I have a question/observation about the emphasis here on buying "laggards."
After all, don't some stocks "lag" in price, because they deserve to lag? That is, some companies are better run than others, or better positioned to prosper, or have a special niche, or whatever.
Of course, for someone who trades a lot, this may not matter at all. If you anticipate a pop in the price of the stock, and expect to sell it off and to replace it with something else in very short order, fundamentals don't matter.
But if, like myself, you have neither the time nor the skill to do a lot of trading, and prefer to invest in one or two stocks in an industry, and to hold it/them for a longer term, how your stock stacks up against the competition does matter.
In any event, I scratch my head when I hear someone call a low-priced stock "undervalued," simply because it has a low price. Perhaps it does not merit a higher price!
That is not to say that the price leaders all merit the high prices they command. One of the things that troubles me about the oil patch is that few of the companies in it appear to have really recuperated from the tremendous hit they took to earnings, cashflow, and revenues during the recent not-so-lamented downturn. And with the return of investors to the industry, the valuations of such companies have been driven way up, far beyond what their fundamentals would seem to call for, even taking into account future projections. Peg ratios of 3.0 or higher are quite common in the industry.
So it could be argued that oil service stocks, as a group, are already overvalued. I hope this is not so (since I own a few). Any thoughts? |
