What do you think is a good investment now?
It looks to be kind of a dangerous time to invest - if you invest in the US what if the dollar keeps on dropping? If you invest overseas what if the dollar rebounds? What about recession, inflation, rising interest rates, bad loans and problems borrowing money as a result (even for good companies)?
I am looking at commercial REITs - they seem low now, provide income, and have average returns greater than the stock market. The only stocks that look like good buys right now are Cisco and Starbucks.
What are you investing in/thinking of investing in?
I am looking at commercial REITs - they seem low now, provide income, and have average returns greater than the stock market. The only stocks that look like good buys right now are Cisco and Starbucks.
What are you investing in/thinking of investing in?
Comments
Worst case, you can still make yourself a warm sweater, and then eat the alpacas.
Myself.
Edjumacation and stuff.
Alpaca farming.
I'm looking for more passive investments, shoveling alpaca crap is not my idea of a great time.
It's rumored they will declare bankruptcy.
Indeed. Never let an alpaca near your credit cards.
Oh, you mean Countrywide.
Never mind.
With BA there's a lot of legitimate worry built in. Having worked in aerospace, and looking at the fact that the 787 hasn't even flown a single test flight, I get a vibe that somebody has seriously, massively F**CKED UP. When they get their act together, if the composite thing handles crash tests, etc., there could be some money to be made. Not on a AAPL magnitude, though.
Anyone have any thoughts on AMD?
It looks to be kind of a dangerous time to invest - if you invest in the US what if the dollar keeps on dropping? If you invest overseas what if the dollar rebounds? What about recession, inflation, rising interest rates, bad loans and problems borrowing money as a result (even for good companies)?
I am looking at commercial REITs - they seem low now, provide income, and have average returns greater than the stock market. The only stocks that look like good buys right now are Cisco and Starbucks.
What are you investing in/thinking of investing in?
It is a dangerous time to invest. I think that no matter where you invest you need to insure you have some sort of hedge against inflation because while the U.S. Dollar is a reserve currency and one we worry about depreciating quite a bit, there are no other currencies in the world that are not fiat. Every government is playing the paper money game and so it really comes down to which government lies the least. I know this sounds like a suck position and it is one. You note a lot of bad variables coming down the road here and what I want you to realize is that it likely isn't possible to traverse them all and keep the net-worth number going forward. Sometimes all you get to do is grab a bigger piece of a less expensive pie and then when things rebound, it is worth even more than before.
If you've been following the fed, you will note that they have dumped loads of dollars out there and even worked with other banks to insure the dollar hasn't been dumped. It still could be of course but as I'm fond of saying, you can turn the United States into Argentina, but those who attempt this end up being the Philippines. They can basically tolerate a slight negative return for now or take massive huge negative return when attempting to dump it.
A lot of good investing involves being a bit contrarian, at least in my view. You can Google and there were a number of articles recently noting that the Chinese economy was overstated by forty percent in size. To me this shows how BRIC ROW cannot save the U.S. from recession. We are going to sneeze, the world is going to catch a cold. We are going to have a bout of stagflation for a while.
I'm looking for things that cash flow for me, hopefully and possibly in inflation adjusted currency. I've grabbed some Citibank(C), HTE and ABR along with cash earning interest. I hear a lot of played up talk about dividends being cut but I think a good chunk of that has already been priced in to companies that pay a good dividend and also I think it partly scaring off the sheep so others can jump in.
I've also been and I am still invested in real estate. Sure it is hard watching the net-worth number drop for now, but the properties I have cash flow and will continue to do so whether we live in inflationary, deflationary, dollar destroyed or whatever other times we live in. I'm looking to probably purchase another apartment building in 12-24 months.
I think it very important to have something paying you when the chips come down with regard to an economic downturn. A downturn by definition is basically a game of attrition. We are all going to see who can hold their breath the longest and the ones who can get to stay in the pool.
In rentals for example, I am seeing loads of houses on the market right now. Because I bought at the low end of the market, I can still under price these new landlords (home owners who can't sell) while providing better service AND still making more each month. This will probably be the first time in several years I cannot raise rents. However I can survive this because I am not the guy going -$200 to -$1200 a month on a house. Does it suck to still keep making the same amount when there is clearly inflation evident. Absolutely but my homes aren't the ones going back to the bank and if I can tighten that belt properly in terms of savings, I'll be buying those houses and apartment buildings from that bank for pretty cheap in 12-24 months. When the flush times return I'll have even more properties to give me an even more massive net-worth and when the lean times return after that, I'll be even better set up to survive yet again in terms of cash flow.
A lot of this is abstract. I hope it made some sense because it is some hard stuff to wrap your head around at times.
The implication of this recalculation is that by normal cyclical fluctuation alone, it is reasonable to expect the current gold bull market to top out somewhere higher than $5000 per ounce.
Now, there are a lot of reasons why this won't happen...
One being that it starts becoming child's play to mine it our of the oceans once it gets above $1,200/ounce. Which was a similar problem back in the 80s which is why it never broke $900. Well, that and a few other issues.
Dropping dollar makes C-130s, F-16s, and JSFs that much cheaper to allied militaries. Israel has just gone deep for JSFs. Plus, it seems that the USA is going to need to be replacing their F-15s with pricey F-22s at a faster than expected rate.
Anyone have any thoughts on AMD?
I think AMD is a poor investment. Why not consider Intel?
AMD is having awful problems with the phenom, barcelona roll out. Even looking beyond that, the market in cpus is growing in mobile chips. Sales of laptops are expected to surpass that of desktops soon. AMDs chips in this area are weak and Intel owns this space. If MIDs take off Intel will further distance themselves from AMD.
I sure someone can find a reason to like AMD, but it doesn't look good to me. My 2 cents.
Boeing seems fairly priced, and they have only $1/share in net debt - and they can't screw up as badly as Airbus seems to (although Airbus seems to be a couple years ahead with the A380, since they have delivered two planes, but the dreamliner looks higher tech).
AMD - I don't know about, my only thought about them is that the US government won't let them fail and give a monopoly to Intel. They have $8/share in debt, and are losing market share and have negative cash flow.
Lockheed martin looks good, but I worry that the Democrats will get elected and cut defense spending. Of course, a lot of gear got used up in the war and needs to be replaced also.
I am thinking that Citibank and Bank of America are both great contrarian investments, and I think that Bank of America could make some huge money on the Countrywide buyout - but I want to make sure that they are not going to lose another $50 or $100 billion first on their mortgage portfolios.
Boeing seems fairly priced, and they have only $1/share in net debt - and they can't screw up as badly as Airbus seems to (although Airbus seems to be a couple years ahead with the A380, since they have delivered two planes, but the dreamliner looks higher tech).
AMD - I don't know about, my only thought about them is that the US government won't let them fail and give a monopoly to Intel. They have $8/share in debt, and are losing market share and have negative cash flow.
Lockheed martin looks good, but I worry that the Democrats will get elected and cut defense spending. Of course, a lot of gear got used up in the war and needs to be replaced also.
Bought some BAC during the recent drop. If the dividend is safe, it should do very well when the turnaround occurs.
I moved all of my money into CD's, bonds, and Money Market accounts. Although its a pain to keep up w/ this many MM accounts due to the protected limits by the US gov. Also, I have been slowly buy gold just as a side project. As stupid as it sounds, I was buying gold bullion when it was around $400 and oz, its now over $800 and oz.
I'm waiting for the market to settle low and I will start back buying up.
Lockheed martin looks good, but I worry that the Democrats will get elected and cut defense spending. Of course, a lot of gear got used up in the war and needs to be replaced also.
Perhaps, but LMCO right now has an international cash cow on the JSF and C-130. The unexpected bonus for them is that the domestic F-15 fleet is 30 years old and is, quite literally, falling apart. Even the democrats won't let the Air National Guard go to shambles. It will be replaced with F-22's, and sooner than planned.
I've been keeping my eye both on AMD and The Bloeing Company.
With BA there's a lot of legitimate worry built in. Having worked in aerospace, and looking at the fact that the 787 hasn't even flown a single test flight, I get a vibe that somebody has seriously, massively F**CKED UP. When they get their act together, if the composite thing handles crash tests, etc., there could be some money to be made. Not on a AAPL magnitude, though.
Anyone have any thoughts on AMD?
There's supposed to be some new biofuel coming out between GE/Boeing/SomethingIcan'tremember. They say it's very very green.
There's supposed to be some new biofuel coming out between GE/Boeing/SomethingIcan'tremember. They say it's very very green.
GE would be the more likely candidate, since they make a lot of the jet engines that don't spontaneously shut down