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Strategies & Market Trends : Bob Brinker: Market Savant & Radio Host -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Joe Basile who wrote (4156)	3/15/1998 6:57:00 PM
From: Joe Basile	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 42834

Sunday, March 15th. My notes on today's program (scribbling from the scratchpad of Joe B). I apologize for the errant date on yesterday's notes. Before I begin, I found the following quote interesting. It is an indication that the "bad news bear" goes back a long way. (it was not part of today's program). "Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929. Today's program notes......... The Berkshire Hathaway company issued its chairman's letter on the internet, authored by founder, Warren Buffet. Apparently the letter can be accessed at berkshirehathaway.com. (I have not tried the link, and may have the spelling wrong). Warren Buffet believes "it is hard to hit the strike zone" in stocks and businesses due to the high values out there. In this situation, if I understood correctly, they put funds in other places such as silver, oil contracts, and zero treasury securities. I'm sure there were others too. He spoke at length about this letter. I couldn't get all the details. He helped a caller by calling a 403b plan a "gift from the government, one of the few you'll ever get". He said the S&P 500 is not his first choice of funds, but that the Total Stock market is, telling the caller that the funds available to him had ridiculously high fees. He closed the segment saying "The timing model remains bullish". He mentioned the Kathleen Willy (sp?) interview to be aired tonight on 60 minutes. DONT MISS IT. "If she says what she is being reported of saying, I believe it will be devastating to the president". "If things like fondling and groping are mentioned, he will be in as awkward a position as President Nixon back in 73 and 74. This would be sexual harassment. The market has no real concern over this other than short term pullbacks". He believes the worse case scenario for the market from all of this is a few percentage points if anything at all. "It is impossible to predict how this will impact the market, it has nothing to do with economics". However, "there is nothing good about all of this for the market". "I find it hard to believe that Monica L. (and all the rest of those involved) are all part of a right wing conspiracy as Hillary is saying". He continued on ,saying the republicans should do nothing to impeach him since it would be worse for them campaigning against an incumbent Al Gore. "We've been saying it right along , Clinton is a lame duck and will spend the rest of his term defending himself. No way will he be able to get anything through congress. He has as much power as your dog-catcher; .... credibility ?.....zero". He mentioned that rarely have we had back to back buying opportunities, but in 1994 we did at Dow 3600 or less. He then restated all the buying opportunities of the 90's. He finished the segment reiterating that he has a zero position in gold (wow, what a surprise!). More on Buffet: His fund owns 10.7% of Amer. Express, 8.1% of Coke, 8.6% of Freddie Mac, 8.6% of Gillette, 16.5% of Washington Post (a huge performer) and 7.8% of Wells Fargo. He said the fund owns all the shares of some companies. I love it when Bob says: "which letter of the alphabet soup do you own" when asked about funds !!! He said "I don't have a penny in the Fidelity family of funds". He informed a caller to use the Value Line Investment Survey to evaluate a stock when asked buy, sell or hold on Sprint. He advised a 55 year old caller worth 600K to roll his pension fund into a low-cost GNMA. He was comfortable with that caller being 60% in equities and 40% in fixed assets, but to dollar cost average into the market at current levels. He advised a 72 year old caller to go 50/50 into the market (US and international mix) and the rest in fixed, again touting GNMA's. He addressed a caller that asked about silver. Bob said, what if there is a recession ? "The notion that silver will protect you from a falling stock market is flawed". With the inflation outlook, Bob doesn't like silver. For European exposure, Bob likes Vanguard intl. Europe. He advised a caller that had a 7.2% mortgage rate to pay off the loan rather than "take a chance" in the market as the caller was considering. Bob advised not to do this, following up saying of those kinds of questions "the mind is a curious thing". A caller asked about some electric utility stocks he owned, Bob said he believes the sector is undervalued and has a hold rating on them. He congratulated Valparaiso (sp?) on making the sweet 16 !!! When asked of the Cohen Steers REIT, he commented on the great performance of the fund. "It would be a mistake to think REIT's will continue to runup as they have" and to "balance" your portfolio. A caller asked about the tobacco stocks, Bob said if there is no settlement it will be bad for the stocks. "The stocks are a long way from their historical norm. They are trading at a 40% discount". He DOES NOT like the group due to the negative's surrounding the industry. "Why should tax payers be forced to pay for smoking related illness. They shouldn't". A caller asked about AMAT issuing more shares, and asked if this would cause a dilution of earnings. Bob said its not a big deal. I didn't have time to proof this post, I hope its not too fragmented. Enjoy the week ahead. I appreciate the kind words from each of you regarding yesterday's notes. Regards, Joe