[jyl]

Will toss out a few names to throw your darts at, understanding that these may be the worst stocks ever and everything I think I know about them may be mistaken, it’s up to you to decide whether to go LONG or SHORT :-)

SPLK - in transition from license to subscription model, stocks always tank when this happens because revenue drops, then as the subscriptions build up a recurring revenue stream, the stocks run up. ADBE is a good example of that dynamic. Of course there isn’t near the confidence in SPLK’s competitive position that there was in ADBE, but worth a try I think. Honestly I’m struggling to find technology stocks that I can stomach buying at their current record-high valuations, this one stands out because it’s way off its highs, there’s a reason for it that isn’t alarming, and I can see it going up without needing to assume that the whole techverse keeps levitating to even more pollyanna valuation levels.

MELI - started as the EBAY of Latin America, then built on features of AMZN PYPL and SQ. By which I mean it started as an online marketplace for thirdparty sellers, then added its own firstparty selling, then online payments, then offline payments, physical payment terminals for brick and mortar, own brand cards, merchant lending, logistics and delivery. There’s plenty to worry about - hyperinflation in Argentina, Covid in Brazil, weak margins and competition from US names in Mexico, foreign currency, no indication it can grow beyond Latin America, local governments aren’t particularly business-friendly, etc etc. But it’s been around long enough and management seems to have done a good or better job navigating all that stuff. I like exposure to LatAm because it doesn’t have Covid under control.

WPC - triple-net REIT with mostly industrial and logistics properties, not zero exposure to office but not much, practically no exposure to retail, rent collections never got too weak even in 2020 and have been improving, cash flow ahead looks solid, and something like a 6% dividend (if I recall). O is another triple-net REIT worth looking at, different types of properties though.

MAA - multifamily (apartment) REIT, focused on South and SE US, so population growth and not much rent control. Rent collection good even with Covid measures, set to get better, rents nationally are rising and doing so in its markets too. Dividend yield is kinda skimpy but they could afford to raise it, if they want to. CPT is another one like this.

WMB and OKE - midstream names, pipelines and processing/fractionation plants with some marketing and terminals. Not MLPs so you avoid the K1 crap. I hated midstream MLPs for years, they burned ridiculous amounts of investor money building out pipelines. Well, those past shareholders all lost their shirts, and the ones who hung on lost their pants when the MLPs got “taken-under” by their controlling corporate partners. The nice thing is the pipelines are built, the corporate inversions are done, and now we can buy them for a lot less than that those poor past suckers did. I avoid any name that is still trying to build a long interstate pipeline, look for names where the list of active and planned projects is short, uncontroversial, and preferably entirely in a oil-loving state like TX. Hopefully as little planned expansion capex as possible, I don’t want to fund construction, I want to sit back and collect a fat dividend from a company that is going to sit back and collect rising profits from increasing capacity utilization of their existing facilities and use that to pay dividends, pay down debt, and buy back stock. When management starts talking about accelerating “investment”, I’ll exit the stocks. With oil & gas companies, “investing in the business” has too often meant “destroying shareholders’ investments”.

FMX, WMMVY, TAP - worth checking out for disparate reasons.

Two that have been frustrating to me - not good stocks so far, I’d guess plenty of smart traders are on the opposite side of these bets:

NVAX - Covid vaccine, normal refrigeration only, simple to manufacture, very good ph 3 data, uncertain what urgency FDA now feels in approving another vaccine and whether manufacturing partners are really set to go. Probably little role for it in the US, but PFE/MRNA can’t supply the world and the AZN, JNJ, Chinese vaccines are looking increasingly iffy in a variant world. They could sell billions of doses in 2022 or flame out. I’ve made around 70% here but am pissed because it should have been 200% by now.

HGEN - do your own work on this one. For some reason, investors don’t give a crap about Covid treatment names anymore, but coming up with treatments is proving much harder than cooking up vaccines (because we still don’t really understand that much about exactly how Covid kills you). Lots of people, including in the US, will still get Covid in the coming year(s) and plenty of them will be hospitalized and need something to save their lives. Thank goodness for the antivaxxers, may enough of them gasp into their ventilators to finally make me money on this pig of a name. Oh, and data from ACTIV trial is coming and that could make or break the story.

In general, I’m trying to keep involved in some Covid names just in case Delta + stupid combine to give us a big Covid surge in the fall.

Lastly, if you’re looking for yield, do some looking at preferred stocks. With investment grade issuers, I’d suggest. And figure out the yield to call or worst.