September 18, 2017, 4:30 pm EST Invest Alongside Billionaires For $297/Qtr
As I said on Friday, people continue to look for what could bust the economy from here, and are missing out on what looks like the early stages of a boom.
We constantly hear about how the fundamentals don’t support the move in stocks. Yet, we’ve looked at plenty of fundamental reasons to believe that view (the gloom view) just doesn’t match the facts.
Remember, the two primary sources that carry the megahorn to feed the public’s appetite for market information both live in economic depression, relative to the pre-crisis days. That’s 1) traditional media, and 2) Wall Street.
As we know, the traditional media business, has been made more and more obsolete. And both the media, and Wall Street, continue to suffer from what I call “bubble bias.” Not the bubble of excess, but the bubble surrounding them that prevents them from understanding the real world and the real economy.
As I’ve said before, the Wall Street bubble for a very long time was a fat and happy one. But the for the past ten years, they came to the realization that Wall Street cash cow wasn’t going to return to the glory days. And their buddies weren’t getting their jobs back. And they’ve had market and economic crash goggles on ever since. Every data point they look at, every news item they see, every chart they study, seems to be viewed through the lens of “crash goggles.” Their bubble has been and continues to be dark.
Also, when we hear all of the messaging, we have to remember that many of the “veterans” on the trading and the news desks have no career or real-world experience prior to the great recession. Those in the low to mid 30s only know the horrors of the financial crisis and the global central bank sponsored economic world that we continue to live in today. What is viewed as a black swan event for the average person, is viewed as a high probability event for them. And why shouldn’t it? They’ve seen the near collapse of the global economy and all of the calamity that has followed. Everything else looks quite possible!
Still, as I’ve said, if you awoke today from a decade-long slumber, and I told you that unemployment was under 5%, inflation was ultra-low, gas was $2.60, mortgage rates were under 4%, you could finance a new car for 2% and the stock market was at record highs, you would probably say, 1) that makes sense (for stocks), and 2) things must be going really well! Add to that, what we discussed on Friday: household net worth is at record highs, credit growth is at record highs and credit worthiness is at record highs.
We had nearly all of the same conditions a year ago. And I wrote precisely the same thing in one of my August Pro Perspective pieces. Stocks are up 17% since.
And now we can add to this mix: We have fiscal stimulus, which I think (for the reasons we’ve discussed over past weeks) is coming closer to fruition.
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July 13, 2017, 4:00 pm EST Invest Alongside Billionaires For $297/Qtr
With some global stock barometers hitting new highs this morning, there is one spot that might benefit the most from this recently coordinated central bank promotion of a higher interest environment to come. It’s Japanese stocks.
First, a little background: Remember, in early 2016, the BOJ shocked markets when it cut its benchmark rate below zero. Counter to their desires, it shook global markets, including Japanese stocks (which they desperately wanted and needed higher). And it sent capital flowing into the yen (somewhat as a flight to safety), driving the value of the yen higher and undoing a lot of the work the BOJ had done through the first three years of its QE program. And that move to negative territory by Japan sent global yields on a mass slide.
By June, $12 trillion worth of global government bond yields were negative. That put borrowers in position to earn money by borrowing (mainly you are paying governments to park money in the “safety” of government bonds).
The move to negative yields, sponsored by Japan (the world’s third largest economy), began souring global sentiment and building in a mindset that a deflationary spiral was coming and may not be leaving, ever—for example, the world was Japan.
And then the second piece of the move by Japan came in September. It was a very important move, but widely under-valued by the media and Wall Street. It was a move that countered the negative rate mistake.
By pegging its ten-year yield at zero, Japan put a floor under global yields and opened itself to the opportunity to doing unlimited QE. They had the license to buy JGBs in unlimited amounts to maintain its zero target, in a scenario where Japan’s ten-year bond yield rises above zero. And that has been the case since the election.
The upward pressure on global interest rates since the election has put Japan in the unlimited QE zone — gobbling up JGBs to push yields back down toward zero — constantly leaning against the tide of upward pressure. That became exacerbated late last month when Draghi tipped that QE had done the job there and implied that a Fed-like normalization was in the future.
So, with the Bank of Japan fighting a tide of upward pressure on yields with unlimited QE, it should serve as a booster rocket for Japanese stocks, which still sit below the 2015 highs, and are about half of all-time record highs — even as its major economic counterparts are trading at or near all-time record highs.
9/16/15
Most energy stocks are trading at historical lows, and many have been priced like stocks in the pipeline for bankruptcy. Even valuations on the major oil companies are trading at a 35-year low relative to the broader market. And it all has to do with the weakness in the price of oil.
But that may be changing, and very soon.
The self-made billionaire energy trader, Boone Pickens, has recently called for $70 by year-end. If he misses, he says it will be because oil is “over $70, not under $70.” He’s not the only oil bull. Another famous and very wealthy energy trader has called a bottom in oil too, and is looking for much higher prices. His name is Andy Hall.
Hall was a Citigroup oil trader who made billions of dollars for the bank energy trading arm, Phibro, in the early-to-mid-2000’s. He was one of the first energy traders to load up on oil futures in 2002, when oil was sub-$30, on the thesis that a boom in demand was coming from China.
Hall reportedly made $800 million in profits for Citigroup in 2005 from his original bullish energy bet. He then made over $1 billion in 2008 for the bank, as oil prices soared to $147 a barrel and then abruptly crashed. Hall profited handsomely from both sides of the trade and earned over $100 million for himself that year.
Hall now runs a $3 billion energy hedge fund, Astenbeck Capital Management. He’s made fortunes pegging bottoms in tops in oil over the past 15 years, and he’s expecting a big bounce back in oil. In a recent letter to investors, he laid out an extensive fundamental case for higher oil prices and suggested a cut from OPEC could be coming as well. On that front, he noted that merely a hint of an OPEC policy change in August of 1986 spiked oil prices by 50% in just 24-hours.
So we have two of the greatest and wealthiest oil traders in the world that are long oil and have called for a return to much higher prices sooner rather than later.
If they are right about the future direction of oil, there will be a lot of money to be made in energy stocks on this bounce. Warren Buffett has famously said a simple rule dictates his buying: “Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.”
This statement shows the mindset of great investors and how they react when markets fall. Instead of running in fear, great investors welcome market corrections as opportunities to buy on the cheap. You don’t get rich buying into a high market or selling into a falling market. You can get rich though, buying into market corrections and beaten-down markets.
At Billionairesportfolio.com we love opportunities like those presented in the energy sector right now. But, we like to have the added protection of investing alongside a billionaire investor that has a lot of money at stake, and the power to influence change.
In this case, not only does billionaire oil magnate Boone Pickens have his money where his mouth is on his oil call, but each of the five energy stocks below are owned by at least one of the world’s great billionaire investors, and each has the potential to double (or more) if Pickens is right about oil at $70 by year-end:
1) SandRidge Energy (SD) – Billionaire investor Prem Watsa owns almost 11% of SandRidge. This stock traded above $4 last November, when oil was $70. That’s 788% higher than its current share price today.
2) Oasis Petroleum (OAS) – Billionaire hedge fund manager John Paulson owns nearly 7% of this stock. Additionally, SPO Advisory, a $7 billion activist hedge fund, owns almost 15% and has been buying the stock on almost every dip. When oil was last $70, OAS was trading $25, or 150 % higher than current levels.
3) Whiting Petroleum (WLL) – Billionaires John Paulson and Andreas Halvorsen, of the hedge fund Viking Global, own a combined 10% of WLL. And the company has officially put itself up for sale! This stock traded at $52 when oil was last at $70. That would be a 205% return from its share price today.
4) Chesapeake Energy (CHK) – Billionaire investor Carl Icahn owns 11% of CHK and recently added to his position around $13. Chesapeake has halted their dividend and said they are looking at selling assets, all of which is bullish for the stock. The last time oil was $70, Chesapeake was $25. That would be a 203% return from its price today.
5) Transocean Energy (RIG) – Billionaire Carl Icahn also owns almost 6% of Transocean. RIG recently reported better than expected earnings this month. The last time oil was $70 Transocean was $24 or almost a 50% return from its share price today.
At Billionairesportfolio.com, we follow the “best ideas” of the world’s top billionaire investors. You don’t have to be rich to take part. You don’t have to pay the hefty 2% management fee and 20% profit share to a hedge fund. You can follow the lead of powerful billionaire investors by simply buying the same stocks they do, in your own brokerage account.
How BillionairesPortfolio.com Predicted the Big Pop In Sarepta Therapeutics
The Carl Icahn Effect & How It Can Work For You
It’s widely known in the mutual fund community that poor performing stocks which are heavily owned by institutional money managers can be targets of ”window dressing” at the end of a quarter.
Window dressing is a tactic where portfolio managers sell their worst performing stocks and buy more of their best performing stocks into the end of the quarter. When they report the quarter-end holdings of their portfolios, after a little window dressing, they tend to look a little smarter when they have a book of nicely performing stocks, after purging the weaker performers.
At BillionairesPortfolio.com, what’s most interesting about this practice to us is that it can create an opportunity for us to buy billionaire-owned stocks at a price cheaper than what the billionaire paid for his shares.
Below is a list of four of the highest conviction stocks of four of the top billionaire investors in the world. Each of the stocks listed got a little cheaper in the past couple of weeks, likely due to some mutual fund window dressing, along with a dose of some broad market risk aversion:
1) Qualcomm (QCOM) – Billionaire Barry Rosenstein’s activist hedge fund Jana Partners owns $2 billion worth of Qualcomm. It’s the fund’s largest holding. Jana paid around $66 to $68 for their QCOM shares. That’s about 10 % higher than what it is selling for today. Qualcomm dropped six straight days into the end of June, typical behavior of window dressing selling. Qualcomm now has 3.05% dividend yield and sells for just 14 times earnings with one of the best balance sheets of any S&P 500 company.
2) Monsanto (MON)- Billionaire Larry Robbins of Glenview Capital was named the number one hedge fund manager by Barron’s with a 57% annualized return over the past 3 years. Monsanto is Glenview Capital’s largest position, and the fund’s average cost for Monsanto is around $112 a share. That’s 5% higher than what Monsanto sells for today. Robbins stated at hedge fund conference that Monsanto could be worth $220, or a double from its price today.
3) Chesapeake Energy (CHK) – Billionaire Carl Icahn owns 11% of Chesapeake at $17 a share, and recently added to his stake in March at $14. Chesapeake has been hammered ever since. The stock is down 25% over the past month and 10% this week alone. CHK now has a 3.2% dividend yield and sells at just two-thirds of its $15.50 book value.
4) Micron Technology (MU) – Micron is David Einhorn’s second largest position in his hedge fund Greenlight Capital. Einhorn paid around $21 a share for his nearly $1 billion position. The stock now sells for $18.78 – about 11% cheaper than what Einhorn paid. MU sells for just 6 times earnings and 4 times cash flow. Micron looks like the classic window dressing stock as it dropped 22% over the past week.
Billionairesportfolio.com, run by two veterans of the hedge fund industry, helps self-directed investors invest alongside the world’s best billionaire investors. By selecting the best ideas from the best billionaire investors and hedge funds, our exited stock investment recommendations have averaged a 27% gain since 2012.
How BillionairesPortfolio.com Predicted the Big Pop In Sarepta Therapeutics
The Carl Icahn Effect & How It Can Work For You
At BillionairesPortfolio.com, we’ve studied the track records of hundreds of billionaire investors and billion-dollar hedge funds. And one man stands above the rest, as the best investor of all-time.
I’m sure most would consider Warren Buffett to be the best investor ever. But the numbers tell a different story. In fact, the greatest investor of all-time is billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn.
Incredibly, both Icahn and Buffett have been building their respective investment empires for close to five decades. And more incredibly, they remain at the top of their profession.
Icahn has, unequivocally, shown superior skill as an investor.
Consider this: Icahn has returned 31% annualized since 1968. That would turn every $1,000 invested with Icahn into $325 million today – an incredible number. Buffett, on the other hand, returned 19.5% annualized during virtually the same time period. Buffett’s growth rate over that length of time is indeed amazing too. But due to the power of compounding, the wealth creation of Buffett, from pure investment returns, pales in comparison to that of Icahn. Icahn’s investment skill has created $65 to every $1 created by Buffett.
So how has Icahn been able to outperform Warren Buffett (and the broad stock market) by so much and for so long?
Of course, Icahn is a dogged shareholder activist and often an agitator of corporate management. Key to his playbook is using power and influence to control his own destiny on stocks he invests in.
When we look strictly across the stocks in his portfolio, without necessarily the story-lines, we can see some portfolio traits that have made Carl Icahn the world’s greatest investor.
Trait #1: The media, mutual funds, CNBC, finance books — they all say having a high win rate is paramount to good investing. They tell you that the most important thing is being right. Like many widely accepted adages, it happens to be dead wrong. Billionaire iconic hedge fund investor, George Soros, says “it’s not whether you’re right or wrong, but how much money you make when you’re right and how much money you lose when you’re wrong.”
Over the past 20 years, the stocks in Icahn’s portfolio have a win rate only a tad bit better than a coin toss. But he puts himself in position, so that when he wins, he has the chance to win big! This is the concept of asymmetrical risk to return, a concept often found in the wealth creation of billionaires. They like to invest in opportunities with limited risk and huge potential return.
Among Icahn’s stocks, his winners were almost twice that of his losers.
Trait #2: Icahn became rich by taking concentrated bets throughout his career. As Buffett has famously said, “you only need one or two great ideas a year to get rich.” This is exemplified in Icahn’s portfolio. His big win on Netflix garnered a 463% return in just 12 months, between 2012 and 2013.
Trait #3: Patience is king. You don’t have to go to Harvard or have a Goldman Sachs investing pedigree to have patience. And many times, that can be the difference between making money and losing money in investing. Icahn has an average holding period of over two years.
Trait #4: Risk! When you hunt for big returns, you must be willing to accept drawdowns and losers. Icahn has multiple stocks over the past 20 years that have been full losers (i.e. they went to zero). But when you have a portfolio full of stocks with big potential, in the end the big winners can more than pay for the losers.
With these key themes in his portfolio, Icahn has achieved the greatest track record of any investor alive, and a net worth in excess of $25 billion along the way. And he has done it with a portfolio of stocks that most investors would likely run away from.
Want to invest like the greatest investor of all-time? According to his most recent 13F filings, Icahn’s five biggest stock positions (aside from his holding company) are Apple (AAPL), CVR Energy (CVI), eBAY (EBAY), Federal Modul Holdings (FDML) and Hologic (HOLX).
Billionairesportfolio.com, run by two veterans of the hedge fund industry, helps self-directed investors invest alongside the world’s best billionaire investors. By selecting the best ideas from the best billionaire investors and hedge funds, our exited stock investment recommendations have averaged a 31% gain since 2012.
How BillionairesPortfolio.com Predicted the Big Pop In Sarepta Therapeutics
The Carl Icahn Effect & How It Can Work For You
3/27/2014
One of the most profitable ways to piggyback the world’s best billionaire investors and hedge funds is by following their newest positions.
Over the past two weeks there has been significant buying from billionaire investors and hedge funds, which is usually a bullish sign for stocks. Let’s take a look at some of the most recent transactions:
1) Chesapeake Energy (CHK) – Legendary billionaire activist Carl Icahn recently added to his already large position in Chesapeake last week, buying 6.6 million shares at average price of $14.15. That gives Icahn an 11% stake. Chesapeake looks cheap at 9 times earnings, with a dividend yield of 2.5%, and selling at just two thirds of its book value of $21 a share.
2) Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX) – Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, of Pershing Square, recently upped his stake in Valeant from 4.9% to 5.7% — at an average price of $196.72. Valeant has been a high flyer. It’s up 38% in 2015 and 54% over the past year. It’s hard to argue with Ackman’s timing. Almost every stock he has purchased over the past 2 years has gone straight up.
3) Manitowoc Company Inc. (MTW) – Billionaire hedge fund manager Larry Robbins, of Glenview Capital Management, initiated a new 6.3% position in Manitowoc — at an average price of $20.41. Manitowoc also happens to be owned by billionaire Carl Icahn. Icahn recently forced the company to split into separate companies, which could potentially unlock $10 of hidden value in this stock according to many wall street analysts.
4) EXA Corporation (EXA) – Billionaire George Soros recently purchased 1.26 million shares of EXA, or 9% of the company, at an average price of $10.10. EXA is small cap software and services company to the automotive industry that has been rumored to be an acquisition target at $16 to $20 share. That would be a 30% to 60% premium from its share price today.
BillionairesPortfolio.com helps average investors invest alongside Wall Street billionaires. By selecting the best ideas from the best billionaire investors and hedge funds, our exited stock investment recommendations have averaged a 31% gain since 2012, beating even the great Carl Icahn’s record for the same period.
How to Invest Alongside Billionaire Investors without Having a Billion Dollars
Five Stocks with Triple-Digit Potential If Boone Pickens Is Right About $80 Oil
