2Q Stock Picks

Hello everyone, i believe anyone who has posted here, is sharing his knowledge without any bad intention. personally, i have a feeling that MacGyver is an experienced person. Thus, most of what he said i will pay attention. Btw, do the \"CANSLIM\" or \"MAGNET\" model has market-timing feature as one of its factors? lastly, has the mkt discounted the impact from the cuts of budgets in European countries? maybe not, ...

Thank you Peter, In terms of investing, I am probably a baby compared to most of you. I just try and absorb as much as possible what I have heard and try to apply to see if it makes sense. For a crisis to happen, there must be an element of surprise. Hence, for me, the critical reason why US subprime ballooned to a global crisis was the \"surprise\" that Lehman Brothers, being the sixth largest bank was allowed to fail. This sparkes fear that all other financial institutions could fail too. Had Bernarke allowed Fed to print money to save Lehman Brothers, I really believe, the crisis could have been avoided. In the case of Greece, to date, it has been within the expectations of most analysts. The EU is copying the US Fed model, by printing money to prevent speculators from attacking the Euro dollar. It has been successful so far. But in the mid-to-long run, I fear that the whole world is building a mega inflation bubble-- which may not be a bad idea to the governments as they can use their worthless currencies to pay off billions of govt debts. I ask myself -- In that scenario, how can I, a retail investor benefit? Hence, by observing the big picture movements, one can be nimble to select the \"right\" sector to plough your hard-earned money in. While bottom-up approach is safe and definately a must-read for beginner, one has to gradually learn to accept the big picture plays a key role in deciding when to buy the stocks.

Hi Macgyver, The intention of my posting was to inform, not to offend. If I have unintentionally offended, do accept my sincere apologies. I should learn to phrase my words more carefully, perhaps. My view is that as retail investors we do not have much chance ot anticipating or correctly predicting major macro-economic events. Even the Lehman debacle could not have been forseen (at the time); and thus I feel this current \"crisis\" also may have twists and turns which are totally and completely unpredictable. Hence, a bottom-up approach (as you call it) may be more appropriate as investors should consider facts and numbers which make a company successful, including profitability, margins, revenue growth, cash flows etc. And of course, buy with a margin of safety at decent (not expensive) valuations and to have a long-term horizon of at least 3-5 years to ride out any volatility. Not to say my approach is right or wrong - it\'s just an option investors should consider in light of the uncertainties we now face. As they say - there will always be worries and problems in the news, but over time, good companies\' share prices still see a steady upward climb, and their yields can easily still manage to beat inflation (at 3.2% recently reported).

Markets are worries about N Korea but seriously the problem is highly unlikely to result in a full-scale conflict. Spain? now that\'s a new problem that can weaken markets further.

\"Hence, by observing the big picture movements, one can be nimble to select the \"right\" sector to plough your hard-earned money in.\" wonder whether you can share with forumers which sector one should focus? is there a website with charts which shows how a sector is performing?

Hi Peter, I basically read anything from a couple of good people that I respect. Mr Yap Cheng Hai, the founder of Value Partners in HK is something that I respect a lot. So I always try and find out what are the stocks that his fund is buying and what is his perspective of the whole economy. He has highlighted the cashflow issue of Chinese banks late last year and saw the fund raising exercises of these Chinese banks coming. He also highlighted the economic difficulties of the EU and warned that valuations were getting out of proportion with economic recovery last year. The recent exploration of Singapore into nuclear energy is an interesting example. I am starting to explore companies who have the potential to explore nuclear power in the future.