Saturday, January 15, 2005

Fox Saturday Morning "Business Bloc"

I like to watch the Fox Saturday Morning finance shows, not necessarily because the info is great (although I usually get some ideas to research) but 1) for the entertainment value, and 2) for the rough indication of sentiment.

My observations for today--
Perma-bull Joe Battipaglia was on--he was gone from the airwaves for a while, and now I've seen him quite a bit lately. Why do I think that is a sign of a top?
Jim Rogers was on, as usual, plugging his book and pushing commodities and natural resources. I guess I agree to a degree, considering my positions in gold and oil.

Some specific ideas
JNJ--Gary B. Smith showed a long term chart of JNJ and pushed it as a long term buy and hold (which he almost never does). I think JNJ is a "great company" though that doesn't always mean "great stock." I do have a long term position in JNJ, though. Gary's chart looked great, with JNJ staying above a long-term trendline. My chart doesn't look as good, and arguably shows JNJ making a double top. Unfortunately, I'm having trouble posting my annotated chart right now but I hope to have it up a little later.

XTO, an oil and gas explorer, was also mentioned, getting a mixed review. I do like oil and gas, I think its hard to go to wrong with it over the next few months and years, although some concerns were raised about its corporate governance.

TXI, Texas Industries, a supplier of building materials, was mentioned as a play on rebuilding after all the natural disasters here and elsewhere recently. Although this sounds like the broken window fallacy, while the economy as a whole won't be better off because of natural disasters, certainly some segment may benefit at the expense of others.

NSC, Norfolk Southern was mentioned by Wayne Rogers, who has come up with some good picks in the past.

Jonathan Hoenig mentioned floating rate funds, closed-end funds holding corporate debt where the rates rise with rising interest rates. He mentioned these before at the start of the interest rate rising cycle, and they haven't fared too well from there. The concept is appealing, but I always feel I don't really understand them too well--they don't seem to track interest rates as you would think they should. At any rate, he mentioned VVR, PFL, FRB. Others in this group that I have owned are PPR and TLI.

Anyway, I hope to post some charts later.

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