February 12 Post
Hi Again,
Disney! Disney! Remember what I have been mentioning about Disney for the past few
months? Remember how all the best “pundits” and money managers lost all hope and
confidence in Bob Iger and the top managers of Disney? I kept buying (on my personal
account) according to my strategy. I bought one at a certain price when it went down further
(i.e. 10%) sold that and bought 10 at the lower price; and I kept doing this till I got to the
bottom. On 9/25/23 I found the bottom of Disney at $80.74. On 2/8/24, Disney hit $110! That
is a 37+% gain in 136 days!! Poor Josh Brown! He was waiting for Disney to hit $70 to buy !
Now it is difficult to find any “haters’ of Disney. What made Disney shoot up last week? Very
good news came out last week. 50% increase in dividends. Earnings to grow 20% in 2024 (over
2023). Many movies will come out soon. Entry in to the gaming world dominated by teenagers.
Finding partners for ESPN.
How about Meta/Facebook? I did the same with it and when all the Wall Street pundits were
negative on Zuckerberg, I found the bottom and bought it around $85. Experts were saying that
Zuckerberg has lost his way and he is a fool to invest so much on the Metaverse etc. and they
have no way of monetizing etc. That was nonsense. Meta/Facebook always had tools such as
Whatsapp (2 billion+ subscribers) to monetize. When they started laying off people, the stock
went up. Wall Street rejoices in human misery. Now all the experts are saying that Meta should
have never gone down to $85. Last week it hit 478!
Management is so confident in the company's prospects that Meta declared its first-ever
quarterly dividend of $0.50 per share, a yield of about 0.44%. Marketers pulled back on
digital ad spending -- which accounts for the lion's share of Meta's revenue. For the first
time in its history, the company experienced three consecutive quarters of declining
revenue growth, which sent its stock price plunging 64%. However, a rebound in the ad
market and excitement around artificial intelligence (AI) lit a fire under Meta Platforms last
year, sending the stock up 194%. As impressive as its performance has been, this could
be just the beginning. Let's look at several factors that could play into a banner year for
Meta Platforms and why there could be much more growth ahead. The macroeconomic
landscape aside, one of the biggest contributors to Meta's improving outlook was the
efforts it took last year to rein in spending, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg dubbed the
company's "year of efficiency." Initially, management expected full-year 2023 expenses in
a range of $94 billion to $100 billion. However, several revised estimates and much belt-
tightening later, Meta's expenses for the year, combined with the recovering digital
advertising market, had a dramatic effect on Meta's recent financial results. For the fourth
quarter, revenue of $40 billion marked 25% year-over-year growth, while its diluted
earnings per share of $5.33 represented a 203% surge. Meta has already said it expects
its full-year expenses to be higher in 2024, but existing cost controls have already set the
stage for higher profits.ar clocked in at just $88 billion -- which in turn helped boost the
company's bottom line. (Danny Vena, The Motley Fool, 2/10/24)
2
The secret to making money is easy but difficult to do. Over the past 40 years I have
noticed that most Wall Stret “experts” are on the “same page” – at any given time. Also,
known as the “herd mentality”. When you follow the “herd” and when the “herd” goes in to
the slaughterhouse, you also get slaughtered! I am going to love AI on Wall Street as I can
bet against AI and AI will create more of a “herd mentality”. AI is not the “voice of God”. AI
will be the summarization of the collective voice of Wall Street experts. The secret to
making money on Wall Street is to intuitively or analytically know when the “experts” are
wrong and go in the opposite direction-very cautiously, and slowly.
Irrational Wall Street! All the experts expected 8 interest cuts in 2024 with the first one coming
in March 2024! The probability of that happening is very low and if it does, we will have a
worse problem with inflation. As the experts expected rates to drop sharply and fast, the value
stocks, small caps and others that got left behind over the past few years rallied. It seems like
that was very short lived.
After every Fed decision, bond king, Jeffrey Gundlach come on CNBC. I have a lot of respect
for Mr. Gundlach. Here are some of the things he mentioned on 1/31/24:
85% of the states reported that inflation is on the rise again.
Yet, inflation is coming down so interest rates will come down.
Feds took too long to normalize rates and now they might take too long to reduce rates.
Probably the Feds will cut rates after June 2024.
Powell not concerned about politics or holding on to his position.
When people refer to the market as “goldilocks” or “nirvana”, it makes him nervous as
the same happened in 1999.
Buy treasury bonds but keep away from other bonds.
Still a 2024 recession is possible.
Buy 2 to 5 yr bonds.
ADP payroll data not good. Bonds were down.
Fed policy of higher for longer is bad for banks; especially regional banks.
Money printing and higher for longer will have negative effects but those move in slow
motion, taking a long time.
2028 will be year when deficits will be the main issue in elections-not 2024.
Treasury real rates are attractive now.
The US Dollar will remain stable and get weaker when we hit a recession.
People should invest in the Indian market as it is the most promising economy.
Did you hear that the US commercial real estate market is heading towards doomsday? The real
estate crisis in the People’s Republic of China is very severe. The real estate crisis in Germany
is expected to be worse than the US real estate crisis of 2007. Stay tuned!