The Real Expert

Citigroup Even More Compelling Now Than 20 Years Ago

Wow, what a miserable call!!!

As for your blog's diclaimer,"The information contained in this blog is not intended to constitute financial advice, and is not a recommendation or solicitation to buy, sell or hold any security. This blog is strictly informational and educational and is not to be construed as any kind of financial advice, investment advice or legal advice." ..while that may well apply to your blog, even if you add it to your newsletter, it isn't going to prevent you from being sued. When you charge for any type of investment advice, even providing portfolios in a newsletter, you can be sued.

Kirk, for anyone to actually charge money for an investment newsletter without any professional investment experience or training is really a joke. This is especially true when you missed the banking collapse. I hope you don't get sued but if I were you I would shut down your investment service and go back to working in a occupation you were trained for. I would also suggest the M.D. Norman also focus on medicine.

Why It's Time to Be Invested in the New Recession

You seem like a nice fellow so it is difficult for me to say this but still I must, for your own benefit. Wow. You are truly blind. of course you watch CNBC and praise Maria "Fartiromo." It's your job to keep telling people to buy stocks that are blowing up. We all saw the same BS a few years ago with the Internet stocks. You are always telling your customers to buy.

You are no different than the rest of the gimps who work for retail investors. When the market is doing well you insist your customers need to buy because they will "miss out." And when the market is tanking you insist they need to buy because "stocks are cheap." Now, I don't blame you. You have been programmed to do this. But you really need to take a good hard look at things and know whether you can remain happy making money off of retired people, while providing no real value. On the other hand, if you are ignorant to these realities then you won't ever know the difference.

There are so many things you have stated that are absolutely false that I could post your entire article and pick it apart. Instead, I'll point out only a few.

"U.S. banks and brokerage firms are not accustomed to volatility."

Are you kidding? At this point, I have to conclude English is not your first language. Volatility is a reality. They are used to volatility but they hedge volatility. They acted irresponsibly due to greed and lack of ethics. This fueled a huge bubble of overvalued debt that finally blew up. It's that simple.

"The second reason why panic struck is a simple calendar issue. What happens during the first half of an election year? Voters elect Presidential nominees. What do these nominees talk about in every interview and in every debate? Change."

Not in the least. Son, if you continue to use the Stock Trader's Almanac to explain away the biggest meltdown of assets in the history of the world, you are going to have some major probelsm down the road. You act is if there was this one day of panic. Panic has been occuring on most days for nearly a year now...not by investors but banks..and for good reason.

"If we are in a recession, it's a new kind of recession. One that is a stock pickers dream if you can pick out the companies unaffected from the turmoil. Just because a few sectors are weak doesn't mean the entire system has to implode."

This is the best you can do? Tell readers that some stocks will do well and to not by the financials????? Lol. Let me make thinks easy for you. BUY OIL AND OIL RELATED COMPANIES (excluding XOM), BUY MINING AND MINING SUPPLIERS LIKE BUCY. BUY GOLD. DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING ELSE IN THE US MARKETS. KEEP A BIG CASH POSITION TOO.
If you want to provide some value, let me give you some advice son. Instead of making blanket recommendations for people to buy into this terrible market, you should be helping people understand how to determine their individual investment suitability. Those who have horizons of over 20 years will be okay to buy into the dips in the market. But those getting ready to retire in the next few years need to stay clear. You are a salesman plain and simple. No Wall Street firm has any real analysts. Analysts are simply salemen as well. The sell BS reasons to brokers why they should always be in the market. If any Wall Street firm had real analysts, they wouldn't have gotten caught in this mess.

Friend, for your firm to be selling UITs tells me all I need to know. Why would anyone buy a UIT when they can buy ETFs? UITs have huge fees and are second only to annuities are the biggest ripoffs. My prediction is that you will be an insurance salesman within 3 years. Don't worry, they do well and don't have the liability stock brokers have.

Metrics, Mortgages and Analysts

Cindy, your articles on ETFC do have some validity, but your analysis often lacks credibility because you tend to leave out the multiple layers of risk involved. Any analysis that fails to adequately adjust any potential reward with the risks is biased at best and dangerous at worst. I think if you started covering risk more adequately, you would be seen more as a messenger of insight rather than a cheerleader for ETFC by those of us who understand things. Present a fair and balanced view and let readers decide. Don't worry, most of these readers are too emotionally attached to ETFC to change their minds anyway.

"Those calling out that the mortgage and banking industry have problems are absolutely right; we hear about it every day and the 200 point drop in the DOW validiates the problems. Why would I need to write about that since it is so obvious?"

Not exactly Cindy. You forget a few weeks ago when so many banks CEOs and others were making fraudulant claims that the wrost in the banking crisis was over or how the pundits continue to understate the real estate problem. That is why the Dow rallied back over 13,100 by may. Look at it now. You do need to remind people of the banking and real estate problems because they are enormous. People have short memories, especially when the memories are bad. They tend to embrace even the most suspect optism while erasing a bad past. This is basic behavioral finance. And the failure to understand and circumvent these natural instincts is what often makes investors make poor decisions.

"The fact is, E*Trade's comments in June's conference are something that is not generally known to the investment public. Since that information indicates E*Trade will be able to maintain unique performance differences in comparison to the industry, I felt those comments needed more publicity."

Cindy how can you say this publically available information is not known to the public? Are you saying some of these diehard ETFC fans are ignorant? That would be the implication. I cannot say I would disagree with you in that case. Still, I would have to believe that even a novice investor holding many shares of a distressed company would be watching for every announcement, conference, etc. they could find.

"I have shared my "Due Diligence" in deciding that I am going to hold on to my long position in ETFC. If you don't feel the same, then sell out your position or don't bother buying the stock."

Due diligence is only helpful if it's conducted in a prudent manner. One of the most important parts of the due diligence process is risk analysis. And for you to basically say "if you don't like my 'due diligence' reporting on ETFC then just sell or don't buy it' is an attempt to shut off any critics who have recognized the fact that your "due diligence" is not as diligent as it could or should be.

Cindy, I understand your frustration. Jbmaria makes personal attacks against you on a daily basis. And many times, the tone or true intent of printed words can easily be taken more harshly by the one it has been directed to than the writer intended. I'm sure this applies to most attacks made by jbmaria. While a bit of flare here and there never hurt anyone, I think it is obvious jbmaria often takes things to an extreme perhaps with a bit of playful rather than malicious intent. While I agree with jbmaria on many points, I certainly do not agree on the manner by which he or she choses to counter your commentaries. Hopefully, jbmaria will wean himself off of the personal attacks. Maybe they could come once every 20 posts instead of 20 attacks per post lol.

Prescient11, you just don't get it do you. Even if ETFC went to $20, you still would be wrong. The risk is way too high at this point and there are many much better investment opportunities with much lower risk and equal if not better potential returns. How many times do I have to say that? If you people think ETFC in the best of scenarios will rise back to its previous highs anytime in the next few years, you will be sadly disappointed. Even if the company makes it through this mess it will be faced with massive dilution. What that means in general is ETFC would have to be doing at least twice as good (assuming a conservative 50% dilution) as it was a years ago when the market soared. And that is not going to happen for a long time if ever.

I have no position in ETFC so I have no bias. I'd love a compelling reason to go long or short ETFC but I do not have such a resaon at this point. However, I would say that if I had to take a position it would be short based on the financial industry in general. I continue to take short positions in many of the banks (LEH, BAC, MER, BSC, etc.). You had better believe most of the banks are going considerably lower, including C ($15-$16) BAC ($18-22) and others. MER could have MAJOR problems. It could be cut in half at these already low levels.

Will the Banks Rebound? Cramer's Mad Money (5/30/08)

User 197255 of course you enjoy this site. You read yahoo stock message boards! lol. That tells me you are lost. This site caters to guys like you and that is experts don't stick around here long. Once they realize that 80% of the readers are complete idiots they bail. Good luck Cramer boy hahahaha.

Will the Banks Rebound? Cramer's Mad Money (5/30/08)

"THE REAL EXPERT ... Obviously you hold yourself in high regard! Maybe you should consider retaining a CFP to assist you in your decisions. Then you would have the advice of A REAL EXPERT. If you are unable to sift through the cornucopia of information available today, and make your own decisions without requiring rubber panties, then stay out of the market."

Lol that tells me you are a complete idiot. CFPs are nowhere near experts. They are clueless! All they do is charge money for telling you to diversify. How do I know? I completed all educational requirements for the CFP certification and after successfully completely the useless courses, I refused to waste anymore money to take the exam. I did not want to be associated with such a scam designation. What people need more than anything are people who know how to navigate the markets. When nearly everyone missed the real estate dump, how can you trust anyone? Seek out those who knew it would happen. Theyare the only ones who have an idea what the future holds. Cramer missed it all just like the other morons.

To the rest of you naive kids, I do not watch or read anything Cramer talks about. Simply by following this moron you are showing you are lost.

getjdb, you are exactly right about CFPs. I can name a few experts for you to follow:

Jim Rogers
George Soros
Me - feel free to ask me any questions.

An Investor (A Very Old and wise Investor)

Bank Holding Company Stockholders: Greater Dilution Awaits

I agree Emerald. The writer is simply riding the wave. We all know the dilution and writedowns are far from over. Why not mention the REAL effect it is going to have? Further destruction of the dollar, higher oil, higher inflation, lower stock prices. If you are going to post a commentary, make it relevant. If you are incapable, then please take a back seat rather than posting trash simply as a way to promo your business. All it does it takes credibility away from you (assuming you have any). Let me know if you need some real insight.

Will the Banks Rebound? Cramer's Mad Money (5/30/08)

Seeking Alpha is just another site that tries to get as big of an audience as possible. You see, they want to ride the Cramer bandwagon because they want that Cramer audience because they don't really have enough valuable content to go at it on their own. Its the typical follower mentality.

They could care less about quality. Look at their ads - cheesy. How can you take any site seriously that reports Cramer's picks? This is why SA continues to lose real expert submitters.