About 6 months ago, I decided to start buying individual stocks rather than mutual funds. Forget alpha, beta, EBITDA, short interest ratios, leverage. My sole criteria is buying stocks that liberals (my relatives) hate.
Two weeks ago, I bought 1000 shares of US Steel (NYSE:X). My thinking was along the lines that war is coming and we’ll have a surge in demand for domestically produced steel for battleships and aircraft carriers and millions of dumb bombs so we can carpet bomb ISIS. It’s a business that spews pollution and rapes the environment to harvest coal and iron ore. Screw morality. I’m a war profiteer.
Stock analysts have been urging investors to dump the stock, which means it was the time to buy. The YTD return on the stock is -49%. If you believe stock analyst advice is because they like you, it’s time to wake up.
US Steel opened way up on Monday with no obvious reason and zoomed up again on Tuesday. Today, it was up 23% in one day. The reason is the Obama Commerce Department imposed a 266% import tariff on steel imported from China.
For those interested in my investment strategy, I own stock in Walmart, McDonalds, a tobacco company, three electric power companies, 2 aluminum smelters, a fertilizer maker, two car makers, a railroad, an airline, a commercial property REIT, a soft drink company, a lumber company, a greedy phone company, a couple too big to fail banks, a meat packing company and an oil refiner. The one major exception to my strategy is Google/Alphabet.
I’m prepared for America to be great again™!
> The reason is the Obama Commece Department imposed a 266% import tariff on steel imported from China.
Damn! That will drive up the price of building the new Great Wall of Trump and soak the American taxpayers. Oh wait! Mexico is going to pay for that wall. Nevermind. 😉
When Mexico refuses to pay for the Chinese steel, Trump will file a lien on the country of Mexico then repossess our property.
In the event you missed it, Carl Icahn, the Great American Capitalist™ who made his fortune by taking over American Companies and dismembering them, just took over Trump’s Casino in Atlantic City.
Icahn is a big supporter of Trump – last year, Trump said that he would appoint Icahn to be Secretary of the Treasury. I bet Icahn could get a good price selling The Grand Canyon to China and the Interstate Highway system to Russia.
> I bet Icahn could get a good price selling … the Interstate Highway system to Russia.
President Obama’s adviser, ex NJ Gov Jon Corzine, before he stole billions from investor’s accounts, proposed just that. His scheme was to sell only the portion of the interstates that were in NJ and to sell them to Germany. Actually it was to a German company that had no money and would borrow the money from Corzine’s ex-employer Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs would take huge commission from the sale and also for selling bonds for the German company so they would have the cash to buy the interstates. I suspected there were to be undocumented cash deposits into a Swiss bank account and/or campaign contributions for Corzine, but could find no evidence.
How was the German company to pay for the interest on the bonds? Why, they were going to construct toll booths on the interstate highways in NJ.
Well, Corzine has a lot of time in prison to think about that!
The way to get the Mexico to pay for the wall is to convince them that the United States is about to invade Mexico.
A shameless war profiteer????? Welcome to the club. Prior to the Gulf war I bought some Gen Dynamics, Grumman and Republic Aircraft, Fairchild Hiller, and Boeing. I didn’t. I am also a race profiteer. Years ago I bought some Krugerands at $144 each when bought in certain quantity, a short while later I sold them back for a little over $700 each.
It’s wonderful to get up in the morning and smell gunpowder and cordite, and to hear the report of the 155mm Howitzer and the M115 8″ blaring and calling me in the distance.
I bought GD on February 29th. Hurry up with the global nuclear war already! I’m down $13.00 (total) on that stock.
In the middle you said “I didn’t.” Didn’t what?
Because you are what you eat, I bought some protein company with longstanding Clinton connections.
Today I was rudely reminded of the T+3 rule – it was put in place to strongly discourage day trading. Even though the industry has created real time electronic clearing for itself, we pretend the brokers are still carrying around paper stock certificates that require three days on steam trains to reach New York City. Even if you bought then sold a stock from the brokerage itself (called a principal trade) the same day (like I did with the WLB yesterday), the money is “locked up” for three business days, waiting for the train from Chicago to arrive at Grand Central Station.
http://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/nn/articles/Stock-Settlement-Why-You-Need-to-Understand-the-T-3-Timeline
Upon further review, the trades were all agency trades. That makes sense as that broker does not run its own trading desk that trades against you like say… Merrill Lynch…
yep, when you need to spur the economy, war is the way.
NS is down (NSC) Hunter Harrison has been wanting them, to strip, but they don’t want anything to do with the bunch in Calgary. I think we talked about this here somewhere. NS doesn’t want to be raped like Illinois Central was when Harrison was at Canadian National.
Good going Art
parrott
Up $912 😉
My rule is I won’t sell in less than a year. If the fed tries out negative interest rates, money (and I use the term loosely) will need a home.
The fundamental mistake of the Fed, the government and media is they believe the health of American business can be measured by looking at the Dow index. Nothing could be more wrong headed.
I now own a coal company and a chemical company – well at least a small part
Up $850 on the coal stock in 5 minutes. That’s hot!
>Up $850 on the coal stock in 5 minutes. That’s hot!
I’ll bet you can feel the burn! 🙂
Don’t forget that NYSE:X – that was a real steal. 😉
Steel !
Not to worry, Bernie will impose a 90% tax on my reckless speculation.
I also sold my Canadian gold stock yesterday. It was a hedge against a further stock decline. While I bought the stock through an American broker, the company is Canadian, which has tax implications on dividends. I’m new at this stock stuff.
Here is Fred’s stock tip of the day – never ever submit a market order to execute at the opening. The first 15 minutes are still chaotic and the chance of you getting an extremely bad price are very high.
You know, Turkeys ? Can Fly would still work as a stock blog – haha
The coal stock (WLB) went from $6.15 to $7.30 before I sold it. I also bailed on US Steel with a 68% profit in two weeks. I figure what Obama giveth, he can take away. Showing that tariffs make stocks go up will only help Trump. I hope Trump brings it up in tonight’s debate
Ooh, North Korea is ready to use nuclear weapons. Maybe I sold X too soon!
How much steel would it take to rebuild Seattle after North Korea detonates their nuclear weapon in the harbor?
I put the finally cherry on the top today. I now proudly own 100 shares of Haliburton.
Good lord, Fred is a day trader ! I worked with a Russian chick that wanted to day trade back in 2000. She would watch the market, had a ticker link on her computer.
Read the business section of the newspaper back then every day.
She almost jumped in. Then one evening she went home after work, her husband lost like $10,500 in two days and she didn’t know he was doing that !
That was the end of day trading. Last I heard from her she was getting into beanie babies .
parrott
No, I’m definitely not a day trader. That’s a con game. I’m doing what Bob Brinker used to advise of putting money in over time. I am not buying any health care stocks, pharmaceuticals or momentum stocks (facebook, Twitter, etc). My investment in any one stock is mostly limited to 1% of the money.
I am looking at established stable companies that mostly own tangible assets and make familiar products and pay dividends. I don’t want to churn the portfolio every time CNBC freaks out. The US Steel and Westmoreland coal were an unexpected home run. I’m looking for singles.
The complication here is I might do well enough to disqualify me from Obamacare. When Bank of America was paying me .001% interest, that wasn’t a problem.
Giving advice on stocks in a public forum is very problematic. You can go follow cc over to zerohedge or his blog when he starts one.
Its cool Fred, I was just picking, Its all good,
Best
Parrott
Dave Ramsey would not approve! 😉
You should have contacted one of his ELP’s (Endorse Local Providers).
Provider of what?
Oh sorry, I assumed you have heard enough of Dave to know his spiel on this topic. He always discourages callers from handling investments themselves. Instead they are directed to use his ELP’s who have his ‘seal of approval’ for providing investment advice, real estate, accounting, etc. Dave does not approve of purchasing single stocks. I was simply imagining how he would respond to your current strategy.
You missed the point.
If Dave called them Certified Local Providers of financial advice, he would immediately incur the wrath of the SEC.
By creating a meaningless term, he is evading responsibility
“Endorsed” means nothing about their capabilities. It is a hint that they are buying Dave’s approval.
“local” OK
“provider” – of what? Newspaper delivery? Lawn services? Piano lessons?
As soon as Ramsey states or even implies the “providers” provide financial advice, that creates a fiduciary responsibility
See:
http://streamingradioguide.com/startingover/?p=14571
Dave sells two things – self help courses and life insurance. He is not in the business of providing investment advice, neither am I
Provider of Emerson Lake and Palmer albums. 🙂