Hier die Supertips von Barrons....nun sind wir alle reich!!! - 500 Beiträge pro Seite

[Cyberfrank]

WEEKDAY TRADER |


The Worst of a Bad Bunch

By BARRON`S ONLINE STAFF

Weekday Trader Winners -- First Quarter 2003

EVEN IN THIS LOUSY MARKET, Weekday Trader had some winning stocks, as we pointed out on Wednesday.

Today, we write the obituaries.

In this equal-opportunity bear market, the Grim Reaper didn`t discriminate when it came to our losers, either: They came from technology, health care, financial services, the Old Economy, you name it.

Let`s start off with McDonald`s, whose stock price has fallen, along with its arches. In a January 31, 2002 Weekday Trader, we called it one of the multinational companies that would fare well in a tough economy. The stock is down 47%, however, way behind the Standard & Poor`s 500 Index, thanks to anemic earnings and persistent concerns about profit growth. (All of the stories we mention here appeared in the first quarter of 2002, since our benchmark is how a stock performed over the following year.)


Last March 4 we said that some stocks may have been unfairly tainted by corporate accounting scandals involving Enron and WorldCom. One of them was insurer American International Group, then the subject of federal inquiries regarding accounting for loans. The stock, however, is down 34% since the story ran, trailing the broader market.

We also took some knocks in health care. In a March 19 piece, Weekday Trader pointed out that while the mania over mapping the human genome had ended, researchers still needed products made by life sciences instruments makers. But shares of the two companies we featured, Waters and Applied Biosystems, have both fallen about 30%, lagging the S&P.

After Schering-Plough announced it would sell blockbuster allergy drug Claritin over the counter, the stock price sank, creating a buying opportunity, we opined. But Schering`s stock is off 47% since our March 11, 2002 story. Claritin`s change and mounting generic competition will cause Schering`s sales to fall this year--not exactly a clean bill of health.

We also need to take our medicine for Bristol-Meyers, whose shares have tumbled 58% since we mentioned it favorably last January 7.

Meanwhile, technology stocks were a minefield, some good calls notwithstanding. Our biggest stumbling block: stocks that looked undervalued. In the 12 months ending March 31, the Nasdaq Composite index fell 27%, hardly a solid foundation for value investing, it turned out.

Our biggest tech loser: LSI Logic, whose shares have lost nearly three-quarters of their value since last March 18, when we praised the company, which makes chips for DVD players, video game consoles and cell phones. The shares did take off--in the other direction--as demand softened for those products.


We also paid dearly for calling the bottom on the former tech darling Sun Microsystems The shares are down more than 60% since then our March 6, 2002 story. Corporate buyers have migrated to cheaper wares from Sun`s proprietary computer servers. Ouch!

On March 7, 2002, we noted that investors were taking a shine to Apple Computer, thanks to the company`s stylish new iMac computer that was winning rave reviews. But good press didn`t translate into good business. The stock has lost 42% of its value since then.

Last February 6, Weekday Trader argued that Computer Sciences` successful turnaround would continue. While the computer services company signed more government deals, including a $700-million contract with the U.S. Army two months ago, the shares have suffered amid accounting concerns. The stock has fallen by 30% since our story ran.

Fiber optic cable maker Corning looked beaten down enough when we wrote about it on January 14, 2002. Wrong! The shares have slipped 40%, weighed down by the glut of capacity in the telecom sector.

Another tech loser was Amdocs, which offers billing services to telecom companies. With a broad customer base, long-term contracts and $1 billion in cash, Amdocs seemed able to weather the telecom storm–or so we said last January 29. But spending has continued to suffer, and providers are reluctant to sign long-term deals. Amdocs shares have lost 63% since that story ran.

In early 2002, EarthLink looked like an Internet access provider that could gain share at the expense of troubled AOL Time Warner. But demand for dial-up service has waned while EarthLink fends off rivals like United Online.

Result: The shares have fallen 43% since last January 21.

Adaptec fell 47% since our February 28, 2002 story suggested that the company, which makes storage networking products, had some unlocked value.

It`s been a tough time for financial services stocks, what with the bear market, the sluggish economy and New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer breathing down the necks of some of Wall Street`s top firms.

Some of our biggest financial services losers were high-profile names, including J.P. Morgan Chase.

As 2002 started, we thought that all the bad news was in the stock and an eventual economic rebound would lift it, too. But we all know how that`s turned out, and JPM`s shares have dropped 36% since last January 3, underperforming the market.

In that same story, we also wrote favorably about Hartford Financial Services, partly because we expected a rebound in equities to boost its asset-management division. But equity asset managers have continued to take it on the chin, causing the stock to lose 43% of its value since the story ran.

On March 14, 2002, Weekday Trader spotted positive signs for some credit-card companies as retail sales and industrial production were picking up while delinquencies were stabilizing.

That turned out to be a false start, and the two stocks mentioned in that story, Capital One Financial and Metris Companies, have fallen hard.

Capital One Financial has lost half its value since then, while Metris is down 90%, making it our single biggest loser.

Weekday Trader wrote a favorable story about MGIC Investment, a private mortgage insurer, last February 11. We viewed it as a good way to play the mortgage and refinancing boom, but the sluggish economy has ruined that. The stock is off 40%.

Toys R Us was a beaten-up "value" stock when Weekday Trader weighed in on February 21, 2002. We liked its franchise, vast merchandise selection and the stock`s attractive valuation. Yet the shares have fallen 52% since our story ran, amid weak demand and increased competition from the likes of Wal-Mart Stores.


You`d think that skeptical stories, in which we argued that a stock might be overvalued, would have been a sure ticket to success this time around. (We consider a critical story a loser if the stock outperformed the S&P, as was the case with several of our skeptical pieces.)

But it wasn`t. Take Applebee`s, the restaurant chain. Insider selling, together with a lofty valuation, made the stock look ripe for a fall. Wrong! The shares are up 15% since our March 5 story, blowing away the S&P`s decline of 26% during that time.

In a February 4 story, BB&T looked pricey, and we raised questions about credit quality at some regional banks. BB&T has lost 9% since then, well ahead of the broader market.

On March 5, we spotted some heavy insider selling. But one name we mentioned, media company E.W. Scripps, is down only 1%, easily topping the market.

It`s been a Hobbesian market–nasty, brutish and full of shorts—and we`ve taken our lumps. Let`s hope they heal before we do this again in July.

Staff writers Dimitra DeFotis, Eric Fleming and Allison Krampf contributed to this story, which was edited by Lawrence Strauss.

[Ariminios]

Anscheinend brauch man nur das Gegenteil von deren Tips zu machen!