Welcome to the weekend after the worst week I can ever remember seeing in the stock market. I can’t do much to make you feel better about that, but I can give you a chance at $50 or $100 if you’ve got time to share an idea with the rest of us.
Famous investors of yore have shared lots of thought about what to do in these times, and most of them revolve around buying when everyone else is selling. Rothschild suggested that we buy when there’s blood in the streets, Buffett tells us to be greedy when others are fearful.
Well, today I wouldn’t be surprised to see at least a pinkish tinge to the sidewalks … and judging from my correspondence, people are as fearful now as they were after September 11, 2001 (for different reasons, of course). Who knows if it’s the bottom, but there certainly aren’t many enthusiastic buyers.
This market crash could hardly have come at a worse time — millions of Baby Boomers are hoping to retire over the next 10 years, and for those who were trying to goose their returns with a bit too much stock exposure those dreams of life on the road in a Winnebago may be pushed back a bit.
But if you’re like me, you can’t help but feel that in all this pain there may lie a bit of opportunity. And we know that in the short term, the market makes lots of mistakes as it rides emotional waves of fear and greed … so where does the opportunity lie?
Heck, maybe all our fear is misplaced and the fact that the Dow turned around late on Friday to move up 1,000 points or so (from intraday lows to intraday highs, at least) means we’re all fine, the last seller has left the building, and we’ll all be rich. No?
Now’s your chance to be the next Rockefeller or Buffett, though your rewards will be quite a bit more limited than theirs. I’m asking you to suggest a stock or other investment that you are tempted to buy right now, whether or not you can bring yourself to actually do so.
And I’ll award $50 each to two submissions — one whose idea sounds most interesting to me or is best presented, and the other to the person who suggests the stock that does best between now and election day. That’s only three weeks, so it’s a crazy time frame, but if I wait much longer I’ll forget to keep track. You can still come back and take some bragging rights if you make a good longer-term call.
And yes, the same person can win both if that’s how it works out. So you might just win a hundred bucks if you’ve got the magic October touch.
One catch: I’ll only reward the money if at least 20 people submit ideas.
The rules:
- You can submit only one idea, unless you fool me by using two different email addresses or accounts. Enter your idea in the comment form below.
- Submission deadline is Monday morning, before the stock market opens in NY. If you believe you’ll get great insight from the Asian markets on Sunday night, or the premarket Monday morning, feel free to wait until the last minute — 9:30 EST is the deadline Monday morning.
- If two of you have the same idea, the first one submitted gets credit.
- The Stock Gumshoe short ban is in effect — these have to be long positions in either exchange-traded debt or equity. You can choose an ETF or closed end fund if you like, but not a short or ultrashort ETF, or a short position in anything. And no, there’s no ticker for “coffee can in the backyard,” though I suppose you could pick the GLD ETF if you like.
- You can submit just a stock ticker if you want, but if you’d like to explain yourself please keep it fairly brief — no more than a couple paragraphs. You’ll have to explain yourself for a chance at the first $50.
I know that many of you wouldn’t part with your money right now no matter what, even if it was Mother Theresa at the door trying to sell you a bar of gold for a dollar, but I know most of you have at least a little temptation — who thought that GE would be in the teens? Or that Microsoft would trade at a single digit PE and have a dividend yield that’s actually worth looking at? And who knows, is something going to happen this weekend that changes everything?
So … what’s your stock market temptation?
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AIG…………the government is backing this one with billions of dollars….and it’s a steal at less that $2.00 a share. Let the buying begin.
wow, We got out of the market entirely in 1999 because we thought there would be a Y2K meltdown. We put all our $ in a self directed IRA, invested in a high risk off shore boutique hotel, which was fraught with fraud, and luckily we got out by the skin of our teeth and got our intitial investment back after three years, but took a beating on the cost of the maintenance fees on the IRA. We didn’t use it for other things. We made good profits in Real Estate investing and got out at the peak. We have no debt,own our home, cars, and have a measley 135K in Ira CD’s/ I have been speculating on paper only with stock and really like Visa (V), could have doubled my investment if I had cashed out then, but it is back down to a little above what I paid for it.($44)
We are so unsavvy about the market. Had a really bad experience with a financial advisor, so don’t trust them. We are 65 and 70. In remarkably good health, but we know that what we have is not going to see us through another 20 years or so and we do expect to live that long or longer.OUr 135K IRAs matures next month, shortly after the elections, and we don’t know what to do with it!! what would you do?
Tempted to buy ISRG, Intuitive Surgical.
If I had to buy it would be PGH, Penngrowth Energy Trust due to high dividend yield to be collected while waiting for a price recovery.
Encana…ECA on the Canadian TSX and same symbol on NYSE I believe. Natural gas prices and the general downturn have hammered prices for this stock…but with a good solid dividend, growing production in both oil and natural gas this one will go up…sometime soon.
westinghouse air brake technologies (NYSE:WAB) We all need freight and transit rail lines.
WWE For those of us non-elitists out there. Price has held steady,even through these troubling times . Between $13 & $16. Not a bad dividend also,was raised to $0.36/share.They have expanded into Europe,China,India, Mexico,& South America.Guys & gals follow their story lines,essentially soap operas(telenovelas) with sweat.Legions of loyal fans worldwide & they just keep on buying those PPV’s,Action Figures,Apparel,DVD’s,etc.
SI
They can build the hospital, equip the hospital, transport the baby boomers to the hospital. Repeat.
buy BBT Solid bank–we all need banks swinging 20 to 30% in recent days, but really seems to bounce back. Buy on a drop and don’t panic! Pays good dividends if you want to hold long term
Just my opinion, all risk are your own!
NASDAQ:SPWRa SunPower – alternative energy is a major need. Sunpower is near it’s 52 week low and a solid company. Also like Dell, again solid company near 52 wk low.
PXP—Plains Exploration
If you believe, as I do, that gold will be the hedge in this market, then I think this is a great choice. 1. They are quite profitable. 2. The Chairman of the Board (insider trades) has sold in the high 40’s and 50’s and bought $10 million worth in the mid-thirties in late September. Obviously he is under-water on those but the stock moves with gold prices and gold has dropped, comeback, then traded a little sideways lately. I don’t think gold has been the flight-to-safety that it should be yet but if the equity market moves down again, especially medium-term, which I think it will, gold will have a nice move up and so will this company. You could buy GLD but its a bit rich for my budget. Personally, any rally in the markets, which would be short-term for sure and PXP will fall a bit more, then I’m buying PXP and probably some longer-term calls. If gold goes to 1200 in the next 12 months this will be a very nice opportunity stock.
Good Luck to everyone. Some interesting picks in this contest.
Ship Finance International Limited (SFL) – They own a lot of ships and lease them to different shipping companies for long periods of time. Should give them steady income. And they were spun off from FRO and have a profit sharing deal in place, so if FRO does well, so does SFL. SFL also has a good dividend.
Disclosure: I own SFL
FNM. I figure that at just over $1.00 a share (Friday close at $1.08), a dime increase is almost 10%. The graph on this puppy looks like a heart monitor, and maybe it is! $2.16 a share is a 100% increase, and I think it will do that, especially since George and company want to go out on the upswing. Or else, nobody will visit his presidential library.
Buy AAPL -It is grabbing market share really quickly and is on top of the list that people would want to buy now that is cheap.
FRE.
Freddie Mac is so low right now it has to look up to see bottom. Can’t go anywhere but up.
For years attempting to choose a single issue just doesn’t seem to be the smart play. Earning s can be good now, but just watch what happens if management mentions a possible slow down in the future. The averaging of buckets of stocks in the ETFs seem to work much better these days.
If the market is going to have positive attitude for a minute, then the Russell ETF (IWP)ISHARE RS MC GR INDX, has good volume so you can get in AND out and the chart has a recent slope that puts the 50% point at 40-ish; almost $10 above current levels. A return to Labor Day (that just doesn’t seem that long ago) pricing is $20.
…rich companies like IMMR. Immersion will rock when others continue to roll.
SKF. This financial ultrashort shoud continue to climb asmore banks fold.
MOO Market Vectors Global Agribusiness ETF
It’s still like being back in the ’60s with computers. This is an industry that is very much in the beginning of its cycle.
Bigstring Corp us otcbb has found a way to retrieve sent emails, limit views, and prohibit the saving of same and forwarding as well.MSN news yesterday had an article on how unretrievable accidently sent emails can cost millions. These guys have apparently solved the universal problem.
I sold an investment, in which I had lost confidence, and invested in agriculture: a load of crap from the local dairy, seeds from the local seed company, clear drop cloth from walmart, and some rebar from lowes. Miraculously, I “made” a 60% reduction in my summer food bill, and using the rebar and drop cloth now have a “winter” garden that I suspect will “make” even more. The return on the original investment was, so far, about 400%. I may diversify this winter with some hens if I can sneak them into the subdivision. I even did some foriegn investing with a row of chinese cabbage. Sort of a diversification/hard asset play.