In his Financial Services model, Covestor manager Andrew Schornack invests in positions within the financial services and real estate sectors. We discussed his model in detail last week. This month, Schornack added First Niagara Financial Group Inc (NASDAQ: FNFG) to the model. On September 30th, FNFG had a dividend yield of 4.72 percent. Its price to earnings ratio is lower than many of its competitors and the financial group’s net revenues increased from $556.9 million in 2008 to $618.7 million in 2009. Their second quarter 2010 financial results (you can download the financial results press release here) showed a net income of $44.9 million, surpassing the $32.6 million reported in the same quarter of 2009. FNFG is currently working toward acquiring NewAlliance Bancshares Inc (NYSE: NAL), but the deal is facing some scrutiny by the Connecticut Attorney General’s office due to the state’s restriction of state chartered bank mergers.
Covestor Model Manager John Rodgers added United States Natural Gas Fund, LP (UNG) to his Resource and Commodity model this week. In the model, Rodgers invests only in commodity and resource companies. He uses a macroeconomic approach as well as a fundamental analysis to choose positions for the model. UNG is a trust that invests in NYMEX natural gas futures that are close to the expiration with the goal of mirroring the performance of natural gas. On September 30th, UNG was trading at a premium to NAV.
