Microsoft: No Longer A 'Boring' Investment [View article]
"A very basic understanding of security analysis would be helpful."
Duane: The problem is you assume that is all there is to investing. That if all your metrics are all set up in a row, that everything should take care of itself. Security analysis is flawed because most known work was written long before the advent of computers, HFT, corrupt investment banks, coupled with massive deception put forth by Wall Street to con average Americans into buying the same old stocks over and over.
Security analysis is only a small part of an investing picture. The items mentioned previously, coupled with investor emotions make up most of what drives stock prices today. If you are basing all your investing decisions on security analysis alone you will lose.
The times have changed from long ago. Investing requires understanding of today's markets and how they "really" work. Not what a few good men wrote almost 90 years ago.
BTW sure if you bought on Oct.8th 2008 things are great. Thats a big if. If your bought before then or in 1999, you made nothing. Cherry picking a time frame to make your point is weak.
I have said before, traders can make money all day with MSFT. Investors that have bought under $30 are finally making $$. Everyone else higher has yet to break even and start making money other than dividends.
Microsoft: No Longer A 'Boring' Investment [View article]
Colin you wrote:
"The specific "overhang" that you speak of doesn't exist. I don't think there is any evidence for it"
Colin: For every seller there is a buyer. For every buyer there is a seller.
When MSFT was $58 per share in 1999 someone was getting out and someone was buying. All the way down. That's the way it works. Evidence? If you are looking for a list of names, faces, etc. of course there is none. It is common sense. When someone was selling a share @ $58 back in 1999 to get out of the stock, someone was buying. Could that person then have sold lower? Yes. However many people like William O'Neil, who's work and study of the markets and more importantly behavior of investors shows time and time again that people remain in denial about stocks and are very good at taking losses in the "hope" that they get their money back someday rather then sell, take a loss and move on.
Colin you made great points all through your post. I agree with all of them. Even just after the 2000 tech crash, MSFT continues to this day to be a cash generating machine. Sure they fell behind their rivals however that hasn't hurt their ability to generate billions each quarter and year. All this is great.
And yet.....the stock has done little if anything at all. Save for the dividend it now pays it has been 100% dead money for most people for 12 years.
How can this be with all that good news and all the good points you bring up?
You see there are those who invest "in" Wall Street's game and end up playing by the big boys rules and there are those who invest "around" Wall Street's game, know how the game really works and have out performed 99% of all so called pro's over the past 12 years.
MSFT is a Wall Street stock. (Like many stocks out there) It is over owned by institutions, has a huge number of shares outstanding, has seen its best stock percentage return days already due to the inability to exponentially expand it's market cap, and worst of all:
It is a stock "used" by Wall Street make themselves money.
Wall Street, just like a good at home trader uses MSFT all day long to generate millions in trading profits, upgrades and downgrades provide Wall Street with ample trading profits due to pre-postioning on announcements (the SEC doesn't even bother to prosecute) and worst of all: MSFT, like all the so called "blue chip" stocks are touted as the safest stocks in the market to hold during market declines which is a complete and utter lie manufactured by Wall Street and asset managers. If anything investors do not want to hold the biggest blue chips during bear markets because the lie Wall Street does not want people to know: Stocks like MSFT are used by institutions to raise capital during market declines because of their high liquidity, massive floats and most importantly: Wall Street knows most Americans are suckers and when some clown goes on TV and tells Americans to buy the "blue chips" during a market decline, they do only to lose another 30% on the way down to the bottom of the cycle. Oh and by the way, it has also been shown that average investors never buy at the bottom, they almost always sell at the bottom. Just human nature.
Colin sorry for the long speech. You look young in your profile so perhaps you have not been in these markets as long as I have. I am just trying to give you insight as to what I have learned during my investing career.
Remember: Time is the real enemy of investors. While people wait, in denial, hoping and praying their stocks go up, time slips by. Think of the many who own C for instance who are thinking that "someday" they might get their money back. Every day that goes by is a day missed to invest in tomorrow's winners and tomorrow's stocks that are rising now and paying twice the current yield of MSFT.
Microsoft: No Longer A 'Boring' Investment [View article]
MSFT price in late 1998: Same price as today.
MSFT has been here, lower, a lot lower, revisited today's price and then retreated once again. I see a lot of people ( and a lot of desperate long time holders ) hoping and praying that this time it will be different. That all the underwater money from a decade ago, all the bad investments made following the idiots like Mike Holland and others on CNBC might pay off finally.
Stocks like MSFT, CSCO, WMT, etc and many many of the mega cap stocks really do reinforce the psychology behind investing for most Americans. How they are unable to let go of the past, sell once and for all and stop looking at former bull market winners thinking they are once again going to go up another 1000% in the coming decades. All the while missing out on companies that are mid cap names, paying more than double MSFT's yield, and have the ability to exponentially expand their market caps in the future.
Just think, since the tech crash of 2000 we have had a bull market, a bear market and another bull market. Almost all the mega cap stocks from 2000 save for a few that we can count on 3 fingers have gone nowhere since then. If stocks like MSFT, and other mega cap stocks have gone nowhere with 2 bull markets since 2000, where are they going from here? It has not been a matter of tech being out of favor. Plenty of tech shares have risen since 2000, some a few hundred percent. Yet the former bull market stars from 2000 have done nothing. Why? Because they are over owned by institutions who use them for nothing more than trading vehicles to raise cash, hedge other positions and most of all, sell when they former purchase prices have been reached. Between MSFT and CSCO there are enough people and institutions sitting on huge losses from 2000 that the stock overhang on these stocks are going to take decades to clean out.
Don't believe me? It's been 12 long years already. Time goes fast doesn't it? Denial can kill a person's portfolio. Do not wake up in another 10 years and then 20 years and say "Gee MSFT is finally at $45 / share and its the year 2033.
Stop listening to the idiots on CNBC, guys like Mike Holland on CNBC and all these other so called fund managers who all invest in the same 100 large cap & mega cap stocks. They are not going to create a cent of wealth for you in the future.
BTW: If you are trading MSFT, you can make $$ all day long. No question. If you bought either before 1996 or during the low of 2008, you are making $$. Everywhere else in between, you are just making money for Wall Street and the fund managers.
2 Blue Chip Tech Dividend Stocks That Are Oversold And Undervalued [View article]
The Article:
Absolutely not. MSFT & CSCO are former bull market winners that are nothing but typical talking points for Wall Street shills.
Out of the 75,000 stocks that trade worldwide, this is all we are left with? MSFT & CSCO. Two former stars that have seen their best days. MSFT may be a cash machine and for income it would interesting with a 5% yield, but CSCO?
It just shocks me at the level of zero critical thinking that exists when people talk about stocks as investments, or a vehicle to create wealth going forward, not living in the past.
The U.S. government in April enjoyed its first monthly budget surplus since Sept. 2008, with income tax-fueled revenue helping offset below-normal spending. It's mostly a quirk in the calendar: April 1 was on a Sunday, so payments scheduled for that day were pushed into March. The $59B surplus might buy the government a few extra days until it hits the $16.394T debt ceiling. [View news story]
Politics is for clowns who are brainwashed into believing we live in some sort of real 2 party system. It is a one party system where both parties have the same real agenda: complete control over a dumbed down population.
Terry get out and get some fresh air.
Fox news are liars. MSNBC are liars. CNN are lairs.
The U.S. government in April enjoyed its first monthly budget surplus since Sept. 2008, with income tax-fueled revenue helping offset below-normal spending. It's mostly a quirk in the calendar: April 1 was on a Sunday, so payments scheduled for that day were pushed into March. The $59B surplus might buy the government a few extra days until it hits the $16.394T debt ceiling. [View news story]
Give us a break.
Comical article.
It was tax month. Taxes were due. Like it or not. Of course there was a budget surplus. Next month it will be right back to the same garbage.
Dimon on CIO activities: JPM has suffered a $2B loss in the synthetic credit portfolio. "The strategy was flawed ... There were many errors, sloppiness, and bad judgment ... risk managers are fully engaged in helping to monitor the current portfolio." He goes on to say volatility could remain high over coming quarters and could cost the bank another $1B. [View news story]
Mike: I read a couple of your other comments. First let me say congrats on working towards your MBA and your degree in economics. Hopefully you will be someone who uses those degrees to fix the mess we have in this country.
Unfortunately Mike you have only been investing since 2005 and I don't think you have really "learned" yet what really goes on in the world and Wall Street.
JP Morgan is just an arm of the FED. They survived and thrived during the 2007-2009 meltdown thanks to the FED. JPM has over $7 trillion in derivatives exposure, enough to end the world as we know it. They can never fail. They never will. Our government and FED will make sure of that. They will screw over every man, woman and child in the US if they have to, to make sure JPM survives.
They also have one of the most advanced and underhanded prop trading desks in the world. They get away with everything. They can because they are owned by the FED and run our country. Do not let anyone ever tell you different. Just ask all the innocent investors, farmers, etc who's money was stolen from them and given to JPM thanks to the MF Global mess. They are never getting most of that money back. No one in gov't wants to investigate it. They can't. JPM makes their money with free money from the FED, stealing, cheating, and lying from others, and they are completed protected.
It is what is it. There is nothing anyone can do about it. Nothing.
Dimon on CIO activities: JPM has suffered a $2B loss in the synthetic credit portfolio. "The strategy was flawed ... There were many errors, sloppiness, and bad judgment ... risk managers are fully engaged in helping to monitor the current portfolio." He goes on to say volatility could remain high over coming quarters and could cost the bank another $1B. [View news story]
$ 2 Billion loss. Only another $7 trillion in derivatives to go and JPM will finally be out of business. LOL.
Cisco: A Deeply Undervalued Stock Worth $30 [View article]
I had to revisit this article since I last commented on it. CSCO basically told it's investors to drop dead after hours.
They are beyond pathetic and while Chambers, insiders, etc have gotten more wealthy, shareholders of CSCO or those who have been hoping and praying for years are getting the shaft.
I said it before and I will say it again. CSCO is done. It is a former bull market winner from another time. A time that is not coming back. They are not extraordinary, special, and their products while in demand, are not in the kind of demand that was needed over a decade ago.
Studies have shown that former bull market winners rarely ever regain their shine. CSCO is already a mega cap stock and its ability to exponentially expand their market cap is over.
The stock market is so huge and there are so many companies out there that pay big dividends and have the ability to exponentially expand in the future.
If you are "trading" CSCO you can make money all day long. If you are buying CSCO and thinking this is some good long term investment, you will be sorely disappointed. Even if this stock could get going again and go up, there are so many investors and mutual funds dying to unload shares they have been stuck with for over a decade that most of you will be long gone before CSCO ever regains even $40 a share. And that is assuming a multi year rip roaring bull market, because that is the only market a company like CSCO can thrive in. The stock supply overhang is massive.
Stop listening to Wall Street and all the shills and liars who tell you buy CSCO. All they really want is to dump their shares on unsuspecting mom and pop American investors.
Cisco: A Deeply Undervalued Stock Worth $30 [View article]
"Care to name these "other amazing companies" ...that are not also selling at "amazing" multiples?"
Not really...no. However they are companies not many people would be interested in because they are not touted, drilled, manipulated and brainwashed into the minds of Americans day in and day out.
The fact that there are so many people (and funds) that after 12 years still hope and pray that CSCO some how, some way, gets back to their buy point is pretty sad. If anyone owns CSCO over $30, it should have been sold long ago and the money re-directed into other investments. Former bull market winners are very rarely new bull market leaders in the future.
Cisco: A Deeply Undervalued Stock Worth $30 [View article]
CSCO is done. Over. It exists in the media, as a so called technology bellwether (barf) because Wall Street, fund managers, etc, are so far underwater in their positions from a decade ago they HAVE to keep this thing alive in order to hopefully break even...someday.
CSCO has done nothing. They waste tons of money on useless buybacks to offset the tons of options they hand out to insiders.
I still find it hard to believe, with all the other amazing companies out there (companies that pay out far more in dividends and have the ability to exponentially expand their market caps) that people still waste their time "hoping and praying" that CSCO goes up.
If CSCO hasn't gone up since 2000 and hasn't gone up much over the past 5 years, what do you think the next big market downturn is going to do to the share price??
CSCO is a former bull market leader, that is over owned by institutions, desperate to unload their shares when they can.
Federal authorities have charged 107 doctors, nurses and social workers with Medicare fraud today in a nationwide crackdown on mental-health scams that has already bilked the program of nearly $452M. In dollar terms, the take-down ranks as the largest Medicare bust in U.S. history. Community mental-health centers are the latest trend in Medicare fraud, a crime seems to continually morph itself into increasingly more-complex schemes as the years progress. [View news story]
I have said it once and I will say it again:
There are a few million Americans we can put behind bars when you include medicare fraud, disability fraud and phony unemployment fraud.
Perfect Retirement Investing Is The Enemy Of Good Retirement Investing [View article]
Thank you Alfredo.
I have the utmost respect for what Mike and Surf had to say.
However relying on what the government is telling you is risky. The same government who tells us that there is no inflation in the CPI because they "choose" to remove what they consider to be volatile food and energy costs. I am sure the average American family who earn $45K and is having a hard time with $4.00 gas & rising grocery bills would disagree with government statistics.
The likely outcome in the future for Social Security may not be outright insolvency, however it is going to be greatly reduced and certainly means tested on a case by case basis.
Judging by how broke most of our nation inhabitants are and how broke they are likely to be in the future............. even if you have a net worth of a mere $100K, you are going to be considered to "wealthy" to receive social security at all because your neighbor down the street who took no responsibility for their future is going to need to be completely taken care of by the government in the future.
I think that is the real future for social security. Greatly reduced and means tested on a case by case basis.
Perfect Retirement Investing Is The Enemy Of Good Retirement Investing [View article]
tzac22:
You bring up good points. However, I know I have read numerous times about how people with pensions also have outstanding loans against them, not as much as really stated or in fact their pensions are quite small. With the pension under-funding going on all over the country, pensions in general can no longer be afforded by most companies. Schools, police, government, for the most part are still offered generous pensions and benefits, though I think they too may be trimmed way back over the next generation.
I think the real end game here is that people have to take control of their own lives and stop wasting so much time on other meaningless things in life.
Microsoft: No Longer A 'Boring' Investment [View article]
Duane:
The problem is you assume that is all there is to investing. That if all your metrics are all set up in a row, that everything should take care of itself. Security analysis is flawed because most known work was written long before the advent of computers, HFT, corrupt investment banks, coupled with massive deception put forth by Wall Street to con average Americans into buying the same old stocks over and over.
Security analysis is only a small part of an investing picture. The items mentioned previously, coupled with investor emotions make up most of what drives stock prices today. If you are basing all your investing decisions on security analysis alone you will lose.
The times have changed from long ago. Investing requires understanding of today's markets and how they "really" work. Not what a few good men wrote almost 90 years ago.
BTW sure if you bought on Oct.8th 2008 things are great. Thats a big if. If your bought before then or in 1999, you made nothing. Cherry picking a time frame to make your point is weak.
I have said before, traders can make money all day with MSFT. Investors that have bought under $30 are finally making $$. Everyone else higher has yet to break even and start making money other than dividends.
Microsoft: No Longer A 'Boring' Investment [View article]
"The specific "overhang" that you speak of doesn't exist. I don't think there is any evidence for it"
Colin: For every seller there is a buyer. For every buyer there is a seller.
When MSFT was $58 per share in 1999 someone was getting out and someone was buying. All the way down. That's the way it works. Evidence? If you are looking for a list of names, faces, etc. of course there is none. It is common sense. When someone was selling a share @ $58 back in 1999 to get out of the stock, someone was buying. Could that person then have sold lower? Yes. However many people like William O'Neil, who's work and study of the markets and more importantly behavior of investors shows time and time again that people remain in denial about stocks and are very good at taking losses in the "hope" that they get their money back someday rather then sell, take a loss and move on.
Colin you made great points all through your post. I agree with all of them. Even just after the 2000 tech crash, MSFT continues to this day to be a cash generating machine. Sure they fell behind their rivals however that hasn't hurt their ability to generate billions each quarter and year. All this is great.
And yet.....the stock has done little if anything at all. Save for the dividend it now pays it has been 100% dead money for most people for 12 years.
How can this be with all that good news and all the good points you bring up?
You see there are those who invest "in" Wall Street's game and end up playing by the big boys rules and there are those who invest "around" Wall Street's game, know how the game really works and have out performed 99% of all so called pro's over the past 12 years.
MSFT is a Wall Street stock. (Like many stocks out there) It is over owned by institutions, has a huge number of shares outstanding, has seen its best stock percentage return days already due to the inability to exponentially expand it's market cap, and worst of all:
It is a stock "used" by Wall Street make themselves money.
Wall Street, just like a good at home trader uses MSFT all day long to generate millions in trading profits, upgrades and downgrades provide Wall Street with ample trading profits due to pre-postioning on announcements (the SEC doesn't even bother to prosecute) and worst of all:
MSFT, like all the so called "blue chip" stocks are touted as the safest stocks in the market to hold during market declines which is a complete and utter lie manufactured by Wall Street and asset managers. If anything investors do not want to hold the biggest blue chips during bear markets because the lie Wall Street does not want people to know:
Stocks like MSFT are used by institutions to raise capital during market declines because of their high liquidity, massive floats and most importantly: Wall Street knows most Americans are suckers and when some clown goes on TV and tells Americans to buy the "blue chips" during a market decline, they do only to lose another 30% on the way down to the bottom of the cycle. Oh and by the way, it has also been shown that average investors never buy at the bottom, they almost always sell at the bottom. Just human nature.
Colin sorry for the long speech. You look young in your profile so perhaps you have not been in these markets as long as I have. I am just trying to give you insight as to what I have learned during my investing career.
Remember: Time is the real enemy of investors. While people wait, in denial, hoping and praying their stocks go up, time slips by. Think of the many who own C for instance who are thinking that "someday" they might get their money back. Every day that goes by is a day missed to invest in tomorrow's winners and tomorrow's stocks that are rising now and paying twice the current yield of MSFT.
Microsoft: No Longer A 'Boring' Investment [View article]
MSFT has been here, lower, a lot lower, revisited today's price and then retreated once again. I see a lot of people ( and a lot of desperate long time holders ) hoping and praying that this time it will be different. That all the underwater money from a decade ago, all the bad investments made following the idiots like Mike Holland and others on CNBC might pay off finally.
Stocks like MSFT, CSCO, WMT, etc and many many of the mega cap stocks really do reinforce the psychology behind investing for most Americans. How they are unable to let go of the past, sell once and for all and stop looking at former bull market winners thinking they are once again going to go up another 1000% in the coming decades. All the while missing out on companies that are mid cap names, paying more than double MSFT's yield, and have the ability to exponentially expand their market caps in the future.
Just think, since the tech crash of 2000 we have had a bull market, a bear market and another bull market. Almost all the mega cap stocks from 2000 save for a few that we can count on 3 fingers have gone nowhere since then. If stocks like MSFT, and other mega cap stocks have gone nowhere with 2 bull markets since 2000, where are they going from here? It has not been a matter of tech being out of favor. Plenty of tech shares have risen since 2000, some a few hundred percent. Yet the former bull market stars from 2000 have done nothing.
Why?
Because they are over owned by institutions who use them for nothing more than trading vehicles to raise cash, hedge other positions and most of all, sell when they former purchase prices have been reached.
Between MSFT and CSCO there are enough people and institutions sitting on huge losses from 2000 that the stock overhang on these stocks are going to take decades to clean out.
Don't believe me? It's been 12 long years already. Time goes fast doesn't it? Denial can kill a person's portfolio. Do not wake up in another 10 years and then 20 years and say "Gee MSFT is finally at $45 / share and its the year 2033.
Stop listening to the idiots on CNBC, guys like Mike Holland on CNBC and all these other so called fund managers who all invest in the same 100 large cap & mega cap stocks. They are not going to create a cent of wealth for you in the future.
BTW: If you are trading MSFT, you can make $$ all day long. No question. If you bought either before 1996 or during the low of 2008, you are making $$. Everywhere else in between, you are just making money for Wall Street and the fund managers.
2 Blue Chip Tech Dividend Stocks That Are Oversold And Undervalued [View article]
Get out of the past. Sell the dead. Do some research and get with the living.
Best.
2 Blue Chip Tech Dividend Stocks That Are Oversold And Undervalued [View article]
Absolutely not. MSFT & CSCO are former bull market winners that are nothing but typical talking points for Wall Street shills.
Out of the 75,000 stocks that trade worldwide, this is all we are left with? MSFT & CSCO. Two former stars that have seen their best days. MSFT may be a cash machine and for income it would interesting with a 5% yield, but CSCO?
It just shocks me at the level of zero critical thinking that exists when people talk about stocks as investments, or a vehicle to create wealth going forward, not living in the past.
The U.S. government in April enjoyed its first monthly budget surplus since Sept. 2008, with income tax-fueled revenue helping offset below-normal spending. It's mostly a quirk in the calendar: April 1 was on a Sunday, so payments scheduled for that day were pushed into March. The $59B surplus might buy the government a few extra days until it hits the $16.394T debt ceiling. [View news story]
Terry get out and get some fresh air.
Fox news are liars.
MSNBC are liars.
CNN are lairs.
They are all one. There is no 2 party system.
The U.S. government in April enjoyed its first monthly budget surplus since Sept. 2008, with income tax-fueled revenue helping offset below-normal spending. It's mostly a quirk in the calendar: April 1 was on a Sunday, so payments scheduled for that day were pushed into March. The $59B surplus might buy the government a few extra days until it hits the $16.394T debt ceiling. [View news story]
Comical article.
It was tax month. Taxes were due. Like it or not. Of course there was a budget surplus. Next month it will be right back to the same garbage.
Dimon on CIO activities: JPM has suffered a $2B loss in the synthetic credit portfolio. "The strategy was flawed ... There were many errors, sloppiness, and bad judgment ... risk managers are fully engaged in helping to monitor the current portfolio." He goes on to say volatility could remain high over coming quarters and could cost the bank another $1B. [View news story]
I read a couple of your other comments.
First let me say congrats on working towards your MBA and your degree in economics. Hopefully you will be someone who uses those degrees to fix the mess we have in this country.
Unfortunately Mike you have only been investing since 2005 and I don't think you have really "learned" yet what really goes on in the world and Wall Street.
JP Morgan is just an arm of the FED. They survived and thrived during the 2007-2009 meltdown thanks to the FED. JPM has over $7 trillion in derivatives exposure, enough to end the world as we know it. They can never fail. They never will. Our government and FED will make sure of that. They will screw over every man, woman and child in the US if they have to, to make sure JPM survives.
They also have one of the most advanced and underhanded prop trading desks in the world. They get away with everything. They can because they are owned by the FED and run our country. Do not let anyone ever tell you different. Just ask all the innocent investors, farmers, etc who's money was stolen from them and given to JPM thanks to the MF Global mess. They are never getting most of that money back. No one in gov't wants to investigate it. They can't.
JPM makes their money with free money from the FED, stealing, cheating, and lying from others, and they are completed protected.
It is what is it. There is nothing anyone can do about it. Nothing.
Best to you.
Dimon on CIO activities: JPM has suffered a $2B loss in the synthetic credit portfolio. "The strategy was flawed ... There were many errors, sloppiness, and bad judgment ... risk managers are fully engaged in helping to monitor the current portfolio." He goes on to say volatility could remain high over coming quarters and could cost the bank another $1B. [View news story]
Cisco: A Deeply Undervalued Stock Worth $30 [View article]
CSCO basically told it's investors to drop dead after hours.
They are beyond pathetic and while Chambers, insiders, etc have gotten more wealthy, shareholders of CSCO or those who have been hoping and praying for years are getting the shaft.
I said it before and I will say it again. CSCO is done. It is a former bull market winner from another time. A time that is not coming back. They are not extraordinary, special, and their products while in demand, are not in the kind of demand that was needed over a decade ago.
Studies have shown that former bull market winners rarely ever regain their shine. CSCO is already a mega cap stock and its ability to exponentially expand their market cap is over.
The stock market is so huge and there are so many companies out there that pay big dividends and have the ability to exponentially expand in the future.
If you are "trading" CSCO you can make money all day long. If you are buying CSCO and thinking this is some good long term investment, you will be sorely disappointed. Even if this stock could get going again and go up, there are so many investors and mutual funds dying to unload shares they have been stuck with for over a decade that most of you will be long gone before CSCO ever regains even $40 a share. And that is assuming a multi year rip roaring bull market, because that is the only market a company like CSCO can thrive in. The stock supply overhang is massive.
Stop listening to Wall Street and all the shills and liars who tell you buy CSCO. All they really want is to dump their shares on unsuspecting mom and pop American investors.
Cisco: A Deeply Undervalued Stock Worth $30 [View article]
Not really...no.
However they are companies not many people would be interested in because they are not touted, drilled, manipulated and brainwashed into the minds of Americans day in and day out.
The fact that there are so many people (and funds) that after 12 years still hope and pray that CSCO some how, some way, gets back to their buy point is pretty sad. If anyone owns CSCO over $30, it should have been sold long ago and the money re-directed into other investments. Former bull market winners are very rarely new bull market leaders in the future.
Cisco: A Deeply Undervalued Stock Worth $30 [View article]
It exists in the media, as a so called technology bellwether (barf) because Wall Street, fund managers, etc, are so far underwater in their positions from a decade ago they HAVE to keep this thing alive in order to hopefully break even...someday.
CSCO has done nothing. They waste tons of money on useless buybacks to offset the tons of options they hand out to insiders.
I still find it hard to believe, with all the other amazing companies out there (companies that pay out far more in dividends and have the ability to exponentially expand their market caps) that people still waste their time "hoping and praying" that CSCO goes up.
If CSCO hasn't gone up since 2000 and hasn't gone up much over the past 5 years, what do you think the next big market downturn is going to do to the share price??
CSCO is a former bull market leader, that is over owned by institutions, desperate to unload their shares when they can.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Federal authorities have charged 107 doctors, nurses and social workers with Medicare fraud today in a nationwide crackdown on mental-health scams that has already bilked the program of nearly $452M. In dollar terms, the take-down ranks as the largest Medicare bust in U.S. history. Community mental-health centers are the latest trend in Medicare fraud, a crime seems to continually morph itself into increasingly more-complex schemes as the years progress. [View news story]
There are a few million Americans we can put behind bars when you include medicare fraud, disability fraud and phony unemployment fraud.
Keep building the prisons!!
Perfect Retirement Investing Is The Enemy Of Good Retirement Investing [View article]
I have the utmost respect for what Mike and Surf had to say.
However relying on what the government is telling you is risky. The same government who tells us that there is no inflation in the CPI because they "choose" to remove what they consider to be volatile food and energy costs. I am sure the average American family who earn $45K and is having a hard time with $4.00 gas & rising grocery bills would disagree with government statistics.
The likely outcome in the future for Social Security may not be outright insolvency, however it is going to be greatly reduced and certainly means tested on a case by case basis.
Judging by how broke most of our nation inhabitants are and how broke they are likely to be in the future............. even if you have a net worth of a mere $100K, you are going to be considered to "wealthy" to receive social security at all because your neighbor down the street who took no responsibility for their future is going to need to be completely taken care of by the government in the future.
I think that is the real future for social security. Greatly reduced and means tested on a case by case basis.
Perfect Retirement Investing Is The Enemy Of Good Retirement Investing [View article]
You bring up good points. However, I know I have read numerous times about how people with pensions also have outstanding loans against them, not as much as really stated or in fact their pensions are quite small. With the pension under-funding going on all over the country, pensions in general can no longer be afforded by most companies. Schools, police, government, for the most part are still offered generous pensions and benefits, though I think they too may be trimmed way back over the next generation.
I think the real end game here is that people have to take control of their own lives and stop wasting so much time on other meaningless things in life.