I wrote a blog entry on July 15th with some stock tips… as you can imagine they’re all doing well, or you probably wouldn’t have heard much from me about it. 
and, I’m aware that the market, especially the tech stocks, are excelling all around… and it may be easy to cheer about good performance right now… but, I also know it’s a very questionable time in the stock market….
I don’t get many comments on this board, in fact Soup is the only one who has so far.. and it’s cool, I understand why people would be reluctant to post comments on the public Internet, though I would really appreciate your thoughts in an e-mail to me if you have a moment.. I know a bunch of you work in the financial industry so I would really value hearing from you.
I am far from a pro at this, I shouldn’t have even been offering my ideas of future stock performance in the first place, and as obvious of some of these picks were, nobody was sure at the time, mid-summer, what mood the market would be in from one week to the next…. here’s an update, 3 months and a “black Monday 20 year anniversary” later…
Talking about Soup… I gotta give him the pick of the quarter with the Synchronoss tip…. *the first figure in each row indicates the price on the day of my July 15th blog entry -
AAPL 137.73 today: 186.16 + 35%
GOOG 552.16 today: 675.77 + 22%
AMZN 75.10 today: 100.82 + 34%
SNCR 32.49 today: 45.00 + 38%
Wanna post a comment here? I’d love it. Otherwise, would some of my MBA totting, top financial firm working friends get back to me and tell me what they think?
will the tech bubble burst again? or are we full steam ahead this time around?
does one pull out when you get to a 35% gain? do you take half off the table and seek another opportunity?
I know I’m a bit naive in this area, but I see AAPL at $200 well before my 18 month prediction, (pre- holiday season?), Google touching $800 not long after the new year, with Amazon hitting $120, and Synchronoss creeping to $55 around the same time.
Responses to “stock talk”
October 24th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
Marc, you know I try to act like a calming force around you when you start to talk about this stuff… so i’m gonna keep going with that. These are simply my opinions and you will not find these published or endorsed anywhere besides my brain.
Apple is Apple… everyone is in love with the company and all of it’s products (myself included). It’s trading at a multiple of near 50 but it keeps turning out impressive quarters. 4Q looks to be a huge one for them, as is the past couple years. Jobs really knows how and when to release products.
A lot of your other holdings are based on Apple association, hence my naming your portfolio “The Apple Tree”. Good as long as Apple is performing, but some diversification is Finance101.
Google is one of those companies that I don’t think the market has made sense of it, and hasn’t figured out exactly what kind of company it is (is it an advertising company or not? lots of their products seem to say they are, but they keep saying they aren’t). I slept on a chance to get some of the IPO and I’m obviously thrilled with myself on that. And they’re trading at a P/E of 53.
None of it makes sense, but it all seems a little too reminiscent of the ‘01 bust, where no one thought twice about buying stocks at 40+ multiples. Lots of these stocks are valued WAY too high if you look at average historical P/E ratios, and you have to remember that financial markets are cyclical…. for every deep breath, they gotta let some out. All the speculation in ‘29 caused prices to rise beyond reason, followed by the crash. Many blame the ‘87 crash on program trading, but that’s up for debate.
Combine that with the problems in housing/lending markets and the prospect of slowing our war efforts next year and you’re staring at the prospect of a recession. You even hear the “market correction” being thrown around a little these days, and that’s a nice term for a quick depression. We’re due for a prolonged one, and that’s when you’ll test your picking-power.
Good work thus far, but stay ambivalent and base your holdings on sound financial decisions and theories…. there’s a couple to choose from.
Sorry for wasting 4 minutes you’ll never get back.
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October 23rd, 2007 at 10:28 pm
Im so happy you got in on SNCR, I picked it strictly because of the fact that they do activation for the iPhone, I can’t say I was looking closely at their balance sheet. Sometimes I think you can do really well by betting on products you think are must haves in the early going.
Nice job on AMZN, GOOG and AAPL. I happen to own AAPL as well. I bought it around the same time they announced the iPhone at which point it was 96 bucks.
I feel like Yahoo is undervalued right now. I know Google is a juggernaut, but I see some room for Yahoo to have its place in the market as well. If they make some smart acquisitions, they could give Google a run for their money. I see them as packaging content in a marketable way while Google goes with the simple approach. There may be room for both.