Barron's on Facebook: "Stay away from the stock"

Even with the sharp drop in its share price, Facebook remains a richly valued bet on the company's ability to wring a lot of revenue from a huge and potentially fickle user base.  Facebook's mobile woes aren't likely to go away.  Stay away from the stock.  It could be heading to the mid-teens.

~ Andrew Bary, "Still Too Pricey," Barron's, September 24, 2012

 

Barron's is skeptical about Facebook's ability to monetize 900+ million users (2012)

Barron's has been skeptical about Facebook (see Feature, "Mad About Facebook!," May 12) because of the company's high absolute valuation, relative to earnings and revenues, and challenges to its evolving business model from the greater use of mobile devices by Facebook users.  Facebook hasn't found a way to generate meaningful ad revenue from mobile users. 

The problem for Facebook is that it amounted to a giant concept stock with a $100-billion-plus valuation.  Bulls said CEO Mark Zuckerberg was a genius and would find ways to monetize Facebook users.

However, without valuation support from ample earnings, it's tough to say where Facebook will settle.

~ Andrew Bary, "Facebook Loses Face - And How," Barron's, May 21, 2012

Kevin Hassett on Trump's tariffs (2025)

I don't believe that the tariffs are going to be very inflationary at all.

~ Kevin Hassett, FOX Business interview, 6:10 mark, April 18, 2025

Howard Lutnick on Tesla: "It's unbelievable that the stock is this cheap (2025)

I think if you want to learn something on this show tonight, buy Tesla.  It's unbelievable that this guy's stock is this cheap.  It'll never be this cheap again.  When people understand the things he's building, the robots he's building, the technology he's building, people are going to be dreaming of today and Jessie Waters and thinking, "Gosh, I should've bought Elon Musk's stock."  I mean, who wouldn't invest in Elon Musk?

~ Howard Lutnick, Commerce Secretary, Fox News appearance, March 19, 2025

Sam Altman on OpenAI's lead in generative AI (2023)

Look, the way this works is we're going to tell you, "It's totally hopeless to compete with us on training foundation models, you shouldn't try and it's your job to, like, try anyway."  And I believe both of those things.   It think it is pretty hopeless, but...

~ Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, June 8, 2023

Catherine LeGraw on the recent gold breakout

Gold I would be a definite "no" on at all-time highs.  That stock price looks like it's gone parabolic so far this year.  So as a valuation-based investor you're more inclined to be short than long.

~ Catherine LeGraw, interview with Meb Faber, The Meb Faber Show, 31:20 mark, April 26, 2024

Barron's on Jeff Bezos: "he's just another middleman"

The idea that Jeff Bezos has pioneered a new industry is silly.  He's just another middleman, and the stock market is beginning to catch on to that fact.  The real winners on the 'net will be firms that sell their own products directly to consumers.

~ Barron's, "Amazon.bomb," May 31, 1999

Fortune: "Can Amazon be saved? The answer is probably, No." (2001)

Bezos no longer calls Amazon.com an [e-commerce] incubator.  He's done with that now - he's busy writing a new script.  The big news now is that during the past eight months he and his team in Seattle hav signed a flurry of deals with brick-and-mortar retailers like Target, Circuit City, and Borders.  Amazon will run all or part of their e-commerce operations.  It will sell the retailer's products on Amazon.com, and in some cases it will warehouse products, distribute orders, and run the partner's Website.  Unlike the dot-coms, these new partners won't go out of business in a year, and they will pay Amazon in cash instead of rapidly falling stock.  Bezos would like us to believe that this time it's different, that Amazon's new "commerce platform" will put the company firmly on the road to profitability - and restore to it a market cap worthy of an Internet superstar.  The question anyone who owns or cares about Amazon's stock needs to ask is simple: Should we believe him?

The answer is probably, No.  Whichever of Bezos' stories you read, the numbers don't look good.

[...]

Bezos' Amazon is a land of eternal hope.  The CEO still avers that Amazon can eventually generate operating margins of 10%, despite the fact that it is still miles from that goal...  So yes, there is a chance that someday Amazon will grow up to be a company with real profits.  But it will never be the high-growth, wildly profitable, super-efficient company of Internet lore.  The only place that company lives is in the history books, and in the powerful imagination of Jeff Bezos.

~ Melanie Warner, "Can Amazon by saved? Jeff Bezos writes a new script. Too bad for investors it is more fiction than fact.," Fortune, November 26, 2001

Rob Nichols: "the overall banking sector is safe, sound, resilient and healthy" (2023)

These midsized banks, these small regional banks are incredibly important for the U.S. economy.  They serve incredibly important communities and businesses and individuals.  So despite the failures of three institutions that we saw - and that's of course unfortunate when any bank fails, and we that that incredibly seriously - the overall sector is safe, sound, resilient and healthy, from community banks all the way up to our money center banks...  A lot of what we've seen with regard to those couple of those [failed] institutions was really idiosyncratic and local to those institutions, not representative of the entire U.S. banking sector which is on solid footing.

~ Rob Nichols, American Bankers Association CEO, Yahoo Finance interview, 0:55 mark, May 8, 2023

Pierre-Oliviere Gourinchas on the health of the banking system (2023)

The good news is that the banking sector in particular is in much better overall health now than at the time, say, of the Global Financial Crisis.  There's a lot more capital, the banks are better regulated, there are all kinds of liquidity requirements, etc., especially for large banks.  And so overall the health of the banking sector is much stronger, but it doesn't mean that there couldn't be pockets of illiquidity, pockets of vulnerabilities and financial authorities need to be quite careful and monitor this because things could spread pretty quickly.

~ Pierre-Oliviere Gourinchas, International Monetary Fund chief economist, "IMF calls risks from bank crisis 'contained,' urges central banks focus on inflation," Yahoo Finance, 2:45 mark, 

Jim Cramer pumps SVB Financial (2023)

The ninth best performer year-to-date is SVB Financial.  This company's a merchant bank with a deposit base that Wall Street has been mistakenly concerned about...  I think the fears were not justified and it's a very compelling situation.  Hey, by the way, private equity and venture capital, they're not going away.  Being a banker to these immense pools of capital has always been a very good business.  Stock's still cheap.

~ Jim Cramer, CNBC's Mad Money, February 8, 2023

Paul Jones on the Beatles debut on the Ed Sullivan Show (1964)

Why [Ed] Sullivan found it necessary to aid in the phony promotion of four rock 'n roll exponents, all of whom represent Moe of the Three Stooges, is beyond comprehension.  Any why he felt it necessary to "load" the theater with screaming teen-age girls when he normally restricts his audience to grownups, is also a mystery.

It was obvious to those who say the Beatles, four fellows from Great Britain, that they have not attained their present notoriety on the basis of their musical talents, for the sounds emanating from their mouths were anything but melodic.

Shorn of their mop-like hairdos they would look and sound like many other inferior rock 'n roll groups which are still attempting to keep alive the fad which died when Elvis Presley joined the armed forces.

~ Paul Jones, "Sullivan Wasted Time with Beatles," February 11, 1964

President Biden brags about stock market hitting record highs (2022)

The stock market—the last guy's measure of everything—is about 20% higher than it was when my predecessor was there.  It has hit record after record after record on my watch, while making things more equitable for working class people.

~ President Joe Biden, January 7, 2022

(Video tweeted by ABC News on that day.)

Frederic Mishkin: exposure of banks to subprime losses minimal (2007)

Moreover, because most sub-prime mortgages are securitized, the risks associated with these loans are spread widely.  Bank and thrift institutions that hold these mortgages are well-capitalized and exposure of individual banks to possible sub-prime losses do not appear to be large.

~ Frederic Mishkin, Fed vice-chair, April 20, 2007

Phil Erlanger on "dumb" short sellers (2021)

For the past five years, "dumb" short sellers (those with a poor track record of making money on their short trades) have been the majority of short sellers.  It is particularly true that the recent jump in short selling was established by dumb short sellers.

~ Phil Erlanger, Phil Erlanger Research, April 8, 2021

(as quoted in Barron's, April 10, 2021)

Alexis Madrigal: "The pandemic will soon be over for the heavily vaccinated" (2021)

For the immunized, this disease is essentially harmless. Washington State, for example, has reported just 100 cases and as few as eight hospitalizations among its 1.2 million fully vaccinated people. But for the vulnerable and unvaccinated, COVID-19 is as devastating as it has always been. 

The United States is entering a new phase of the pandemic. Although we’ve previously described the most devastating periods as “waves” and “surges,” the more proper metaphor now is a tornado: Some communities won’t see the storm, others will be well fortified against disaster, and the most at-risk places will be crushed. The virus has never hit all places equally, but the remarkable protection of the vaccines, combined with the new attributes of the variants, has created a situation where the pandemic will disappear, but only in some places. The pandemic is or will soon be over for a lot of people in well-resourced, heavily vaccinated communities. In places where vaccination rates are low and risk remains high, more people will join the 550,000 who have already died.

~ Alexis C. Madrigal, "The Threat That Covid-19 Poses Now," The Atlantic, April 2, 2021

Dr. Sohrab Lutchmedial on the Covid vaccine (2021)

So happy to do my part.  I'm really looking forward to visiting my father again and not being worried when I do.

~ Dr. Sohrab Lutchmedial, after receiving his first mRNA vaccine, January 16, 2021

For those who won't get the vaccine for selfish reasons - whatever - I won't cry at their funeral.

~ tweet, July 10, 2021

The vaccine has been tested on youth and looks undeniably safe.  You have a higher chance of getting into a car accident on your way to hockey practice than you do having a complication from this vaccine.

~ Facebook post, September 25, 2021

I think all of us would treat that unvaxxed patient with respect and to the best of our abilities.  But the people that convinved them not to get vaxxed?  I want to punch those people in the face.

~ tweet, October 9, 2021

Dr. Lutchmedial received his third vaccine shot on October 24 and passed away in his sleep on November 8.

1969-2021

Daily Mail: "The Internet may be only a passing fad" (2000)

The Internet may be only a passing fad for many users, according to a report. 

Researchers found that millions were turning their back on the world wide web, frustrated by its limitations and unwilling to pay high access charges.

They say that e-mail, far from replacing other forms of communication, is adding to an overload of information.

Experts from the Virtual Society project, which published the report, say predictions that the Internet would revolutionize the way society works have proved wildly inaccurate.

~ "Internet 'may be just a passing fad as millions give up on it'," Daily Mail, December 5, 2000

President Biden: "We're now on track for the highest economic growth in 40 years" (2021)

We're in the midst of an historic economic recovery.  And because our successful vaccination program strategy has been working and the immediate relief through the American Rescue Plan has brought back our economy from the worst economic crisis in nearly a century, America is now on track.  We're now on track for the highest economic growth in 40 years. 

~ President Joe Biden, "Remarks by President Biden At Signing of An Executive Order Promoting Competition in the American Economy," White House state dining room, July 9, 2021

Barry Ritholtz dismisses talk of a bubble (2021)

I think we have to be careful about painting with too broad a brush when we talk about sentiment.  I can't ever recall in history where market bubbles were called so fervently and frequently in real time by participants, but we've been hearing people saying "this is a bubble" now since - I don't know, is it five years?  Certainly off the lows last year the bubble drumbeat started.  It's kind of hard to see markets being overly optimistic when there's so much fear on valuation and bubbles.  I know it's very counterintuitive, but it's just not what you typically see when everybody throws caution to the wind and they're all in.

~ Barry Ritholtz, Bloomberg interview, March 23, 2021