I wanted to create a thread on stocks (not mutual funds, economy, recession etc) and know there are some knowledgeable stock pickers in FOF.

Although I have been wrong about the bottom and am tired anticipating it, I can't help but believe there are some great values right now. I would like some advice from the forum (your disclaimer is assumed) and I think others will also appreciate it.

I am personally looking for some great US stocks that will rebound with the economy and will be part of my 401k brokerage portfolio for 10-15+ years.

So, as an exercise, I need volunteers to

List their top 1-5 stock picks
Qualify it with their time horizon and risk tolerance
Indicate some reasoning for their selection
Optional - record the datetime, price which will be on record and the hoped for stock price appreciation (either in $ or %) over 10 to 15 years.

Up to the challenge?

Here's a tip...

Get an experienced money manager to help you and stay away from Internet message boards for financial advice.

Here's a tip...

Get an experienced money manager to help you and stay away from Internet message boards for financial advice.

+1

Here's a tip...

Get an experienced money manager to help you and stay away from Internet message boards for financial advice.

Not to say that a text sim message board is a great place to go for financial advice, but I'm not sold on 'experienced money managers' either.

I don't have a top 5 for you, but rather a general strategy. Choose some stocks now that are the most likely to benefit from the upcoming stimulus package. I'm thinking infrastructure related companies as we know that should be a big part of this.

Let me know when you have our list. =)

I'm going long fast food. Cheap meals FTW.

whatever i do, do the opposite.

While my focus isn't as long term as yours, I'm willing to play. I'll give it some thought.

While my focus isn't as long term as yours, I'm willing to play. I'll give it some thought.

Hey thanks. I was about to give up on this crowd.

I'll play as well - I'll have to think about it - but I know the bulk of mine will be environmentally friendly companies (Hydrogen based (like HYGS), Solar Engergy and Electric power cell) and large battered stocks.

The main thing they'll all have in common is a lack of debt and a requirement for the purchaser not to look at the stocks again for at least another year - otherwise you'll probably have heart failure if its the wrong time ;)

If I have time, I'll try to get the program I had and run some new tests, because P/E ratio was a part of my formula for narrowing things down before and that's obviously useless right now. If I have time though, I'll try picking some individual ones.

Overall, in terms of bottom-guessing, I would wait a week or two. I think there was a bubble from excessive optimism about the stimulus package, and that earnings reports are going to knock that down.

Also, if you want to try to organize this a little bit http://marketocracy.com/ lets you pick portfolios, set up groups etc.

First, I think we'll revisit the November lows

Second, I look for the Tech and infrastructure play to get us out of this so that will lead to the upside whenever the markets begins to turn north.

Third, I was so far off on predicting a bottom in housing that it is laughable. that being said I am now looking to pick up a foreclosure, shortsale, or Builder inventory home this spring (with a special 4% fixed mortgage HELLO)

I currently hold 4 stocks in my portfolio with ~40% of my money on the sideline with more $ targeted for investment when the waters are more calm which may not happen this year, at all.

I do NOT see another commodity bubble anytime soon, unless inflation takes hold on the back end of this, which I doubt will occur in substantial enough amounts to make it noteworthy. I know people fear all this money being printed should lead to inflation but I'd argue that that's at baseline...we're far below baseline IMO.

I still recommend doing the opposite of me.

I'll eventually throw my two cents in as well but I'll need to do a bit of research.

I'm in a holding pattern right now, almost fully invested and willing to be as patient as necessary in order to recover my paper losses last year. I sold off enough at the end of December to balance out my capital gains from earlier in the year, posting a net gain of a dollar officially in '08. :)

It was a tough year in reality though and I'm way behind on a number of my holdings. Again, with one or two notable exceptions, I'm invested in solid companies with great long-term prospects so I'm not worried whatsoever about my money.

I expect to have some more money to play with in the next month or two so I was going to start doing some research anyway. Hopefully, I can make a post in the next week or two with some thoughts.

Here's a quick stab at things. Not getting on top of the mountain and predicting what's going to happen with everything... just picking a few stocks, that's all.

- - - - -

Caterpillar (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=cat) (CAT)

Not exactly a “stimulus package” play (I think any reasonable effect of a stim program is already built into prices, sadly), but rather a pretty standard cyclical play. With the economy and real estate both massive depressed, this construction-related blue chip is trading at embarrassingly low ratios – right now its P/E ratio is around 7, that’s just silly (earnings may dent that short term, admittedly). This company is **not** going out of business. The dividend is not a firm one from year to year – but at today’s rates, that itself is around a 4% yield at today’s prices of around $40. Highway robbery for what sits right now as a great value stock.

Forecast: eventually the world starts building shit again, and we need big rigs to move dirt around. CAT makes them. Stock goes to $56 or better in two years, and the dividend is pretty secure.


Hecla Mining (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=hl) (HL)

In the wake of a commodities meltdown, I think there’s real value in a number of related stocks. Precious metals took a massive thumping last year (full disclosure: I suffered) and mining stocks seemed to take a double whammy from not only a loss in the commodity price, but also a sell-of effect just by virtue of being equities. Where does that leave a silver and copper mining company like Hecla? Looking at a $11/oz price for silver, and wondering what the hell happened to them? This is a well run company where I’m already very long, but I see the current price in the $2.20-2.40 range being a complete steal. The gold/silver price ratio is too high, that usually means that silver is heading upwards… but even if silver stays at $11-12 an ounce for the next two years, Hecla should be at $3.50 rather than $2.25.

Forecast: ups and downs in the short run (profitable themselves if you move on both) but this thing has a bounce-back in the next 18 months, and should end 2009 over $3.00, possibly over $4.00.


Cedar Fair (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=fun) (FUN)

My bias is strong here, as I grew up practically in the shadows of their flagship amusement park and worked summers there. But the company has a lot going for it – among the operators of regional amusement parks, they are the one who obviously “gets it” and offers the best mix of entertainment, rides, food, and (underrated) appearance/cleanliness.

This is also a dividend play, almost completely. A share of FUN pays a quarterly dividend of 48 cents – that means you’re getting nearly two bucks a share back in dividends, at a share price right now of only $13. **IF** that remains intact, this is a monstrous yield, completely unsustainable.
There’s a real risk here. The company (a limited partnership) recently bought out Paramount Parks, and did so mostly with leveraged debt, so their books look bad. Their long time CEO is resigning (or just has), and he has been really good. So, it’s possible that this company simply loses its way, slashes its dividend, and the stock price drops to six bucks.

Why like it? Because I like their market position (and I think I understand it). In concept, sure, they lose out when a midwestern family says they can’t afford two hundred bucks for a weekend at Cedar Point this summer due to tight times. But they also make out well when a similar family says they can’t afford twelve hundred for a trip to Disneyland, and so they opt instead to go to a nearby regional attraction like Cedar Point . It’s like Wal-Mart, in a way – neither the top nor the bottom of the ladder, and that’s not too bad in these times.

I also know the driving mentality of this stock… they are a darling of "income investors" and realize that the dividend is essentially sacrosanct. It may not be the smartest move in toto, but I think they want to protect that dividend as best they can for fear of massive investor backlash.

Forecast: 2/3 chance that the company retains its dividends, has a solid 2009, and finishes 2010 with a stock price in the low 20s… 1/3 chance that they are in fairly serious trouble, drop the dividend, and the stock price is halved to 7 by then


Woodward Governor (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=wgov) (WGOV)

This NASDAQ listing is somewhere amidst the seas of growth plays, energy plays, and technical plays. I think it has a decent case on each front. They make energy-related equipment, including nearly universal parts for aircraft – a pretty down industry right now. In time, that should promote a cyclical rebound.

However, the area for growth is that their transmission technologies are well suited for… windmills. If you buy the general notion that we have momentum toward renewable energy sources (I do, in part) then this seems like a fruitful area.

On the technical side, the stock is selling at a pretty modest P?E of 13. That’s not criminally low, but if you think this stock has any growth potential, it’s still pretty attractive. The stock price has really been punished of late, and while getting in at around $21 (today’s price) might not be the actual bottom, signs point to this stock heading upwards before long.

Forecast: Immediate future partially tied to oil/gas prices (when they are down, the fervor for alternative energy is lessened) but in the next several years this is a growth company with several reasons to like it – I think it hits $30 by the end of 2010, and has more potential past that, likely back to $40 or better within five years.


Cynosure (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=cyno) (CYNO)

A bit of a goofy play here, but I am enamored for two reasons. First, I am becoming an old fart, increasingly out of touch with the young crowd, and thus I just love their company niche – tattoo removal technology.

From a technical standpoint, I also love that they have a ton of cash on their books – fairly odd for a somewhat new company. Even if all that happens is that they get bought out by someone big (and that’s not unthinkable given their balance sheet), that’s still a solid win for a shareholder.

No dividend, no history, nothing to say “solid” but this is an interesting spec play that has a chance to work out really well. Stock price right now is around eight bucks (after a mini-bump the last couple of weeks) and where it goes from here is anyone’s guess.

Forecast: Flip a coin. It could finish 2009 at $6 or $16. Or $36, I suppose. Might need to make that a 20-sided die after all, this thing could land just about anywhere.

Cynosure (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=cyno) (CYNO)

A bit of a goofy play here, but I am enamored for two reasons. First, I am becoming an old fart, increasingly out of touch with the young crowd, and thus I just love their company niche – tattoo removal technology.

From a technical standpoint, I also love that they have a ton of cash on their books – fairly odd for a somewhat new company. Even if all that happens is that they get bought out by someone big (and that’s not unthinkable given their balance sheet), that’s still a solid win for a shareholder.

No dividend, no history, nothing to say “solid” but this is an interesting spec play that has a chance to work out really well. Stock price right now is around eight bucks (after a mini-bump the last couple of weeks) and where it goes from here is anyone’s guess.

Forecast: Flip a coin. It could finish 2009 at $6 or $16. Or $36, I suppose. Might need to make that a 20-sided die after all, this thing could land just about anywhere.

just wanted to add my 2 cents. My friend does tattoo removal for a living and he says a company called HOYA has the best lasers.
http://www.conbio.com/html/medlite.html

When E.F. Quiksand talks, people listen.

It cuz he smartz!

I've been trying to avoid posting this thread, but Quiksand just hit two stocks I've made a play on within the past 6 months (although I'm a bit promiscious when it comes to stocks so thats not saying much I guess).

So just for giggles:

I own some FUN in my version of a long portfolio, loaded up in October but it triggered auto-sale at up 20%, re-entered at 14 and 12 in November, and plan on sitting on it. It has been flat since, but that is a good thing as far as I'm concerned... at the moment it is almost exactly par.

I shorted CAT... back in July, I think they have taken their lumps and performed the steps they had to do in the time since that though. I have been doing one of my volatility plays on them with a range of 35 to 40, so I got a 12% in both October and November, but do not currently own them because they've been over range since then. So they are on my short list to re-evaluate.

Cedar Point ftw!

How do you guys see medical/health care/biotech stocks in the long-term?

So if Cedear Point decides to dig a huge hole in the ground and create an underground park made of silver and powered by windmills, and it is so successful that it causes former Disneyophiles to change allegiance and get their Mickey Mouse tattoos removed . . .

I'm pretty sure that is exactly what is going to pull us out of a recession albionmoonlight... we're just waiting for the underground amusement park stimulus package to get passed.

From my outsider's perspective, it seems like getting into an index fund or ETF for banking stocks may not be the worst thing long term. While I would not want to bet on any one bank, it seems that, after the banks all finish eating each other, the sector as a whole has a ways to come back to be fairly valued.

It cuz he smartz!

I've been trying to avoid posting this thread, but Quiksand just hit two stocks I've made a play on within the past 6 months (although I'm a bit promiscious when it comes to stocks so thats not saying much I guess).

So just for giggles:

I own some FUN in my version of a long portfolio, loaded up in October but it triggered auto-sale at up 20%, re-entered at 14 and 12 in November, and plan on sitting on it. It has been flat since, but that is a good thing as far as I'm concerned... at the moment it is almost exactly par.

I shorted CAT... back in July, I think they have taken their lumps and performed the steps they had to do in the time since that though. I have been doing one of my volatility plays on them with a range of 35 to 40, so I got a 12% in both October and November, but do not currently own them because they've been over range since then. So they are on my short list to re-evaluate.

You slut.

So if Cedear Point decides to dig a huge hole in the ground and create an underground park made of silver and powered by windmills, and it is so successful that it causes former Disneyophiles to change allegiance and get their Mickey Mouse tattoos removed . . .

GOLD :D

SI

You slut.

QFT :lol:

I dumped 20k in a ultra S&P ETF at about 11 this morning hoping for a bounce.... SSO went all the way from 22.92 to 23.00 at days end.

You don't want to be holding leveraged ETFs for long, but please can we just pop a little tomorrow so I can have one happy day?

From my outsider's perspective, it seems like getting into an index fund or ETF for banking stocks may not be the worst thing long term. While I would not want to bet on any one bank, it seems that, after the banks all finish eating each other, the sector as a whole has a ways to come back to be fairly valued.

yes

Hell I'll play. And these are all plays I have personally invested in, so my money is where my mouth is so to speak. Dont take my advice or you will go broke.

1) Cummins (CMI) This is a play against QS pick of Caterpillar in a way. CAT recently announced a pull out of the on highway engine market leaving Cummins as the only independent engine manufacturer in the world for on highway applications meeting EPA standards. They are a traditionally liquid company and while a series of recent job cuts seem disastrous it appears they are staying ahead of the curve as opposed to chasing it.

Stock is trading at 24.52 today when as recently as August it was in the 70s. I look for a mid yer rebound and this stock to be in the 50s by year end.

2) Pepsico (PEP) Just a solid value play in my book. Their drink brands, snack food products and fast food business are near recession proof. Sure they are down like every stock but I look for huge returns for year end.

Trading today at 51.10 near a 52 week low I think this stock sees 75 before it sees 40.

3) Research in Motion (RIMM) Despite blackberry taking a beating to the Iphone and Googles latest greatest this stock continues to have ridiculous statistics. With Verizon now pushing the blackberry, as people begin to crunch home budgets I look for them to disconnect home phones and maybe even GASP give up home internet...why not if you can carry both with you?

Today its 45.10. While I dont see the quick run I see in my last 2 the dividend will help offset modest incremental gains. Still I see this stock pushing 60 by years end.

4) Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) Not even Obama will keep folks from getting sick. And this is the BEST drug company on the market, another recession proof industry.

Trading today at 22.20 I think this stock hovers on the high 20s maybe bumping 30 by years end.

5) General Electric (GE) With a company this diverse its almost like owning a mutual fund. Jack Welch may be moved on, and Jeff Immelt may have enemies in every corner, but this giant is just too big. I mean seriously when else can you simultaneously buy Aircraft engines and medical imaging equipment?

Its 14.10 today, I jumped in right at 13.00 in mid december. I plan to hold until ~16 and Ill take my profit then...if it drops Ill keep right on holding.

GE does seem underpriced. I wonder how much of that is recession, how much of that is a lack of confidence in Immelt, and how much of that is merely speculation.

I think one of the problems is that no one has a good gauge on what a "proper" valuation is since the previous short term history was overinflated pretty much from top to bottom. Youll hear people talk PE v/ EPS v/ float /, etc. and no one knows what to compare it to. You cant compare year/year, you cant compare quarters, its almost like you just look into the balance sheet and make sure the company has enough cash to cover short term debt, that theyre worth more in cash and assets than float and then wait until we grind to a bottom and say, "here we go, par."

Have to agree with Flasch, in my opinion all past values are suspect (although if we are talking traditional economics here, past values SHOULD NOT MATTER, the history is dead and not a perfect predictor of the future and all that jazz).

Most of my valuations I try to take into account short term debt issues since the mention of the 'credit freeze'. A lot of companies, if they survive that, will probably still be around for whatever rebound that occurs. Also don't assume that the current price is necessary the bottom, there are quite a few stocks I still see losing some weight, and a couple where i put their 'recovery' price below their current price (as in after the fall and bounce to normal they will still trade at a lower share price because they haven't shed all of their fictional inflated value yet).

Finally, this is my particular gambit and not for everyone, but because price targets are often hard (and sometimes just pulled from no where)... I have a tendency to set up automatic cutoffs where I would be comfortable with a short term gain (say any boost over 10%, or so on, relative to confidence in the short term future of stock). If you are looking for ultra long term and don't want to bother with transaction costs, of course ignore that altogether, but if you have been playing ups and downs, it is slightly more reliable than halting for a predicted target and suffering the short term ups and downs. Especially with volatility, you might trigger a 10% gain, bounce out, it might fall a couple days later, you get back in, and then another bounce and profit taking.... rinse and repeat. If you are willing to take the chance that it will go up and keep going up and that you are risking missing the boat... well it can give you a few mini-gains for a large gain, even though the stock price is only slowly trending up overall.

I don't consider this so much of a stock tip as a theoretical game, so I don't feel bad about revealing it, there are of course downside risks so I'll be happy to explain further (and feel free to attack the idea as complete shit, I've got buddies that point out problems and once in a while I find a new variant that is even better for certain situations).

At some point I'm buying USO. The opportunity to buy an ETF that somewhat tracks crude is the perfect hedge against heating oil and gas prices. If I don't make any money on the EFT my living expense are lower. If I lose disposable income on gas/oil then at least I'm somewhat covered in my portfolio.

Of course I'm going to get cute and try to time the oil bottom.

$28/barrel

$28/barrel

You think that's the bottom?

At 3:59 I bought another 10k of SSO. Just looking for a happy market on the 20th... it's really just gambling, but it's my speculation money so why not gamble with it.

i dunno, a guess. The Cantango is going to have a problem here shortly when the storage begins to run a bit hotter than they'd like so the expected profit'll get squeezed there (at the margin) forcing more supply on the market PLUS as the credit squeeze begins to hit more and more countries those that produce oil will want to move more barrels in contrast to what they say, since selling oil now (relative to demand) is better than cutting supply, hoping the price goes up and breaking even. Theyre all nervous and they dont see the scenery improvbing anytime soon.


All of the above is simply speculation, do your own DD.

I believe will tap a low for a while and then prices will go high er to feel some sort of stick in the 60$ range but who knows. I will pat myself on the back and say that I did say the oil trade was a bubble along with the commodity trade and whle I tried to dance around it at the top was able to avoid the pain on the way down. whew.

Here is to a better tomorrow. At least I didn't have BAC or C....

Damnit I shouldve shorted it for real (SDS) instead of just thinking it. I have such a hard time putting my $ where my mouth is and instead stay with the long and hold philosophy since the 'fast money' philosophy highlighted in my thread last year didnt work either. grrrrrr

I sort of predicted a BAC fall back in the 'Recession...' thread.. its about 60% down from my entry point (I'm an evil shorter). I'm not one to give advice, but if you are direct shorting BAC realize it is 20% of what it was 3 months ago and maybe 13% of what it was 4 months ago. I personally have liquidated, there is no point finding a bottom if you already got sure money!

Haven't been following Chase specifically.

I have been playing some of the ETFs around financials, SDS peaks have been insane the last few months.

Here's a quick stab at things. Not getting on top of the mountain and predicting what's going to happen with everything... just picking a few stocks, that's all.

- - - - -

Caterpillar (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=cat) (CAT)

Not exactly a “stimulus package” play (I think any reasonable effect of a stim program is already built into prices, sadly), but rather a pretty standard cyclical play. With the economy and real estate both massive depressed, this construction-related blue chip is trading at embarrassingly low ratios – right now its P/E ratio is around 7, that’s just silly (earnings may dent that short term, admittedly). This company is **not** going out of business. The dividend is not a firm one from year to year – but at today’s rates, that itself is around a 4% yield at today’s prices of around $40. Highway robbery for what sits right now as a great value stock.

Forecast: eventually the world starts building shit again, and we need big rigs to move dirt around. CAT makes them. Stock goes to $56 or better in two years, and the dividend is pretty secure.


been meaning to pick up CAT based on the reasoning above - but glad i've procrastinated considering it's down 25% since the pick was made

Heh, I actually finally plunged in on CAT once it got down to nearly $30... I don't know where the bottom is with the company, but I simply refuse to believe that the company is dead or dying. I'm in for about half of what may be a long term position... so the likeliest spot for me to by the other half would be at around $26 (if it keep sliding) or maybe around $36 (if it looks like it's coming back after a bit).

The bigger worry is with Cedar Fair, where I am already too long. They released some guidance intimating a new dividend policy may be in the offing, and the stock is hurting (though not crushed). The February dividend is fine, but the next quarter might get halved or worse, and that's trouble. I might take a beating there... but still, even if they cut the dividend in half, a buck a year on a ten dollar stock is still pretty money (double entendre intended).

I got FUN for a little over 12 bucks (back in November), lost about 16%, but dividend payment covered about 4-5% of that. The rumor (and likelyhood) of a dividend cut is probably responsible for most of that lost. I'm hoping the actual news will result in a bump instead of a further drop...

If you're buying for your 401(k), why would you NOT get into good index funds? The only reasons to buy stocks in individual companies would be if you really want to own that company, or love to speculate in the market. And speculating is not investing in your future or those companies, it is more like gambling.

I don't know if that is directed at me or not, but for me:

1. I don't believe in most mutual fund managers abilities or trustworthiness, so that rules out those funds.

2. The index funds have fallen with the economy (unless you are talking about very specific ones, in which case you are back to researching a segment of the economy anyway).

3. The notion of investment without research to me is the true gambling. Oh the market averaged 12% from 1930 to 2000, buy the index and you are 'safe' is a 'DOES NOT COMPUTE!' moment for me given my understanding of economics.

4. I like to do my own research. And I've stated elsewhere, if you don't like homework you should go into specific funds or better some sort of fixed payment investment system through a bank. You don't deserve 12% return on your money, it is not a privilege, and it has a RISK rate that people seem to ignore.

5. Everything is like gambling, including 'good index funds'. Everything has risk and estimated reward rates, denying such is just ignorance. Given recent market situations I've decided to take certain risk and reward scenarios and avoid what might have been 'good common sense'. Lately the common sense has been lacking in common sense investing, in my opinion (this is why you have banks that belong on fail blog).

GE seems incredibly undervalued right now considering that it's like a mutual fund anyways and their yield is silly. (Edit to add, hopefully their bond rating isnt cut and their yield stays put)

Good index funds are not like gambling, because it is a widely diversified investment across the span of the entire economy. You aren't trying to time the market. You aren't trying to pick the winners and losers. You aren't at the whim of an analyst sending a torpedo into your biggest holding. Overall, over time, the index funds tend to make steady gains and that is what is best for most people trying to get money for retirement. You adjust your balance between stock and bonds, but otherwise you don't worry about where the market is going from day to day. You also don't have some manager or big financial institution eating you up with management fees, brokerage fees, etc.

For the average person, any choice other than widely diversified index funds is probably a mistake. If you enjoy doing all of the work and can demonstrate that you generate better returns (all fees included) than index funds, then good for you. Many people don't beat good index funds once you include fees (if at all).

Good index funds have risk. A diversified bet is still a bet.

If you want to think of it like a roulette wheel, you can consider the index fund bet being a bet on both black and red. You look good a whole lot of years, then you hit green (say economic crisis) and well you are out of luck. If the rate of return is right on average you will probably survive those green years as well overall.

They are not invincible, that is the thought I'm railing against... although for the average investor is it a better option... okay my practical side of the brain can see that as an option. But if you want to get really into thinking about it, technically you could play timing games on index funds of the whole economy as well. For instance, I'm sure most people would appreciate dodging the DJIA going from 12000+ to 8000 territory.

Any stock, bond, or collection of stocks and bonds, is GAMBLING (by definition, no risk = no reward... ignore poor perverted treasuries for a moment). Lets make that the first thing we teach in kindergarten, then move on to the discussion of average rates of return and default risk and economic downturns and all that jazz.

All that noise aside, I would rather people buy an index fund then follow the picks within this thread without studying the stuff themselves. As Tekneek says, its a lot of work, and for the most part probably not worth the costs/risks.

Good index funds have risk. A diversified bet is still a bet.

Of course. But the risk is mitigated, generally, because the best funds are going to be weighted evenly across a wide spectrum. You won't have huge upside, but you won't have a huge downside (compared to the rest of the economy). A good index fund play is an investment in capitalism itself.

They are not invincible, that is the thought I'm railing against... although for the average investor is it a better option...

Nothing is invincible when it comes to this stuff.

But if you want to get really into thinking about it, technically you could play timing games on index funds of the whole economy as well. For instance, I'm sure most people would appreciate dodging the DJIA going from 12000+ to 8000 territory.

Sure they would. However, trying to time the market is a fool's errand. Eventually, you will find yourself chasing a trend and end up on the wrong end of it, either losing more value than you should, or leaving some on the table.

All that noise aside, I would rather people buy an index fund then follow the picks within this thread without studying the stuff themselves. As Tekneek says, its a lot of work, and for the most part probably not worth the costs/risks.

People just need to know that "picking stocks" is something most individuals should only do for fun, and not with money that they really need for anything else.

Go long Corporate bonds. Grossly undervalued as most of the monies flowing into fixed income has gone into Treasuries recently.

Also, short the long Treasuires. At some point people will stop buying our debt and we will have to increase the yields to entice people into buying our crap again.

Buy and hold won't work again for another 8-10 years.

Plymouth Rock Studios

I don't know much about stocks, I picked a few winners for my some of my stupider friends with money after 9/11, but that was based on deductive thinking and not any financial prowess. I don't even balance the checkbook in my familily. That said, the above seems like a low risk/high reward venture based on what I'm hearing. I'm not sure if it's even IPO'ed, or anything but I have friends in Hollywood/Southern Cali (mostly comedy troupe performers, writers and such) who say that there is a pretty big buzz around "Hollywood East" and thy're thinking that PRS, who I hear was stared by a bunch of former execs from some major studio, will absolutely blow Vancouver out of the water....whatever that means.

I dunno, I just thought I'd throw that out there.

No se holmes.

I'll bite ...

SOLR - GT Solar International, Inc
Solar power, if Obama goes alternative energy as seems to be indicated then it'll play a big part in things. Has beat earnings expectations regularly and is trading at a ludicrously low level despite having risen nearly 50% in the past 2 days.
Don't even consider purchasing yet though as I reckon it'll yoyo down to around $3.50 again before it breaks out from its current levels.

I fully expect this stock to at least double up within the next 2 years.

FVE - Five Star Quality Care, Inc.
This is at the riskier end of investments at present simply because the company carries a fair bit of debt. That being said even in a recession people get old and as such need to be looked after.
A company which has expanded agressively and is presently trading at $1.85 against a high of around $12 a couples of years ago.
Presuming the company doesn't get itself into too much trouble with refinancing debt I'd expect its price to be at least $3-5 within the next 5 years.

NOK - Nokia
Largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world, limited debts and huge clout. It lacks the sexiness of Apple's Iphone or RIMM's Blackberry but more than makes up for it with its range of products and vitally is competitive nearly everywhere in the world (with the odd absence of notable market share in the US).
Reasonable dividend of around 4% and a very low P/E multiple with its present price around $13, I can't see this company failing to remain stable even if the recession is prolonged. Ideally I expect them to eat up smaller up and coming tech companies in the meantime, setting themselves up for growth during the recovery period.

MSFT - Microsoft
Safe bet, the worlds most popular operating system manufacturer. Its obviously a stable largely debt free money machine presently priced at $19 - or around 60% of its valuation a year ago. It pays a small but safe dividend.
Microsoft will be releasing the 'new' Windows in the next year which is a guarenteed revenue bringer, the Xbox360 is now profitable and while behind the Wii appears to be fending off the PS-3 with ease, on top of this there are strong rumours of a 'Microsoft phone' going around - something which if done intelligently could open up a whole new market.
On top of this I conjecture that Apple allowing non-DRM music downloads/conversion of existing libraries will allow people to escape from the iTunes/iPod lock which has kept most other mp3 players as nothing more than a niche - potentially allowing Microsofts Zune or descrendants to make some headway into that market.

HYGS - Hydrogenics Corporation (USA)
A hugely risky proposition which will either make me look like a genius or a moron in the future. A penny stock currently priced at 44c, HYGS produces hydrogen fuel cells and suchlike.
My theory is that while hybrid electrical systems are presently trendy in the long term the post petrol transport solution will be hydrogen based.
Reasoning being - its easier to convert existing car engines to use hydrogen than into hybrids (cutting costs for users and manufacturers), its also easier for companies to sell hydrogen at gas stations then it is to do the same with electric products (where a user can plug in at home). This allows the present 'gas' companies to move into hydrogen and retain their present approach to business largely.
No idea what will happen with the company to be honest, its purely speculative - but at 44c a share its affordable enough to pick up a few hundred shares and dream that they might be the next big thing.

All these stocks are suggested as long term purchases (ie. buy and hold), in the current market I think buying for short-term gain is best left to people braver than myself

Hecla Mining (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=hl) got totally buried yesterday on news of a refinancing deal, and is again in a great buy-low territory. Since this has become a public pick of mine, I'll confess that I'm already (too) long on HL, but I feel I understand what their business is all about -- and shares under two bucks is just silliness. It opens at 1.83 today, it likely closes the day over 1.95, and in a month it has an excellent chance to be back to 2.40 or so.

Okay, this goes against the spirit of the game, and my personal rules, but I feel bored.

I'm a dirty, dirty short term player, but I currently am running one of my patented crazy short/long games on WalMart. Now the news is already out of the bag about january sales and what not, so it may not be the best time to jump if your worried about short term... but anyway I figure a long term stable price on WMT to be 55 (my definition of stable and price target may differ from the entire world, so be wary).


So anyhoo, at a price of $46.5 on Monday (2-2) that puts me at a 18% (selling at a price over 55, obviously this does not include fees).

Against the spirit of things, I fully intend to sell the majority of my position, probably at 20%... and then buy back again if the price falls to where I like it. I loves me volatility and am a shameful gambler (I take risks buying it at sub-47 that it will go up to 55, and i take risks of selling at 55 although it may potentially rocket up to 75 for all I know... but bonus points to anyone who can tell me why I might prefer such a system to buy and hold at $47).

BTW, I'm perfectly fine holding on to this if it doesn't hit my target or even falls below 46.5, so while I'll lock in my gains short term if I have any, I am playing under a sort of long assumption that the value will be at 55 within a reasonable time horizon for my 46.5 investment.

As with all information in this thread, do your own due diligence, and feel free to bash the hell outta anything (you might uncover a nugget my poor artificial toys missed). Please do not consider this as anything more than a crazy ass piece of speculation in a game, as I am not a financial advisor of any kind! Caveat emptor! Beware of economic downturn! Etc.... I think that covers my responsibility as far as saying 'please don't take what I said and lose money because of it'.

So, what is your system, SportsDino? Anything similar to Phil Town's philosophy? I used to do all the work involved with that, and before that played around w/ the Mad Money madness.

I hear it goes something like this ;)

Front Office Football Central - View Single Post - Ping: Blackjack Players (http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/showpost.php?p=1220451&postcount=15)

SI

I don't know what the Phil Town or Mad Money system is. Most of my gimmicks are my own invention, although they may be similar to other people's designs. The most accurate term to describe me according to most folk I've talked with is 'insane'... :)

I'll try and look up what those systems are and see if I come close to em. If you have a link to your preferred definition that would help.

Reading this page which seems to be a review:
Phil Town’s Rule #1 Investing ∞ Get Rich Slowly (http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2006/06/26/phil-towns-rule-1-investing/)

Not quite what I do.

Things that are similar:
- set a price
- buy and sell the volatility around that price (as in get in when its under price, and lock in profit once it has gained X%)

Things that are not:
- disagree about some of his assumptions, such as 'not being an expert', or using tools to make decisions.
- disagree about how he evaluates companies, although those metrics may be useful, each company really is its own story and has its own relevant numbers.
- any sort of automatic repeated process. Each time I rebuy a company I have made a unique decision to do so, and many times if I feel I don't have a grasp on whats next I move on and count the coin I made.


Anywho, this is just one strategy among those I use. I should state that a relatively small portion of my portfolio is in this and I'm a big fan of diversifying. My primary difference in how I treat risk on these speculative and long plays is that I sometimes assume volatility and cash in short term gains rather than risk a downslide.

I sometimes miss out on continued growth in the stock price if timing is wrong, but I don't play the 'woulda coulda shoulda' game, as I feel that will just encourage me to overplay things. Watching a large farm of stocks there usually is always one that is down on volatility that is due for reevaluation anyway... so I've been fortunate that most of the time I'm locking in a +10-20% (after costs), transitioning to another pick that goes +10-20%, and after a while some bad news has sent my original target back down again so I can decide whether I want to get back into that.

Requires a lot of active involvement, and I should stress that I often 'cash out' portions of that speculative style of play into a pure long portfolio with all those friendly bonds, index funds, mutual funds I researched the components of, even some CDs and lower rate accounts. Also stocks, for instance some portion of this WMT buy will probably stick around, I've got FUN in there, and a bundle of others.

Also I do have losers as well, and most of my speculative plays are red for the majority of their lifespan until they hit that green spike where I auto sell them. For this reason it is very rare that any one of them get very large, although I have knowingly made a rare big gamble once in a while.

tough to scale into a stock, say like GE, when it jumps 10% 3 days after entry. pfffft, who's complaining, Im so used to them going down after I enter that I should be happy anyways.

Sucks that GE is even considering playing with its sexy dividend (1.24 on any 12.64 is 10% year on dividend, of course such a ratio is unlikely to last).

I've had a chunk of them since November (some recall or something another drove the price down and I picked it up against the trend). Sold most of it at 18, but as is my custom I kept a chunk for my longs. Recently back in them with another chunk (split over two purchases at 11.5 and 11). Be wary of the dividend situation, even if it is not going to be cut for a while and it is still healthy after the cut, if the price has recovered to somewhere nice (say over the unlikely 18) the rumor or re-entry of the factoid into the news cycle can yoyo the price again. I personally plan to jump like the silly chicken I am if it spikes up, again selling the majority although steadilly growing my long share of it.

Long term though, barring uncovering anything ultra bad, its certainly going to be involved in any economic upswing.

but to keep the bond rating for that particular company is more important, IMO. Hence my concern over that when I mentioned it and not a cut of it's dividend. That being said, im in so minimally that Im kind of at a loss as to what to do now. The likelihood of scaling in has diminished quite a bit so I may just dump out....I dont know. I like more beta and more cash on the books, hence my overweight in tech. However, im an idiot, and lost a bunch of money last year while talking about strategies that couldve helped me make money or at least be even.

hehe, maybe scaling in is still in the cards after all

ugh...last time i take investing advice from a sports sim messageboard.

:redface:

losing a little is the new winning.

What do you guys think about Citigroup now that (I assume) everything has come out? The chances for nationalization is much less with the big upfront investment?

What do you guys think about Citigroup now that (I assume) everything has come out? The chances for nationalization is much less with the big upfront investment?

Frankly, I'm pissed since if we were going to invest that much in them, it should be a 51% stake and clean house. This was a stupid move- but this probably should be in a POL thread.

That said, it does decrease the short term chance of them being nationalized significantly so the door is probably open for some short term gains if any are to be had. However, their balance sheets are a mess so it's not that hard to see situation where they are still nationalized 6 months down the road because their situation continues to deteriorate.

SI

I would strongly suggest not taking advice from a sports sim message board!

I will say Citigroup is a hot potato, if your a gambling man or have a solid research lead, go ahead and play... I'm starting to think it might be good to have a pet politician or two to predict that one.

I will say Citigroup is a hot potato, if your a gambling man or have a solid research lead, go ahead and play... I'm starting to think it might be good to have a pet politician or two to predict that one.

Yeah, if you were a fly on the wall and knew what Geithner/Obama were going to do with it, you could make a killing one way or another either shorting as they zeroed it out or buying into a giant bank at $2 per share and holding until healthy. I mean, really, would you be surprised if in 5 years it was at $40 per share and you made back 20x your money (I mean think about that- you could turn $50K into $1M)?

SI

The only reason you have an opportunity of 20x growth though of course is related to the probability of zero-ing out. I can't begin to understand Citigroup's books, and believe me I tried. I knew enough to short them (and BAC) when they were 5 to 10 times what they are now (well I shorted them a few times each, yay evil short monster). But like I said after my last liquidation of BAC... they are so low in share price that even I am getting weary to short them with any serious money anymore. I do make small gambles using SKF/SDS, but always short term and always with an 'oh fuck' exit strategy, and small enough amounts that I can handle it.

So I don't feel as qualified to make a guess as when I was betting house sized (well 2008 prices anyway :) ) chunks that there was more bad news to come. Basically I was just practicing what I preach though, if I say we were printing money and bailing out to obfuscate serious problems in the banks who have continued bad leadership and bleak outlook, then of course I should put my money where my mouth is and put money on where I think the truth will take us (a continuation of the short term slide in banks). I will admit though with some of the banks, particularly the ones I think will become the evil merger monsters of tommorrow, that I'm playing with buy bets. I'm not so much timing the bottom as still being in the process of calculating whether or when there will ever be an upswing. I've got the money now to sit on some red ink for 2 or 3 years if I know for a fact that the company is not going to go completely under and will be part of a real recovery (not a looks good on paper recovery either).

What do you guys think about Citigroup now that (I assume) everything has come out? The chances for nationalization is much less with the big upfront investment?

I still think Citigroup is the weakest of the Big Three, with BoFA in the middle and JPM Chase the strongest. For relative values of "strong".

Here's a quick stab at things. Not getting on top of the mountain and predicting what's going to happen with everything... just picking a few stocks, that's all.

Caterpillar (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=cat) (CAT)
Hecla Mining (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=hl) (HL)
Cedar Fair (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=fun) (FUN)
Woodward Governor (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=wgov) (WGOV)
Cynosure (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=cyno) (CYNO)


doh. % change since pick.

Yeah, I have had a pretty tough run with these stocks. I'm actually going even longer in a couple since the price drops (like Hecla) but overall I have been taking a bath (well, I don't even own any CYNO, I just though it was an intriguing spec play...and I didn't own CAT when I posted my interest, though I have bought some since and lost on it). Of course, I'm not really in any of those companies to sell right away anyhow, so the six-week return isn't really my main focus... and since I do have a fair amount of cash on the sidelines, I'm still okay seeing more value open up for more buying opportunities.

I'd still shill HL to just about anyone who would listen. There's a good deal of noise about this company "diluting" their stock, but they issued stock to buy more mines -- that's not exactly a dilution. Bottom line is they own property on which there are marge deposits of valuable minerals. To me, that's a lot more tangible that "we're the company who makes these funny shoes that happen to be selling well this season." I think long term, metals/mining are not a bad play, and this company has been unfairly punished in the euity markets.

Sorry if you actually made investments based on my speculation (I'm mostly in with you there, if so) but I'm still fairly bullish on most of these picks for the medium to long term, which was the game we were playing, after all.

You can select any number of stocks and the vast majority are down right now. There is plenty of damage occurring, but I think the original game is to find ones that you assume will recover... not to time their bottom.

The only ones I have played in publicly:

FUN - Down, down, down... but like I said everyone is all in a panic, and they are considering cutting their dividend and they just made a massive acquisition (with a lot of debt). Probably will continue being red until they outright announce how much they are going to cut the dividend, and like GE there will be probably initial continued downsliding until people realize the yield of the new dividend is still reasonable, and it stabilizes. As for the debt, I think they'll survive it, and out the other side they have yet another park to increase their revenues. To me its a potential bouncer. I'm averaged at (11) in it.

WMT - Is up from my buy price (46.5), standard price shocks on every bit of market news, but enough realization that it is not going away anytime soon.

GE - Up from my averaged price (7.5??? not sure would have to go calc it). Granted I got in starting at 11. Again, another situation where the economic situation is dragging everything down, even the rumor of trouble in GE's financial units is enough to cause chaos. And the recent dividend cut was also factored into that drop. Again, the company is not going anywhere, and its another candidate for a recovery bounce.

I still advise against taking the advice of anyone on this board, especially me! However, you will have a hard time finding a portfolio that is not red at the moment. Also I've noticed a slight bias in my own news mongering that companies that are not acting like its the end of the world and are retaining jobs/growth options (or potentially preparing for expansion), are often getting punished by the market. Right now when things are dirt cheap is when you want companies buying up assets and other companies... I always laughed at the fools thinking they are doing a great job with mergers during the good times at companies bought for their peak value... its easy to look good when everyone is drinking the same kool-aid, but real business and growth often happens in the rough red, not in the gaudy green.

I still advise against taking the advice of anyone on this board, especially me!

You mentioned this before, but where else can I get advice without spending any money (i.e. financial advisor, which I won't do unless they can provide a money-backed guarantee that they can outperform this messageboard) or time (i.e. researching on my own).

Im the same on GE, last buy at $5.99/share BUT who the hell knows whats going to happen but I feel confident in all of my holdings outside of my 'planned' speculative play, that they wont go out of business anyways. :)

Ive lost enough over the last 2 years as shorting was only a small thing I considered....stupid me.

My holdings now are:

GOOG (ugh)
GE ( :) for now)
BBI (speculative and almost a wipeout)
FSLR (my wife's attempt to own a stock)
CSCO (ugh)
cash

I dont mind holding to tech stocks as theyre different sectors within it BUT more importantly I was more worried about balance sheets and cash on hand more than anything else when I bought them.

You mentioned this before, but where else can I get advice without spending any money (i.e. financial advisor, which I won't do unless they can provide a money-backed guarantee that they can outperform this messageboard) or time (i.e. researching on my own).

websites that specialize in this stuff.

Fool.com is just one.


OHHHHH but one thing I forgot to mention that that is supllemental to the assumption that you already know how to read their balance sheets and releases. That's first and foremost.

I suggest if you cannot do the research that you should certainly not be involved in direct stock plays. You are not entitled to some magical 12% because you are an American. And diversity is not some mystical security blanket either, like they were preaching before EVERY stock went down.

If you feel there is going to be a recovery in general, buy an index of the group of companies you expect to recover. If you can trust a manager, buy their fund, but I've found many are either incompetent or have conflicted interests (and yes there are some good ones too, but you need to research them like hawks).

If you are interested in doing your own research, one trick I like is to break everything down to cash. If you can truly understand how cash flows into a company and how it flows out, then you understand at least one fundamental aspect of how that company works. It will lead you into investigating other important fundamental aspects, such as revenue and potential growth in sales, funding from equity versus debt, whether you will actually get a dividend and the likelyhood of it being cut/grown, and so on. It may sound easy, but this is actually very hard today with the sparse information and all the ways companies can mess with it to hide things. For instance, what some companies were boasting of a few years ago in reality turned out to be massive blocks of money tied up into leveraged derivatives... trying to understand their bragging about profitability became the basis of my initial monster shorts (granted I've been pissed off since I was but a wee kid in 1997 seeing outrageous noise in the news and trying to puzzle it out ever since).

Cash flow will also help to understand how companies will whether the current storm of credit crisis or whatever you want to call it. For instance, both Ford and GM have been beaten to hell and gone lately, but one is less than 10% of its year peak and the other is less than 25% of its year peak. One had already gone through the bad credit wringer and had done some house cleaning, the other had not, match em up! (Or short both the MFers just to be safe!)

I still advise against taking the advice of anyone on this board, especially me! However, you will have a hard time finding a portfolio that is not red at the moment. Also I've noticed a slight bias in my own news mongering that companies that are not acting like its the end of the world and are retaining jobs/growth options (or potentially preparing for expansion), are often getting punished by the market.

Right now when things are dirt cheap is when you want companies buying up assets and other companies... I always laughed at the fools thinking they are doing a great job with mergers during the good times at companies bought for their peak value... its easy to look good when everyone is drinking the same kool-aid, but real business and growth often happens in the rough red, not in the gaudy green.

That's one thing I'm a little happy about the company I work for. They've been cutting to the bone for the last 2 years so they have yet to really let anyone go (well, aside from 30K from a merger last year that they were already doing). Our CEO has said he thinks the workforce is about the right size (in CEO speak that means we're already understaffed) to emerge from a recession strong.

SI

For instance, what some companies were boasting of a few years ago in reality turned out to be massive blocks of money tied up into leveraged derivatives... trying to understand their bragging about profitability became the basis of my initial monster shorts (granted I've been pissed off since I was but a wee kid in 1997 seeing outrageous noise in the news and trying to puzzle it out ever since).


Criminal in a lot of cases since some levels of assets ( a very large block most recently) couldnt even BE VALUED!!! So you could boil through report after report and still come up with bunk so had I been sitting across the table from you and you said, "Y'know Howard, honestly, I cant understand half this shit these companies are doing. Look, here, here and here...." I probably wouldve been all on board with your short but instead I figured...y'know, they've gotta be doing something right. I was wrong too, hence my theory of 'evaporating money' which is why I dont believe inflation is on the other side of this but that's a different debate where we both at least know where the other one is coming from. :)

To be fair, if everyone shorted the moment I started having reservations, they would have been wiped out from 1997 to 2001, if they started shorting when I knew something was wrong, they would have been destroyed from 2003 to 2006.

Same thing on a recovery, you can know that some parts of going to survive the mess with a pretty high probability, but you have to wait until the market momentum shifts before there will be a profit.

As for me, I'm just lucky I happened to start in 2007, and have always been a fan of the short (since I believe it is easier to predict panic than it is to predict growth). Only time will tell whether my notions of long plays will pan out (I wish I had the assets and the knowledge of a Warren Buffett in that regard, where I can outright buy and manage companies the way I think they would make money... hard working through indirect stocks more like gambling really).

i'm telling you the stock market completely confounds me. aig posts $5,000,000,000 in losses for the quarter and their stock skyrockets. :confused: i really think the only people who should participate in the stock market are those with insider information, cuz it seems more rigged than boxing.

well my short position has been getting killed however I stand by the buy and the reasons behind it.

I work in IT as a contractor for a certain Bank. Perhaps it is one of America. As we were sitting there today, catching up on the news and how a certain Bank needs something like $35B, it's stock shot up like 10%. Huh?

EDIT: I know there's more to it than that. Particularly the "we won't let the banks fail" part and the "they've already received a crapload of bailout money and still have a bunch sitting around" part. But it's just stupid. It flies in the face of logic.

SI

There is a lot of psychology involved in this, basically people assuming things are going to improve and therefore buying up. You gotta realize that BAC for instance has dropped from $50 to $3 (in the time I've been watching it)... for it to jump from $3 to $15... you can get lost in the percent change numbers.

With the banks I think you have some people that think the government is going to restore them to their old price. Never mind if that price is completely out of whack with dividends , earnings, or debt.

AIG is a mess, I'm not even sure that loss counts the massive amounts of offsetting funding for the guvment. I don't mess with that stock at all these days, I'm assuming they are just treating it as financing and if you took it away the company would be bleeding out every orifice in red ink. I still theorize a decent amount of other company's profits are AIG's Fed money, and that eventually there will be another shell game where the AIG debt is offloaded onto some proxies and the government will let those dies. This is no different than the Enron scheme, except with government backing. But I'll hold my rants I guess and just profit off the bullshit (the government has infinite money after all, right! haha...heehaa... hoo... cry...).

I work in IT as a contractor for a certain Bank. Perhaps it is one of America. As we were sitting there today, catching up on the news and how a certain Bank needs something like $35B, it's stock shot up like 10%. Huh?

EDIT: I know there's more to it than that. Particularly the "we won't let the banks fail" part and the "they've already received a crapload of bailout money and still have a bunch sitting around" part. But it's just stupid. It flies in the face of logic.

SI

$35b really isn't that much all things considered. The expectation was that they would need to raise much more than that.

Hell I'll play. And these are all plays I have personally invested in, so my money is where my mouth is so to speak. Dont take my advice or you will go broke.

1) Cummins (CMI) This is a play against QS pick of Caterpillar in a way. CAT recently announced a pull out of the on highway engine market leaving Cummins as the only independent engine manufacturer in the world for on highway applications meeting EPA standards. They are a traditionally liquid company and while a series of recent job cuts seem disastrous it appears they are staying ahead of the curve as opposed to chasing it.

Stock is trading at 24.52 today when as recently as August it was in the 70s. I look for a mid yer rebound and this stock to be in the 50s by year end.

2) Pepsico (PEP) Just a solid value play in my book. Their drink brands, snack food products and fast food business are near recession proof. Sure they are down like every stock but I look for huge returns for year end.

Trading today at 51.10 near a 52 week low I think this stock sees 75 before it sees 40.

3) Research in Motion (RIMM) Despite blackberry taking a beating to the Iphone and Googles latest greatest this stock continues to have ridiculous statistics. With Verizon now pushing the blackberry, as people begin to crunch home budgets I look for them to disconnect home phones and maybe even GASP give up home internet...why not if you can carry both with you?

Today its 45.10. While I dont see the quick run I see in my last 2 the dividend will help offset modest incremental gains. Still I see this stock pushing 60 by years end.

4) Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) Not even Obama will keep folks from getting sick. And this is the BEST drug company on the market, another recession proof industry.

Trading today at 22.20 I think this stock hovers on the high 20s maybe bumping 30 by years end.

5) General Electric (GE) With a company this diverse its almost like owning a mutual fund. Jack Welch may be moved on, and Jeff Immelt may have enemies in every corner, but this giant is just too big. I mean seriously when else can you simultaneously buy Aircraft engines and medical imaging equipment?

Its 14.10 today, I jumped in right at 13.00 in mid december. I plan to hold until ~16 and Ill take my profit then...if it drops Ill keep right on holding.

1 and 3 are doing very well....2,4,5 are just holding on..

Of mine -

SOLR - GT Solar International, Inc
This has performed ludicrously well on little news or practical reasoning. I'm expecting earnings to be good, but having the stock over double since I posted it seems a tad optimistic even considering its beaten down state at that point.

SOLR continues to be a company which has remained profitable despite the turbulence and is well run - there are legs in this one yet, but don't be surprised if it pulls back a bit at some point first imho.

FVE - Five Star Quality Care, Inc.
The easing of the credit markets has apparently given confidence to the market that FVE will live to fight another day. Its doubled in price since I posted it, but imho still has some way to go until it reaches a sensible price level presuming it can continue to refinance debt sensibly.

NOK - Nokia and MSFT - Microsoft
Both have recovered somewhat along with the rest of the market (probably 20-30% gain) but are out of vogue at present as the money rushes back into the financial system.

I full expect both to recover another 20-30% by christmas, Microsoft especially have a bright year ahead imho with the new version of Windows actually looking like it'll be reasonably warmly recieved by people.

HYGS - Hydrogenics Corporation (USA)
Up about 30% from when I posted and making all the right noises (ie. new sales of buses in Europe etc.) - but still far too small a scale operation to get vastly excited about at present.

I AM concerned for the market in America for HYGS however as some spokespeople in the American goverment have apparently decided that Hydrogen isn't the 'future' for fuel in America (no indication has however been given as to what exactly they think the future will be).

I just hooked up with this company ran by some guy named Madoff.. This guy is a flipping genius. Every year I am getting 12% returns like clockwork. I don't know how he does it, I highly recommend it.

Throwing this out there to see what happens in a year:

Human Genome Sciences Inc.: Increased by over 1,000% last year and I think they'll only go higher this year if BENLYSTA is approved.

Bionovo Inc.: Great penny stock and I think they have a chance of being a 1,000% stock this year.

Of mine ...

SOLR - 5.40, 5.79 presently has rocked up and down between 4.8 and 7 since I picked it.
FVE - $1.85, $3.70, definitely the pick of the bunch for me - down from its peak of 4.12 but still a nice double.
NOK - $13 - $13.35, surprised it hasn't recovered more to be honest.
MSFT- $19 - $30.95, no brainer as when I picked it windows 7 was on its way.
HYGS - 0.44c - 41c presently, has kicked about between 40c and 65c since I picked it, I still stand by it.

Basically seeing as we started these picks in the depths of the trough it'd have been kinda hard to pick losers unless your company went bust imho, but still it makes us look good ;)

I bought one share of arm holdings (armh) and it's up almost 19% since i bought it. And it's rumored that they might be designing the processor for the "iTablet"

Here's a quick stab at things. Not getting on top of the mountain and predicting what's going to happen with everything... just picking a few stocks, that's all.

- - - - -

Caterpillar (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=cat) (CAT)

Not exactly a “stimulus package” play (I think any reasonable effect of a stim program is already built into prices, sadly), but rather a pretty standard cyclical play. With the economy and real estate both massive depressed, this construction-related blue chip is trading at embarrassingly low ratios – right now its P/E ratio is around 7, that’s just silly (earnings may dent that short term, admittedly). This company is **not** going out of business. The dividend is not a firm one from year to year – but at today’s rates, that itself is around a 4% yield at today’s prices of around $40. Highway robbery for what sits right now as a great value stock.

Forecast: eventually the world starts building shit again, and we need big rigs to move dirt around. CAT makes them. Stock goes to $56 or better in two years, and the dividend is pretty secure.


Hecla Mining (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=hl) (HL)

In the wake of a commodities meltdown, I think there’s real value in a number of related stocks. Precious metals took a massive thumping last year (full disclosure: I suffered) and mining stocks seemed to take a double whammy from not only a loss in the commodity price, but also a sell-of effect just by virtue of being equities. Where does that leave a silver and copper mining company like Hecla? Looking at a $11/oz price for silver, and wondering what the hell happened to them? This is a well run company where I’m already very long, but I see the current price in the $2.20-2.40 range being a complete steal. The gold/silver price ratio is too high, that usually means that silver is heading upwards… but even if silver stays at $11-12 an ounce for the next two years, Hecla should be at $3.50 rather than $2.25.

Forecast: ups and downs in the short run (profitable themselves if you move on both) but this thing has a bounce-back in the next 18 months, and should end 2009 over $3.00, possibly over $4.00.


Cedar Fair (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=fun) (FUN)

My bias is strong here, as I grew up practically in the shadows of their flagship amusement park and worked summers there. But the company has a lot going for it – among the operators of regional amusement parks, they are the one who obviously “gets it” and offers the best mix of entertainment, rides, food, and (underrated) appearance/cleanliness.

This is also a dividend play, almost completely. A share of FUN pays a quarterly dividend of 48 cents – that means you’re getting nearly two bucks a share back in dividends, at a share price right now of only $13. **IF** that remains intact, this is a monstrous yield, completely unsustainable.
There’s a real risk here. The company (a limited partnership) recently bought out Paramount Parks, and did so mostly with leveraged debt, so their books look bad. Their long time CEO is resigning (or just has), and he has been really good. So, it’s possible that this company simply loses its way, slashes its dividend, and the stock price drops to six bucks.

Why like it? Because I like their market position (and I think I understand it). In concept, sure, they lose out when a midwestern family says they can’t afford two hundred bucks for a weekend at Cedar Point this summer due to tight times. But they also make out well when a similar family says they can’t afford twelve hundred for a trip to Disneyland, and so they opt instead to go to a nearby regional attraction like Cedar Point . It’s like Wal-Mart, in a way – neither the top nor the bottom of the ladder, and that’s not too bad in these times.

I also know the driving mentality of this stock… they are a darling of "income investors" and realize that the dividend is essentially sacrosanct. It may not be the smartest move in toto, but I think they want to protect that dividend as best they can for fear of massive investor backlash.

Forecast: 2/3 chance that the company retains its dividends, has a solid 2009, and finishes 2010 with a stock price in the low 20s… 1/3 chance that they are in fairly serious trouble, drop the dividend, and the stock price is halved to 7 by then


Woodward Governor (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=wgov) (WGOV)

This NASDAQ listing is somewhere amidst the seas of growth plays, energy plays, and technical plays. I think it has a decent case on each front. They make energy-related equipment, including nearly universal parts for aircraft – a pretty down industry right now. In time, that should promote a cyclical rebound.

However, the area for growth is that their transmission technologies are well suited for… windmills. If you buy the general notion that we have momentum toward renewable energy sources (I do, in part) then this seems like a fruitful area.

On the technical side, the stock is selling at a pretty modest P?E of 13. That’s not criminally low, but if you think this stock has any growth potential, it’s still pretty attractive. The stock price has really been punished of late, and while getting in at around $21 (today’s price) might not be the actual bottom, signs point to this stock heading upwards before long.

Forecast: Immediate future partially tied to oil/gas prices (when they are down, the fervor for alternative energy is lessened) but in the next several years this is a growth company with several reasons to like it – I think it hits $30 by the end of 2010, and has more potential past that, likely back to $40 or better within five years.


Cynosure (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=cyno) (CYNO)

A bit of a goofy play here, but I am enamored for two reasons. First, I am becoming an old fart, increasingly out of touch with the young crowd, and thus I just love their company niche – tattoo removal technology.

From a technical standpoint, I also love that they have a ton of cash on their books – fairly odd for a somewhat new company. Even if all that happens is that they get bought out by someone big (and that’s not unthinkable given their balance sheet), that’s still a solid win for a shareholder.

No dividend, no history, nothing to say “solid” but this is an interesting spec play that has a chance to work out really well. Stock price right now is around eight bucks (after a mini-bump the last couple of weeks) and where it goes from here is anyone’s guess.

Forecast: Flip a coin. It could finish 2009 at $6 or $16. Or $36, I suppose. Might need to make that a 20-sided die after all, this thing could land just about anywhere.

Quick recap:

Caterpillar (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=cat) (CAT)
1/13/09 price = 41.40
1/04/10 price = 58.55

Fairly easy play in retrospect, unless you thought we had a long way down still to go in the recessionary drop. I actually bought at about 36 and again (as it ticked upward) at about 38, and am still in.

Hecla Mining (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=hl) (HL)
1/13/09 price = 2.32
1/04/10 price = 6.47

My biggest regret at this point was the shares I sold off as it ticked up top 3 and 4 dollars on the way to, and past, my "target" price. I'm out now for year-end purposes, but it was a good one this year.

Cedar Fair (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=fun) (FUN)
1/13/09 price = 13.62
1/04/10 price = 11.37

A real roller coaster ride... shaky year, never picked things up during the market boom, announced a shaky forecast for the aforementioned dividend in early Nov and fell off a cliff to under 7. I rode it out, and recently a private equity firm moved to buy it out at 11.50. I rang the register a couple of weeks ago, and am now out.

Woodward Governor (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=wgov) (WGOV)
1/13/09 price = 21.69
1/04/10 price = 26.47

Basically a miss, in this environment. I did better with other more conventional energy plays - I still like this company, but I fear its niche might be too clever by half, and its stock price isn't a big value. I'm out.

Cynosure (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=cyno) (CYNO)
1/13/09 price = 8.42
1/04/10 price = 11.57

Nice hit. I think it's basically just an adjustment, as the balance sheet of the company was too strong for the stock price that low... I'm still in, but don't have a forecast going forward, really.


S&P
1/13/09 price = 871.79
1/04/10 price = 1132.99
Growth: 30.0%

Quik5
Growth: 52.6%

I'll take that every time.

1) CMI 24.52 -> 46.94
2) PEP 51.10 -> 61.24
3) RIMM 45.10 -> 65.93
4) BMY 22.2 -> 25.63
5) GE 14.10 -> 15.45


As Marc said, hard to miss when you pick in the depths of a slough.
Cummins and Research in Motion have donee well and I continue to hold those very strong, I am planning to take a bit of profit off in the coming weeks though.

Bristol-Meyers and GE have really disappointed me though, although have earned steady gains.

I've only mentioned playing WMT, FUN, and CAT here, but review of most of the babble I made in 2009:

- WMT: struggling to break 50 most of the time, around 54 now but due for another small dip. I still think it climbs towards 55 eventually, but probably will continue to go from 49-53 for most of the year. This is one I like to spike because I'm reasonably confident it is solid to predict (I like lots of cash and scale and no real panic signs).

- FUN: ugh... this stock is ruined by a changeover in leadership. I was hoping it would not be as much of a factor, but it has been... I liquidated at 11 in late July, picked it at 7 in November on pure dividend fascination, and dumped it again after the latest hooplah over 11 (never turn down a 50% gain with a company that is giving you heartburn). I'm at the point where I am giving up on it... one of those companies where its core is great but top office shenanigans are going to sink it possibly.

- CAT: covered by Quiksand, I was reluctant in January, but loaded up during the great buy fest of March. Haven't even spiked it, just holding on... it has more than doubled though and it has flattened so I think I might just take some profits and risk missing further growth (maybe a bad idea to hope for a downtick reload here though). I rather have the cash at the moment since this is my favorite time of year (so many fiscal years coming to a close, data tends to shake up the markets and I like to gamble).

- XOM: I think I targeted it at 72, and I've sold it whenever it gets over that point (nudging here and there based on the news). I was actually out of it for most of the 4th quarter (except a tiny long term share I keep of a bunch of stocks). My load in point was at 68 for last year, I'm nuding it up to 70 for this year. Not sure where I will put my out price at yet, depends a bit on...

- DIG: Proshares Oil and Gas, I wasn't sure how to model this, all I knew is it would trend up. I actually missed the big June/July dip for the most part, but was still positive overall from March, so held tight. I'm not too disappointed, it is almost double overall for the year. I don't see oil/gas declining significantly... not sure how much more upside remains though so I'm not increasing my load.

- BP: Worked out better than XOM, flew past my target and never looked back. I did use my DIG info to time myself out of the stack during June/July (I wasn't sure about overall oil/gas but I love my predictor based plays). So I tapped out once during the year, so my first climb was about 35-36 to 51, and my second climb was about 46 to today's 59. I'll take those gains over a few months for what I considered a pretty predictable play.


Have to second whoever said it was easy to pick winners from March onward though....

Dola, even more stocks I blathered about in various threads:

- JPM: My pick for a big winner of the financial piranha storm. More than doubled from my load up point. Course you could have went with....

- BAC: I was right to doubt them declining too much further from early January of last year (although they did drop 50% if you had optimal timing so maybe not so smart on my part). I was slow to join their uptick party, but they have doubled from early April. If you got them on my favorite day in March they would have quadrupled by end of the year. I still don't like them for a number of reasons, but they did put up gangbuster numbers. But its all RELATIVE... I shorted them in 2007 at greater than $45... and they are only up to $16 now... you fall hard of course you can bounce hard... IF YOU BOUNCE. Still stand by it being a risky grab up and right to be cautious, but what I'm terming the AIG shell game made it obvious they'd bounce for the rest of the year so I tagged along.

- C: I still won't touch Citigroup... relatively they are still hammered even far worst than BAC. Sure they bounced like everyone else, but say you moved in April your annual return would suck now, although if you were smart you could have doubled round August-October.

- AIG: I'm not sure this is even a company anymore. Play with at your own risk, if you are an insider maybe you can make a fortune. The stock even split this last year... you could write a text book if you can fully understand this company... I do not.

Oh and I still dabble in gold (IAU usually) mostly because I'm an inflation paranoid person, and even though gold is pretty worthless the mob doesn't seem to think so! I tend to get in and out of it unpredictably, basically I buy gold when I have some chunk of dollars I don't have other plans for (as opposed to moving it into some form of treasuries for that week/month). Because of this randomness (timing based on other moves, not on particular gold related information for the most part) I got a lot of red and green, but the positive trend and odd November/December behavior led to a nice unexpected bonus.


All in all, a much easier year than 2008 for investing, but i think 2010 will be more difficult to figure out because there is no real clear direction to me where it should go. I was hoping for employment numbers that have not come so I think we'll see some shockwaves related to that. The form of that is important though, if there is investor optimism despite real economic weakness the stocks could stay level or grow slightly. And I'm afraid of shorting in general because if the employment powder keg does explode for the better it might make the current 'leveling off' pattern trade in for a small boom that could eat up a lot of money in a hurry (investor enthusiasm/depression tends to outpace the real economy after all).

Maybe we should start a thread for guesstimating 2010?

I picked up a few thousand shares of BAC in the low double digits. I did grab some Citibank at 3.25. I've been writing covered calls on the BAC and doing well with it thus far. Citibank is just a 10k gamble that maybe some day turns into 100k.

I'll admit, Citigroup is one that is bargain priced, but it is for a reason (they had a mess with enough doubt about how it is cleaning up to keep it depressed).

Granted I am curious about what conditions could cause a massive spike in its price so it may indeed quadruple (I'd think a price of $30 is unlikely in the short term, and I stopped looking beyond a couple years a long time ago).

So ya, I'll probably move in eventually, but I come out ahead on average by waiting until I have something bonafide before I move. I'm simultaneously too aggressive and too cautious!!!

Throwing this out there to see what happens in a year:

Human Genome Sciences Inc.: Increased by over 1,000% last year and I think they'll only go higher this year if BENLYSTA is approved.

Bionovo Inc.: Great penny stock and I think they have a chance of being a 1,000% stock this year.

I also picked up some GenVen today.

I got HGSI at $30.90, BNVI at $0.51, and GNVC at $1.49. I think the BioTech stocks will do well this year. Just a feeling.

I'll admit, Citigroup is one that is bargain priced, but it is for a reason (they had a mess with enough doubt about how it is cleaning up to keep it depressed).

Granted I am curious about what conditions could cause a massive spike in its price so it may indeed quadruple (I'd think a price of $30 is unlikely in the short term, and I stopped looking beyond a couple years a long time ago).

So ya, I'll probably move in eventually, but I come out ahead on average by waiting until I have something bonafide before I move. I'm simultaneously too aggressive and too cautious!!!

I had Ford that I picked up when it was at it's nadir. I pussied out and sold it in the 5's.

Pretty much every chance you would have taken on depressed prices have paid off handsomly. Someday that Citi is going to come back and when it does I'm going to be sitting on it. If I'm wrong so be it, I was stupid not to buy BAC at $3 because I was scared because my wife was pregnant. I might be early, but I'd rather be too early then too late.

I can respect that.

Well, let me try to explain a bit of what is going through my head on Citigroup to show why you should probably ignore me!

Basically I had limited pile of money and that meant only so many plays.

I also am a big preacher of 'INFORMATION, INFO, INPUT for Johnny 5! MORE INPUT!'... my research said there would be overall positive news for my chosen bank (JPM). So I moved on that in March with my other long plays.

I then eval the other big banks which took me until April. BAC was at 7, C was at 3.... I thought BAC was shady but would look good (overal positive news) and that C was shady and would have red flag news items.

So for me it was where did I reasonably target it hitting, and I was interested in a year play (some volatility profit-mongering but I didn't want to miss out on uptick with too much gaming, so yes I held tight for the most part).

Since I have a limited pool, I pick BAC (and other banks) and I avoid C, simply because for my strategy I wanted ones that would bounce sooner rather than later. This somewhat panned out, BAC doubled, and C is up about a quarter (overall, lets ignore optimal timing in hindsight, just a straight up hold from my decision point to now).

Now of course I'm re-evaluating. At this point JPM and BAC have recovered a good chunk, whereas C's stock is still low compared to historical level, and more importantly, low compared to its scale. So as you identified, it basically has the potential to boom.

If you are certain it will boom, and you are long term, you should buy.

My game introduces a timing variable, and despite my hyperactivity I'm a risk sensitive brat (I'm nervous about the sheer amount of crud on Citi's books, granted all banks have it...). I'm not certain it will boom (although I'd put a high % on it) and more importantly I'm not sure it will boom soon as opposed to an alternative bet I could make that would give me some happy cash now at higher probability.

Presumably if I then can predict when C will boom (say the info changes and the signs point towards an investor crowd being more certain of it) I would presumably have more money to lay on the C bet, and I'm basically hoping it is at the same rough price (as in, my interim bets grow at a faster rate than C's price does before my move).

All of this assumes I can time the market, which of course is a fool's game, but I've been lucky or smart so far.

So all this to say, your strategy is probably going to work. And I no doubt will be in there with you at some point, you might end up making more than me though because you bought now (you will certainly make more on C by itself, my assumption is growth from other bets in addition to the eventual C bet outpaces a single C bet now).

You are thinking much harder about it then I am. Every stock has hit a ridiculous low and has comeback. The only stock that is still at a ridiculous low is Citibank. I'm not certain it will boom, but almost everything else has so why not just make the easy play and see where it leaves me in 2-3 years.

It's just a 10k lottery ticket. I've made more then that on BAC since Monday. I'll take the chance that Citi goes up 500% in 2-3 years over the few thousand dollars I could potentially grind out elsewhere.

Ya, 500% is a great return on 3 years. Hell, I'm rebalancing my long-term portfolio anyway so I might as well buy a small share.

I also picked up some GenVen today.

I got HGSI at $30.90, BNVI at $0.51, and GNVC at $1.49. I think the BioTech stocks will do well this year. Just a feeling.

Sooo....GenVen has gone up 100.67% in 11 (trading) days. Not too bad. I bought some more GenVen (GNVC) at $2.55 a share this morning. This is what it did this week:

Tuesday: $1.94 (+10.23%)
Wednesday: $2.20 (+13.40%)
Thursday: $2.39 (+8.64%)
Friday: $2.99 (+25.10%)

So what happened?

Some of it may have been last week's announcement that the 184th death occurred from their pancreatic cancer study. The 184th death was predicted to happen last November.

Tuesday GenVen announced that they will collaborate with Novartis on hearing loss treatments. In the deal, Novartis gives them $5M cash and buys $2M worth of stock. Additionally GenVen can receive up to $213.6M if certain milestones are met.

Brown also won in MA, which doesn't hurt.

Today GenVen announced results of a trial study that in the 24 patients with esophageal cancer receiving TNFerade in combination with chemo, the median survival was 47.7 months. Median survival from other historical clinical trials in similar stage disease ranged from 9.7 to 34 months.

I'm sticking with it for a bit.

I bought more of my short position on Tues :) which was simply dumb luck

Was the Equity Premium an Artifact of the Great Depression? - Business - The Atlantic (http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/05/was-the-equity-premium-an-artifact-of-the-great-depression/56468/)

Felix Salmon has made a big splash with his argument that now is a good time to sell stocks because they're volatile. My first instinct is to say that this doesn't much matter for people under the age of fifty. As long as you're putting a consistent amount of money in your 401(k), over time, it won't matter; you'll get more growth than bonds, and even though the market moves around, what you lose on the swings you'll make up on the roundabouts. You'll probably need to give more attention to when you should start shifting your portfolio towards bonds than you would in a less volatile market, but in the meantime, you'll still enjoy the benefits of growth in the stock market.

That presumes, however, that there's still a substantial equity premium--which is to say, that stock returns will, on average, substantially exceed the returns on debt. That assumption is based on 100 years of evidence. But just because something was true for 100 years, doesn't mean it will be true forever.

In fact, stock prices have the odd characteristic of many financial assets: if everyone thinks that something is true, then it's no longer true. Efficient markets types tell us to invest in indexes because you can't beat the market--but if everyone invested in indices, the market wouldn't be efficient, and you could. Portfolio theorists tell us that investing in a broad portfolio of stocks will yield a substantial annual return in excess of the return on US treasuries--but if everyone believes that stocks aren't really much riskier than bonds, then they'll bid up the prices until there's little excess yield.

And indeed, one way to look at the great 1982-2000 stock market boom is that it represented the erosion of the equity premium. And one way to explain that is demographic: the stock market began to boom when the generations that had lived through the Great Depression as adults began to die off.

Before the twentieth century, stocks were in many ways an immature financial instrument; they should have carried a premium, because they were risky. As the twentieth century wore on, they matured--thanks in part to the New Deal era reforms that toughened up on disclosure and market rules for buying and selling shares in public companies. But the generation who lived through the Great Depression still thought of the stock market as speculative. There was a personal, social, and political shift towards less direct forms of saving for the future, such as corporate and government pensions, and life insurance products.

Unfortunately, those aren't actually risk free either; we saw, catastrophically, the risk inherent in private pensions in the 1970s, and are now discovering the same thing about public pensions in our generation. So there was a global shift back towards the stock market as an appropriate vehicle for private investment. Meanwhile, while individual stocks remained both risky and volatile, more and more people were turning to indexing and mutual funds, which smooths out those variations. People who might have demanded an equity premium for holding an individual stock didn't need such a big one As people stopped thinking of equity as the "speculative" investment, the equity premium may have been eaten away.

And of course, ironically, if the equity premium diminishes, in the short term, that means that the price of stocks jumps--making them look like an even better, and less risky, investment.

Or at least, that's one plausible reading of this chart: there's a bubble, there's a correction, but because the correction isn't accompanied by a banking crisis the way it was in 1929, there's no huge overcorrection where everyone gets shut of stocks for a few decades. So what you get is a market where expected future growth is fully priced in, and there's no substantial premium for holding equity over debt. So all that's left is volatility--stocks bouncing around in a mostly uncorrelated fashion that evens out over time, marked by a few unhappy moments when there's some major market event and everything heads in the same direction at the same time.

If the equity premium is substantially diminished, or even gone entirely, then there's no reason to favor stocks as much as most people do, other than as a way to hedge the inflation risk of your bond investments. If that's true, then it really might be time to sell.

Was the Equity Premium an Artifact of the Great Depression? - Business - The Atlantic (http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/05/was-the-equity-premium-an-artifact-of-the-great-depression/56468/)

People investing in stuff they don't understand pretty much deserve what they get. Stocks should be a risky investment, tied directly to the success or failure of firms, and yes I know its blasphemy, should be based on dividend expectations (also known as cash!).

Sadly, we don't have a stock market, we have a casino that loosely reflects reality, so I have to resort to strategies with that in mind. I'd much prefer a true investment based stock market, and it may be necessary for the survival of the economy in the long run (the speculative market might abuse the sheep too much to be sustained). There really is no guarantee what is going to happen over the next 50 years, as it is if there is any sort of slide I'm setup to liquidate to cash. I'm just hoping we don't get a 'Black 3PM' style crash where the computers sell us all into oblivion faster than I can realize its a real crash and can get out (in theory there are safeguards for this, but the latest incident is showing plenty of weakness in them).

People investing in stuff they don't understand pretty much deserve what they get.

Yeah I think the actuality of how people view the stock market is contrary to the article's premise of "if everything thinks something is true, it's no longer true/everyone buys and holds." People look to get rich quick and find the next big thing. It's amazing how people will spend a week googling and reading Consumer Report articles before finally deciding on which dishwasher to go with, but will go completely against that once their buddy from the coffee shop tells them about the potential of company X.

Lost money. I'm down about 66%.

That presumes, however, that there's still a substantial equity premium--which is to say, that stock returns will, on average, substantially exceed the returns on debt. That assumption is based on 100 years of evidence. But just because something was true for 100 years, doesn't mean it will be true forever.When I interned at a Raymond James branch under my uncle, his overriding philosophy/selling point to clients was that these models look great over 100 years, but it's easy to find 20 year periods where the stock market went up less than inflation.

Stocks can be fun, will swing the odds in your favor if you know what you are doing, and will generally offer slightly better returns long term, but I think the last couple years have proven that you can't predict the "100 year" events that can destroy a retirement plan - so similar to gambling it's only worth playing with money you can afford to lose. (Unless you can reverse-engineer the algorithms that a big trading house uses, in which case you could fleece them - and I do believe that will happen sooner or later.)

Shhhh..... the big trading houses might be listening!

Just kidding, but seriously though I've gotten so used to analyst/CNBC/leaked press setups that anything that flies obviously against my own model usually results in a quick buy/short on a small scale to attempt to exploit it. The systematic squeeze that the industry is putting on the casual or over-excited daytraders is so transparent after a while that you can make decent money simply counter-gaming it.

My anti-Jim Cramer short-term profile does better than most managed funds with only trivial thought put into it (and trivial money). My fictional Jim Cramer long profile is surprisingly positive though, apparently even he can't make you lose money overall on a long enough market upswing!

The basic assumption to play with is that the stock market is a casino, and like any good casino, you gotta figure out how the house fixes the game. There is still some connection to performance, but its so exagerated and out of touch with reality that even I can't claim the market is rational or efficient. Basically good news is correlated with ups, bad news is correlated with downs, and scope is loosely correlated and often out of proportion. For instance, a company can miss a profit estimate by a few pennies per share and that is considered cause for a multi-dollar per share drop... but it could have significantly improved its debt situation in the same time and that goes ignored. Another company can beat its estimate by a few pennies per share, and balloon in debt, but goes up a dollar per share.

No statistical model accurately predicts the stocks out there right now. Too much psychology in the way, so I merely try to predict trends and whether news on average will be good or bad in the near term future. Under such a system, companies that have healthy setups still end up with higher prices, simply because they have less headlines overall indicating they are inches away from disaster.

Was the Equity Premium an Artifact of the Great Depression? - Business - The Atlantic (http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/05/was-the-equity-premium-an-artifact-of-the-great-depression/56468/)

The premise of the article is interesting and kindof cuts a little to the "great debate" my wife and I have had with regards to what to do with our long term savings (401k, etc). Frankly, neither of us can see a good way this ends up in the long term for our lifetime. And, at the end of the day, I really do think we're so much closer to triggering a dark age or at least some sort of catastrophic societal meltdown than anyone wants to admit. Explanation forthcoming below.

Stocks can be fun, will swing the odds in your favor if you know what you are doing, and will generally offer slightly better returns long term, but I think the last couple years have proven that you can't predict the "100 year" events that can destroy a retirement plan - so similar to gambling it's only worth playing with money you can afford to lose. (Unless you can reverse-engineer the algorithms that a big trading house uses, in which case you could fleece them - and I do believe that will happen sooner or later.)

These events are happening with more regularity than every 100 years, particularly as we keep picking apart market regulation. A big problem seems to be that everyone at this point is tied up in this "game" of sorts. Seemingly everyone's retirement is tied up in this giant scheme so you can't really unravel it. Frankly, I'd love to see an end to the stock market but that never will happen barring, again, some sort of societal collapse.

Your parenthetical situation is already happening. It seems as if there is "fast money" and "slow money" in my mind. Slow money is that which makes up most of our retirements. It is based on the article's premise that in the long run, you'll be better off with the stock market so you accept the risk and buy there. I've been to those groups that make those trades, tho- it's basically students just out of college doing the trading before the good ones move onto bigger and better things.

In the meantime, over the last 10 years, trading tools have exponentially increased in sophistication and it has been very easy to siphon money out of that slow money. So that extra money that you should get for risking your capital is just flying out the window to some parasites who really contribute nothing to the market except the ability to act quickly.

And, now SD- I've gotta ask you because I really have no idea and the above is a genuine concern to me going forward and I think this is the sort of thing you think about on a daily basis ;)

At the end of the day, where does that leave the slow money? If all of their risk premium is being pulled out of the market, why even play? You'll make money for a while but you have to try and time the market, a fool's game, to avoid these crazy pitfalls because the only way you can really make money is to either accurately predict the upswings to make more money when things are going well or avoid the downswings.

However, if you end up in something steady- say, treasury bonds- you'll be lagging behind even inflation and be losing money. I mean, there's pretty much no risk there because if the government isn't paying out on their debt, we probably all have a lot bigger problems than what is happening to our 401K.

So, long term- what can you do if you're "slow money"?

SI

I'm "slow money", and here's what I do:

1. Invest in index funds that index emerging markets, because that's where the growth is going to be, long-term.

2. Invest in holding companies run by people who a) pick their investments well and b) also get involved in the companies in which they invest. See LUK, FRFHF, BAM for example (the great grand-daddy being BRK, of course).

3. Sporadically invest in a stock of a company whose business you know and you personally feel is undervalued. I know the pharma and tech industries fairly well, so I've occasionally bought some shares in companies I felt were beaten down or had good products in the pipeline about which the press hadn't yet reported on. Plus, I've put money into F & C when they were even more beaten down than now because I felt both would turn things around.

Ignore the short-term casino, focus on long-term value and growth. If global financial armageddon comes, your money won't be safe no matter where it is.

Here's a quick stab at things. Not getting on top of the mountain and predicting what's going to happen with everything... just picking a few stocks, that's all.

- - - - -

Caterpillar (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=cat) (CAT)

Not exactly a “stimulus package” play (I think any reasonable effect of a stim program is already built into prices, sadly), but rather a pretty standard cyclical play. With the economy and real estate both massive depressed, this construction-related blue chip is trading at embarrassingly low ratios – right now its P/E ratio is around 7, that’s just silly (earnings may dent that short term, admittedly). This company is **not** going out of business. The dividend is not a firm one from year to year – but at today’s rates, that itself is around a 4% yield at today’s prices of around $40. Highway robbery for what sits right now as a great value stock.

Forecast: eventually the world starts building shit again, and we need big rigs to move dirt around. CAT makes them. Stock goes to $56 or better in two years, and the dividend is pretty secure.


Hecla Mining (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=hl) (HL)

In the wake of a commodities meltdown, I think there’s real value in a number of related stocks. Precious metals took a massive thumping last year (full disclosure: I suffered) and mining stocks seemed to take a double whammy from not only a loss in the commodity price, but also a sell-of effect just by virtue of being equities. Where does that leave a silver and copper mining company like Hecla? Looking at a $11/oz price for silver, and wondering what the hell happened to them? This is a well run company where I’m already very long, but I see the current price in the $2.20-2.40 range being a complete steal. The gold/silver price ratio is too high, that usually means that silver is heading upwards… but even if silver stays at $11-12 an ounce for the next two years, Hecla should be at $3.50 rather than $2.25.

Forecast: ups and downs in the short run (profitable themselves if you move on both) but this thing has a bounce-back in the next 18 months, and should end 2009 over $3.00, possibly over $4.00.


Cedar Fair (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=fun) (FUN)

My bias is strong here, as I grew up practically in the shadows of their flagship amusement park and worked summers there. But the company has a lot going for it – among the operators of regional amusement parks, they are the one who obviously “gets it” and offers the best mix of entertainment, rides, food, and (underrated) appearance/cleanliness.

This is also a dividend play, almost completely. A share of FUN pays a quarterly dividend of 48 cents – that means you’re getting nearly two bucks a share back in dividends, at a share price right now of only $13. **IF** that remains intact, this is a monstrous yield, completely unsustainable.
There’s a real risk here. The company (a limited partnership) recently bought out Paramount Parks, and did so mostly with leveraged debt, so their books look bad. Their long time CEO is resigning (or just has), and he has been really good. So, it’s possible that this company simply loses its way, slashes its dividend, and the stock price drops to six bucks.

Why like it? Because I like their market position (and I think I understand it). In concept, sure, they lose out when a midwestern family says they can’t afford two hundred bucks for a weekend at Cedar Point this summer due to tight times. But they also make out well when a similar family says they can’t afford twelve hundred for a trip to Disneyland, and so they opt instead to go to a nearby regional attraction like Cedar Point . It’s like Wal-Mart, in a way – neither the top nor the bottom of the ladder, and that’s not too bad in these times.

I also know the driving mentality of this stock… they are a darling of "income investors" and realize that the dividend is essentially sacrosanct. It may not be the smartest move in toto, but I think they want to protect that dividend as best they can for fear of massive investor backlash.

Forecast: 2/3 chance that the company retains its dividends, has a solid 2009, and finishes 2010 with a stock price in the low 20s… 1/3 chance that they are in fairly serious trouble, drop the dividend, and the stock price is halved to 7 by then


Woodward Governor (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=wgov) (WGOV)

This NASDAQ listing is somewhere amidst the seas of growth plays, energy plays, and technical plays. I think it has a decent case on each front. They make energy-related equipment, including nearly universal parts for aircraft – a pretty down industry right now. In time, that should promote a cyclical rebound.

However, the area for growth is that their transmission technologies are well suited for… windmills. If you buy the general notion that we have momentum toward renewable energy sources (I do, in part) then this seems like a fruitful area.

On the technical side, the stock is selling at a pretty modest P?E of 13. That’s not criminally low, but if you think this stock has any growth potential, it’s still pretty attractive. The stock price has really been punished of late, and while getting in at around $21 (today’s price) might not be the actual bottom, signs point to this stock heading upwards before long.

Forecast: Immediate future partially tied to oil/gas prices (when they are down, the fervor for alternative energy is lessened) but in the next several years this is a growth company with several reasons to like it – I think it hits $30 by the end of 2010, and has more potential past that, likely back to $40 or better within five years.


Cynosure (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=cyno) (CYNO)

A bit of a goofy play here, but I am enamored for two reasons. First, I am becoming an old fart, increasingly out of touch with the young crowd, and thus I just love their company niche – tattoo removal technology.

From a technical standpoint, I also love that they have a ton of cash on their books – fairly odd for a somewhat new company. Even if all that happens is that they get bought out by someone big (and that’s not unthinkable given their balance sheet), that’s still a solid win for a shareholder.

No dividend, no history, nothing to say “solid” but this is an interesting spec play that has a chance to work out really well. Stock price right now is around eight bucks (after a mini-bump the last couple of weeks) and where it goes from here is anyone’s guess.

Forecast: Flip a coin. It could finish 2009 at $6 or $16. Or $36, I suppose. Might need to make that a 20-sided die after all, this thing could land just about anywhere.


Quick recap:

Caterpillar (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=cat) (CAT)
1/13/09 price = 41.40
1/04/10 price = 58.55

Fairly easy play in retrospect, unless you thought we had a long way down still to go in the recessionary drop. I actually bought at about 36 and again (as it ticked upward) at about 38, and am still in.

Hecla Mining (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=hl) (HL)
1/13/09 price = 2.32
1/04/10 price = 6.47

My biggest regret at this point was the shares I sold off as it ticked up top 3 and 4 dollars on the way to, and past, my "target" price. I'm out now for year-end purposes, but it was a good one this year.

Cedar Fair (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=fun) (FUN)
1/13/09 price = 13.62
1/04/10 price = 11.37

A real roller coaster ride... shaky year, never picked things up during the market boom, announced a shaky forecast for the aforementioned dividend in early Nov and fell off a cliff to under 7. I rode it out, and recently a private equity firm moved to buy it out at 11.50. I rang the register a couple of weeks ago, and am now out.

Woodward Governor (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=wgov) (WGOV)
1/13/09 price = 21.69
1/04/10 price = 26.47

Basically a miss, in this environment. I did better with other more conventional energy plays - I still like this company, but I fear its niche might be too clever by half, and its stock price isn't a big value. I'm out.

Cynosure (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=cyno) (CYNO)
1/13/09 price = 8.42
1/04/10 price = 11.57

Nice hit. I think it's basically just an adjustment, as the balance sheet of the company was too strong for the stock price that low... I'm still in, but don't have a forecast going forward, really.


S&P
1/13/09 price = 871.79
1/04/10 price = 1132.99
Growth: 30.0%

Quik5
Growth: 52.6%

I'll take that every time.


So, though of this recently, as a couple of these remain in my holdings, and I remember in particular getting flak for my six-week returns. Since I was making a few calls looking at "the end of 2010" in here, I guess I'm a bit late in checking back, but...wonder where are we now.

Caterpillar (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=cat) (CAT)
1/13/09 price = 41.40
1/04/10 price = 58.55
3/11/11 price = 100.02

I am actually looking and take some gain and get out of here soon, I think. Not that I think the economy isn't still on the upswing, but I no longer feel like this price is depressed, and I see more potential elsewhere.

Hecla Mining (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=hl) (HL)
1/13/09 price = 2.32
1/04/10 price = 6.47
3/11/11 price = 9.00

I have been in and out of this stock a good deal since this original thread. Haven't cashed in as fully as I wish I had, but it's been a nice run all told.

Cedar Fair (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=fun) (FUN)
1/13/09 price = 13.62
1/04/10 price = 11.37
3/11/11 price = 19.28

I missed most of the gain here, myself, but this outcome is pretty much what I had been expecting in my 2/3 scenario. Company took a weird path to get there, but seems to be pretty strong again.


Woodward Governor (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=wgov) (WGOV)
(now Woodward Inc, WWD)
1/13/09 price = 21.69
1/04/10 price = 26.47
3/11/11 price = 31.89

I have been in and out one more cycle since this original call, but didn't get much out of this one, all told. I think I overestimated their connection to alternative fuels, and also whether that was really a winner to pick in the first place.

Cynosure (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=cyno) (CYNO)
1/13/09 price = 8.42
1/04/10 price = 11.57
3/11/11 price = 13.11

Same bottom line as last update: I'm still in, but don't have a forecast going forward, really.


S&P
1/13/09 price = 871.79
1/04/10 price = 1132.99
3/11/11 price = 1304.28
Growth: 49.6%

Quik5
Growth: 114.8%


Basicallly had 3 of 5 that more or less have trended up with the market, and had 2 out of 5 that hit pretty big. My own portfolio hasn't mirrored this, but my "money to fuck around with" segment has done pretty well the last two years, probably up about 80% over the same period, all told.

I am not in the "public picking" world in any way, this thread is the only place I know of where I essentially signed and dated some stock picks and rationales. And no, I rather doubt I'd be reviving the thread if my picks were in the tank.

Anyway... I don't recommend a buy right now on any of these stocks, for what that's worth.

didnt know this thread existed. im listening if anyone has any thoughts these days

Jumped on oil after the Gulf mess, old standby of gold when I got stationary money, lot of commodity based stuff (because I'm ever the inflation doomsayer). Made a bunch off of a massive DIG play I was holding since $30, which I was debating at around $48 but got out over $58.

Not really the best time to buy in my opinion, no outlook for gangbusters growth, but solid companies I think will keep hovering in this range with a small potential for an upward turn if we ever get that damn employment.

Personally, I think we are kind of sliding down a small hill this particular week... if it is any indication I am mostly looking for prices similar to early January to reload. Maybe a touch higher... we are getting close. Maybe end of week. Of course I'm only looking for whatever I can get rid of again in a couple weeks to a month for one of my preferred 5% - 10% hops (you get enough of those in a year and it makes you rich faster than being really smart and picking a 50% growth stock at the start of year and selling it at the end, but it is a lot more work :( ).

A fun stock to watch, if you like playing this game. A southern blue collar retailer Stein Mart. They are suffering some distress (like their whole segment of retail) and their stock price has been mercilessly clobbered for it.

Stein Mart, Inc.: NASDAQ:SMRT quotes & news - Google Finance (https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3ASMRT&ei=4IolWYCaIcjDe6_mgYAJ)

I am upside down on this stock at the moment, as I have been buying it on the way down. When they suspended their dividend on Friday, the stock caved in - a typical overreaction from the market. I bought up a pretty sizable (for me) traunch on Monday afternoon, and got the benefit of a big bounce back (+22c) on Tuesday. Am watching this closely now.

My thinking is mostly this -- even is retail is weak overall, I don't think they are a real candidate to simply do belly up and liquidate. I don't believe the stock is going to zero. If they are in true distress, I think the more likely outcome would be that they sell out to private equity - and let someone else (without the burden of family ties, perhaps) try to right the ship. If that happens, we shareholders at least get some premium on our current prices.

But if the company is going to remain alive, then in a year or so, it seems like the proper price is well above a buck and a half. (Opens today at 1.55) I think something over $3.00 is a very, very reasonable target. So... I am watching closely. If you have some spec money to thrown down on a gamble like this... have a look.

I swear this article on Stein Mart was written by a computer:

https://www.newsoracle.com/2017/05/24/investors-catching-stocks-stein-mart-inc-smrt-2/

In fact, I bet it's generic copy they can just plug a company in and spit out the data with an article.

That's all I got.

The overwhelming share of stock-specific articles on the internet lately are AI generated. Just spitting out various facts from a database and surrounding them with vague template wording. Nothing to see here.

Watching the Redfin IPO today. I have buy orders out, but I don't have an in to get it early, and I'm guessing it will get pumped up outside my price range before it's publicly available.

Redfin Corp: NASDAQ:RDFN quotes & news - Google Finance (https://www.google.com/finance?q=RDFN&ei=LTt7WeibI9bBepH7sLAG)

Nice pop. Assuming you missed out?

Nice pop. Assuming you missed out?

Yeah, I had a limit order in at 18.50. Missed that, it basically "opened" for the public around $20. I looked for a bit at 20, but it seemed like it was dropping at the time, so I just left my order out there in case it fell that far. Now it's around $21.20 as I write. Money to be made, I just didn't stick with it. Now I still am intrigued (as a medium term play), but am suffering the psychological effects of missing out.

I don't claim to be experienced when it comes to IPOs, but generally speaking, I think it's safer to wait a bit if you don't get in initially/early. Too many people in play on day 1 and there is too much irrational behavior involved.

Definitely not a pro. Most of my 401K & IRA's are in mutual funds. The stocks and I own are:

(1) Apple
(2) Google
(3) SNSR (speculative ETF on Internet of Things, relatively small %)

FWIW, I can sleep at nights. Have faith that Apple and Google (especially) will recover from any downturns.

Cmi
1/14/09 - 24.52
7/30/117 - 167.22

Pep
1/14/09 - 51.10
7/30/117 - 116.61

Rimm
1/14/09 - 45.10
7/30/17 - 9.72

Bmy
1/14/09 - 22.20
7/30/17 - 55.27

Ge
1/14/09 - 14.10
7/30/17 - 25.52

It's been a good run since my initial post here.I bailed out of Rimm I '11 somewhere around $25...definitely a miss there. Cmi was my big win and I've pulled some profit but still have a a big position there.

Nice pop. Assuming you missed out?

So, it appears that part of my Friday order actually got filled (at 20.90)... up near $25 today. I think it's bluster, mostly, but I'll take a quick flip like that. Could sell it off today, even.

Sold all my RDFN today at around 29.50. No clue if it will keep popping, but I'm taking a 40% gain in three days and pocketing it.

Now, SMRT, on the other hand... wild ride there. Ugh. I am just barely fending off my instinct to continue buying as it goes further down (though up 5c today).

Sold all my RDFN today at around 29.50. No clue if it will keep popping, but I'm taking a 40% gain in three days and pocketing it.

Been following. Nicely done!

...RDFN opened today north of 32, another nice bump. There's basically no way to tell what this is going to do short or long term, IMO.

...RDFN opened today north of 32, another nice bump. There's basically no way to tell what this is going to do short or long term, IMO.

I saw the pre-market # but then saw it down into the low 28s, now it's down about 5.5% from the open. Good to get out, or at least take back any original investment and let the profits ride.

Are the stock pickers on this board doing anything with their positions due to the NK escalation? Anyone moving more towards cash, bonds or gold?

Moving in today on Versartis VSAR (https://finance.google.com/finance?q=VSAR&ei=WRHFWfrgJovEe8Gnq4AK) -- a pharma stock who got totally savaged overnight, as their main offering seems to have failed a major clinical trial. According to the market, the company's value at 4pm yesterday was about 900M, and this morning is about 150M. I'm smelling an overreaction, and am trying to buy today to gain a short term bounceback.

Risky, but it feels like a strong play. I'm in pretty aggressively (for me).

Not a stock... but does anybody have any thoughts on Ripple?

Moving in today on Versartis VSAR (https://finance.google.com/finance?q=VSAR&ei=WRHFWfrgJovEe8Gnq4AK)

Well, this bet hasn't paid off yet, but I still think that it will. Even cheaper now around $2.50.

Moving in today on Versartis VSAR (https://finance.google.com/finance?q=VSAR&ei=WRHFWfrgJovEe8Gnq4AK) -- a pharma stock who got totally savaged overnight, as their main offering seems to have failed a major clinical trial. According to the market, the company's value at 4pm yesterday was about 900M, and this morning is about 150M. I'm smelling an overreaction, and am trying to buy today to gain a short term bounceback.

Risky, but it feels like a strong play. I'm in pretty aggressively (for me).


Do they have any other offerings? $22 to $2.50 is a long, long way down.

Recently I have put money in AMD as a beneficiary of the AI/Cryptocurrency boom. I'm also monitoring this company CVNA, an online used car marketplace which is a real disruptor. Really volatile lately but they're growing fast and entering a bunch of markets.

Also long play I'm thinking of taking a position on SMG for exposure to Marijuana. They're developing pesticides for Marijuana growing.

Well, if you've put your money along with mine from the last few months, it's been a rough ride. Nice hit on RDFN, but both SMRT and VASR are just leaking cash. I remain fairly optimistic in the medium term on both (and my investment is with long term funds that I don't need anytime soon) but it is tough to be super-wrong in the short term. My Schwab account is just knifing me every day with its prominent display of "unrealized gain/loss" on SMRT especially. Ugh.

Hanging in there on both, though.

Decided to put some $ into China and bought Tencent, Alibaba and ASHR.

Press seems to be pulling back from all the bubble/crashing talk so figure China is a good long term bet.

SMRT looking like it may have touched bottom, and is moving back up. Wish I had bought down at the trough rather than all the way down... but I'm hopeful that this is the beginning of a tempered run back up to something north of $2.

Hecla Mining (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=hl) (HL)

In the wake of a commodities meltdown, I think there’s real value in a number of related stocks. Precious metals took a massive thumping last year (full disclosure: I suffered) and mining stocks seemed to take a double whammy from not only a loss in the commodity price, but also a sell-of effect just by virtue of being equities. Where does that leave a silver and copper mining company like Hecla? Looking at a $11/oz price for silver, and wondering what the hell happened to them? This is a well run company where I’m already very long, but I see the current price in the $2.20-2.40 range being a complete steal. The gold/silver price ratio is too high, that usually means that silver is heading upwards… but even if silver stays at $11-12 an ounce for the next two years, Hecla should be at $3.50 rather than $2.25.

Forecast: ups and downs in the short run (profitable themselves if you move on both) but this thing has a bounce-back in the next 18 months, and should end 2009 over $3.00, possibly over $4.00.

So... I have ridden HL on and off for the last 15 years. I listen to the shareholder meetings, I pay attention.

In the last few days, they have taken a beating, down from $2.20 or so to close at $1.58 today. If you have the ability to sit and wait, I think this is a very strong play at this price range.

The issues of the moment are, quite possibly, transitory. They are having profitability issues right now with one of their major sites. It's not that they can't fig up silver and copper, they are stuck in some bad contracts. And, they are also suffering from metal-based tariff talk - the markets are really spooked about that. I think the drop to the $1.50 range is a substantial overreaction.

My price target, in a medium to long term, is more like... gulp... $3.50. Possibly more. I bought two tranches recently at and then under $2.00, and I am going back for more tomorrow unless it opens really strongly, which I don't expect. I was out of the stock for some time, but I think it has moved into urgent buy territory, and I'm not going to miss it.

The biggest risk I see is that the company could be the target of private equity, who might want to buy the whole thing and force a sale under $2.00 That would presumably mean a nice short term hit, but not the longer term double-or-more that I think this company genuinely has in it.

A fun stock to watch, if you like playing this game. A southern blue collar retailer Stein Mart. They are suffering some distress (like their whole segment of retail) and their stock price has been mercilessly clobbered for it.

Stein Mart, Inc.: NASDAQ:SMRT quotes & news - Google Finance (https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3ASMRT&ei=4IolWYCaIcjDe6_mgYAJ)

I am upside down on this stock at the moment, as I have been buying it on the way down. When they suspended their dividend on Friday, the stock caved in - a typical overreaction from the market. I bought up a pretty sizable (for me) tranche on Monday afternoon, and got the benefit of a big bounce back (+22c) on Tuesday. Am watching this closely now.

My thinking is mostly this -- even is retail is weak overall, I don't think they are a real candidate to simply do belly up and liquidate. I don't believe the stock is going to zero. If they are in true distress, I think the more likely outcome would be that they sell out to private equity - and let someone else (without the burden of family ties, perhaps) try to right the ship. If that happens, we shareholders at least get some premium on our current prices.

But if the company is going to remain alive, then in a year or so, it seems like the proper price is well above a buck and a half. (Opens today at 1.55) I think something over $3.00 is a very, very reasonable target. So... I am watching closely. If you have some spec money to thrown down on a gamble like this... have a look.

Why is this stock down under a dollar again? I don't know. Hoping to clear the time to dig into it tomorrow. Retail is shaky/cyclical, but lower-end retail is actually less shaky overall, as some people react to a bad economy by scaling down from upscale places to joint like Stein Mart. Perhaps more than meets the eye here.

So... I have ridden HL on and off for the last 15 years. I listen to the shareholder meetings, I pay attention.

In the last few days, they have taken a beating, down from $2.20 or so to close at $1.58 today. If you have the ability to sit and wait, I think this is a very strong play at this price range.

The issues of the moment are, quite possibly, transitory. They are having profitability issues right now with one of their major sites. It's not that they can't fig up silver and copper, they are stuck in some bad contracts. And, they are also suffering from metal-based tariff talk - the markets are really spooked about that. I think the drop to the $1.50 range is a substantial overreaction.

My price target, in a medium to long term, is more like... gulp... $3.50. Possibly more. I bought two tranches recently at and then under $2.00, and I am going back for more tomorrow unless it opens really strongly, which I don't expect. I was out of the stock for some time, but I think it has moved into urgent buy territory, and I'm not going to miss it.

Well, the last three weeks were trying. It lost another 15% or so since the 1.58 I mentioned in this post. I decided to buy yet another bundle of it at 1.33. This is the most overweight I have ever been on one stock.

Today was a good rally back to the high 1.40s as I speak, and I hope this means it hit bottom. Short term faith is not very high that's true, I don't know where the bottom might be... I just don't think this stock is still anywhere close to this price in two or three years.

...if anyone here was dumb enough to stake stock-picking advice from a football game message board...

Well, you've gotten lucky, but as a rule, don't do that. HL up 20c yesterday, now sitting around 1.94. If you bought at 1.55 or so, you're up around 25% in two months. I still think it's a long term buy, but it want a quick hit and pocket some cash, go for it.

FWIW, I've been doing dividend ETFs and Mutual Funds.

SCHD and VDIGX have been doing pretty well. I know they may under perform the market some but high quality companies with a dividend track record so I can sleep better during down turns.

Google, Apple & Amazon are the only stocks I own now. Still haven't dipped into bitcoins.

On a whim, I bought a few shares of SPCE. Rooting for commercialization of space travel (although its too late for me).

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/28/virgin-galactic-stock-trading-debut-on-nyse-under-the-ticker-spce.html
Virgin Galactic stock soared Monday as Sir Richard Branson’s space tourism company began trading publicly.

The company listed directly on the NYSE, following the closing of a merger last week with Chamath Palihapitiya’s venture Social Capital Hedosophia.

“Virgin Galactic is making history again today as it becomes the world’s first and only publicly traded commercial human spaceflight company,” CEO George Whitesides said in a statement. “For the first time, anyone will have the opportunity to invest in a human spaceflight company that is transforming the market.”
:
Shares of Virgin Galactic rose as high as $12.93, up more than 9%. The shares were previously listed under the ticker IPOA for Palihapitiya’s special purpose vehicle, which took a 49% stake in Virgin Galactic. Shares of Palihapitiya’s venture closed at $11.79 a share on Friday, up nearly 12% in the past three months.

So... I have ridden HL on and off for the last 15 years. I listen to the shareholder meetings, I pay attention.

In the last few days, they have taken a beating, down from $2.20 or so to close at $1.58 today. If you have the ability to sit and wait, I think this is a very strong play at this price range.

The issues of the moment are, quite possibly, transitory. They are having profitability issues right now with one of their major sites. It's not that they can't fig up silver and copper, they are stuck in some bad contracts. And, they are also suffering from metal-based tariff talk - the markets are really spooked about that. I think the drop to the $1.50 range is a substantial overreaction.

My price target, in a medium to long term, is more like... gulp... $3.50. Possibly more. I bought two tranches recently at and then under $2.00, and I am going back for more tomorrow unless it opens really strongly, which I don't expect. I was out of the stock for some time, but I think it has moved into urgent buy territory, and I'm not going to miss it.

The biggest risk I see is that the company could be the target of private equity, who might want to buy the whole thing and force a sale under $2.00 That would presumably mean a nice short term hit, but not the longer term double-or-more that I think this company genuinely has in it.

HL is up around $2.30 now. If you bought in the $1.50s, you're up 50%. I'm up about 40% on the biggest stock play of my life. Faster than I had guessed. Fundamentals might not be there to ride all the way to $3.50. If you want to bail out now and cash in, go for it.

On a whim, I bought a few shares of SPCE. Rooting for commercialization of space travel (although its too late for me).

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/28/virgin-galactic-stock-trading-debut-on-nyse-under-the-ticker-spce.html

SPCE is down 20+% since I bought it. Good think I didn't put much into it but it goes to show I'm lousy at this. Should have stuck with mutual funds and ETFs.

SPCE is down 20+% since I bought it. Good think I didn't put much into it but it goes to show I'm lousy at this. Should have stuck with mutual funds and ETFs.

Sounds like right now is a great time to buy!

SPCE is down 20+% since I bought it. Good think I didn't put much into it but it goes to show I'm lousy at this. Should have stuck with mutual funds and ETFs.

On the other hand, my Apple stock is doing great!

I was thinking about selling some before the new iPhones came out because the predictions were people would wait till next year when 5G came out. But for some reason, they were wrong and Apple is doing great.

HL is up around $2.30 now. If you bought in the $1.50s, you're up 50%. I'm up about 40% on the biggest stock play of my life. Faster than I had guessed. Fundamentals might not be there to ride all the way to $3.50. If you want to bail out now and cash in, go for it.

Up another 10% since this post... closed at 2.53 today. I'm still in, but may put out some limit sells.

Up another 10% since this post... closed at 2.53 today. I'm still in, but may put out some limit sells.

Holy cow, huge day, up to 2.68 - presumably on market uncertainty (precious metals sometimes get a reverb)... been too tied up to do research, but this feels like a sell-off day for me here.

I've sold off a third of my HL at 2.71. Have another limit order in if there's one more upward twitch. Could be playing with house money only soon.

So... I have ridden HL on and off for the last 15 years. I listen to the shareholder meetings, I pay attention.

In the last few days, they have taken a beating, down from $2.20 or so to close at $1.58 today. If you have the ability to sit and wait, I think this is a very strong play at this price range.

I've sold off a third of my HL at 2.71. Have another limit order in if there's one more upward twitch. Could be playing with house money only soon.

Well, I'm trying to stay on the bright side here. I made enough on this trade to count it in number of paychecks so I shouldn't be as pissed off as I am that I apparently sold way too early. HL at 3.06 this morning. I still hold a chunk, but it's less than half of where I was when i was rising through the 2.00...2.30...2.50...

3.29 today, omg

SPCE is down 20+% since I bought it. Good think I didn't put much into it but it goes to show I'm lousy at this. Should have stuck with mutual funds and ETFs.

Did my monthly portfolio roundup and am finally in the black!

As of last Fri, I am up 39% on SPCE. It went down about 40% sometime in Dec and has rebounded nicely. Still truly speculative and I only have a small amount (to show my support of the dream).

Up 176% on SPCE. I'm an investing genius (not) !!

Well, I'm trying to stay on the bright side here. I made enough on this trade to count it in number of paychecks so I shouldn't be as pissed off as I am that I apparently sold way too early. HL at 3.06 this morning. I still hold a chunk, but it's less than half of where I was when i was rising through the 2.00...2.30...2.50...

Well, HL is back in the $1.80 range. I'm fully out, didn't sell at the top but did well enough.

Right now, I'm almost entirely out of stocks. Just see more downside ahead, still. I have a wrong-side investment in SH, but don't really like the feeling of profiting on that a lot.


Longer term, I'm wondering about Carnival Cruise Lines (https://twitter.com/search?q=%24CCL&src=cashtag_click). I don't think it's a buy right now, but that looks like a rebound candidate, at some level - even if it's to buy publicly and wait for private equity takeover (a reasonable short term play). I don't think that's a $50 stock again anytime soon, but it might be a... #28 stock? Sitting at $12 today.

Let's keep an eye on it.


I'll almost certainly get back into HL at some point, again. I can't quit you.

So... I have ridden HL on and off for the last 15 years. I listen to the shareholder meetings, I pay attention.

In the last few days, they have taken a beating, down from $2.20 or so to close at $1.58 today. If you have the ability to sit and wait, I think this is a very strong play at this price range.

The issues of the moment are, quite possibly, transitory. They are having profitability issues right now with one of their major sites. It's not that they can't fig up silver and copper, they are stuck in some bad contracts. And, they are also suffering from metal-based tariff talk - the markets are really spooked about that. I think the drop to the $1.50 range is a substantial overreaction.

My price target, in a medium to long term, is more like... gulp... $3.50. Possibly more. I bought two tranches recently at and then under $2.00, and I am going back for more tomorrow unless it opens really strongly, which I don't expect. I was out of the stock for some time, but I think it has moved into urgent buy territory, and I'm not going to miss it.

The biggest risk I see is that the company could be the target of private equity, who might want to buy the whole thing and force a sale under $2.00 That would presumably mean a nice short term hit, but not the longer term double-or-more that I think this company genuinely has in it.

Well, I was not strong enough to continue the ride through the pandemic. This (above) was from a year ago. I bet heavily (for me) on HL, and made around +70% in 7 months. My 11yo daughter opened a Robinhood account, and after talking with me put $20 into 11 shares of HL at $1.71. Yesterday she sold 5 of them at $4.42, and more than covered her initial stake. She thinks investing is always going to be like this. Ha.

I'm in pretty heavy on Draft King options ($40 and $45 through Aug 21) and they have had a good week. If that stock can get to $40 as the football buzz begins, I could make 300-400%

RIP Stein Mart.

RIP Stein Mart.

Yeah, bummed. I always tend to carry a little bit of a torch for former long plays like this.

My take then was, nutshelled, retail sucks but blue collar retail isn't going to just die, so these guys should remain viable.

Maybe it was covid, maybe it was just the eventual way of all things in non-special retail. Glad I got fully out (I was only aboard for a short time) but my wife's family will surely miss them.

Also, my daughter sold off her remaining HL shared at 6.60, missing the absolute high by only a few pennies. Maybe she's a savant.

We're now into electric trucks, via DPHC (https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/DPHC/news?p=DPHC), effectively the old Lordstown Assembly plant in Ohio being converted to new use.

How's everyone liking that 5 for 1 Tesla stock split announcement?

I know I am overexposed, but it's now a solid 10% of my 401k all by itself, and I am not letting it go.

If you guys like Tesla, there's a good ETF out there that has TSLA as its highest holding. It's called ARKK. Year to date it has made about 70% and has some other good companies. It's marketed as an innovation fund and has Tesla, Square, Roku, Invitae and Proto labs. It's only about $84 a share:

Just a moment... (https://www.etf.com/ARKK#overview)

If you guys like Tesla, there's a good ETF out there that has TSLA as its highest holding. It's called ARKK. Year to date it has made about 70% and has some other good companies. It's marketed as an innovation fund and has Tesla, Square, Roku, Invitae and Proto labs. It's only about $84 a share:

Just a moment... (https://www.etf.com/ARKK#overview)

It's funny that you mentioned ARKK, because I've got that as a holding as well. (along with a substantial amount of ROKU).

I'm not sure I'd recommend TSLA, ROKU and an ETF that has as bunch of TSLA and ROKU as a diversification strategy - but it has worked well the past few months!

It's funny that you mentioned ARKK, because I've got that as a holding as well. (along with a substantial amount of ROKU).

ARKK came up somewhere in my reading and I was intrigued. I like the philosophy of disruptor companies and may dip into it.

I'm not sure I'd recommend TSLA, ROKU and an ETF that has as bunch of TSLA and ROKU as a diversification strategy - but it has worked well the past few months!

Don't worry, I've got a bunch of MJ too, and that's been a complete loser thus far, but it's only a matter of time for it. So I'll just keep buying it up at the low price. The industry has too much potential for it to flag forever.

I just saw that lumber commodity prices have exploded since July 1.

Don't worry, I've got a bunch of MJ too, and that's been a complete loser thus far, but it's only a matter of time for it. So I'll just keep buying it up at the low price. The industry has too much potential for it to flag forever.

Is MJ the marijuana ETF?

It is

Someday I'll be brave enough to invest in individual stocks.

It's funny that you mentioned ARKK, because I've got that as a holding as well. (along with a substantial amount of ROKU).

I bought a small position into ARKK ... we shall see.

I may have sat out the Tesla ride to 2,000 - but I did make a bunch on Apple going to almost 500 today. Today was the last day to own shares and be eligible for the split. I figured it would go up when I bought option calls last night, but I wasn't ready for a $20 increase in one day.

We are about the point to look at puts for Spy, AAPL and TSLA. All these big boys seem very overbought.

I may have sat out the Tesla ride to 2,000 - but I did make a bunch on Apple going to almost 500 today. Today was the last day to own shares and be eligible for the split. I figured it would go up when I bought option calls last night, but I wasn't ready for a $20 increase in one day.

We are about the point to look at puts for Spy, AAPL and TSLA. All these big boys seem very overbought.

Apple is just crazy right now. I am overweight but primarily because Apple has like doubled in the past 2-3 years. My guess is iPhone 12 will be a hit so stock will continue to rise in the near term.

When my son started working, we started a ROTH for him. The first 2 stocks he bought (even though I told him to do S&P ETF) were Tesla and Boeing. Boeing was sucking even before the Coronavirus but Tesla has exceeded all expectations. Unfortunately, I never bought Tesla stock for me but I sleep just fine with Apple.

Congrats to Elon Musk. Even as a first class jerk, he is the driving force moving us to electric vehicles. But just like Yahoo, I feel that crown can be stripped relatively easily as major auto makers are catching up. With Apple, its got this crazy loyal following and more than one product.

The split idea was genius for both as they were starting to lose steam before it. Telsa was also extremely overvalued at 1500, so they needed something to keep the train going. Now, when they split, their price will be more "reasonable" for investors. I'm shocked Nvidia didn't announce one on their earnings to get another bump.

I do think we are in store for some red days early next week unless the stimulus comes in. It's a crazy time to be an investor - that much is true.

I Today was the last day to own shares and be eligible for the split.


To be clear, the rights to the share split transfers to the purchaser until 8/31. It is not like if you buy apple on Monday at ~495 dollars that your shares will not be eligible for the split.

We're now into electric trucks, via DPHC (https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/DPHC/news?p=DPHC), effectively the old Lordstown Assembly plant in Ohio being converted to new use.

Good move today (over 13%) and some spotlight in what's left of the Motley Fool:

Why Shares of Electric Pickup Start-Up DiamondPeak Holdings Soared 63.9% in August (https://finance.yahoo.com/m/c0ed30d0-fd26-3c83-8ae9-eab6a4881bfb/why-shares-of-electric-pickup.html)

My portfolio has been overweight on Apple just because of their run up in the past 2-4+ years. No where as good as Tesla this year but still pretty darn good.

I think the iPhone 12 has been successful for them but that's all factored into stock price now so I've taken some profits and added to my core funds like SCHD and VDIGX.

GBTC Grayscale Bitcoin Trust has caught my eye because of the run-up. I know it's at the high right now but was thinking about buying a very small chunk to add to my "fun" but risky 5% portfolio.

Anyone have any insights or predictions on the future of Bitcoin?

I don't know - a lot of the people that pump and dump penny stocks/SPACs are all about bitcoin now. I just remember this time three years ago when it was in a frenzy up to $13K and then dumped back down to 3K. There two cryptos I like (and own):

1. USD coin (USDC) - it's backed by the US Dollar. I buy it through an app called Celsius and get paid 10.51% a year (compounded monthly) to hold it there.

2. Paxos Gold coin (PAXG) - it is backed by gold in a trust in London. In the future, I think this could be a very valuable digital currency if BTC/ETH start dumping. You can also make 5% if you hold it in an app like Celsius. Here's a video on how this coin is also a great way to own gold:

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