Oct
26
Speedreading Barron’s, a New Feature from Prof. Gordon Haave
October 26, 2006 |
Alan Abelson: Everyone is celebrating Dow 12,000, but it is silly to celebrate because the guys who predicted Dow 36,000 are still 24,000 points away. The sky is falling.
Page 18: Larry Ellison is taking a victory lap after successfully pulling off big mergers. However, the benefits of this are priced into the stock; investors are betting that there are no bad mergers or acquisitions in the future.
Page 19: Chicago looking up due to CME’s buying CBOT. But the stock is not cheap.
Page 21: Jones Apparel is a good deal at the current price, according to a guy from Lazard, and a guy from UBS.
Page 22: Agilent has some great products and a good outlook. Shares are enticing, says their IR guy, and a guy from Robert Baird.
Page 27: Barron’s race by race examination of the mid term elections says GOP will continue to hold both Houses of Congress. The main factor is money raised, which they say has a pretty good track record, although they are sometimes wrong. Democratic takeover will hurt SLM, help FNM and FRE.
Page 31: Barnes and Noble looks iffy due to concerns over growth prospects, but has a strong market position and generates cash, something private equity firms will notice, so perhaps a buyout is coming. Shareholders should get a 25% premium in a buyout.
Page 33: Nokia has not had the hippest phones like Motorola, but they have kept operating profits high by sidestepping that battle and concentrating on cutting prices to keep market share. Now, however, they have the thinnest phone. Things look good for NOK.
Page 34: Tech industry doesn’t look good, except for GOOG and AAPL.
Page 35: Regulators not so hot at policing small caps, so websites such as stockim.com are filling in the void, but some people who post on them are morons.
Page 37: Guy who runs Value Line Growth and Income Fund figures that with 200 stocks and 25% fixed income, he’s protected from disaster. He likes dividend-paying stocks. Unlike everyone else in the world, his biggest holding is GE, followed up by MSFT and PFE.
Page 39: International mutual funds have been taking in more scratch than domestic mutual funds, but on the margin the flows might be greater to the US next year since the Dow broke 12,000. There are various socially responsible funds out there, but the debate never ends as to whether or not they are worthwhile. A new one called Blue Fund claims that companies that give dough to Democrats do better.
Page 41: Guy from Wells Capital Management says the rally still has life. Prefers small stocks to large, despite all the talk about large stocks lately. P/E boom means there is too much liquidity in the system.
Page 44: The credit derivative party is huge, and it centers around the Wall Street banks, but the Chicago exchanges are eyeing a piece of the pie.
Page 46: Cruise lines are doing well, boosting payouts.
Page 48: Econospinning is a good book. The labor markets in Germany and France are no good.
Page M3: Dow pauses to contemplate the view. Columnist Michael Santoli likes to ascribe human emotions and thinking to a price-weighted index. The new milestone is important because he thinks it wakes up investors to what they have been missing. Also of note, stocks are generally up this year. If you owned the weaker sectors, you did worse than by owning the stronger sectors. CS derivative guys suggest buying SMH and shorting SWH.
Page M6: Larry Ellison said that SAP is losing ground to ORCL, but that claim isn’t really true. Prudential PLC routinely makes claims that they don’t live up to, and they wind up looking foolish.
Page M7: Egor Rybakov of Tradewinds Capital says Asian finance companies look cheap.
Page M9: The Yen carry trade is a big play again, but if the dollar declines the yen carry traders will get burned.
Page M12: Ag report about a smaller than expected corn crop has sent corn prices up. End of year inventories will be down due to ethanol demand. As a result, corn acreage will be up big time next year. People have various opinions about all of this.
Page M14: It’s trendy again to be bullish with options strategies.
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