JANUARY STOCK TALK PART II

Really???

Not that I would ever take a CFC loan, they are terrible, but really?

Outside the NE, Weichert doesnt exist.

Depeche,

On XM CNBC that talking blob Maria mentioned that all 3 groups are in correction territory, meaning off 10% from the highs.

Supposedly the drop this afternoon was some ATT mention at a conference about spending slowing..

boiler, the point is that WB cannot just throw out numbers, there are restrictions to what fees can be charged to insure..WB or not. To think WB could be wrong is just foolish. To assume just because it is BRK and WB and they can just name the fees and take over the industry is just laughable. For sure he is taking a risk..what if demand slows, if business is so bad for the existing players there is no assurance that they will be any more successful than the existing companies in the industry. It was only recently that things began to deteriorate for them. I am not buying the WB hype on this one fellas.     

 Who but you is saying that he is trying to t"ake over" an industry?

 Hype does not get anyone 52 billion dollars.


 

Vermeer,

WB made his move before the market became competitive.

There is no way in this market environment that he could repeat his past successes, especially since he is so risk averse.

He made it with Coke and Walmart and buying insurers when the opportunity existed, now he has capital and can do what he wants.

Back when WB made his hay, transparency didnt exist and if you had an inside tip, nobody might know and you could make a huge return on safe stocks.

Not taking anything away from him, but his style of investing is for severe bear markets only.. buying distressed companies on the cheap happens in DAYS, not years like when he got started.

I dont blindly follow anyone, nor do I believe there is any one theory that guarantees anything..that also includes guys like Lynch, Gross, Rodgers etc..

Gunners,

They invested at I think 16 or so..maybe 18. They invested cash and got shares, but I think they able to sell for a few yrs..and they might be preferred shares.

 WSC:

 "WB made his move before the market became competitive." You jest, right? The market has always been "competetive"...as competetive as a rigged casino can be that is.

"Not taking anything away from him, but his style of investing is for severe bear markets only.." How would you describe the market for financial stocks over the past 6 months?????

"Back when WB made his hay, transparency didnt exist and if you had an inside tip, nobody might know "...1. Transparency?? If conditions today are so transparent, have someone tell the world the  total of losses such a transparent market has created in the financial sector. 2. Insider trading is alive and well today.But no one has accused him of insider trading as far as I know, then or now.

 Lastly, no one follows any one system or one person.

 However, that being said, I bet you a magnum of champagne  that WB's unit will do better than Gary Dunton's company in the next 5 years. And I will also throw in another bet:Dunton won't even still have his job in 5 years.
 

 PS That magnum will not be Dom Perignon...maybe more like Marquis de Perlade (ie, around $40!!!) LOL..

Vermeer,

We might think the market is crooked now, but at least news gets out there FAST and to the common fellow. Back when WB made his "mint" only a select few had access to research reports or earnings releases..now you and I can listen and research and discover things. There is NO comparison to then and now when it comes to transparency. Now that doesnt mean that the tables still arent stacked, but I stick with what I said that no way could Buffet repeat what he did back then because now the valuations of a company are much closer to their true value.

Now you dont find Buffet going into the open market and buying KO or WMT etc, he takes his war chest and picks and chooses. His style of investing is way long gone. Buy and hold stocks that are fair value or close to it just doesnt work anymore. How has KO done over the last 10 yrs? How about PEP? or WMT?

Look at the charts of stocks he won with, he got them when NOBODY was investing and the term PE ratio was unknown and companies were CHEAP.

Now that there is serious money  in the market, that bottom-up fundy research only works when the market is on a steep discount. I really dont consider a drop from 13,700 to 12,800 to be a bear market. I consider a drop from NAZ 5k to NAZ 1,500 to be a bear market and a DOW drop from 12k to 7500 a bear market. This 10% from historic highs bear market is NOTHING.

WB isnt buying in the open market anymore because the real value on the open market doesnt exist for guys like him and hasnt for over 10 or more years.

"Now that there is serious money  in the market, that bottom-up fundy research only works when the market is on a steep discount. I really dont consider a drop from 13,700 to 12,800 to be a bear market. I consider a drop from NAZ 5k to NAZ 1,500 to be a bear market and a DOW drop from 12k to 7500 a bear market. This 10% from historic highs bear market is NOTHING."

  Me too, but I referred to the market for financial stocks, not the overall market. And a quick glance at a basket of stocks of the area he is entering: (MBI, AMBAC, et al) reveals not a bear market, but an outright depression in their share price.(Exactly why the esteemed Mr Dunton has had Ackman calling for his head for over a year now, and why he will join Prince and others on the corporate dustheap shortly. Like I said, before 5 years is over, he will no lon ger be running MBI...or else cheap chapagne is thine my friend!!

  In a sense this mirrors an unusual conversation I had with a former coach who assured me John Wooden could no longer coach basketball"because the game has changed." Ummm...not really that muchBasketball is pretty much about blocking out, shooting the ball and getting talent. Only slight variations have changed, and nothing beyond a talented person's grasp of simple facts.

  The theory that things are fundamentally different this time around has always been a constant theme, usually by snake oil salesmen, explaining why you can't miss making money in real estate or dot com or some other hall of mirrors.

  Debt analysis, risk analysis is the same now as it was 50 years ago:we got in this situation precisely because of oafs like Mozillo and company forgot that inconvenient fact. That and the genius of Greenspan (Fed chairman through Reagan Clinton and Bush:bipartisan ship at its worst) who now declines to accept responsibility for it.
 
 It is amazing how many geniuses have left the room, and WB remains now, as he was then, the one who knew repackaging bullshit, no documentation loans and peddling them to other people still did not turn the original bullshit into gold.The question remains, why did so many supposedly smart people fall for it to begin with? Maybe by thinking, yet again, that "things are different this time."
 
 

 

From a trading diary, technicians discover the obvious methinks...

Unfortunately the new year has not had a good start, with both the Dow and S&P 500 breaking through primary support after the recent market top. The two major indices, in conjunction with the Dow Transport index, now confirm the start of a bear market.

 Goldman Sachs has forecast a recession and forecasts a total 175 basis point decline in fed funds rate....wow...they make Bill Gross look optimistic.

was just going to post notes from the GSCO note this mornign vermeer:

Goldman strongly advises fund managers to overweight health care, consumer staples, energy and utilities. They are significantly underweight consumer discretionary, financials, industrials, materials and information technology.

The unemployment rate will rise to 6.5 percent in 2009 from the current 5 percent, it said.

Got any more from that KOAJ?? I just caught snippets on radio...I think they may be on the low side when it comes to that last number....

this is all i have

Some serious selling in the lenders and builders today.

If you dont think that the home builders dont go under, there are some serious bargains out there.

Beazer homes 4.76

Hovnanian 4.51

WCI communities 2.78

DRHorton 10

Lennar 13.51

Toll Brothers 15.75

Pulte 8.24

KB 16

Centex 18.60

That is 9 stocks, and more are out there..I bet that MAYBE one goes out of business in that group, maybe two..but not more than two. I think that Hovnanian, Pulte, Toll, Lennar, Horton all make it and at these levels could be GREAT investments with a longer horizon.

You know what scares me more than the losses I have been accumulating?

The market isnt even close to a bottom, you still have bloated stocks like GOOG over 600 and AAPL at 170 and FSLR at 200 and BIDU over 300.

Those stock prices WILL come down and if they are coming down, others are going to come down more too.

A bear market price for those stocks would be MUCH lower..GOOG in the 300 to 400 range is bear market pricing, AAPL at 80 or 70 is bear market pricing..BIDU at 100 is bear market pricing.

Who knows if this continues but for many of these stocks the pain hasnt even begun yet.

Rat,

If they are selling those..watch out for the lesser-thans.

GOOG no way deserves to be over 500 with the destruction of some other names. Firms arent discounting a slowdown for them at all, and when it does happen there will be some major dumping.

NAZ down 12 and I see MANY stocks on my screen down 3,5,7,10 plus percent.

They are gutting the mid to small cap runners lately..the major players are not even close to being oversold.     

This action reminds me of 2002..

Lame opens and mid day action and selling into the afternoon and close.

That happened for months, this has happened for days..

  SKF really rolling along!!!