Barron's mini review: 1. Abelson is both less funny and less poignant than usual. His opening piece is about Bob Woodward. Uh, Alan, journalists are only heroes to other journalists. To the rest of us, they are like the trash collectors. We appreciate what they do for us and the good ones are MUCH better than the bad ones, but we don't like reading about them. The second piece is about a lecturer at The Wharton School, where the finest minds in America go to study how to get a high paying job. <G> This guy counted how many times Greenscam visited George Dumbya and how this has helped feed our current economic disaster about to happen. You know, we had to publish on more interesting subjects when I was there. My major study is on why the plywood market didn't make it as a futures market. I can't remember my conclusion 25 years after the fact, but it was brilliant. <G> He thinks the administration's Iraq strategy isn't perfect. But the best part of the column is the sorting out of valuations for aggressive growth funds. Some of the assumptions are stupid, such as using Fidelity as a proxy for the entire industry. It's not like these guys are in collusion or anything. Wait a second, trying to say that with a straight face tightened my cheeks like a shot of botox. Anyway, the Top Ten stocks in the Fido Aggrieved Growth comes out at an average PE ratio of 900 times. (he counts the 3 stocks without earnings at 200 times) Somehow, this nimno is trying to use such mundane valuations to say that the market could be frothy here. Ha, what a joick!
2. A nice bit on Follow Up about what the pros are picking. Devon and Peabody are among the top five picks. "Mr. Peabody's coal truck done towed it away."
3. Higher rates can't hurt Beazer Homes. Wanna bet?
4. 5 pages on Internet telephony. Big Yawwwwwwn!
5. Mary Meeker likes Chinese internet stocks. So did I. Until I read this article. Is she out on bail or something?
6. Safali Investments has the only good reading in the Market Watch segment. They think variable rates are going to kill the consumer. I agree. But not the long-haired goon on one of the Fox Financial programs today. He said buy the biggest house on which you can carry a variable rate mortgage. Trapper John tried to tell him that people could lose their houses that way, but he accused Trapper of trying to make the public pay the highest rate possible. Is somebody really this stupid? Outside of Greenspan, that is?
7. A letter writer concludes that since the Rydex Juno Fund (short long bonds) has 100 times the money of the Rydex Long Bond Fund, that bonds are too cheap. Great analysis, if it weren't for the fact that Juno is the ONLY bear bond fund and Rydex's long fund has very high fees and there are nearly a thousand similar funds that are better places to put long bond money.
Dat's all. |
