I found this little nugget about the Australian Banks on a site called The Stock Advisors written by Jon Markman. He is bullish on the two of them in particular; National Australia Bank (NAB) and ANZ (ANZ). I first disclosed owning ANZ for clients a little over two years ago in a post referring to my first appearance of Forbes on Fox (the gang at Fox has since decided I have a face for radio). ANZ has been in client accounts for four years (the couple that have been with me that long).
Over the long run ANZ has done very well relative to the NYSE listed bunch but over short periods of time they all have their turn as the top performer. These stocks, well ANZ more specifically as I know that one the best, tend to have very high yields low volatility and just sort of chug along higher. I think they are great holds for the long term. The nature of the way they trade seems to be they do nothing for months and then will shoot up 10-15% in no time at all.
According to Stockpickr.com George Soros recently bought International Rectifier (oy, that name), Dish Network and several energy related names. I find that I am interested in what Soros does and has to say.
Thanks to the Marketbeat page at WSJ.com for picking up my recent comments on the dollar.
Kudos to Mebane Faber for getting some lengthy coverage on BusinessWeek's website in an article by Aaron Pressman. Mebane does some very intelligent work on his site.
I was saddened to hear that Dennis Johnson from the Celtics of my youth died very young of a heart attack.On a humorous note; yesterday I spoke to someone from an ETF provider for a TSCM article while this person was on vacation in Florida. My wife delivered the line of the week when I told her that the guy was on vacation and she said "what is it with you people, you never stop."
11 comments:
Faber has a great blog, second only to Roger's Big Picture :-)
If you're interested in market anomalies and portfolio allocation ideas, you should check it out.
thank you from the guy working in his pajamas on the couch
I get what you could do with double short sector funds - like energy during shoulder season or as a hedge. But I dunno what you'd do with ultrashort midcap value?
I thought you were still doing that Fox gig. Did you display a lack of enthusiasm for topics such as "Is the stock market patriotic enough?"
A big picture/theme keeps bugging me. (reading another blog this morning which rekindles my perception)In the 90's capitalism and democracies seemed to enter a golden age. Now, it's not just Bush, there are a constant supply of new world leaders cropping up who want to embrace cold wars. That means oil and metal as the most basic commodities, and weaponry as the product. Any thoughts...tom t....investing from the right. If one has no chips on the table, what investment choices to consider and what about timing of entry? WorldWide ColdWar fund portfolio?
i do not know if the cold war analogy is correct or not but if it is i would say the market will not care for any length of time. The 1950s were pretty good for stocks in to the mid 1960's. Then the market was mostly lousy (save for a couple of years and then the 1980s were mostly good.
I don't think the cold war drove any of that or if it did it was very little. A short time (Bay of Pigs) maybe, but not longer term
Excellent points Roger, you stand above the buzz. But, just to push it.. did the defense contractors in the cold war, last one, get fatter, and did the chickens come home to roost in the 70's with inflation?
If you'll pardon the expression, a bigger picture moment -- times have changed since the 50's to be sure and perhaps that is the real point -- unlike then global markets are showing more maturity and additional markets are developing due to the ability of capital, goods, ideas, etc to move (relatively) freely worldwide. Perhaps even more significantly the networks necessary to carry on trade have expanded enormously; i.e, collectively markets are not only bigger they are more interconnected and faster.
All that not only requires structure it requires a kind of trust, in transactional accuracy or enforceability of contract for instance, so what would a 'new' cold war do to that and how might national markets react when the global access upon which they have come to rely becomes more constrained and/or dangerous?
Assuming there's something more than pure fancy in that scenario then a country or region would probably be better off spending more on program-trading supercomputers as opposed to 'old fashioned' weapon systems that merely blow things up (tsk tsk, how retro). For example, since we're being a bit fanciful here, what if the attempt to corner the copper market originating in China wasn't just the work of a rogue trader as reported (http://tinyurl.com/3dmklp)?
I suppose one of these funds is going to come up with an Armageddon Fund (defense contractors, commodities and life support) so that we can profitably invest in the coming Russia, US, China Middle Eastern smackdown!
(lol) They're coming up with just about everything else so an Armageddon Fund logically follows although I'd say the Middle East is more cockpit than main combatant. Still I wouldn't buy such a fund regardless: If things really got to that point there wouldn't be much you could trust including products from the financial industry which is already a long way from trustworthy as it is.
Let's hope we don't get there though ...still, strange world that it is, I am enjoying another double in my gold miner holdings: Pollyanna is working hard but there is still that smell of fear in the wind; something is not right with the world and the hind-brain knows it even if the more modern cerebral cortex says cool, deal me in.
I believe there is powdered food ETF in the works.
Humor attempt.
Roger, I was very upset to see DJ pass away.
He could really play with a level head, and direct the half-court. I would have liked to seen DJ vs. an AI, Gary Payton in prime, or Kidd in prime.
I've lost a lot of respect for the game with the crimes, the money, the tats. I guess the game has just passed me by.
DJ, Larry, Parrish - teams used to be 7-8 solid. Now its 2-deep with fill in the names, and roster moves after each season. Charlie O started that free agency in the '70s with Oakland....
Well I'm starting to sound like Homer's father. I better get back to Matlock and Murder She Wrote. :)
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