Ben Stein Long On Financials
I was in Los Angeles for the past several days. While spending several hours parked on the 405 freeway I heard Ben Stein on the radio. He thinks financial stocks have been beaten up and are great values right now (as of November 13th 2007).
on the radio. He thinks financial stocks have been beaten up and are great values right now (as of November 13th 2007).He recommended buying a financial sector ETF. I think he mentioned Financial Select Sector SPDR (XLF). He thinks stocks like Citigroup (C) and Bank of America (BAC) aren’t going to go bankrupt and the market is over-reating. Thats quite a contrast in opinion from last week’s comment by Jim Rogers, who’s short the financial sector via ETFs.
While I didn’t jump in and buy either Citigroup or Bank of America, I did close my positions in UltraShort Financials ProShares (SKF) and UltraShort QQQ ProShares (QID) yesterday for a slight gain. I’m still not convinced enough to go long though.
Stein also recommends buying Energy Select Sector SPDR (XLE) . I’m long on the energy sector ad I think XLE will probably do well. However, I’m already heavily weighted in Canroys and direct oil-gas drilling programs so I’ll stay out of XLE too.
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November 15th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
you mention you are in some direct oil-gass drilling programs. I am in one with Penneco. I probably will go into some more before the year end. Please send me the names, etc. on the ones you like. Thanks.
November 18th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
[...] Off Dividends sights that Ben Stein is buying ETFs that tracks the financial sector! The article also says that another money expert, Jim Rogers, thinks the financial sector is in [...]
November 24th, 2007 at 8:29 am
Ben Stein is a bit of an idiot. He writes some columns as if everyone in the world except him thinks the economy is completely crumbling. Most people don’t think that. But they do see the problems. Ben Stein is a friggin Hollywood flunky. Since this latest statement by him on stocks like Citi, they have gone down a considerable amount more. Sure there aren’t going to go bankrupt. And they will be great buys at some point, but probably not now. If you can save another 10% of your money why wouldn’t you do it? People in the business (i.e. Wall Street) have a better sense of how crappy the balance sheets of some of these banks look and what types of writedowns are coming in the future. My desk personally knows of tons of CDOs that haven’t even been written down yet and the big banks hold huge quantities of these.
Listen to Ben Stein at your own peril. I agree that Jim Rogers is a bit zealous sometimes but compare their resumes and Ben Stein looks like a joke. He’s a guy who never had any success in Hollywood so when he’s finally ready to call it quits he calls them all a bunch of losers. His claim to fame is a 30-second role in Ferris Buellers Day Off and a brief political stint around 40 years ago. Jim Rogers is a billionaire who made his billions trading the markets for around 30 years and being one of the most successful at it. If Jim Rogers wants to sit down with the CEO of Goldman Sachs for a chat he can do it, Ben Stein wouldn’t even get past lobby security.