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Fannie and Freddie: Worthless?

I can not imagine that "anyone" in the US has the ability to forecast with any degree of certainty what the value of FNM or FRE stocks are.
That being said, no one can argue that both at technically bankrupt.
Lastly, this leaves us with only one option.... Short-Term trade the swings as I have been doing all year. When you buy, be sure to add a Trailing Stop in case another idiot analyst decides to make a name for himself by downgrading one or both.
I managed to catch 3 or the 4 run ups this year and am currently sitting on a profit of $118,000 from just these two stocks. I could care less what the value will be 10 years from now... I just want to stock price to run up and down so I can make more money.
For that matter, I could care less what any stock is going to be worth 10 years from now... just get in, make some money and get out.
No need to beat the company up and worry about some value in some distant future... just my opinion, but I love volatility... great way to make huge profits.
Take a look at the 3X ETFs if you want to see some real crap... whether you play the Long side or the Short side...they are all losing money!!!

New Housing Initiative Insures Freddie and Fannie's Survival

Wow Taymere... you need to get up to speed with the Past. This is nothing new, the Feds have been making loans through these agencies for 50 years! All they are doing is just adding more layers of bureaucracy to the mess to create more rules and jobs, cut down trees and print more paper. Jobs for the agencies... jobs for the lumber mills... jobs for the paper industry... jobs for the printers.
Comparing what is happening with our housing markets to Nazi Germany is a real stretch. Sounds to me like you are laboring under the "Chicken Little" syndrome or you may be deemed just another alarmist that makes up conspiracies.
The real crock of bull comes from the idiot analyst Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)... thinking that the stocks will go to $0.00. The idiot that made this statement should be fired.
So far this year I have profited nicely by playing FNM & FRE... currently standing at $118,000 of profit. Fully expect to profit even more due to the recent drop in share price. But I am fully aware that not everyone shares my opinion of the potential here... you keep worrying about what "might" happen and I will continue to make money on the come back of FNM & FRE.

Buy and Hold Isn't Dead Yet

Sorry... not all of my returns showed up... again, they are:
+97.5%... +88.1%... +64.9%... +42.9%... +29.3%... +25.8%
I trade only Quality companies in my Conservative and Moderate accounts.
I have nothing against John the author...but regardless of a person's background, the return on investments is actually the only yardstick I care to use when looking for solid investment advice.

Buy and Hold Isn't Dead Yet

David Van and Old Trader said it best. The author is simply "trading" on a different time frame than most traders. As a comparison, I am a short term trader. No set holding time...I attempt to buy when the price is low and sell again when the price is higher. I am not always successful but my returns this year are "Far" above the authors average return...I run 6 investment accounts and have them classed as Conservative, Moderate and Aggressive... returns this year thru 9/30 have been: +97.5%...+88.1%...+64....
Buy & Hold may not be dead but there should certainly be information published for the average investor to let them know the HUGE difference a simple +3% improvement in their annual returns would make during a lifetime (40 years or so) investing!!!
Also we should see more article regarding the use of Trailing Stops to protect investors from the market moves that we lived thru in 2008.
Just my opinion...Howard

Freddie Mac's Shrinking Portfolio

I agree with Bruce on this one. What are we to do with this data? On the surface, this strikes me as a very good sign...but just the slow down in the Real Estate market could have brought about the same results. Then FRE could have tightened their underwriting rules to bring this about. Need more information to make an "informed" decision regarding the future of the stock.

Why I'm Short So Many Financials

Extremely well done article with excellent back up information. I, too, am amazed that we broke up AT&T yet no one is crying for the break up of the banks...actually the opposite...they are helping them to become even bigger!
I doubt that I will short the industry but rather simply invest elsewhere with a better "more stable" future. Sooner or later the banking industry will come to terms with the massive debts they have taken on.
I still remember the S&L crisis... not sure what they learned as this one is just as bad or worse... Bankers > argh!

Gone Nowhere in 8 Years

This information should not come as a surprise to anyone that is serious about investing. In the first book written by Peter Lynch (way back in the 1980s)...he informs the readers to "Trade the Blue Chips" and Hold the small up and coming stocks.
This study simply shows that his strategy is 100% correct. The study add credibility to the fact that Investors should be "Trading" and not Buying & Holding.
I, for one, do not care which way the market moves...just as long as it moves. Dividend investors will always eek out a small gain and be happy. Buy & Hold investors will always wonder why they can't gain any ground - but the Traders make the real profits and are extremely thankful for the other two groups.
My sincere thanks to Dividend and B&H investors!

Private Prisons: A Reliable American Growth Industry

Robert... Thank you for the added comments. Your thoughts and ideas are well recvd by myself and others that long for some "proper" change in the way our country is being run.
The latest bad news I read was how our Congress allocated the funds to improve our Homeland Security program. Just more personal projects being funded rather than sending the money where it is needed. Shameful actions by our esteemed Congress.
Then today I read that Whirlpool is closing their Evansville, IN plant and moving the 1,100 jobs to Mexico by the middle of next year. How much longer will we be able to export jobs and still run our country.
Maybe CA has it right... lets have a State Wide Garage sale and maybe even resort back to the good old days of Bake sales so that we can all survive.
Enough of my rant... Enjoy your weekend!!! God Speed to you and your family...Howard

Private Prisons: A Reliable American Growth Industry

Robert... You present some excellent information and we are basically in agreement regarding not only the misuse of funds needed to operate the prison system but also the rip off due to price of equipment and other necessary items.
I have not seen the racial side of our judicial system but would bow to your experience and agree that much work is needed to right the wrongs that occur with respect to people of color.
I greatly appreciate your input... while my original idea will likely never be taken seriously, we both agree that the cost of running our prison system is out of control and needs to be drastically changed for the benefit of the general public and the prisoners.
I have to wonder what has to happen to have our elected officials take a hard look at the Judicial System and the Prison System?

As a father of 4 sons (now all grown) I have always been angered by the fact that in my area our law enforcement and court system has taken a "profit" approach to crimes. i.e. I have lived in this area for 19 years. In that time - the police have never arrested anyone for the offense of "buying liquor for a minor"..while there is a weekly list of young people arrested for "underage drinking". The fine for underage drinking is $500 per arrest. Hmmmmmm...consider the profit if they only make 1,000 arrests a year and then consider the profit if this is being done nation wide!!!
The same holds true for Drugs... There has never been an arrest in 19 years of any small, medium or large drug dealer... but at the same time there are weekly arrests made for possession of drugs. Just another way for the Judicial System to add HUGE sums of money to the coffers while endangering the lives of our young people. My respect for all forms of Law Enforcement and our Judicial System is currently extremely low.
Thanks for listening...Howard

Private Prisons: A Reliable American Growth Industry

Robert Mart...: Quote:
"But the idea of deporting American citizens to Soviet Russia is shameful." Nice defamatory statement but no real explanation as to why this would be so. I read recently where 70%-80% of IBM employees are from outside the US...what is so great about the jobs created by our prison system that we would want to keep them here at a higher cost??? Have your noticed how many items recently have a label on them that reads "Made in Mexico" or "Assembled in Mexico"?
So, Robert, if you don't like the idea of Russia here is another one. Lets export them to Mexico. The cost of building new prisons in Mexico would help to stimulate the Mexican economy. When the prisons are ready, the need for guards and caretakers would create a huge number of jobs and again stimulate the Mexican economy. These new jobs would then help to stem the flow of illegals into our country which in turn would create more jobs here for the prison system employees that lost their jobs to Mexico. Our crime rate in the southwestern US would decrease. We should be able to lower everyone's tax bills as we would be able to have the prisoners housed at much lower cost. Then if someone is released in the middle of the Winter, they wouldn't freeze to death. It seems to me that everyone just wants to look at the problems with our Judicial system rather than a way to solve the bigger problem of lowering the cost of housing prisoners... these are two very different issues and should not be lumped together. I will agree that our Judicial system is a mess and runs on the money they make for themselves...no argument from me with that one. I also agree that many of the people in prison should have never been there - but that is not the issue here.

Private Prisons: A Reliable American Growth Industry

Dialectical... I don't understand how you made the leap from my suggestion to house our prisoners in other countries to the "take them out and shoot them" concept? It may help for you to know that the State of CA spends more of the taxpayer money on Prisons than on higher Education. The cost of prisons in CA is roughly 11% of the State budget! The highest cost is borne by the working people of Michigan with a huge 20% of the State's budget going to support prisoners. In summary of my first posting: I am not here to judge whether every person that is sent to prison was fairly accused and convicted or if they will return to society as an improved person...but rather to suggest that the HUGE amounts of money we spend on prisons could be of much better used elsewhere to improve everyone's standard of living. Shipping the jobs overseas to save Billion$ of dollars every year seems to be a very prudent use of Taxpayer money.

Private Prisons: A Reliable American Growth Industry

Time to grow up people. It seems to me that none of the people posting here have ever personally known some of the types of people that end up in our prison system. Get to know a few of them and you will quickly understand why they are there! Your "feel sorry for them" attitudes will quickly change when they live next door to you.
I have long thought that an excellent alternative to building and maintaining more US prisons would be to sign an agreement with Russia - for use of their unused space in the Siberian prisons.
Seems to me that this would be good for both countrys... We could house our prisoners at a greatly reduced cost and Russia could improve their economy at the same time. They already have the prisons in Siberia...why not use them? We could set up this type of prisoner housing system with a large number of poorer countrys around the world. We send a huge number of our jobs overseas now to get it done cheaper...why not just send the jobs we have in the prison system to other countries?
Then we could use the huge amounts of money that we save to fund more worthwhile projects... cancer research, etc. Duh... too much thinking out side the box for the bleeding hearts.

Freddie and Fannie: So Bad They're Good?

You gotta love it when people like Bruce offer their opinion "after" things have moved! Where were you a month or more ago when most of the intelligent investors were accumulating shares of FNM and FRE? I for one saw this big surge coming all year and I do not hold any degree in economics!...Duh!

If you really know what is happening - you should have been advising people to buy both stocks over the past 3 months! Then you would have some very happy followers at this time.

To offer an opinion regarding why the companies are in trouble is of no value to anyone...least of all Investors that are looking to make a profit... take some time off to rethink your goal of helping people make decent returns and then write an article that will be of value.

Freddie Mac Trading Notes

I have to agree with Fre Freddie here. The accumulation at this time will be made up mostly of investors looking for a longer term hold of 6 months or more... prices over $2 should be easily obtainable and sustainable with another surge after more profit is made.

AIG is simply being used by all the new day traders as a way to make a quick buck and run back into their rabbit holes...plus the fact that any stock constantly in the news (all the banks) get lots of attention from the uninformed investors. As with the Dot Com bubble we now have a huge number of New Traders looking to get rich quick...they never saw FRE price run up coming. But, then, neither did the main street financial press...Duh!

Citi Is a Dog: Go Long at Your Own Risk

Excellent point nobby73! The biggest concern for any common stock owner should actually be that the government will cover their exposure and leave the rest of the shareholders holding the wrong end of the stick.... this should be a red flag to individual investors.