I watch a lot of stock market television. Aside from catching news I like to hear process from other people. Unfortunately some of the people conducting the interviews don't know what to ask.
Yesterday right before the close Maria interviewed Alex Motola who manages the Thornburg Core Growth Fund (THCGX). The fund is a bottom up growth fund that is up almost 20% on the year. The fund only owns 40 stocks so clearly the guy is good at picking stocks. As a note just because I am top down does not mean I can not learn from a bottom up guy and at some point in the top down process, stocks do have to be chosen.
Motola mentioned that he likes Microsoft now. He cited a couple of reasons why and while they make sense who knows whether he will be right but that is not the point. The point to me is that despite the market already knowing about the new OS and so on he still likes it. Process not product. OK, good stuff.
After mentioning Microsoft, Maria's first question was about the stock having done nothing in 5 years. First the comment plays into a mistake too many people make. Often, investors care more where a stock has been than where it is going. If a stock has doubled, you buy and it then triples, who cares that it doubled before you bought it?
As Maria was saying it hasn't done anything they put up a chart that showed a nice lift over the last month or so. He said he bought it recently which Maria did not respond to. Actually since October 11 MSFT is up just under 14%. That is a big move any way you cut it.
With all those years being at the NYSE, as a reporter, I am really surprised she cannot come up with better questions.
Wikinvest Wire
5 comments:
There's only one smart guy left on that channel, and that's Dylan Ratigan. All the rest are just cheerleaders. It's a shame, really.
Ditto on Ratigan. Anyone catch the time Maria was interviewing the CEO of Encana and she didn't seem to catch the difference between gasoline and natural gas?
Yeah, I couldn't believe folks were selling off MSFT ahead of a product release cycle. The radio commentators were trashing it as a do nothing stock, no growth, etc. If you buy and hold it forever, it hasn't done much. But if you've been timing it, it's been a great stock.
I like the TV money shows just for info-tainment. I listen to tons of radio shows, too. These are great ways to gauge sentiment, too...
Let's not forget that in America TV money shows (just like any other TV shows) are not about getting people to make money through them, but to increase ratings and make money for the actual corporations broadcasting those shows. I personally don't watch them -- if I want entertainment, I watch HBO or write in my blog:
http://barbarianreport.blogspot.com
AAaHHH! Maria. I can still see her pumping up the stocks of JDSU and QCOM,...and all the others. How quickly the viewers forget how the media duped them.
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