Keep It Successfully Simple
- Written by Marc Courtenay
- Saturday, 09 December 2006
We recently received the latest edition of Extreme Value written by Dan Ferris. It was entitled "Why you can (and should) put your entire portfolio into Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT), Home Depot (NYSE:HD), St. Joe (NYSE:JOE) and Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT)." It blew us away when he emphatically stated,"...if I had a billion dollars, I'd put it all into the four stocks we'll be covering this month." Yes, we would recommend you become a subscriber. Just go to www.stansberryresearch.com or call 888-261-2693. This jolted us into the train of thought of how simplified and care-free our investment portfolios would be if we took Dan's advice. We would have to add an equal proportion of Goldcorp (NYSE:GG) and Silver Wheaton (NYSE:SLW) to feel complete, but that would only be a stock portfolio of six companies. "Boring" you say? Well, maybe so but it would sure give us a lot of extra time to pursue the many other activities and interests that we somehow never seem to have enough time for these days. How valuable is a refreshing nap each day? How precious is the time spent enjoying the company of our dearest relatives and friends? Keeping life and our investments "successfully simple" has so many advantages that we couldn't begin to describe them all.
Add a commentWhat A Great Investor-Mentor Looks Like
- Written by Marc Courtenay
- Friday, 27 October 2006
Chris Mayer, the editor of Capital & Crisis, is one smart stock picker. You can read about Capital & Crisis at www. agorafinancial.com. We first discovered Chris when he became the editor of the Fleet Street Letter, and we were impressed at how thorough and careful he was with the analysis of a publicly- traded company. Chris looks for VALUE, deep, under-appreciated, intrinsic value. He patiently peruses the reports and the internal sources of information to find a company who has outstanding leadership and is on the verge of significant growth in earnings and revenue.
Add a commentDennis Gartman: What I’ve Learned In 30 Years
- Written by Marc Courtenay
- Wednesday, 18 October 2006
Buy The Whole Produce Section?
- Written by Marc Courtenay
- Sunday, 15 October 2006
You've got to love a guy who can pick great companies to invest in and writes articles like poetry. Chris Mayer, one of our top mentors, who writes the excellent investment newsletter "Capital and Crisis" (www.agorafinancial.com), did it again. To give you an idea how intuitive and talented he is, we want to share with you what he wrote for the weekend edition of the Daily Reckoning (www.dailyreckoning.com). It involves his current ideas and thinking about this "super" market that seems like it wants to do nothing but go up. Here at CheckTheMarkets.com we want to check the sanity and rationale of the markets too. That is why we pick the brains of saavy, brilliant investors and analysts like Chris. Here is some of his finest work:
How To Invest Like The "Big Dogs"
- Written by Marc Courtenay
- Wednesday, 11 October 2006
Back in the 1990s we enjoyed studying the investment interests of two of the most successful investors we knew of. Warren Buffet and Richard Rainwater invested in different directions, but they seemed to know of some of the same secrets of outstanding investors. Both Buffet and Rainwater avoided the temptation to invest in the "New Economy" stocks, especially the internet and the dot.com companies. They would not succomb to the hype and hysteria (an important fundamental of great investors--think independently). They both liked companies that they could understand and grasp how they made money. They wanted these companies to be undervalued and generating some nice profits.
Richar Rainwater came to the conclusion that the world was beginning to use more oil and natural gas than it was producing...or he sensed that consumption of energy was really about to take off. With Russia, China and India entering the global economy and their citizens becoming modernized, there would be greater demand for energy in the future and possibly shortages of oil and natural gas. Rumor has it that he purchased the assets and shares of a little company named Energy Services. He bought drilling rigs, platforms and other oil services equipment at pennys for a dollar. Today that company is called Ensco International (symbol ESV) and Rainwater made hundreds of millions in profits. At least that is the way we heard it told.
