I love when we have companies nobody would sispect on Wallstrip. It’s a reminder that Apple, RIMM, Oil, Gold are not the only stocks you can own.
It is a market of stocks and you should be focused on price leaders to learn about real leaders.
Your only decision after that is…can it continue.
Despite the real estate mess and credit crisis, Ventas Inc VTR , has rocked. From Google Finance and Reuters:
Ventas, Inc. a real estate investment trust (REIT) with a portfolio of seniors housing and healthcare-related properties in the United States and Canada. As of December 31, 2007, this portfolio consisted of 519 assets, 253 seniors housing communities, 197 skilled nursing facilities, 42 hospitals and 27 medical office, and other properties in 43 states and two Canadian provinces, including 77 seniors housing communities the Company acquired from Sunrise Senior Living Real Estate Investment Trust (Sunrise REIT) on April 26, 2007. With the exception of its medical office buildings (MOBs) and 79 of Ventas, Inc.’s seniors housing communities that are managed by Sunrise Senior Living, Inc. (Sunrise) pursuant to long-term management agreements, it leases these properties to healthcare operating companies under triple-net or absolute-net leases, which require the tenants to pay all property-related expenses.
It has not paid to think about real estate for one reason here…DEMAND. As Julie notes in the show, demographics should only get better. An interesting stock indeed (no position).
One thing about people on the streets and predictions, do the opposite.
In November 2006, we hit the street for some stock market tips. See for yourself the sheer patheticness . Pretty hilarious stuff from the archives. Real estate, real estate, real estate, a side of BSX , TWX, and the occasional YouTube is a bubble preach. Check the charts. Awful.
That’s why I was excited to see the blend from today’s edit.
I am having a harder time gauging what to fade based on the ‘Man on the Streets ‘ 2008 edition. If I were to guess, the average investor is way underinvested in the stock market, apathetic and not the least bit concerned.
My read – BIG VOLATILITY COMING. Time to scare some people.
CHINA – Nobody is more optimistic than me for this China not to be ‘the bubble of bubbles’ but don’t be stupid. IT IS. All things will follow China this century. It’s just math and population. The only thing preventing China from imploding everyday is all the day traders short the Chinese ‘inverted double inverse upside down flint rubble double’ ETF (FXP). Read Michael Parekh’s quick review of the situation. He has been there done that . You can’t stop people from being exuberant.
Cramer at NY Magazine . He’s tough to take on his own site but I like reading his pieces outside TheStreet. I don’t follow his stock picks but his handicapping angle is a great touch.
I love this PS from Fred in his 2008 look Ahead Post
I posted this from my blackberry to this blog, facebook, and tumblr with one click while sitting on a beach in the great barrier reef off the coast of australia. If you want to see the new world, you have to live it.
Everyone on this blog is living it so we are ahead of the game. Travelling tomorrow and excited to get busy again Thursday.
I love today’s Wallstrip show. It is so much work that goes into each show, but you can tell the extra effort to make ones like today. It was not my idea. I do know that funny songs with well groomed ladies have the best chance of getting viral. Duh.
I don’t know which song I would have picked if it were up to me, but as it turns out we picked the same song as two other really great videos, one which I posted last week. You can vote for which one you liked best over at New Tee Vee . Please do so.
ALSO – HELP US PICK NEXT YEAR’S THEME SONG NOW. I am no Billy Joel fan and I always hated this song.
Here are the three videos – Wallstrip first of course:
What an interesting year it has been . I am not going to do a major recap. Only a few things really happened…China owns us and US Financial and Housing CEO’s are punk ass momentum bitches.
It’s true. Prices are all that matter. Fred seems very concerned. I am not. Japan owned us 20 years ago, so did the Germans for a few hours. We bought the stuff back from them for pennies.
Most of America is fat and lazy, but our cream of the crop blows everyone elses’s away. We are like Trump in the 80’s. We owe sooooo much money that nobody can afford to collect. It’s better for our creditors to keep us afloat. my bet is we come through this once again.
If we don’t, what good is all the money you make shorting anyways. You will be dead or a slave or here .
As his father told Navin R. Johnson in the great comedy ‘The Jerk’…”Don’t Trust Whitey !”
All kidding aside, it is a profound statement. If you trust ‘Whitey’ with your money or a home appraiser to value you home, I don’t think you are entitled to a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card. Like every rule, I believe there are times to break or bend them, but not often here. Last week I was driving by homes for sale signs in Phoenix that had a new hanging tag line ‘Below Appraisal’. That’s comedy.
Something is wrong when an entire industry teeters on the brink of destruction because of – what? – a change in credit rating. Consider the anxiety in and around the monoline insurers. The recent MBIA situation simply brought the point home: investors have given rating agencies too much power. Way, way too much power. Somehow, someway, large swaths of the investor landscape has effectively abrogated responsibility for conducting proper due diligence because an entity which, by the way, is paid for by the issuer, has said “this instrument is ok for investment if your risk tolerance is (choose your letter).
We are fat and lazy as individuals and corporations full of ’smart’ people are no different. Don’t be like everybody else buying ’sell side’ research and outsourcing your hard earned and/or stolen capital ( ) to ‘Whitey’.
You need to have a plan, but you can do this shit yourself. I think I am proving it on this blog everyday. Lindsay is proving it with her stock portfolio. She does not have a broker. Never has. She understands about commission costs (USAA at $3 a trade). She never heard of a stock before Wallstrip, let alone buy one. You will call her lucky, but I think she’s smart. She reads this blog and is finding ideas that are in tune with her thinking and stocks that are trending. I saw her today and we talked abut her stocks for 30 minutes. She knows I will kick her ass if she buys ‘rumors’ and stocks that are not my favorites mentioned here. I reminded her that stocks go down. It’s not always this easy.
Rose in my office has been patient, not traded and bought the best stocks she could understand in positive trends. She has been printing money.
Here is what I think Rose and Lindsay have done right. They found someone ‘me’ that they know they can reach (through my blog) or direct contact whose interests are aligned with theirs. They have taken baby steps, they have been very selective and they have been diligent about their stocks that they decide to own.
They are beating the pants out of me and every other mutual fund that they could have chosen. They will make mistakes. They will occasionally get lazy. If they don’t get too lazy, they should build their net worth and enjoy the stock market…the best part of capitalism that America has to offer (despite it’s many flaws).
As Roger concludes:
It all really comes back to the same issue: caveat emptor and for gosh sakes, do your job. Especially if you are a fiduciary. You simply can’t outsource responsibility for making decisions that are core to your mission. If you are going to invest in complex instruments, do the homework or don’t invest. And by all means, do not rely on the opinion of others whose motivations might not be aligned with your own. Because as we’ve seen, this can result in some very ugly outcomes.
Flying home finally and will be trying to stay away from the blog until Monday. It has been an amazing week of gains for the leaders. It may feel wrong to sell something, but you should.
The shorts are such amateurs. They are too smart for their own good. While they brag at ‘cocktail parties’, their profits disappear.
Sure – we throw them bones …GM, Dell, Ford, Homebuilders, semiconductors and even some big financials this year, but the rest still belongs to the bulls.
They bears focus too much on charts and price and levels…NOT TIME.
They don’t realize the amount of people focused on keeping the sytem moving forward and possibly even ‘rigged’ (I hope it’s rigged for all our sakes).
They don’t realize the power of the bullish system of America. They have their little toy of the ‘no uptick rule’ which definitely helps them during meltdowns, but creates this mess for them when sentiment turns for just a few days.
This has been one of my better trading weeks of the year again…thanks to the bears. I remember the pain of being early at $81 on VMWare just a few days ago, so I WILL SELL some more today at $94. I remember being scared of a crash while buying lot’s of SPYders at $142. I will book profits on a bunch today at $149 a few days later. Yes we could go higher, but this is indeed a meaty move in a short time and I have no opinion on the market itself.
Take a look at these spikes. If you are a shortseller remember them.
Disclosure – Long VMW, SPY and as you know alot more.
Will Apple cave a quick $30-$50 or Google $150 in a panic or on some horrible news we don’t know or will the Financials bounce and relieve some of the pressure.
One of these things will likely happen next week.
I don’t feel like paying up for my favorite tech trends (Search, Apple, RIMM or GPS), since I have owned them forever already and just nibbled on a few again and I sure as hell won’t dip my toes in the financials save the SPYders (already long) or Goldman Sachs (not until $180ish).
Financials need to get to a level where they are cheap at this point otherwise we get this wimpy buying. I don’t hear of any massive buybacks at the banks, just massive writedowns so we could still go much lower.
The indexes are basically back to scratch on the year and many bonuses are disappearing. People are just mad at this point. Mad is stupid. Mad is a deer in the headlights about to get run over. Mad does not create bottoms, just losses. Mad is Vic , not VIX.
FEAR and GREED are better moods for making money in the stock market. I don’t feel it.
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