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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VE or C
VE because we need water and VE is one of the BIGGEST infrastructure players in the world.
Plus they pay a 3.12(10.20%) div.yield
Citibank they’ve been beaten down a bunch,
more than most of the other financials,
expect a near term run up for C.
In reviewing the selections above, I would like to recommend buying energy stocks, mining companies, oil trusts and agriculture among other plays — but I am not sure the dividends paid or the earnings previously reported can be sustained.
I believe that any investment made now should be hedged if possible. I would suggest watching CME and ICE as the market makers and government create new markets to trade CDO’s and other commercial paper (including mortgages? and insurance? and derivatives?). I would carefully select a basket of short positions to hedge these investments, (like SH or SDS or SKF). Timing and keeping tight stop losses would be critical in any of these speculative bets. Meanwhile, the NYX, NDAQ and other exchanges may not fair quite as well, but could be tracked for potential invesments when trading activity to the upside increases. For now, they are very risky.
Beyond that, I would agree with Woman with Portfolio – we all need a strategy to get through the election cycle, because that is the wild card affecting all of the markets. The negativity created by the party behind in the polls is compounding the sour mood of the financial markets. Therefore, even buying Walmart, Church and Dwight or Proctor and Gamble in here could be hazardous to your financial health. If you must buy, please use very low limit orders (check the low price swings on Thursday and Friday for your bid price. You will be surprised. For example, Berkshire Hathaway opened @ $3000 for the B shares, well below the closing prices).
Be prepared for more volatility to come. That is the nature of this market – probably until the end of the year and beyond. Don’t bet with money you do not already have, and keep your bets small.
Good luck!
SILVER, dollars, bags of silver coins, us or canadian,bars, or a junior mining co. if i can qualify one.
FTEK gets my vote. While coal-fired power plants may be a necessary evil for the immediate future, cleaning up the emissions is clearly a necessary virtue.
GLD
Canadian Oil Sands Trust, has a sparkling yield, huge reserves and like several of its kin, has nowhere to go but up. The price of oil has held up well, all things considered. I expect Oil to stabilze around the $90-$95. Yield and safety with an upside, you couldn’t ask for more.
CDY, Cardero Resources. Please see new situation report on Thurs, or Fri. Prove out on Pampa De Pongo Iron deposit. Rio Tinto has been on the property for a month or so. Another piece of news do out in the next month. Could see $4-6.00/share by year end. Thanks shoe, nice to read you. I have another biggie, BUT you set the rules.
I have been doing the GUMSHORE routine for 4 years and my accounts are littered with losers. But I leave them in my accounts as a reminder of not being too stupid and I actually had a great time trying to figurte the answers but not necessarily at that expense. How about NEOM from Tobin Smith. To this day I still can’t figure out why they can’t make that technology work.
One spam candidate I got long ago was MVIS,Microvision which is just ramping up production of their always in focus,miniture image projector which can originate froma computer,phone,maybe an ipod. I own a bunch at $5. You can get in at < $2. They also have an auto windshield info projector for speed ,etc.
In affect , my take away from all these spam ideas in that they are painfully early. Best,Roblites
It is now 2020 and Microvision is trading on big volume from 0.25c to 1/10 in a few days time. They report 1st Qtr 7th May (2020). Is this type of enthusiasm normal? Does it then go right back down?
(BTW I also bought NEOM years ago. Still have a few shares)
My solution to the mess is to make usury against the law. If used car dealers, mortgage lenders, credit cards, and any other lender could only lend money at a max of say 5 points above prime, likely none of this would have happened. If you get an interest only loan, you pay too much and if you lose your job, you are out of luck. Banks and other lenders would be careful who they lend to.
I agree with so many of the above posts, and have a few new names to research. My pick is MET @30.25 with a sl at 25.25 and write the Nov 30 call for $5 if you can get it on the open. If it drops further you can continue to write calls. MET has a huge cash flow from all the life insurance monthly premiums to fund their business. The investments that they own are held for the long term so they are not forced to sell into this market. Their business is expanding in all the emerging and growing overseas markets. Also it is very likely that MET is too big to fail if it came to that point. Buffet purchased GEICO during a similar crash back in the 70’s. I’ve been an investor since 1972 and my overall belief is that most people not those who visit this site of course believe that this market will be like those over the last 20 years. I disagree. The p/es are overstated and the earnings revisions are just starting. As unemployment climbs many people will tap their 401Ks and IRAs to make ends meet. It is wishful that the market will recover quickly. Just like those who refuse to sell their homes at market prices now. That’s not to say we won’t have rallies where you can make profitable trades. I’ve lost the most money going against the wisdom of people like Stan Weinstein. The trend is your friend and don’t fight the tape. I will be convinced when I see a positive change in a/d and a quarter or two of positive earnings surprises. Until then I’m content to stay 80% in cash with FDIC insurance. Sorry for the long post but I have been a loyal reader for a couple of years and this is my first post.
I’ll go with CHK. Natural gas is a relatively plentiful domestic energy source and is being unleashed and developed in fields all over the country – from barnett to marcellus, to fayetville and haynesville – and not to mention the bakken. It is relatively clean burning, in wide use by utilities, business, and homes, and is being heavily promoted through the pickens plan as a “bridge” to hydrogen fuels. CHK has fallen some 80% from their highs of 90 days ago and the winter (and likely higher nat gas prices) is only now arriving. They *could* be an easy double or even triple from here if things do nothing but just normalize.
ETFC based on the good possibility that they will be bought out by GE. GE needs to get qualified for GOV’T subsidization by owning a bank.
well i bought a lot of drybulkers and i’m out of money actually but there are some very good deals in the space
if i must to chose only one i say nm
too cheap today
but there are some others like drys or exm excellent companies
and some hig dividend payers like gnk ocnf prgn free sblk
i’m loosing 40% to 70%
in this stuff and i’m still confident
i’m very sad because i could not buy more
money is all in
good luck to everybody
PEP…All this makes me nervous and I eat and drink when I am nervous.
Got late into the contest and many of my favorites got picked. I’d say APL (was named in Gumshoe after some teaser pumped up natural gas co in PA). Another idea is to buy equities with good monthly dividends, like RCR. This is like after-Xmas crearance sale.
Bank of America for the 3 week pop. Seems to me that since the financials have been at the core of the problem, they have the potential for most movement (obviously so far down). Longer term I like Trinity (TRN), which seems to me to be in a lot of great spaces, rail cars, wind towers, infrastructure.
Petrol One, PTLNF.PK – Highly speculative, Canadian oil explorer – oil and gas concessions in Gabon, Africa. Well capitalized. Memorandum of agreement complete on refinery to be built in Niger – press release should be out soon.
I have Diana Shipping (DSX). This is the only stock I have that I haven’t bee trading. I bought it at $30 and then some more at $13. It closed Friday at $14. This is a strange one as the yield is better than 25% at these prices. Someone figure this out-
Q3 2007 EPS $.45/share
Q3 dividend $.58/share
Q4 2007 EPS $.49/share
Q4 divident $.60/share
Q1 2008 EPS $.70/share
Q1 dividend $.85/share
Q2 2008 EPS $.76/share
Q2 dividend $.91/share
Q3 and Q4 estimates are $.75 and $.73
Like I said I can’t figure this one out but it’s paying even better than 10% ant my original purchase price.
Also PE 5.1 and PEG 0.3
Some interesting stuff, folks — and an overwhelming response, which is great to see. Some stocks I own or have looked at in that list, too.
Keep ’em coming for the next 12 hours or so — will pick the best idea based on my opinion on Monday sometime for the first winner, and will use Friday’s close to track all of the picks to see who is the second winner on Election Day.
I hope we’re all winners … but now I’m getting a little greedy, I’d like some of my favorites to get just a leeeetle bit cheaper. Of course, if you listen to CNBC that might mean the world is about to come to an end.
UVSS-should double each week til contest end. Some risk because of alerts. World needs more lerts ; )