Stock Market 2014

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DVY

DVY

Ostrich
Gold Member
BIJ is fair to express what he wants, but I never advocated any of those other stocks. I am talking about high quality "blue-chip" stocks that have extended history of good managements, increasing dividends, and shareholder friendly policies. I also (for the most part) stay away from cyclical companies.

As for my comment about USA stocks> chinese stocks. Its a reflection on culture.

If you think people will magically stop eating MCD or drinking KO, you are wrong. Its not happening EVER. Really. And I don't invest in tech companies. I don't understand the valuations and don't feel comfortable w/it. Ill stick to the boring companies.
 
Cincinnatus

Cincinnatus

Hummingbird
Gold Member
Damn.

Been watching Fusion Pharmaceuticals this morning. (ticker:FSPM)

Closed Friday at $6.76 per share. Dropped to $5.12 per share within an hour of opening. Currently $7.70 per share, peaked at $8.12 thus far today.
 
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Richiavelli

Robin
BIGINJAPAN said:
Richiavelli said:
JayJuanGee said:
Cincinnatus said:
Steve9 said:
Cincinnatus, these seem like penny stocks that have been heavily hyped (have you seen the movie "The Wolf of Wall Street"....)

You seem to be an investing noob, so I would tread very carefully - there is a good chance you will get screwed on these stocks.
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No doubt - I am an investing newbie, hence the only stocks I own at the moment are established companies with a solid track record - most based in my hometown.

That said, I've decided that my "30 minutes a day" project will be learning as much as possible about investing and trading stocks.

I've signed up for WallStreetDaily.com's newsletter and have read most of their reports. And I've been playing around with marketwatch.com's stock market game just to get a feel for things.

I don't doubt that I could lose an assload of money, but if I don't play with more than I can afford to lose, I don't see the problem with throwing some money at the market - especially considering a decent payoff could happen.

Haven't seen The Wolf of Wall Street yet, it's on my "must-view" list though. Waiting for it to come out on DVD.
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Cincinnatus:

I can definitely relate to your above response.

I have a somewhat evolving philosophy regarding investment; however, I have always considered that a guy can take a certain level of high risk with a percentage of his total investment portfolio (taking high risk with possibly up to around 10% of the total), so long as the remainder of the investment portfolio is fairly well diversified.

Surely, guys are going to come to differing specific choices about how to distribute their investment risks and how much risks they feel comfortable to take... maybe also depending on various timeline factors as to when they are going to need the money.

As Steve 9 mentioned, I would be very skeptical of any investment choices that appear to be being hyped up based on what occurred last year without some further info about the company or the fund (unless maybe if I am throwing only less than perhaps 1% of my total investment portfolio at such an unknown risk).
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I agree 100%. Honestly if I were in your position I'd sell most of it off and pick up a good book to learn how to invest, not speculate. You need to fundamental base for your portfolio instead of trying to play the market by news. Most likely all the MAJOR money on marajuana stocks has been made, any leftover scraps probably aren't worth chasing unless you do some serious research.

Dollar cost average SPY, SCHX (models SPY), or SCHB (models dow and some).

I don't think there are enough cult people following pot stocks right now for it to become a cult like Tesla.

JayJuanGee said:
BIGINJAPAN said:
DVY said:
American companies are still amazing because there is (for the most part) cultural integrity. There are a few bad apples here and there, but by and large GAAP accounting, SEC regs and other agencies prevent OUTRIGHT FRAUD.

This isn't the case for developing nations.
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HAHAHA

You clearly dont understand GAAP accounting and integrity.

Good luck investing
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Big_in_J:

Do you have a link or some kind of further explanation for your assertion regarding DVY's post, rather than merely asserting that a guy is ill informed?

Personally, I do NOT put a lot of credence in the financial shenanigans within the USA financial system, yet I believe it would be a fairly complicated matter to unravel regarding the various kinds of hocus pocus that occurs to mislead and deceive investors which likely varies considerably from company to company and industry to industry.
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FYI I'd take America's financial system over China's financial system or any other emerging market. Take your ChInEsE rEvErSe MeRgErS if you wish.
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The biggest frauds that have ever happened in publicly traded companies are from the US.... No one even comes close... At least in other countries when someone gets caught they are killed or jailed... Not in good ole US of A..

You can all think what you want about zerohedge and them being fear mongers... But their analysis of Earnings and GAAP accounting is spot on... They may love gold but they loved it since $700. So even though gold went down last year, anybody who has been buying it based on them first recommending it are still up nicely.

As for FB, AMZN, NFLX and the bunch, it isnt so much them trying to fuck investors as it is the investment banks taking them public. They know the public is too stupid to to realize these companies will never be profitable in the long run. FB, TWTR and NFLX especially... AMZN and SBUX are just poorly ran and once interest rates go up they wont be able to stay afloat.
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I will agree with you that the tech companies do not have enough to stay afloat - I'm steering clear. GAAP can be manipulated, especially with OCI. I think the best example of this in the current age is Groupon.

I remember looking at AMZN's financial statements and noticed that they pump a LOT of money into investing portion of cash flows. Most companies these days are extremely leveraged due to how low it is to finance debt. Don't get me started on Netflix and Twitter...the public is buying stocks that they see in every day life (which IMO has never worked out in the long run for anyone).

Don't get me wrong, I read zerohedge every day. Their macro economic analysis is very good, and I love the sarcastic slant. They do fear monger a bit too much, but its hard not to blame them from the past year's "Bad New Is Good News" stock rally. Gold was the highest performing asset for January, but I'd rather buy REITS than paper gold.
 
V

Veloce

Crow
Gold Member
Richiavelli said:
FYI guys, I bought a muni bond CEF called PML late December, it's been rallying at 5% up last month. Pays a sweet yearly dividend that's TaX fReE - not sure if you guys are really hot on muni's but I like it better than other bond alternatives (I was using SCHZ until I found this).
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imo there's no individual bonds worth buying atm except muni, but we'll see what happens with the interest rate.
 
Flavius Aetius

Flavius Aetius

Woodpecker
Gold Member
thedude3737 said:
imo there's no individual bonds worth buying atm except muni, but we'll see what happens with the interest rate.
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Hey Dude,

Why muni's--they are just as interest rate sensitive as other bonds. I realize the slight tax benefit,but it interest rates go up munis will still get hit as well. At this point of the interest rate cycle (generational lows), the only way to really make any money would be to bet on lower rates.
 
V

Veloce

Crow
Gold Member
Flavius Aetius said:
thedude3737 said:
imo there's no individual bonds worth buying atm except muni, but we'll see what happens with the interest rate.
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Hey Dude,

Why muni's--they are just as interest rate sensitive as other bonds. I realize the slight tax benefit,but it interest rates go up munis will still get hit as well. At this point of the interest rate cycle (generational lows), the only way to really make any money would be to bet on lower rates.
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Because the tax exemption you mentioned. And, I know this is going to sound super idealistic, but I'd feel better about financing local programs than national. I know that's completely contradictory seeing as how I buy stock from international conglomerates :angel:

I don't own any bonds, but just saying if I did, I'd buy muni
 
S

Steve9

Woodpecker
6 years ago Buffet made an interesting 10 year bet against the hedge fund industry. He now has a big lead :

http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2014/02/05/buffett-widens-lead-in-1-million-bet/

Results are in for the sixth year of the competition sometimes called the $1 million bet, and Warren Buffett—once a piteous straggler in this 10-year wager on stock market performance—has opened up a sizeable lead over his opponent, New York asset manager Protégé Partners. Buffett's horse in the bet is a low-cost S&P index fund, and Protégé's is the averaged returns to investors (after all fees) of five hedge funds of funds that the firm carefully picked for the contest.
At the end of 2013, Vanguard's Admiral shares—the S&P index fund that's carrying Buffett's colors—were up for the six years that began January 1, 2008 by 43.8%. For the same period, Protégé's five funds of funds, on the average, gained only by an estimated 12.5%
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S

Sp5

 
Banned
WRT to marijuana, I think the smart play would be to tobacco stocks like Altria.

They have the marketing and distribution infrastructure.

You know the big boys will push these little weed companies aside when legalization comes.
 
Onto

Onto

Ostrich
Gold Member
Went half short at the Close with TZA. Hope this bitch gaps down Monday, either way, SPX 1810-1838 could be the big short, otherwise I get stuck with the bullhorn.
 
Cincinnatus

Cincinnatus

Hummingbird
Gold Member
Sp5 said:
WRT to marijuana, I think the smart play would be to tobacco stocks like Altria.

They have the marketing and distribution infrastructure.

You know the big boys will push these little weed companies aside when legalization comes.
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I was thinking about this yesterday. Last night I was watching a documentary called "How Weed Won the West" and learned an interesting tidbit - Phillip Morris (the tobacco conglomerate) has purchased at least 50,000 square acres in California's Emerald Triangle (Humboldt, Mendocino, Trinity counties)
 
T

tarquin

Kingfisher
Gold Member
In a similar vein:
Altria also purchased Green Smoke recently. It's a e-cig company. I know other domestics have their own lines of disposable e-cigs so I don't really want to put my money on one horse in this.

My guess is that we will have a dominant player in disposable e-cigs gobbling up 80% of the market share now given to regular cigarettes with the other 20% of the market going to so-called "hobby" electronic cigarettes that cost $100 or more but are reusable.

Where I live there seems to be a new e-cigarette shop popping up every corner. It's not that hard to make your own "juice" and these smaller companies are working hard to get more people interested and more of the market. Once a big tobacco company makes a real concerted effort to switch people over, I believe that they can really make some money.

The problem is that it is so damn cheap/easy to make "juice" that there is virtually no entry barrier to the market. If the traditional tobacco companies use their power to make disposable e-cigarettes which last long enough (say, a $10 one which has 40 cigs worth of power). I doubt they will be able to get by just selling "juice" and proprietary reusable e-cigs alone.

For an investment strategy, I was thinking about a basket of companies. I can't figure out who will end up on top. I also liked Phillip Morris (international), but that stock had a bit of a run from $45 to $95, now $80, that I'll wait to re-enter.
 
Flavius Aetius

Flavius Aetius

Woodpecker
Gold Member
tarquin said:
In a similar vein:
Altria also purchased Green Smoke recently. It's a e-cig company. I know other domestics have their own lines of disposable e-cigs so I don't really want to put my money on one horse in this.

My guess is that we will have a dominant player in disposable e-cigs gobbling up 80% of the market share now given to regular cigarettes with the other 20% of the market going to so-called "hobby" electronic cigarettes that cost $100 or more but are reusable.
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As an Altria shareholder I hate that they were forced to purchase Green Smoke. It pretty much indicates that despite company pronouncements, MarkTen (altria's e-cig product) is a failure/coming in below expectations. Why would you waste over $100 million on an e-cig company if you have successful e-cig product in development?

Lorillard (LO) (another holding) is the clear winner so far in the ecig market with Blu. It currently controls 49% of the market and growing every quarter. Lorillard beat Altria and Reynolds into the ecig market.

It still remains to be seen how much ecigs eat into the traditional cig market. My hope is that ecigs (because they are perceived as safer) will increase the overall smoking market rather than simply cannibalizing existing smokers.
 
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