Brian27

Cramer's Mad Money - 5 Mistakes Amateur Investors Make (7/31/09)

Number one reminds me of the Mayor of a small town who complained that there was never a cab at the train station late at night when he arrived into town. So he legislated that there be at least one cab at the train station at night.

When he arrived the next night he hopped in the cab and exclaimed take me home. To which the cab driver said, I can't there has to be at least one cab at the train station.

Moral: A cash cushion constraint of 10% is silly if you have to sell to remain at 10%. If the constraint is 0% or 30% it makes no difference because you still have to sell to maintain your cash position.

10 Winning Stock Themes in an Obama Administration

1) Bigger government subsidies would help alternative energy stocks.

2) The discount retailers will definitely benefit from falling after tax incomes and the higher end retailers and teen retailers will be hurt.

3) Increased educational subsidies to educational companies will obviously improve returns.

4) Increased government spending on roads and bridges will clearly help construction companies.

5) The democrats in congress want to control spending on drugs by reducing reimbursements. That is a negative for all drug making companies. More importantly for biotechs the democrats want to make it easier for generics to copy their drugs. One of the great features of biotechs is their difficulty to replicate and the costs of testing before introduction. The democrats want to make it easier, quicker and cheaper to bring generics to market. How the democrats are positive for biotechs is difficult to imagine.

6) Higher tax rates on capital and income will reduce the savings of the wealthy and cause a decline in demand for muni bonds. This will have a negative effect on the muni bond market.

7) Not clear how higher taxes on REITS will help them.

8) The sectors in decline from foreign competition will not obviously benefit from protectionist policies. Switching GM production to the US from Canada or Mexico is not necessarily going to make GM more profitable.

9) With lower after tax incomes individuals will prefer to save money by completing their own tax forms.

10) Higher tax rates on capital gains and income will reduce after tax incomes and hence reduce savings for retirement. This is a negative for asset management firms. Higher capital gains taxes means that asset accumulation will be lower. As individuals will have to cash out to pay higher taxes.

Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

Electric cars are nice, but were is the electricity going to come from? FPL wants to build a solar farm in Martin County Fl at a cost of $660 mil. to supply electricity to 11,000 homes. That is an estimated pre construction cost of $60,000 per home!!
Not to mention the cloud cover in Florida gives this project the look of a disaster in the making.

At these electricity costs $4.00 a gallon looks cheap.