The Best & Worst of Investors411-March

-

Psychologist Kahneman & Pandemic expert Brilliant

Economics, Politics – Editorials

The Best

1. The Israeli/American nobel prize winning father of behavioral economics Daniel Kahneman video on how one memory of a longer term experience can impact YOUR happiness and pain. (Thanks to one of you who discovered this valuable presentation) LINK
2. Perhaps the world’s most renowned epidemiologist Dr Larry Brilliant video His case for “Informed Optimism” is outstanding and different from the 3/22 video LINK. His case for how poverty causes worldwide epidemics, from Small Pox to Ebola, and those that are doing something about it impacts everyone.
3. The Cleveland Clinic’s Dr. Cosgrove’s interview in Fortune magazine brought new insight into the health car debate. Of course health care is going to cost more as the huge baby boomer demographic gets older and technology simply gets better at treating illness. However the root causes of American’s self indulgent problem is “Obesity, Smoking,  & lack of exercise” LINK

The Worst

1. In general – I sensationalize. From headlines like “Baby Killer” to “The Black Widows” I do this first to attract your attention
2. Stereotyping one side in a debate is just plain over the top. My excuse – sometimes you just get sooooo angry that emotions overwhelm logic.
3. Too much time is spent on pointing out what’s broken and not enough on how to fix it. Although long term readers, of Investors 411 should notice that”s changed over the years. There’s a lot more HOPE or SOLUTIONS (Kahneman, Brilliant, & Cosgrove) but there’s still more to go.

Stocks

The Best

1. The March 5th upgrade to Cautiously Bullish -US Markets have gone from negative to over a 5% gain when they open tomorrow.
2. YOUR Stock List – It’s time consuming to produce but offers a wealth of ideas. Lead by SHOO and IMAX many have had solid runs higher this month.
3. (these are from past months) Introduction of McCellan Oscillator (it works on broad markets, but nothing works forever and its certainly not 100%) and IMAX (recognition of 3D technologies potential)

The Worst

1. Prediction – Obamacare’s passage was going to hurt the US  stock market. !00% wrong. People’s mouth(Right wing investment community) were in one place, but there money was in another. If anything Obamacare juiced the markets, because the rally blinked for a 1/2 hour then continued.
2. Reluctance to be more fully invested. For longer term investors still think this is good. Nothing’s been fixed financially, the problem has been underestimated & hidden, and there are more shoes to drop. However for riskier investors who have the time, discipline, and understanding to be in and out of a stock/ETF within a day, week, or month(s) its a mistake.

Iran Day 14

Collage of dead protesters – Photo Andrew Sullivan Blog

Sorry, I’m just too emotionally exhausted and heartbroken to continue sifting through the blogs and tweets on Iran. You look at too many videos, audios blogs, tweets, and analysis and it’s overwhelmingly sad.

Best 4 sources still

Nico Pitney at the Huffington Post here

Andrew Sullivan at the Atlantic here

Robert Mackey at the NYT here

BBC- world’s largest news outlet that strives to be unbias here

The Obama Debate

We’ve had an excellent debate over Obama’s policies and effectiveness in the comments section of the blog .  You all have make some great points. Investors411 has both praised Obama and condemned him (mostly over the choice of Larry Summers as chief economic advisor)

Right now Obama is a very popular president (something like 60% positive and 32% negative) So what.

To jumble the title of his book – We have The Hope , but not enough Audacity .  This summer is the time for him to forget about consensus building and take charge. The single issue he alone can make the most difference in  this summer is health care.

"[Obama's]command of the issues — and ability to explain those issues in plain English — is a joy to behold. His administration has spent months talking and working with everyone on health care. Fine. Now its time for Audacity.  Take one plan and lead. See Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman editorial here

STOCKS

AS ALWAYS, DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH BEFORE INVESTING

-

Volume was below average again  and up just a smidge for the NASDQ and Dow. Perhaps some expert analyst can glean something from the volume, but the bottom line is no big moves are being made by the big institutions and there are a lot of people sitting on the sideline. Some of these folks are very unlikely to get back into investing in stocks. Volume is NOT confirming any price move.

Yesterday’s big move higher was probably a whole bunch of traders (as opposed to long term  investors) getting caught having to cover their short positions.

-

Top 3 Recommendations/concepts

Very happy with the mid term results posted yesterday! Obviously Investors 411 toasted the benchmark S&P 500.  Going forward 3 recommendations/concepts

• China (FXI )will continue to outperform USA (See Positions & Overview at top of blog for more on this and other recommendations)
• Brazil, (EWZ ) India (INF ) and alternative energy (GEX/PBW ) are still decent buy the dips plays.  But you have to be careful on all of the above including China. Even though they will outperform USA. They will fall faster in a meltdown.
• The economic problems  created over the past decade are massive. Over leveraged or phony wealth accounted for huge part of economic growth and where is that growth going to come from now?  Our (the USA) debt, dependence on foreign oil, and our inability to change entrenched special interest groups are three large anchors holding our economy back.

AS ALWAYS DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH BEFORE INVESTING