October 31, 2008

HousingPANIC Stupid Question of the Day


What are the five best positioned companies in the world today?





* long aapl goog

39 comments:

Anonymous said...

jnj
google

Anonymous said...

Southwest airlines.

Anonymous said...

Vonage,AIG,Circuit City,GM and of course Playboy....
The dream Portfolio

Anonymous said...

BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY only AAA insurance company left standing, is THE buyer of last resort, 1 Billion a month coming in the door. Will eventually be added to the S&P 500 or maybe even the DOW.

Anonymous said...

99 cents stores.
Coconutz!

Anonymous said...

Google
Apple
Research in Motion
J&J
Vestas

Anonymous said...

Google? Apple? You guys serious? What is this, Web-dot-com 5.0 or something? Google ain't nearly as powerful as you think. Nor is AAPL. Wildly overvalued.

Chris said...

AFAM (Almost Family)

Provides home health care services which will be sorely needed in the coming years. This stock is actually up more than 20% over the past year.

Anonymous said...

JNJ
PG
MMM
MSFT
PEP
K

Anonymous said...

Apple yes, Google no.

W. Latif Ayubi said...

Walmart, Kraft, etc.
Consumer Staples.

Everything else is icing

Anonymous said...

Apple ='s Dell of 2000
Google ='s Yahoo of 2000


No sustainable advantage. These companies will be replaced by someone else in the future.


Lets talk about stocks with solid MOATS, sustainable economic advantages, no fads!

Anonymous said...

DEO, PM, HNZ, CPB, WMI - they will NEVER EVER go out of business or become obsolete.

Anonymous said...

The question is the current 5 best positioned companies, not the current 5 best stock picks.

mcd
ko
xom
jnj
pg
wmt

Oops, that's six. I don't see these guys asking for a bailout any time soon.

Now, what are the best stock picks right now? Different story.

And Keith - aapl? are you serious? You confuse me sometimes.

blogger said...

"Best Positioned" is the criteria folks.

Don't look at stock prices. Look at positioning.

My theory is that the stock prices will then take care of themselves (long term)

Some of these consumer staples names are your best picks so far. Anyone see a world anytime in the next 100 years where we don't have Heinz ketchup?

If it's not Heinz, it's crap.

I'm off to go get a burger. Hope they have Heinz.

Anonymous said...

Oh yeah, who makes Kool Aid? 'Cause that company has got to be making big bucks right now. ;)

Anonymous said...

The five best positioned companies?

1. The People's Republic of China, Inc. Too bad they don't publicly trade their stock. I understand that we'll all be working for this corporation sometime in the very near future.

2. New York Football Giants, Inc. Unless Eli gets hurt.

3. Any porn company

4. Any alcohol distilling company.

5. Any company which ultimately pockets the $$$ generated from any nursing home. You know, one of those hidden companies, buried beneath layer after layer of holding companies, trusts, limited partnerships, LLCs, subsidaries, successors, affilates, and the like. On the board of these companies there's usually a son or daughter of a US senator or US representative. It's not a bad job, if you can stand getting paid six figures to warm a chair for five minutes once per year.

Anonymous said...

The NEW bubble is farmland. It has doubled and even tripled in the Midwest. Please note that grain commodities are down 50% since this summer. Hunting ground(non-tillable) is now priced where productive, tillable ground was 5-10 years ago.
Poor farmers.
Where's my f'ing farm aid?
I admit I take solace knowing that their 2nd and 3rd homes in Florida have ripped them a new arse-hole.

Anonymous said...

upthecreek said...
Vonage,AIG,Circuit City,GM and of course Playboy....
The dream Portfolio

Hey, you gotta admit that a naked playmate in a convertible caddie sounds awful appealing.

Anonymous said...

Anyone see a world anytime in the next 100 years where we don't have Heinz ketchup?
If it's not Heinz, it's crap.
I'm off to go get a burger. Hope they have Heinz.

John Kerry thanks you.

Anonymous said...

Exxon Mobil
Devon Oil
Walmart
BHP
Suncor (canadian tar sands)

Anonymous said...

Valero
Dollar Tree
Google
Coca Cola
WalMart

Anonymous said...

My 5 best positioned companies..1) Johnson & Johnson- they've withstood everything for a long ass time 2) Microsoft- they are big, have a lot of cash, can easily shrink and still remain profitable for at least 10 years 3)Any water company 4)McDonalds- they are still decent, cheap food with a great brand that will increase sales as more restaurants go out of bizness 5)Sotheby's- they've been in business since 1744!! They've weathered every kind of economy possible. History tells me that they'll probably do fine and one day will probably own Ebay.

Anonymous said...

DEO - Beer and booze do well in any economic climate and they own some of the best brands. STZ not bad either. I actually do not own this yet as I am waiting for it to fall a bit more. Peaked at 90, currently 62.

PM - The makers of Marlboro cigarettes and no US exposure. How many people are there in China?

HNZ - As duly noted, the best Ketchup in the entire world. And, the 57 stands for varieties of pickles. They also make a damn good pickle. Yeah, Kerry's a douche, but that was marriage.

CPB - Cheap soup for the coming soup lines. It's also a bit of nostalgia - who the F doesn't like a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup on occasion - and, if you don't we should just sterilize you.

WMI - There will always be more and more garbage. Not sexy, but who gives a shit.

Anonymous said...

and V - unlike the others, they make money from the transaction, and are not on the hook for the balance. It was/is a little high, but soon there will be billions of people using nothing but electronic payment and there will be no cash.

Anonymous said...

AAPL!? I guess that's what every numb nut, big spender, foreclosed homeowner or laid off auto worker needs, high tech gadgets.
But let's get real. Tough times on the horizon. People will always find $$ for their vices, tobacco, booze and porn will never get out of style no matter how bad things get. I wish there would be a "vice fund" in my 401K, that's a sure winner.
Energy, we need energy otherwise the lights go out.
COP - low P/E + dividend, can't go wrong with ConocoPhillips
CCJ - in case nuclear makes a revival
ARD - stranded oil recovery
HLX - offshore oil
TTES - oil rig services
OYOG - speculative (3D imaging of oil reservoirs)
Those are some of my favorites. They are all on sale right now, buy one get one free.

Roscoe said...

I think Playboy is toast once Hef dies. It is hard to compete with free (as in beer) porn on the Internet, and no one reads well enough to dig into the articles anymore.

Anonymous said...

BEARX.....

blogger said...

Good point on Heinz pickles. Man, I'm addicted. I found an internet source that imports them here, $10 a bottle for the dill chips. And worth every penny.

Why Heinz doesn't sell them in the stores makes no sense. New markets to conquer though!

Do you know they don't sell Tylenol over here either. Go figure.

I'm buying HNZ next week though. Ketchup and pickles I think are depression-proof.

Anonymous said...

Exxon - for another 30-50 years of need

Coca-Cola - for world market penetration

McDonalds - because they can

Toyota - for the last man standing and it's ALL about the personal assistance robots and personal transplatforms

Walmart - for a helluva lot of momentum and all that's left out in the "world" beyond the cities

Note that none of the above are dependant on any particular brand of money or politics.

Food for thought....

Anonymous said...

Long GOOG?

And you admit it?

Wow you are even dumber than I imagined in my wildest dreams.

blogger said...

Not only long goog but thanking sheeple for selling me their shares at these prices the past few weeks

Anonymous said...

google's cpc rates (what they get per click) will plunge 40-60% if this recession is that same as that last one in 2001. i was in the space back then. if this recession is worse, i can see cpc rates falling even further then that.

blogger said...

on google cpc, wrong-o. advertisers will switch even more from traditional media to search

and if you're investing for next year, you're gambling.

google five years from now. ten years from now. that's what you should consider.

google won. and will keep winning.

Anonymous said...

Military arms companies, watch out trouble ahead

Anonymous said...

Google?

D'oh.

Keith, stick to real estate and steer clear of politics and investment.

95% of Google's revenue comes from advertising sales.

Advertising is one of the first things to get slashed in a recession -- especially a consumer-led recession like this one.

Which means that Google will be one of the first companies to get slammed by lower revenue.

Apple will be a close second. When people are struggling to pay the rent and buy food, paying $1,800 for an Intel-based PC clone made in China for a few bucks is not top of mind.

blogger said...

Thanks last anon - please sell me your shares

(man, I wish these anon's would get a name so I can mock them in a few years)

advertising dollars may contract in a recession, but if you think advertising will go away forever, you're a fool

Man, some HP'ers are clueless. And short-sighted too.

farmboy said...

I agree keith. Google is the Walmart of advertising. How can these people love Walmart but not goog? Economics and competitive advantage of size.

Anonymous said...

SKF
DIG
DXD
SDS
FXP

These are great Amerikan companies that work again the fraud and corruption of Wall Street and the USA government.