Thanks for the catch Erik!
Oils problem is a positive for a lot of stocks! Think how much savings WalMart must be enjoying - or the airlines - or UPS and FedEx.... The problem with that is you have to be able to see a problem and then figure who will benefit. I'm too busy enjoying other parts of life to be that nimble and you must be early to trade like that.
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Originally Posted by ErikLS2
The SPY is for the S&P 500, not the DOW, just to clarify. Not poking at you Greg, I know you know and just flubbed one, I'm just mentioning it for the newbs. I always look at charts of companies or funds against that because if they haven't beaten it then why be in them really.
Oil is a tough one and like anything else we're just predicting the future. I think use is going to go down, the CAFE standard for 2025 is 54.5 MPG, double what it was in 2011. The oil companies are huge, and generally smart, and will figure it out. I can't help but wonder if they'll have to figure out batteries here pretty soon though. I sure am tempted to buy some CVX (where I but gas regularly) at a 5% dividend, I just personally don't think the stock price is going anywhere for a while and there is some risk that dividend will get cut.
It hasn't gotten any easier with all the ETF's and indexes either. They are where the majority of the money is I believe and often the best of breed stocks will go down in step with the worst of breed because of them.
I still think the best theory is buy what you know. If I would have done that a long time ago with Costco, Southwest Airlines, Snap On, Kroger, Under Armour (among others) I would have done pretty well and I would have felt reasonably safe because I would have picked up on a slide in products or services pretty quickly. I would love to buy some biotech as I think it's pretty exciting what they're doing with immunotherapy these days but I know nothing about it and would have no real idea why something went down all of a sudden (or up).
To me everything seems more on the expensive end than the cheap end but if earnings continue to steadily rise we might have a ways to go. I think when the Fed raises interest rates it will be a boost too, after an initial shock down, because it will instill a bit of confidence that things are finally on a steady uptrend. Ok, I'm done predicting the future 
I'm curious, how many of you listen to the conference calls and read quarterly earnings reports of the companies you own stock in? |