6700% CSF has an earnings-per-share rank of 96 (on a scale of 1 to 99) from Investor's Business Daily and a relative strength rank of 98. The "Finance - Savings & Loan" group has a relative strength rank of 94, according to the Oct. 16 edition of Long-Term Values. That's down from 99 on Sept. 11. This loss of group relative strength is a negative; however, 94 is still very high and I suspect the group is not out of gas yet. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- *** To all who download this newsletter *** I invite you to send me your CompuServe ID to receive these alerts by e-mail. You will get them faster. I do not charge for this service. In addition, I invite you to send me your paper mail address. I will then send you a paper mailing once a month. This is the only way to receive the monthly status reports, which are chock-full of informative charts, graphs, and tables. I pay the postage. The monthly paper mailings also include hardcopy with stock charts of these buy/sell alerts. -Ken Deen ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This issue of The Aggressive Trader(tm) may be copied and distributed freely. Please pass it around! The Aggressive Trader is edited and published at irregular intervals, but at least monthly, by Kenneth L. Deen ("Ken Deen"), P.O. Box 4791, Santa Barbara, California 93140, (805) 565-2039. Ken Deen, his employees, affiliates, and/or clients may have positions in securities recommended herein and may make additional purchases and/or sales in these securities. Recommendations made in this publication involve a high degree of risk and may result in losses. Readers should not assume that recommendations will be profitable or will equal past performance. The information in this publication is collected from sources believed to be reliable, but neither the accuracy nor the completeness of this information is guaranteed. The Aggressive Trader, Deen Earnings Surprise Index, DESI, and DESI-3 are all trademarks of Kenneth L. Deen. Copyright (c) 1992 Kenneth L. Deen. -END-