June 14, 2023 | ADBE, ALB, AMAT, CMI, Daily JAM, Dividend Income, GOOG, JCI, Jubak Picks, Long Term, MSFT, NVDA, SCCO, Top 50 Stocks |
I think a well-constructed portfolio should resemble an onion. (Yes, to continue the analogy, it may make you cry in the short term, but the end result after cooking time is yummy.) At the center of that onion is a core built of stocks with extremely high, risk-adjusted potential rates of return. These stocks won’t deliver the kind of huge gains you can reap from investing in a risky bet–if everything turns out right for that company and its stock. But neither are they likely to crash and burn because something goes wrong at the company. These core portfolio stocks will drop if the market as a whole heads south, but they will drop less and recover faster. These aren’t buy-and-forget, or hold-forever stocks. They can soar to unreasonable valuations at times and an active investor should take profits at some point of overvaluation. (I did a YouTube video recently (you can find it on any of my sites) on when to sell a very overvalued Nvidia, for example.) And they can trade at big discounts to fair value (which is, of course, when the steely-eyed among us will buy) because management has made a mistake or between the industry in which they do business is slumping, or because the market for the company’s goods and services has taken an unexpected direction. At that point, you’ll need to consider selling or adding to your positions depending on your analysis of how long the damage might last and how bad it is. But the point of this core to your stock portfolio is that these are companies that will deliver index-beating results with relatively small risks. Which will enable you, the investor, to plan how to achieve your financial goals with relatively less worry and uncertainty. So, without further ado, here’s my list of 10 stocks for a core portfolio–with the very important “whys” for each pick.
June 1, 2023 | AMAT, AMD, CVS, Daily JAM, Dividend Income, EMR, GOOG, ILMN, Jubak Picks, Long Term, MSFT, NVDA, Top 50 Stocks, TSM, Volatility |
Artificial intelligence really is a paradigm-breaking, transformative technology. Right now, investors are so enthusiastic about the sector, especially the obvious leader Nvidia (NVDA), that we’re looking at a potential bubble that will collapse with much gnashing of teeth and I-told-you-so “wisdom” casting doubt on the reality of the entire endeavor. I think a bubble is indeed possible. Nvidia did trade at a trailing twelve-month price-to-earnings ratio of 196 on May 31, after all. But I think you do want to own the sector now–because the breaking of the bubble, if it does break is, in my opinion, two quarters or more away. And you want to own the sector for the long run–say, 10 years or more–because it is such a game changer for so much of the economy. But what to own? I’ve put together a list of the 10 stocks that I think are the best way to participate in the AI gold rush.
May 18, 2023 | Daily JAM, GOOG, Top 50 Stocks, Videos |
Today’s Quick Pick is Alphabet (Nasdaq: GOOG), better known as Google. Morningstar calculates Google is trading at a 24% discount right now. Recently, the 50-day moving average moved above the 200-day moving average, showing momentum in the stock. There’s a perception that the stock had been unfairly pounded by AI hysteria because people believed Google wasn’t keeping up with Microsoft and its search business would suffer. Google did, however, come out with its own chatbot products and maintained some relatively slow growth. While ad revenue was down about 1% in the first quarter, total revenue was up about 2.6% year over year. The slowdown in the economy as a whole gave the impression that Google’s ads were slipping. I mentioned in yesterday’s video, we’re seeing a lot of Hedge Fund managers adding to their Google positions in the first quarter. I own the stock in my long-term portfolio and will likely add to my position. In the next year or two the stock will likely make up the difference between the current price of 120 and the Morningstar fair value of 154. You could consider this a value play.
May 17, 2023 | Daily JAM, GOOG, Videos |
Today’s topic is Value Over Growth. Hedge funds reported their first-quarter portfolio changes to the SEC and we’re starting to see those reports. Hedge Funds are a good indication of where institutional money is going and what their thinking is. These reports show that hedge fund managers are starting to move to value over growth. There are outliers but hedge fund managers like Steve Cohen at Point72 and Nelson Peltz from Trian Management were exiting or cutting their growth stocks and adding to their positions in value stocks like Google (Alphabet NASDAQ: GOOGL) and GE (NYSE: GE). Paul Singer at Elliott Investment Management exited both of his high-yield ETFs and reduced his exposure to Valaris (NYSE: VAL) an ocean drilling company. I saw other managers starting to reduce their exposure to energy and drilling companies as well. Going into the second quarter, after taking profits from first-quarter rallies, the pattern looks like institutions will be looking more closely at stocks that haven’t had big run-ups and could be considered to be value stocks (Alphabet?) vs putting new money into growth stocks.
April 6, 2023 | Daily JAM, DVN, GDX, GOLD, GOOG, Jubak Picks, Long Term, MSFT, PXD, SCHW |
I will add this post to the end of my post of the entire Special Report today. I’m also posting it here, however, as a stand-alone so you will get notice in your email box that Move #4 has gone up. Here’s what I posted for Move #4.
February 7, 2023 | Daily JAM, GOOG, Jubak Picks, MSFT, Top 50 Stocks |
This isn’t exactly unexpected. Microsoft (MSFT) today unveiled new versions of its Bing search engine and Edge browser powered by the newest artificial intelligence technology from ChatGPT maker OpenAI. Microsoft recently invested $10 billion in OpenAI.
January 20, 2023 | Daily JAM, GOOG, MSFT, Top 50 Stocks |
Google’s parent Alphabet (GOOG) will cut 12,000 jobs, or 6% of its workforce, the company said today, Friday, January 20. This comes after Microsoft (MSFT), announced earlier this week that it would cut 10,000 jobs or 5% of its workforce. The two companies are gearing up to go head to head in a battle to see if artificial intelligence chatbots can disrupt Google’s stranglehold on Internet search.
October 26, 2022 | Daily JAM, GOOG, Top 50 Stocks |
Alphabet (GOOG) reported a drop of 24% in third-quarter earnings after the market closed on Tuesday, October 25. Gross revenue rose just 6% to $69.09 billion. In the third quarter of 2021, revenue grew by just 6% to $69.09 billion from the third quarter of 2021. In that 2021 quarter revenue had grown by 41%. Analysts had expected earnings of $1.25 a share–instead of the reported $1.06 a share.
October 23, 2022 | AAPL, AMZN, CAT, Daily JAM, EQNR, GOOG, Morning Briefing, MSFT, PXD |
Earnings. Earnings. And more earnings. From the big bellwether technology stocks: Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta Platforms, and Alphabet. Wall Street has already slashed earnings forecast for these stocks so there’s a good chance these companies will report earnings that surpass expectations even if only by a few pennies. By and large, though, these reports will show either an absolute drop from the September quarter of 2021 or, at best, a slowing of revenue and earnings growth. Key to the market’s reaction will be what these companies say about expectations for the next quarter or two. Will they emphasize what are already clear slowdowns in PC and smartphone sales? Will they speak to the elephant in the room–the U.S/China trade war? Will they say that a strong dollar plus inflation is cutting into sales outside the United States and U.S. sales to domestic customers who are showing signs of “price fatigue”?
October 12, 2022 | AAPL, Daily JAM, GOOG, Volatility |
I’m adding Puts on Apple (AAPL) and Alphabet (GOOG) to my Volatility Portfolio today as insurance against a big market dip on a bad (as in high) Consume Price Index inflation number tomorrow, October 13, and against selling in the shares of these two stocks on their earnings reports on October 27 and October 25, respectively.
April 25, 2022 | AAPL, ABBV, AMZN, BMY, CMG, Daily JAM, FB, GOOG, Morning Briefing, MSFT, PYPL |
Going into this earnings season, the hope was that strong, surprisingly strong perhaps, earnings from the big growth stocks would put a stop to the selling. Earnings would be strong enough to convince investors that the market wasn’t over-valued since at these growth rates stocks would be seen to be quick growing into current extended valuations That hasn’t exactly worked so far. But this week the earnings story from growth stocks hits its stride. If the companies reporting this week can’t make the case for growth stock earnings, there probably isn’t a growth stock story to be made in the light of Federal Reserve interest rate increases, supply chain disruptions, and fears of a recession.
January 30, 2022 | AMZN, Daily JAM, FB, GOOG, Short Term, Top 50 Stocks, You Might Have Missed |
I’m looking for a mixed bag of BIG TECH earnings from Alphabet (GOOG), Meta Platforms (FB), and Amazon (AMZN). Unless Meta Platforms and Amazon can deliver big earnings surprises, I don’t think these reports will lift the market appreciably. And the week will end with the January jobs report.