Single Stock Pick for 2008

[turbo6bar]

Originally Posted by competentone

Why trade in the markets if the guys you are trading against get to push the taxpayer at gunpoint to the trading floor to bail out their losing positions?

I took a lot of money out of equities in fall 05. It's been hard for me to commit money back, because I also believe the game is rigged, to some extent.

It bothers me the economy is hinged on consumer demand. It will go on until it can't.

Where does that leave me? A boatload of cash sitting in a 2.xx% savings account. It really doesn't bother me. I sleep really well, so I must be doing something right. Besides, I wouldn't be sitting on a pile o' cash were it not for 'consumer demand.'

I know better times will come. My only weakness is patience...

[the]

I'm with ya.

I watched the Buffet kids (they of course are middle aged) on Donnie Deutsch last night. While it was going, they were running little quotes and thoughts from Warren Buffet on the screen. Among them:

We are in a recession.

The recession will NOT be "short and shallow."

The housing market collapse has only begun and will be deeper and longer than most expect.

[kstar]

PPOT Port 05/16/2008 close.

Up 7%!

[Moses]

I'm in 2nd place! Go BTU!

[Plavan]

Just curious- What do you guys think of Amgen (AMGN) being so low? Buy? Hold? Sell?

[craigster59]

Man, my pick Masimo (masi) went public in 8/07 and had some big shareholders selloff 6 months later in March. Stock dropped to $26 and now they've gotten FDA approval for "non invasive" hemoglobin testing to go along with their "Rainbow SET" carbon monoxide monitoring.

They're moving back up. C'mon Seabiscuit!

[lendaddy]

Just got a margin call on my shorts

[kstar]

Originally Posted by lendaddy

Just got a margin call on my shorts

There's still about six months for your redemption.

[TerryH]

I should have played. My UPL stock that I whined about selling way too early has done well this year (previous thread). I bought it for $9 a few years back, it has even split since then. Too dumb to know better, I guess. Instead of doubling my money and getting out, I stood to make 20 fold if I just would have left it alone. UGH!!

UPL Ultra Petroleum Corp.

Jan 1 $71.50

May 16 $88.77

[kstar]

Here's Friday's close - 05/23/2008 - Up about a point:

[kstar]

I haven't updated this in a while.

PPOT Portfolio as of close on 06/24/2008:

[cl8ton]

Anyone following the on again/off again Yahoo/Microsoft/buyout of the search biz?

Yahoo top-level mgt leaving in droves, Yang eating crow, re-establishing talks at a lower rate/per share than the Microsoft original offer?
A single post on www.techcrunch.com (blog) hoisted Yahoo 9 USD in 1 day… SEC will pay Mr. Arrington a visit I bet!

Not touching this stock due to volatility to that of nitroglycerin (IMHFO)

Fun stuff, no doubt!

[kstar]

Re MSFT, check this out:
http://msftextrememakeover.blogspot.com/2008/06/eight-years-of-wrongness.html

Here are the first few paragraphs:

Eight Years of Wrongness

Warren Buffett is quoted saying that his favorite holding period for a stock is "forever". I'm not ready to go quite that far - and in practice neither does he - but I do subscribe to a long term investing philosophy generally. For example, I bought my first MSFT shares back in the early 90's. Like most holders that decade, I did very well. Then came this one, which has been an absolute disaster.

It's sobering to realize that during Ballmer's term as CEO, MSFT has underperformed almost all of its top tech peers (including AAPL, IBM, HPQ, SAP, INTC, CSCO, SYMC, NOK, ORCL, ADBE, RIMM, QCOM, Ebay, and AMZN), and badly lagged the major averages. We may even see our third plunge to test the 2000 lows during his watch. Unbelievable. There may be another major technology CEO with an equivalent or worse track record who is still in power, but a name doesn't come readily to mind. Indeed, it’s instructive to note the four companies who didn’t make my list above: DELL, YHOO, Sony and Sun. In other words, four well-publicized flameouts/turnaround stories (depending on your perspective), all of which have new CEOs. Go figure.

That performance record would be embarrassing enough on its own, but it comes in spite of going through an unprecedented amount of our cash on buybacks (nearly $43 billion worth in just the past three fiscal years) and other schemes that were supposed to drive the stock. It's also despite spending more on R&D than virtually anyone in the industry, and more than GOOG and AAPL combined (nearly $20 billion in the past three fiscal years alone). Meanwhile MSFT's senior leadership have collectively been paid billions over this period, while leading the industry in insider selling every year (net of purchases, almost 350 million shares sold over just the past 5 years). You are expected to be patient and wait for returns over the "long term" (still undefined, but has already exceeded 10 years - think Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura and “If I am not back in 5 minutes….just wait longer”.), but they want their return up front.

Against that backdrop, it should come as no surprise that a shareholder was recently driven to write about "Microsoft - A Decade of Gross Corporate Negligence and Destroyed Shareholder Value." It’s a good read, and kudos to Bishop for publishing it – that probably didn’t earn him any brownie points with management.

[kstar]

Here's some more:

here are too many issues to mention, but let’s review some of the real lowlights:

Losing the DOJ and EU cases, which has resulted in $10B’s in fines and (more importantly) permanently damaged MSFT's reputation.

Failing to aggressively leverage MSFT's cash horde buying promising companies at the bottom of the dotbomb for pennies on the dollar (btw, not 20:20 hindsight on my part – I posted that MSFT should do this in real-time back then).

The Longhorn clusterf!*k. The long-term damage of which continues to this day, will never be fully quantifiable, really began the process of confidence erosion in both the management team and company more generally, and may prove to be a decisive turning point from which the company never recovers.

Allowing Xbox to dig a $6B hole in the ground.

The "emerging bets" which collectively have been a bust.

Allowing IE to stagnate after risking the company and paying $B’s in fines primarily to beat Netscape and become the browser leader.

The major opportunities that were missed while leadership was otherwise preoccupied/distracted (Search, Advertising, Web 2.0/SaaS, etc.).

Losing digital media to AAPL.

The financially-retarded one-time dividend and the ongoing stock buyback games.

The sorry performance of the stock (which has resulted in part from all of the above).

[kstar]

Not bad, considering where the big indices sit right now!

PPOT Port 07/09/2008 Close

[the]

only 5 of us in the black!

I'm confident I will remain so at the end of the year. The rest, as a whole, the bloodbath has only just begun.

[kstar]

Originally Posted by the

only 5 of us in the black!

I'm confident I will remain so at the end of the year. The rest, as a whole, the bloodbath has only just begun.

Nice picken'!

FSLR is right on the edge of blackness.

Wait until you see where AAPL ends up on 12/31. It's going to be quite a ride the next several months, IMNSHO. The interesting times begin Friday.

Best,

Kurt

[lendaddy]

Originally Posted by the

only 5 of us in the black!

I'm confident I will remain so at the end of the year. The rest, as a whole, the bloodbath has only just begun.

Ah ah ah, lest we forget the Daddy shorted the PPOT fund

[kstar]

PPOT Port, 08/22/2008 Close:

[kstar]

BTW, S&P year-to-date is off about 12%, which means most fund managers are way behind the PPOT Port:



The old axiom holds true: a dart throwing monkey has a better chance at beating the market than the "professionals".