To All, Barron's mini-review and venting by yours truly:
1. Abelson's column is all Fred Hickey this week. Fred demolishes this rally as a scam and dumps on tech stocks big time. And he finally copped to preferring long puts to short selling, which I always knew he'd like if he got into it. Worth the price of the rag.
2. Weird article on the next auto fuel. They come down heavy for hydrogen fuel cells. But the headlines are misleading. They say "watch out, big oil," but in the article they admit that oil remains boss until it gets so expensive that fuel cells become practical. Oh, yeah, big oil is scared of that scenario. <g>
3. Nice one-pager on Target's credit card defaults. Geez, you would think that effectively giving people their merchandise for free would increase "sales." <g> It is also instructive on the other credit card dummies.
4. Jeff Gendell, a savvy hedge fund manager, has a very interesting interview. I agree with half of what he says and hate half of it. But he has a great record (which could mean he's ready to blow up), and he gives his investments some thought. I hope he and Fred Hickey were not in the offices on the same day. There might have been a bare knuckle death fight. <g>
Right from the start, I wanted to bitch slap him. He pointed out the fundamentals in the market and said, with such fundamentals, one would expect multiples to be at 30 to 40 times eps. So, I flip to the back of Barron's and see the 500 Pe ratio at 30 and the S&P industrials at 40 times. Is he not aware of these numbers? Wake up and smell the organic herbal tea and stop drinking the Wall Street Kool-Aid.
However, I totally agree with him on ag commodities. "All the analysts who follow them were fired 10 years ago, so nobody is noticing." Great comment on one of my favorite investment areas. But then he doesn't recommend ag futures or their options. He recommends Iowa banks. Borrrrrring!
A nice comment on a certain financial co's earnings being higher than Cisco's revenues, so Cisco is a non-event. Telecom is a non-event. Since both the eps and revenues mentioned, respectively, are highly suspect, to say the least, I suppose the analogy follows some sort of logic. <G>
He likes energy. Moi, too. He buys the Drillers Holdrs because he doesn't want to worry about Hal's asbestos problems. Sorry, but the big opportunity is for judges appointed by Hal's former CEOs current boss to bury that problem. Leaving lots of upside.
He likes the homebuilders, may he burn in hell. <VBG> And he hates gold because, at $310 an ounce, there is no positive cash flow. Huh! But at $400 an ounce, there is huge cash flow. Nary a mention of that leverage.
Definitely worth reading.
5. Decent Mailbag, with a defence and an attack on TA.
6. In the mutual fund section, they focus in on the performance of Equity Income Funds. Jim Gilligan, a buddy at Van Kampen, is the top dog for the year, though he still lags Scudder Dreman for 3 years. But Jim only being down 7.77% in this year is a nice return for a guy who doesn't hedge. |
