Apple is likely to take its shareholders on an even wilder ride in the next six months than they’ve been on since the December all-time high at $199.62. The end result, I think is likely to be a renewed rally beginning in the fall–if you can either hold on through the volatility until then or see your way clear to timing when to buy and sell.
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.
You can understand the gold rush: One AI stock is up 105% (and 78% in the last month) in 2023 as of the February 17 close.
But are shares of that company, the software artificial company C3A (AI), the stock you want to own, or is this stock simply a beneficiary of hot money jumping on anything that sounds like artificial intelligence? As one market observer put it on Seeking Alpha recently, “The ticker is more valuable than the company.” This doesn’t mean that the current revolution in artificial intelligence isn’t real. And here I give you my 7 picks for investing in the latest AI revolution
Today I posted my two-hundred-and-thirty-fifth YouTube video: Quick Pick C3.ai Today’s Quick Pick: C3.ai (NYSE: AI). This is not a normal Quick Pick, this is, well, a little different. I’m not suggesting you buy this today, but instead, keep this one in your back pocket for the next big “risk-on” market rally. This is TICKER you’ll want to own when the market is shooting upward. Someone recently commented on Seeking Alpha that this ticker is worth more than the company–and I think they’re exactly right. When Microsoft came out with the news that they had invested $10 billion into OpenAI, it kicked off a frenzied buying spree for all things “AI.” C3.AI, with its ticker, AI, was no exception. AI saw its stock shoot up from $10.26 to $25 in approximately a month. I maintain that if you were to start an ice tea business, but call it “Ice Tea AI,” your stock would shoot up during this time as well. The company is a real company, run by Tom Siebel, a Silicon Valley pioneer. Overall, the company doesn’t have a lot of traction in the market just yet, and I’m not sure they have a big enough asset to be bought out at the moment. For now, keep this in mind for that small rocket section of your portfolio; if it blows up- no big deal, if it goes to the moon, fantastic!
AI stocks–actually any stock with a passing acquaintance to artificial intelligence technologies–stood out on the upside today, April 13, in a generally ho-hum market The Standard & Poor’s 500, let me remind you, rose just 0.33% on the day. But AI stocks–by the most generous definition–scorched higher.,
The Standard & Poor’s 500 closed up 0.64% today to a new closing high and ended the year ahead more than 16%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also closed in record territory after a gain of 0.65% on the day. The Dow is up about 7% for 2020. The NASDAQ Composite managed a gain of 0.14% to bring its gain to 40% for 2020. Today’s advance in the Santa Claus period–which historically also includes the first two trading days in January so it’s not quite over yet–is a good omen for 2021.
I see all the signs of a market that’s moved beyond enthusiasm to excess. This stage in a market is called many things. A market melt. Forming a top. You get the idea. We won’t, of course, know if the current levels constitute a top until we get a sustained downturn. And waiting for that confirming downturn can take a while and be very painful if you’ve tried to time the turn with shorts or Put Options and turn out to have been early. The topping process can go on for a while.
