What did everyone buy today?

[Viking]

Bought a chunk of BRK today; up to 30% of portfolio; should BRK continue to fall I will continue to add. BV = $65 per B share; we are almost there. Cash is about 55%.

 

As has been mentioned, the S&P is at 1,100; not a screaming buy. Should it fall below 1,000 I will get more interested in more names.

[seshnath]

BRK all the way.  I had sold all except one share, around 80 plus to raise some cash to meet some unforeseen needs with a lot of hand wringing.  Now I am picking it back at 70s and 66+ - can't believe it can happen with BRK.  Vintage 2011 for my Roth IRA is looking good.

 

Planning to add more if prices remain at these levels.

 

Looking closely at JPM, WFC, WMT, SNE, EXM, NLY

[fenris]

Hi everyone,

I was fortunate enough to find this board about a week ago - just in time.. ;D

 

Looking into loading up on a) high quality stocks that have come under pressure and b) a lot of the stuff Bruce has to get rid off (I like the BAC and AIG warrant angle - wasn't aware of that before reading about it here on the board). As someone recently remarked in another thread: you can always find smallcap bargains and special situations. When there's a sell-off, focus on getting high quality assets on the cheap. Having that said, I will keep plenty of dry powder in case there will be more opportunities in due time (either in the US or Europe).

 

High quality and US financials aside, I wanted to take a look on another source of potentially rich returns. I think one of the prevailing rumors is that a bunch of hedge funds have to sell for various reasons (margin calls, cutting losses before investors get too nervous in light of a chunky monthly loss). If hedge funds are forced sellers in this correction, then (former) hedge fund favorites should have come under heavy pressure. This could be an opportunity to pick up some 'smart trades' at attractive prices..

 

For example, I checked a few popular reorg stocks. Some of these names have been covered on this board, some have write-ups at SumZero or VIC. I'm certainly not making any recommendations but would rather like to see if anybody else is invested or following these. A lot of them have pulled back significantly.

ABH: peak at 30, now 15.72 (has a thread here)

ACW: from 13 to 7 (featured at SumZero with a price target of $20.88 in April 2011)

CHTR: from 60 to 42

CHMT: 18 to 12

GGP: 17 to 11.75

HHC: peaked at 75, now 45

LYB: back to 28 from mid to low 40s

 

Then again, the risk/reward profile may not be as attractive if this sell-off presents you with high quality companies at low valuations.

 

Seagate and Western Digital are two hedge fund darlings as well. STX went from 17 to 10.88, WDC from 38 to 29. This may be an attractive long-term play given the recent industry consolidation (I believe Einhorn mentioned it in his most recent letter).

[rijk]

 

spread out your buys, we still have another 50% downside before stocks start to be valued in bargain territory, i.e. single digit P/E 10 valuations......

 

regards

rijk

 

http://www.multpl.com/

[tombgrt]

 

spread out your buys, we still have another 50% downside before stocks start to be valued in bargain territory, i.e. single digit P/E 10 valuations......

 

 

regards

rijk

 

http://www.multpl.com/

 

Are we looking at the same stocks? I am seeing plenty of that "single digit P/E 10" stuff?  ???

 

edit : Nvm, you were talking about Schiller's PE...

 

50% seems crazy. Many companies are already under 2009's low valuations. People seem to be looking at price ("All that downside!!!!") but don't see value. I don't get it.  

 

"The stock market is filled with individuals who know the price of everything, but the value of nothing." Phil Fisher

 

Do you truly believe we can get to an S&P500 of 560 without any major depression? I am just not seeing it and the market acts like it is a serious recession already and some things will never recover.

[DCG]

Added a bit to my positions in BRK and AAPL. Started a position in MA.

[biaggio]

 

spread out your buys, we still have another 50% downside before stocks start to be valued in bargain territory, i.e. single digit P/E 10 valuations......

 

 

regards

rijk

 

http://www.multpl.com/

 

Are we looking at the same stocks? I am seeing plenty of that "single digit P/E 10" stuff?  ???

 

edit : Nvm, you were talking about Schiller's PE...

 

50% seems crazy. Many companies are already under 2009's low valuations. People seem to be looking at price ("All that downside!!!!") but don't see value. I don't get it.  

 

"The stock market is filled with individuals who know the price of everything, but the value of nothing." Phil Fisher

 

Do you truly believe we can get to an S&P500 of 560 without any major depression? I am just not seeing it and the market acts like it is a serious recession already and some things will never recover.

 

Tom, anything is possible. I think (hope) not probable. I think that there is more manipulation  by Big Brother than we appreciate.

 

50%+ drop would be catastrophic---I am thinking of the underfunding of retirement plans, pension funds, not to mention the decrease in confidence of consumers and business.

 

I am prepared for that chance by trying to keep a sizeable amount of cash, keep working + saving/living below your means.

[rijk]

 

spread out your buys, we still have another 50% downside before stocks start to be valued in bargain territory, i.e. single digit P/E 10 valuations......

 

 

regards

rijk

 

http://www.multpl.com/

 

Are we looking at the same stocks? I am seeing plenty of that "single digit P/E 10" stuff?  ???

 

edit : Nvm, you were talking about Schiller's PE...

 

50% seems crazy. Many companies are already under 2009's low valuations. People seem to be looking at price ("All that downside!!!!") but don't see value. I don't get it.  

 

"The stock market is filled with individuals who know the price of everything, but the value of nothing." Phil Fisher

 

Do you truly believe we can get to an S&P500 of 560 without any major depression? I am just not seeing it and the market acts like it is a serious recession already and some things will never recover.

 

not saying we will see S&P 600, all i am saying is, be realistic, don't think that today's market is cheap, it's not, based on historic standards, the market is still overvalued by roughly 20% and we have only corrected 20% sofar from a 50% overvalued situation.....

 

regards

rijk

 

 

[twacowfca]

 

spread out your buys, we still have another 50% downside before stocks start to be valued in bargain territory, i.e. single digit P/E 10 valuations......

 

 

regards

rijk

 

http://www.multpl.com/

 

Are we looking at the same stocks? I am seeing plenty of that "single digit P/E 10" stuff?  ???

 

edit : Nvm, you were talking about Schiller's PE...

 

50% seems crazy. Many companies are already under 2009's low valuations. People seem to be looking at price ("All that downside!!!!") but don't see value. I don't get it.  

 

"The stock market is filled with individuals who know the price of everything, but the value of nothing." Phil Fisher

 

Do you truly believe we can get to an S&P500 of 560 without any major depression? I am just not seeing it and the market acts like it is a serious recession already and some things will never recover.

 

not saying we will see S&P 600, all i am saying is, be realistic, don't think that today's market is cheap, it's not, based on historic standards, the market is still overvalued by roughly 20% and we have only corrected 20% sofar from a 50% overvalued situation.....

 

regards

rijk

 

 

 

Agree.  Also, regime changes typically overshoot.  In this case, a reversion to the mean is not an approach to a limit.  The only thing we've bought recently is FFH because their investments are contracyclical.  There are lots of apparent bargains out there, and the futures markets predict that a bounce is coming, but the only serious tire kicking we're doing is arbitrage situations where the spread is now abnormally wide.

[rijk]

 

but the only serious tire kicking we're doing is arbitrage situations where the spread is now abnormally wide.

 

are ceph and vsea on your buy list?

 

regards

rijk

[Icarus]

Since some members have been talking about arbitrage now, anyone follow these?

 

EM

BJ

BBBB

 

CFSG

HRBN

 

I'm not buying the bottom two (CFSG and HRBN) due to my preference to avoid Chinese companies.  Also, HRBN is sketchy so some of the board members here who short might want to take a look at that.     

 

[Ross812]

I was busy yesterday:

 

Bought some Petrobakken, I was going to add to Petrobank but I wanted the 9% yield from the subsidiary

Added to BAC warrants

Bought BAC 2013 $12.50-$15.00 call spreads 

Rotated HPQ 2013 $30 calls down to $25 calls

Rotated CSCO 2013 $12.50 calls down to $8 calls

 

Today:

 

Sold BACpL position bought Monday.  The preferred shares are worht $1k but I couldn't sleep with a 30% concentration in BoA with '13 $10 leaps, call spreads, common and warrants. I feel much better with my 15% allocation.

 

Cash is at 25% 

[Packer16]

Sold some SURW & purchased more TVL, MGAM and LNET.  So many cheap companies.

 

Packer

 

 

[Guest Hester]

Since some members have been talking about arbitrage now, anyone follow these?

EM

BJ

BBBB

 

CFSG

HRBN        

 

I'm short the bottom two, the latter through puts as I was forced to cover. It's probably my highest conviction short. CFSG less conviction but good risk reward.

 

I don't know about the others but Whopper Investments blog had a brief article on BBBB, although the stock has since risen.

http://www.whopperinvestments.com/blackboard-bbbb-arbitrage-opportunity

 

[Mark Jr.]

I had an RRSP that was nearly all cash (85%), so on monday I  opened positions in BRK-B, Tata Motors, Shoppers Drug Mart, and an obscure waste-to-energy company I've been researching called Covanta Holding (CVA) - Sam Zell is the Chairman, bought them out of bankruptcy a few years back and they are currently held together with an insurance subsidiary. I liked them at $17, like them more at $14.

 

Picked up some Mitsubishi Financial to round out my Japan holdings (call me crazy).

 

Also put in some low bids on Onex Corp (not yet filled) and trying to add to my Tucows at .68 but nobody is selling that low yet.

 

I've still got lots of bullets left in this RRSP, with another one in my wife's name at around 50% cash, so bring it on.

 

Oh, I almost forgot: doubled down on ALS near $10.

[Icarus]

I don't know about the others but Whopper Investments blog had a brief article on BBBB, although the stock has since risen.

http://www.whopperinvestments.com/blackboard-bbbb-arbitrage-opportunity

 

Thanks for the link!  The Whopper Investments blog looks like it might be a good place to get ideas for small cap net-nets.   

[stahleyp]

To me, trying to really time the market is a waste of time. If you are waiting for the Shiller PE to hit again where it was in the 80s, it may or may not ever hit that mark. You can almost always find cheap companies. Figuring out where the stock market may go is impossible to do. I agree with Buffett in that you can only "time" the market a few times in your career...where stocks are easily under or overvalued. Do you think it is clearly one way or the other now?  I don't.

[Liberty]

Probably another good thread to bump up. So what has everyone been buying today?

 

I was ready to pull the trigger on a few things, but I'm all out of ammunition, as usual.  :-\

[ourkid8]

Same.  :'(      I was considering using some more leverage but decided against it. 

 

Probably another good thread to bump up. So what has everyone been buying today?

 

I was ready to pull the trigger on a few things, but I'm all out of ammunition, as usual.  :-\

[Liberty]

Same.   :'(      I was considering using some more leverage but decided against it.  

 

Out of curiosity, how much leverage do you have?

 

Having zero leverage is one of my risk control methods, and sometimes if feels like I'm in a minority around here doing that.

[Mark Jr.]

Probably another good thread to bump up. So what has everyone been buying today?

 

I was ready to pull the trigger on a few things, but I'm all out of ammunition, as usual.  :-\

 

I took advantage of today, because when I looked back I figured I didn't take full advantage of last week's meltdown. These crash days seem to always happen when I'm on vacation (greets from Barbados) and I get caught unprepared.

 

So last week, I picked up some individual stocks I had been researching and after that I thought I missed out on some wider opportunities. So today I did a bit of rebalancing and now, I'm somewhat satisfied. Going into this I had one of my RRSP accounts with all cash, so between last week and today:

 

• opened a position in Brk B and doubled it today now at 15%
  
• 6% into Leucadia
  
• 10% into Markel
  
• 7% into Onex Corp
  
• 7% into MSFT
  

 

Leaving me with 35% cash, but I have equivalent of another 35% cash in another RRSP I need to move over, I'm designating the one half of this as dry powder to keep ready if things continue to unravel and then still have that other 35% equiv. chunk in reserve just in case.

 

Then there's also cash in my wife's RRSP, around 50% so there's that too.

 

(Parsad, I wish Corner Market had an RRSP eligible fund.)

[ubuy2wron]

 

but the only serious tire kicking we're doing is arbitrage situations where the spread is now abnormally wide.

 

are ceph and vsea on your buy list?

 

regards

rijk

Schiller 10 year pe chart has been pulled out by some uber bears to indicate the mkt is not cheap. The kind of valuations that will make one pull the trigger using Schillers criteria come along not too often and an inordinate amount of money can be made buying individual companies that ARE cheap. Unless you are just buying the index it pays to pay little attention to Mr. Schillers data I have been able to compound my dough in the past 12 years at a mid teen rate investing in a mkt which has by his definition too expensive. Its a mkt of stocks as well as a stock market. I can find plenty that seems cheap enough to pull the trigger on days like today and hopefully tomorrow too. Using Schillers data you might only get one or two swings of the bat in ones lifetime.

[ourkid8]

I have a Debt / Equity (asset) ratio of approximately 0.38.  I know it's rather high but I am a 30 year old who used a lot of leverage when I first started investing about 5 years ago and then doubled my leverage during Feb / March 09' crash to juice my returns!   

 

My goal is to reach zero leverage (In 3-4 years) as well but I honestly cannot help myself during these sell-offs!  ;D 

 

Thanks,

 

S

 

Same.   :'(      I was considering using some more leverage but decided against it.  

 

Out of curiosity, how much leverage do you have?

 

Having zero leverage is one of my risk control methods, and sometimes if feels like I'm in a minority around here doing that.

[Liberty]

I have a Debt / Equity (asset) ratio of approximately 0.38.  I know it's rather high but I am a 30 year old who used a lot of leverage when I first started investing about 5 years ago and then doubled my leverage during Feb / March 09' crash to juice my returns!   

 

My goal is to reach zero leverage (In 3-4 years) as well but I honestly cannot help myself during these sell-offs!   ;D 

 

Thanks,

 

S

 

I'm 29, but was never attracted by leverage. I also don't short or use options. Guess it's a "keep it simple" thing.

[Parsad]

Then there's also cash in my wife's RRSP, around 50% so there's that too.

 

(Parsad, I wish Corner Market had an RRSP eligible fund.)

 

Me too!  Maybe at some point, but not yet.  Need to grow the existing funds.  Cheers!