You have four strategies:
1. Ignore the turmoil. Don’t watch your portfolio collapse.
2. Kick out stuff as it hits your stop loss level. Kick out some gold.
3. Buy the now “cheap’ stock.
4. Maintain your chosen strategy. For me, it’s simple — long high-yield mortgage REITs like AGNC — and short some stocks, like RadioShack and Caterpillar and today’s some more from yesterday’s list:
PNRA (Panera Bread)
CMG (Chipotle)
YHOO (Yahoo)
BBY (Best BUY)
AMZN (Amazon)
SHLD (Sears)
X (US Steel)
As I wrote yesterday I am not sanguine about this market. It’s hairy, hard to enjoy, very hard to predict. Not one for maintaining sanity. I’d rather be sane, than crazed.
Facebook saga. Fidelity and others are dangling the Facebook shares in front of their investors. It’s worth applying for some. Miracles happen. You’ll need to be around on the evening of Thursday May 17 to confirm your indication, i.e. your willingness to pony up the cash. That will be the night the opening price is decided — somewhere between $28 and $35 a share.
There’s no way you’ll want to own this stock long-term. It’s way overpriced. But it will rise strongly in the first few days. If you have get a few, you can dump them for a handsome profit. The aftermarket will be strong among investors who couldn’t get allocation of the IPO (i.e. most of the world.) You can follow all the Facebook hype on Bloomberg. Click here.
Harry Newton who eyes two interesting new social networking apps — RockMelt browser for your PC (click here) and Path for your iPhone. For those of us older than 25 and wondering about “social networking” … in our days we met partners in our work, through friends, in bars, supermarkets, and airports. I met Susan, my gorgeous wife of 36 years, at Kennedy Airport. Early social networks like MySpace and Facebook started as a way for college kids to get dates. For kids still in the dating scene, social network sites are still hugely important. For married, busy, employed kids (i.e. when it worked). social networks are an easy way to stay in touch with their friends. For us oldies and into privacy and xenophobia, social networks are irrelevant and boring. You won’t learn anything you didn’t know or really care about knowing.
Is it me or the opening target price between $28 to $35 for Facebook seems low. I agree, no question Facebook stock will skyrocket initially from that offering price…Are there rules for dumping it early?
Why xenophobia, Harry? Do you mean reclusiveness or hermit behavior?
I'm in the third category and I agree that for me FB and what people post (I'm doing my laundry now) is mostly irrelevant… but my relationship to it is evolving and my gut tells me that the main problem with FB is its roots (college superficial mentality) and too-broad approach. I have a feeling that it can be used as a template for something useful and focused for more thoughtful people- there are plenty of interesting people on FB but it's like a cruise ship where they are the “raisins” in the pudding.
Be careful about recommending Path. See review: http://www.washingtonpost.com/…