Saw Eric "I'm a Clown masquerading as a fund manager" Gustafson on CNN tonight, re: CSCO. They introduce him as a guy whose largest holding is CSCO, so of course he's not biased...hehe...anyway, in true Clown fashion, he dodges all of the real issues and just keeps saying,
EG: "Uhh, well, uhh, this Barrons article was shoddy journalism, CSCO is a great company, I will buy more."
CNNfn: "So Eric, what part of the Barrons article did you disagree with?"
EG: "Well, uhh, you know, uhh CSCO is the greatest company on the Nasdaq and I'm buying more, and oh by the way, they'll beat estimates by 2 cents tomorrow."
This goof had a chance to give his side of the argument on why CSCO was undervalued in his opinion, but he refused. He goes onto say that the Barrons piece was shoddy journalism, but then cannot provide examples of what was shoddy in the article. I guess you could say he was using the ostrich defense. When asked why he was buying more instead of selling, the best answer he could come up with was "it's a good company." In essence, he's as clueless about his investments as the clowns on the CSCO Yahoo board. "Soooo, Mr. Fund Manager, so basically what you're saying is that you own a lot of CSCO because your salesman at Goldman told you that's what you should buy, correct?"
As you probably know, Gustafson is a frequent Squawk guest whose investment thesis can be boiled down to two words: "Me too!"
Haines: "So Eric, tech's been hot lately, what do you like?"
EG: "Oh oh, Mark, ME TOO! If it's been hot, that's what I like."
Haines: "Well Eric, what makes these stocks 'buys' in your universe? Can you tell us what you like about their fundamentals?"
EG: "Oh well Mark, the stock was up 10 points last week, and when I hang out at the health club, all of my twenty-something fund manager buddies say they're buying it, so I like it too."
He is the poster=child for what is wrong with this market...couldn't tell you what CSCO's forward P/Es were for the next 2-3 years, even if you had a gun to his head. If CSCO was at $12,000 per share tomorrow, he'd be in there buying more. Not a clue. And some poor saps have their retirement nestegg at his discretion...truly scary. One of the clowns who truly believes there's safety in numbers..."the easiest way to keep my job is to buy what everyone else is buying...ME TOO!"
He'll be one of the many fund managers walking around like a blind man without a cane in a NAZ correction. |
