Big Banks Bite!

Goldman, Merrill and Morgan like to tout their valuable research, but deep down, all banks are trend followers when it comes to YOUR money. They sell YOU what feels safe. Of course, there is some great research at these firms, but you have to dig or have a free thinking broker (please). Who has the time?

When it comes to buying value, the big banks save it for their own proprietary accounts.

Same thing goes for Corporate America. Bunch of pussies!

I thought Bill Gates was the smartest guy around, not just the richest. He goes away for a widely publicized THINK week every year. Obviously he is catching up on porn or watching “Nip and Tuck” (a great series by the way). All that cash in 2001, at the bottom of the market, and it passed on Yahoo at $10 bucks, Amazon at $5, Google pre-IPO, Akamai at 1 buck (Duke and Duke)! etc…pathetic. Aren’ t they supposed to have a front row seat to these values? The Microsoft shareholders got no return on the stock the last four years – although they have declared a few big dividends – and Microsoft used huge amounts of cash to buy back their own pathetic stock. Woops!

The stocks of oil companies in Canada and especially the Tar Sands are WHITE HOT (hotter than red!). I remember Exxon merging with Mobil or something but no American companies were buying Encana and Suncor at 10 percent of today’s prices. If you factor in the appreciation of the Canadian dollar , these Canadian companies – ANY CANADIAN company – could have been had for a further 40 percent discount just four years ago.

Gold miners – forget about it.

Overstock, Portal Player….whores, fat bastards!

When I heard Citibank put a buy on Apple after a 600 percent run, I knew that the run had pretty much ended. Bummer, the K.O.D. on my favorite company ever.

Moral – when your Merrill broker calls you with an oil stock tomorrow – tell him to f*#ck off. You read blogs!

PS – I think that hating homebuilders is overrated. With the Euro at $1.25 and the Canadian dollar close to par and Canadians feeling flush from a doubling of their stock market the last few years, the sun belt markets have a lot of potential buyers. When the German and Japanese start moving into my neighborhood just to have a place to hang, I will start looking to sell. So far, it is just Betty and Lou from North Dakota.

PSS – Long sunshine!