4Comments

ETF Shoppers: Accounting Trickery At Its Worst In Financial Sector

There are 25 financial sector ETFs. Per Figure 1, these 25 ETFs have drastically different stock holdings and, therefore, allocations. The lowest number of holdings is 24 while the highest is 496. For starters, investors interested in the financial sector cannot expect many good investment options given that the sector gets my “dangerous” rating and ranks ninth out of the ten sectors that make up the economy. Details are in our sector roadmap report.
by David Trainer, Founder & CEO
0Comments

Picking The Diamonds Out of The ETF Rough

Having too many choices can be intimidating. And there are definitely lots of choices when it comes to ETFs. For example, in the equity market alone, there 30+ technology sector ETFs, or 35 ‘large cap value’ and 20 financial ETFs. A very healthy selection abounds for every category of ETF. The problem is that these ETFs are not made the same even though they may be in the same category. There are major differences in methodologies between funds, which results in drastically different holdings even within a given sector. See Figure 1.
by David Trainer, Founder & CEO
New Constructs
1Comments

Sell Starbucks (SBUX) – Still A Bad Stock

Similar to my prior interviews on SBUX, I found it easy to make the bear case for a stock that is as expensive as Starbucks (SBUX). As my regular readers know, when I say "expensive", I back that up with details such as: to justify its $40 stock price (closing price from prior day), SBUX had to grow profits at 10% compounded annually for more than 25 years.
by David Trainer, Founder & CEO
1Comments

Buy LRCX: More Value Than Meets the Eye

Most of my research and publishing tends to focus on companies manipulating accounting rules to make their reported earnings look better than the real economic cash flows of their business. It is unfortunately rare that I find a company whose economic earnings are outpacing the reported accounting results and whose stock is cheap. One such company is Lam Research (LRCX – very attractive rating). One of September’s most attractive stocks, LRCX offers investors hidden value.
by David Trainer, Founder & CEO
New Constructs
0Comments

Should Directors Ignore Those One-Time Items?

I do not think so. The question, however, is not so much about what directors ignore. You cannot ignore something about which you are unaware. The real issue is that most directors and investors are simply unaware of the many one-time items because they are buried deep in the annals of footnotes in annual reports or 10-K filings.
by David Trainer, Founder & CEO
2Comments

S&P’s Downgrade Did Us a Favor

Too much of the rhetoric surrounding S&P’s downgrade of US debt misses the largest and most important point made by S&P’s bold move: the U.S. financial situation is very bad and getting worse with no reconciliation in sight. It is difficult to deny the poor credit quality of an entity that grossly overspends its revenues, has a mountain of debt (most of which matures within the next few years) and has taken no meaningful steps toward remedying the situation? By quibbling over S&P’s procedures and calculations, the Treasury and White House reveal that they have no solid rationale for disagreeing with the downgrade.
by David Trainer, Founder & CEO