Spice Girls, Beany Babies and Fanny Packs – 1990’s redux
By Julien B. Booth
May 2, 2019
Good Afternoon:
I had the distinct blessing of entering the finance industry in 1995 with Salomon Smith Barney. After 2+ years with the “sell-side” I was fortunate to move to institutional management (RIA Fiduciary world).
One of the tasks I had was crafting the commentary for our clients in the 1998-2002 period. For those that may have forgotten, the Internet Bubble 1.0 was raging. Sun.com (gone), Phone.com (gone), Pets.com (gone) were the only assets sexy enough to own (by brokerage firms).
It became difficult to find new ways to warn investors that stock valuations were well ahead of themselves, and investing had become synonymous with speculation.
I retain several pitchbooks from Bank of America to never let this lesson be forgotten. At that time when we looked around, timberland and municipal bonds were of tremendous value.
Ironically, we still own several of these positions. They seemed to held up a little better than $2000+ Beanies Babies. https://slate.com/technology/2015/02/beanie-babies-bubble-economics-and-psychology-of-a-plush-toy-investment-craze.html
Today we have Tilray, Tesla, Beyond Meat, Lyft, Uber, and WeWork coming/recently public/raising fresh capital. The companies make no $$$ for their investors and have little outlook for such. Needless to say, the 18 year tech cycle 2.0 is rhyming. Better get your $$$ before the window closes.
Alas, when you even have the U.S. President tweeting about stock prices and a market hooked on Federal Reserve liquidity (low rates) vs. underlying profit growth we have concern.
Capital always returns to where it is treated best.
We believe strongly in a security having intrinsic value. A healthy balance sheet (i.e. cash), growing earnings, free cash flow etc. are mechanism for measuring such value. Please avail yourself to our sister company: http://sixtyguildersresearch.com/chart.php?type=&search=&sortby=Combined&sort=ASC
Net, net we are generally fading the current strength in the stock market and buying large, liquid names with abundant and stable cash flow. 6% on large bank preferred stock seems alot tastier than synthetic meat stocks (Beyond Meat IPO).
Thank you for your interest.
Please advise questions.
Regards,
JBB
