Search results for John Reese
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Posted
Oct 16 2009, 05:21 PM
by
John Reese
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
My investment philosophy is rooted in the idea that beating the market is less about reinventing the wheel and more about listening to the right people. That's how I came to develop my Guru Strategy computer models, and it's why I take a look every Friday at what the market gurus I follow are saying.
This week, several of the strategists I keep an eye on are saying the recession is indeed over, though some remain concerned about how strong the recovery will be. But regardless of how swift the expansion is, all of them are seeing opportunities in the market.
One of those who spoke out this week was hedge fund guru Barton Biggs, who back in early March said he thought there was a good chance we were on the brink of a major rally. Now, Biggs tells Bloomberg that he thinks markets have another 10% to 15% in gains left in them. He says he's heartened by signs of recovery in the global economy, though he adds that he doesn't see the market topping its pre-crash highs anytime soon.
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Posted
Oct 09 2009, 09:54 AM
by
John Reese
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
The investment world is filled with new theories and new ideas about how best to make money. But over the years, I've found that the best way to produce solid, market-beating returns is to take advantage of the wisdom of history's best investors. That's why I created my Guru Strategy computer models, and that's why each week I recap what some of the gurus I keep an eye on are saying about the market and economy.
This past week continued a recent theme: lots of economic uncertainty, but plenty of investment opportunities.
One top strategist who talked about both is hedge fund guru George Soros. Soros says that the U.S. has a ways to go, and that the U.S. economic recovery will be very slow. But his fund -- which gained 32% in 2007 and 8% last year -- has been buying stocks, according to The Wall Street Journal.
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Posted
Oct 08 2009, 08:22 AM
by
John Reese
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 As the market has surged over the past seven months, one of the driving forces has been financial stocks.
Since the March 9 low, the S&P 500 is up an impressive 56%, but the Financial Select Sector SPDR is up a staggering 138%. And financials are the second-best performing sector year-to-date and over the past three months, according to Morningstar.
But while the financial rally has been steep and swift, it's been driven mostly by the relenting of apocalyptic fears about the sector -- not fundamentals. My Guru Strategies, which use rigorous fundamental tests to analyze stocks, aren't finding a lot of values in the sector right now. For example, while shares of Citigroup (C) have more than quadrupled since the March 9 low, none of my models think it has strong enough fundamentals to make it a solid play right now.
There are, however, a relatively small number of financials that my models are keying in on. And in the most recent rebalancing of my Top Stocks tracking portfolio over at Wall Street Survivor, my Warren Buffett-based strategy snagged one that looks like a winner.
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Posted
Oct 02 2009, 05:13 PM
by
John Reese
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
When it comes to investing, I firmly believe that reinventing the wheel can be a dangerous game. If you want to beat the market over the long haul, I think your best bet is to learn from those rare investors who have done just that -- that's why I created my Guru Strategy computer models, and it's why at the end of every week I examine what some top strategists have been saying about the market and the economy.
Over the past week, continued uncertainty about the economic recovery has made for some divergent opinions on where the market is headed. On the whole, however, the gurus I keep an eye on have leaned to the bullish side.
Kent Croft -- whose Croft Value fund is in the top 7% of funds in its category over the past three, five, and ten years, according to Morningstar -- says, for example, that he’s still finding plenty of value in the market. He told Yahoo! TechTicker that he's high on quality firms that offer “growth at a discounted price”; he has his eye on Cisco, and some high-dividend plays in the healthcare sector.
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Posted
Sep 25 2009, 05:59 PM
by
John Reese
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
The investment world is filled with new theories and new ideas about how best to make money. But over the years, I've found that the best way to produce solid, market-beating returns is to take advantage of the wisdom of history's best investors. That's why I created my Guru Strategy computer models -- each of which is based on the published approach of a different Wall Street great -- and that's why each week I recap what some of the gurus I keep an eye on are saying about the market and economy. In the past week or so, several of the top strategists who have opined said their decisions are being driven largely by macro economic factors -- particularly those pertaining to government responses to the financial crisis.
For example, Mark Mobius, Templeton Asset Management's executive chairman, told the U.K.'s Telegraph TV that emerging markets have a lot of room left to run, and a big reason is that with all of the government stimulus efforts, the money supply is “growing at a rapid pace globally and there’s a lot of money coming in to be invested.” Mobius also said that “frontier markets” -- places like Vietnam, Romania, and Kenya -- are “where it’s at”. They and emerging markets offer a myriad of opportunities, in part because their financial institutions were largely unharmed by the subprime crisis.
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Posted
Sep 24 2009, 11:00 AM
by
John Reese
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
My Warren Buffett-themed Top Stocks tracking portfolio on Wall Street Survivor has been on a roll lately, having gained 9.3% in the past month (vs. 3.6% for the S&P 500) and 23.8% since I created it back in mid-June (vs. about 14% for the S&P).
A big reason why has been GPS giant Garmin (GRMN), which I wrote about in late July and which has now jumped more than 62% since joining the portfolio. But another key contributor is one you might not expect: ITT Educational Services (ESI).
Since my Buffett-based model snatched up this Indiana-based for-profit education firm in June, the stock has gained close to 20%. It is one of several for-profit education companies that have seen a major jump in profits over the past year or two, with the theory being that the deep recession and rough job market have sent many would-be job-seekers heading back to school for more training.
Now, however, fear has reared its ugly head for this industry.
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Posted
Sep 18 2009, 04:41 PM
by
John Reese
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
My investment philosophy is rooted in the idea that beating the market is less about reinventing the wheel and more about listening to the right people. That's how I came to develop my Guru Strategy computer models, and it's why I take a look every Friday at what the market gurus I follow are saying.
In a week in which the economy has shown several signs of life, a number of these gurus have been sounding bullish -- though the optimism has been tempered with some words of caution.
For starters, Warren Buffett -- whose approach is the basis of the Guru Strategy I'm using for Wall Street Survivor -- sounded off this week, saying that the economy has at last leveled off. “We have not bounced, but we’ve quit going down," he told CNBC. "We are on the mend." Buffett pointed to uptrends in the housing market over the past several months as one of the key positive signs. And, in an interview with Fortune, Buffett said he's been buying stocks, with orders in on two picks this week. (He was tight-lipped about just which shares he's purchasing, however.)
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Posted
Sep 11 2009, 03:40 PM
by
John Reese
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
My investment strategy is based on the idea that reinventing the wheel can be a dangerous game, and that you can learn a great deal from those who have had the greatest past success in the stock market. At the end of each week I thus examine what the gurus I follow have been saying about the market and the economy.
In the past week, a number of top strategists -- including many who saw the credit crisis and stock market crash coming -- have opined on where we're headed from here. Among them was Laszlo Birinyi, who warned his clients of a pending financial sector meltdown back in the fall of 2007.
Check out my Top Stocks tracking portfolio at Wall Street Survivor
Now, Birinyi tells Fortune, we are in the “Usain Bolt of markets”, with the S&P 500 averaging a 0.31% per-day gain since its March low -- almost three times the previous fastest recovery back in 1982. He thinks the rally still has legs, in part because few, if any, investors are calling this a bull market. That kind of negative sentiment bodes well, he says, and he advises buying S&P 500 SPDRs.
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Posted
Sep 09 2009, 07:16 AM
by
John Reese
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
The Warren Buffett-based "Guru Strategy" I'm using to manage my Top Stocks portfolio is up 17% since I started tracking it in mid-June at Wall Street Survivor, well ahead of the S&P 500 (for the year the Buffett-based portfolio I follow on Validea.com is up almost 40%). In my latest scheduled monthly rebalancing, it's added one new pick, and it's one that might come as something of a surprise: Coach (COH) -- one of the few stocks (out of over 6,000 securities I analyze) that my Buffett model gives a 100% rating.
Coach seems an odd pick for more than one reason -- first, there's the juxtaposition of the firm's upscale luxury clothing and accessories with Buffett's own personal style (or, someone less kind might say, lack thereof); and second, it comes at a time when the consensus seems to be that the economy is headed for a "new normal", one in which consumers continue to tighten their belts and shop for bargains.
But Buffett has always been something of a contrarian -- "be greedy only when others are fearful" is one of his main mantras -- so the fact that the model I base on his approach is keying in on COH right now isn't a big surprise to me. And, when you look at the numbers, Coach's appeal to my Buffett-based model becomes as plain as the suits you can usually find on "The Oracle of Omaha's" back.
(If you'd like to see the detailed analysis of COH using my Buffett quant model, please email me at johnreese@validea.com and I will send an in-depth guru research report along.)
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Posted
Sep 04 2009, 02:24 PM
by
John Reese
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
The investing world is often littered with new theories and new ideas about how best to make money. But over the years, I've found that the best way to produce solid, market-beating returns is to take advantage of the wisdom history's best investors have been kind enough to share. That's why I created my Guru Strategy computer models, and that's why each week I recap what some of the gurus I follow are saying about the market and economy.
This week the theme seemed to be that, while the economic future remains cloudy, it's a good environment for stock-pickers. That's what Mario Gabelli, a Benjamin Graham disciple with an excellent long-term track record, told Bloomberg. While ETFs or sector plays have become all the rage lately, Gabelli says he's focusing on individual stocks that have strong potential for the next three or four years. He gave his thoughts on potential plays in the financial, airline, newspaper, and telecom industries, and also said the food industry is ripe for a round of mergers.
Another top manager, Donald Yacktman, whose two funds are up about 9% per year over the past decade while the S&P 500 has been in the red, says he's focusing on high-quality stocks. Lower-quality firms have made big gains in the rebound, but the best buys now are plays like Coca-Cola (KO), Pepsi (PEP), and Procter & Gamble (PG), Yacktman, a bottom-up stock-picker, told Bloomberg. He says financials are still dangerous, but that he's found a great play in AmeriCredit (ACF).
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