In January, Analytic Investment added additional shares of Material Sciences (NASDAQ: MASC) to its Focus Value model. MASC is now the top holding in the model. Just before Analytic Investment increased its holding in this position, MASC announced that its board of directors had authorized the company to repurchase up to one million shares of outstanding stock.
The company’s stock price has been rising fairly steadily since its March 30, 2009 low of $0.51. Its price got a bit of a boost on December 21st after the rare earth coated steel materials company Ossen Innovation (NASDAQ: OSN) had its IPO. MASC closed at $6.07 on December 20th and at $6.33 on December 21st. Since then its risen even higher, closing at $7.22 on February 2nd.
Model manager Vivian Lewis added shares of Morgan Stanley Frontier Emerging Markets Fund Incorporated (FFD) to her International Yield model this week. The model invests 80 percent or more of its assets in the securities of companies that operate in frontier emerging market countries. Unrest in Egypt brought the fund’s price down from its January 18th closing price of $15.59 to $14.29 on the day it was added to the model. It closed slightly higher on February 2nd, but was still trading below NAV.
*Prices courtesy of Yahoo Finance.
