Barry Ritholtz's Picks

Barry Ritholtz, who manages around 100 million dollars, talks about investing:

We are now running about 70% cash, which is inordinately high, but some of the names we’re watching, and have owned in the past, are NuVasive (NUVA), a medical-device company, Stanley Works (SWK), a great infrastructure story, LG Display (LPL) and Luminex (LMNX). Industries we like are infrastructure, defense, biotech and medical devices.

It's good to see a Wall Street insider mentioning specific company names as opportunities for investment. As for me, I do believe the market will go up, but the question is whether Obama's swearing-in in late January 2009 will represent a firm baseline, or a temporary peak for the stock market.

Comments

[Smalltownba...:]

Who says it will be a peak?

I haven't seen anything yet that he is doing that will build value into the market.

2008 Dec 09 08:39 AM

[Still Renting:]

Well, we all know what the market did right after he was elected.

2008 Dec 09 11:45 AM

[dc1:]

Yes, and we all know what the Market did before he was elected. Can't get much worse.

2008 Dec 09 02:26 PM

[Blair:]

My put is that a good selling point from a timing consideration is the inauguration.

The principal consideration is that no-one in the government can turn this economy around in a short time. What is going on is will take a considerable amount of time and nothing can be done to reduce this time requirement.

The most important point to be made, which may help with what one should do regarding investments, is the 2 generation change in mindset.

What you are seeing is a reversal of a mindset that started in the 1960s, specifically, with regard to responsibilities. That all of the great things in life are free. Houses, SUVs, great vacations, etc. One will never have to pay for them - housing prices will go up forever and you can always get another equity loan, for example.

From a generational consideration, the baby boomers had children, and these children accepted (why not?) what their parents had told them. So that brings us up to the 1980s. Now those second generation children are having children, who were told that they too could have the great life style. Etc.

So, what is going one is a revision to the real economic world.

To beat the horse real dead, what needs to be cleaned up are two (if not more marginally) generations of a mindset.

I think that this picture now gives an investment forecast. For the indefinite future, the name of the game will be more conservative investments, if for no other reason there isn't any easy money around.

So, keep your money in a capital preservation mode to take advantage of the upswing when it occurs.

2008 Dec 13 04:24 PM