What are you 3 investment ideas or thoughts for 2012.

Mine are 

1. ELSE 
2. SMIT
3. CECO

According to the famous contrarian investor Marc Faber(Dr Doom)

2013 will not be a favorable year for holders of assets. Investors’ expectations about future returns on their assets are far too optimistic. In a world that currently hardly grows investors will need to reduce their future return expectations.

Source: Marc Faber blog

Here are my stock picks for next 4 weeks. I would buy with 10% stop loss. Im looking for them to buy and sell within next 4 weeks.

SKX
TLK
CTCM
VIP 
RRC
AGNC
CRNT

More importantly though - what is the basis for these recommendations, including the (factual) support for that basis. Is there an opinion you've developed on these companies that you'd like to share.

 JB- I came up with that list based on technical analysis and my overall assesment of the markets.

I think we can have a nice rally short term but in Feb, Mar I think we see a correction in most stocks, so thats why Im looking to sell within 4 weeks.

Alright, then how about sharing your technical analysis for each stock and the macro view of the economy in two time slots - now and in 4 weeks time. This way, the readers can understand the articulation of the possible catalysts you are  proposing. I'm sure you understand that an investment recommendation isn't worthy of an advice if it has no sound reasoning and logic - and facts must be all legally and ethically obtained - behind the recommendation.

Arbritage and special situations aside, speculation and market timing are very challenging - even for the most experienced institutional traders. And retail investors get squeezed once too often - all from my own experience.

But I'm sure you have experience in your own right, of course, and if so - how about giving us some pointers by briefly expanding on your idea of rally now and capitulation in 4 weeks time.

 JB- I dont think there will be capitulation as we saw in 2008 -2009 but it could still be a fair correction. I could be wrong but I'll give you 3 reasons for my views, Technical indicators are showing nearing resistance and overbought conditions.. 2nd Debt ceiling coming up... 3rd Im bit concerned about corporate earnings.

right now im only trading short term.. The only thing Im comfortable holding is G O L D. 

What about your views on stocks ? any opinions and are u fundamentals type investor or technical ?

you cant really talk about stocks in sajha because there will be some jackass, who has all the book knowledge but never ventured into stock market with real money, with deep insights how everyone else is wrong.

My views are purely fundamental nagan. I am neither intelligent enough to truly understand how technical and macro investing works nor can I make any future predictions.

Some background on why that is so - there was a fair bit learning curve I had to go through to have been able come up with that conclusion. During the tech boom of the late 90's my admiration for chartists and tech analysts were sky high. They had us going on how right they were until, of course, the subsequent bust in early part of the millennium. Many macro and tech analysts didn't realize that it could be so short lived and failed to call out the warning signs. There were many factors to blame for the bust obviously - among them irrational exuberance for example (which I am also guilty of - I invested with a herd in mind most of the time) - but my point is that I have learned over the years that I tend to stick with market dynamics I really understand and let go of others I don't. And there will be occasional black swans where no one can really do anything about (due to systematic forces). During that period, the analysts who kept invested in companies with sound fundamental characteristics were rewarded up until the real estate bust. And then came the GFC with which most investors are still struggling with. Any chartist or a macro analyst who may claim to have pointed out a selling opportunity at Mar 2002 or a buying opportunity at Mar of 2009 is no doubt a kin of Nostradamus - it just can't be done. There have been lots of studies done in the past to promulgate the negative impacts on one's overall return due to market timing.

A few comments on your views:

Technical indicators - since I've never used any of these for my investment decisions I am unable to say much on the subject - but it seems to me that all tech analysts and chartists have similar type of information in front of them whether it's resistance, support, candlestick chart or moving averages - these of course are the product of volume and price volatility. No matter how one slices and dices the data the end result should be same - thus, any investment idea born out of technical analysis becomes futile to the detriment of one's ability to be the 'first' to execute an order - this has now become 'you will succeed if you have the right trading tools' motto as opposed to being rewarded for a unique idea that has a direct link to company's assets or earning power. This is why you will see a few successes at trading desks of bulge brackets and large hedge funds - primarily due to deployment of huge trading capital on narrow spreads. Retail investor's chances are close to nil. In a few instances where a unique view from a technical analysis do arise - it may or may not be realized by the market in the short term as technicals tend to be time driven.

Debt ceiling and macro views - These are overwhelming concerns on the public debt but can I really tie that in to make an investment decision? Probably not. My belief is that there are too many factors and stakeholders that come into play to be able to come up with somewhat reasonable analysis of the debt. For example, if I make a prediction that the debt ceiling won't be raised in Mar due to political structure of the Senate (Republican controlled and in opposition of any more raises) and let's say I short the treasury - but what are the chances that Congress won't come up with a budget reform bill to reduce spending in Mar? I can't assess that properly. And thus, I can't do it. There was a publication from Economist a while back which outlined a prediction conundrum - surveys from leading international banks whose head economist's predictions were wrong 95% of the time for a two year prediction. More than half were wrong for one year predictions. For example, in the middle of 2007 economists predicted 2.5% GDP growth (taken as a consensus) up to next year - but in reality the actual growth for the year up to middle of 2008 was -1.6%. Their clients would have been better off flipping a coin - a probability of 50% in being right. Predicting the economy or the macro trend is a dangerous game in my opinion. 

Corporate earnings - this is fair game if an analyst has a good knowledge of a sector or industry and thus the individual companies which can sink or swim within that eco system. There are many variations of corporate earnings at different times due to cyclicality and business cycles. So it would be reasonable to assume that corporate earnings are worrisome for this particular sector in the coming quarter (as industries are much easier to follow than an overall economy) - but almost redundant if you mean any and all businesses in the economy as a whole.

I know of investors who like gold as investments particularly due to eroding value of currency in relation to inflation. My views are similar except that the investment should be made towards a productive asset - and gold, to me, is not a productive asset - therefore, I don't see a reason to invest in it. I think most gold investors tend not to pay attention to the 1% per annum return for gold in the past 50 years leading up to the beginning of the millennium - the point after which most gold investors have made gold investing a recent phenomenon. I see its use mostly as jewellry (although it has a few good applications such as in technological equipments).

 I just went through the below article and felt reasonable to post it here. The article argues that their model is enhanced version of your way of investing. May be you check it below and comment! Thanks for all the above. Nice reading!
www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investment-ideas/strategy-lab/value-investing/why-smart-stock-investors-use-only-the-numbers-to-make-money/article6139018/

1501 on the S&P500. I think most investors must be quite happy. 

I sold some of my positions and Im hoping to see a small correction by next week and then resume the uptrend for few weeks or possibly until March.

 JB- seems like your quite experienced. On your opinion on tech anaylyss. Ofcourse I also think no indicator is perfect otherwise everyone would be doing it but I think it can be used along with money management and some fundamentals. I started investing much later in 2007 but Iv made up for the lost time by reading a ton of books, analyzing markets and also trading. Made some money on the downside in 2008-2009 but the after 2009, the rally has surprised me. I expected stocks to go up but i didnt expect it to go up for so long but every year it keeps surprising people.

On Fundamentals, Although I have big respect for the fundies, in this world we have no choice but to adopt some kind of technical analysis only because many of the big traders and markets are influenced by them. In a sense technical analysis becomes a self fulfiling prophecy.

Piano- The article sounds interesting idea in a bull market, they tested from 2009-2012. I think their approach was buying strong companies. 

That is an interesting article plano80. I cannot say that I agree with its message though. Allow me to explain this with an analogy.

Suppose you went to a supermarket to buy fish. A salmon filet is marked 70% off. But you also notice that it does not have 'today's catch' seal on the package. Pretend you are a big fan of salmon. Would you consider buying it without (at least) asking how long it's been sitting there (if you can't readily smell any bad odor)? The message in the article conveys that because salmons are usually more expensive than other types of fish it's a bargain price at 70% off - therefore, nevermind checking its edibleness - just *blindly* purchase it. But what if the salmon is spoiled? What are the chances of this happening?

The article does not mention the *risks* or the probability of you purchasing a spoiled salmon. But it does give us statistics on the unspoiled salmon, which translates to: this method of buying has fared better because you paid a much lower price than the fully priced salmon with 'today's catch' seal on the package. Now suppose you happen to be throwing a big party - and instead of one salmon you purchase about thirty. The article assumes that because you bought thirty salmons - the chances of you getting stuck with spoiled ones are the same as the ones the grocery store owner would've gotten stuck with (the worst scenario)  - but there is a possiblitity that you could have picked all of them as unspoiled (the best scenario). Their statistics (84% for the buyers vs the 63% for the store owner) seem to suggest that buying this way has beat the market.

The question then for the buyers is - are they *really* better off buying their salmon this way? What do you think?








 

I think, the above is the differece. Extra effort could mean- extra emotions and false alarm.

Its been almost 4 weeks since my post on 1/16 to buy the following stocks

I just closed some of my positions and some of them putting a tight stop.

SKX  (put a tight sell stop, I have a nice profit on this)
TLK (sold all for profit)
CTCM (sold all for profit)
VIP  (sold all for profit)
RRC (sold all for profit)
AGNC (sold all for profit)
CRNT (sold all for loss)

what companies shares are the hottest at present?

ZGNX is pretty hot right now. Insiders are buying too. Might double soon.

 $RAD

Big companies haru ma kun chahi ramro chha aajkaal?

OK here is one big company- LGF( Lions Gate Entertainment Corp). Again, they gonna rack a lot of money through Hunger Games. They hot right now. Also the Chairman of the company is a genius. Once, he used to work for Carl Icann, the greedy oldman. Just my personal thoughts. I usually go to Dataroma to see who bought what.

@ rk11: $AIG looks highly undervalued. The book value of the stock is $67.10.