To All, BArron's review. Not as good as last week, but interesting. 1. Abelson comments on Mary Meeker's totally silly and wrong estimate of Amazon.Com's revenues. Hey, she is the queen of the net. She doesn't have to know how to do her job. <g> And, besides, her comments on AMZN's revenues weren't nearly as dumb on the "E-Bay's site will never go down again," when the print wasn't dry before E-BAy went dark again. Paul Karisel, oft-quoted here, said that what Amazon is doing by selling overpriced stock to suckers while selling below cost products to customers is transferring wealth from investors to consumers. Hey, I/ve always believed that "Sovereignty of the consumer" is the name of the game in our economy and that the consumer should be the major league butt kicker. He also quotes some silliness about the Super Bowl Advertising indicator. And Chuck Allmon gives a list of cos. selling at idiotic multiples of price to sales.
2. A devastating expose of the ridiculous valuation of Internet Capital Group (ICGE-hey, if you see GE, why not act like them? <g>).
3. A nice bit on the safety of REIT dividends.
4. A fluff piece on Asia's recovery, which is mostly in the stock markets, not the economies.
5. Good Market Watch. Liquidity Trim Tabs note that corporate investors are very bearish. Richard Russell moans and groans about the absence of breadth in this rabies market. Peter Dag talks about the poor performance of stock markets during the second half of financial cycles. Investment Guide has the quote of the issue: stocks with no reported were up 52% on average for the year while those with reported earnings were up an average of 2%. Gotta love it.
6. Two of my long stocks, TIE and ASA, had insider buying. Another, RTI, was recommended by a fund manager who likes hated cos.
7. A great piece in the Current Yield column. "Bonds get no respect and no bids." <g>
8. The year end and quarterly mutual fund review. The worst performing of the Top 20 funds last year was up 213%. The S&P 500 was up 19%. Yes, the index beats funds most of the time, by 1 or 2%, but when it loses, it gets killed. Hopefully last year's results finally put the stake in the heart of the index idiots. Index funds do not make the Top Twenty in 1 year, 5 year, 10 year or 20 year performance. But, if you are of a weak constitution and mind and can't handle too much excitement, the index funds are for you. <g> |
