Wez

Why I'm Committed to the UltraShort Financials ETF

WFC has got to be cooking the books, no way in hell they could be doing this well with their loan portfolio. I smell BS.

The Importance of Stock Picking, Illustrated in Oil

Does anybody really need to be told that some stocks in an industry/sector will under perform? I agree with what you are saying CrossProfit, I just don't get the article, as it was titled. When the title of an article is "The importance of Stock Picking", it implies that actively picking individual issues is somehow better than buying ETFs, indexing, whatever. Since most readers of Seeking Alpha are already convinced of the importance of picking stocks, who is this article trying to educate?

The Importance of Stock Picking, Illustrated in Oil

CrossProfit - Agreed, but the author seems to be making a case for picking stocks instead of just buying a sector fund or an ETF. If thats not the case, than what is the point of the article, because the examples he gave are like comparing Exxon to Hasbro.

The Importance of Stock Picking, Illustrated in Oil

You do know that VLO is not an "oil" stock, right? It's a gasoline and retailer (gas stations). When the price of oil goes up more than the price of gas, VLO loses. You are comparing apples to oranges. You are making the argument that stock picking matters by comparing two very different companies. If you were to compare two stocks that are positively correlated to the price of oil, you would have more ground to stand on.