stock picks 2008?

pokermonkey

Story?
Have around €15k to lob at the market.
Any suggestions.

As this will be a long term hold, was thinking

1) AIB - €4,000
2) Kingspan - €3,000
3) CRH - €4,000
4) Amarin - €3,000

obviously the last one is a complete punt, but i like a little bit of a gamble!

what you think?

silverharp

pokermonkey wrote: »

Story?
Have around €15k to lob at the market.
Any suggestions.

As this will be a long term hold, was thinking

1) AIB - €4,000
2) Kingspan - €3,000
3) CRH - €4,000
4) Amarin - €3,000

obviously the last one is a complete punt, but i like a little bit of a gamble!

what you think?

1-3 seem to be dependent on the housing market, the credit crises has still a bit to run yet and the housing market will be negative for the next few years.
I am expecting a 10-15% pull back in the general market in Q1 but then higher prices by year end

daveirl

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Reyman

pokermonkey wrote: »

Story?
Have around €15k to lob at the market.
Any suggestions.

As this will be a long term hold, was thinking

1) AIB - €4,000
2) Kingspan - €3,000
3) CRH - €4,000
4) Amarin - €3,000

obviously the last one is a complete punt, but i like a little bit of a gamble!

what you think?

You're a brave man with your money! I don't know Amarin too well but the others are still highly risky. The full story on the property sector/credit scene hasn't panned out yet i.e. unemployment, credit shortage, some businesses failing, followed by the banks launching rights issues to shore up their liquidity.

I'm taking a punt (excuse the 'pun'), but I'd suspect your €14k could turn into €11k by the end of June

pokermonkey

Reyman wrote: »

You're a brave man with your money! I don't know Amarin too well but the others are still highly risky. The full story on the property sector/credit scene hasn't panned out yet i.e. unemployment, credit shortage, some businesses failing, followed by the banks launching rights issues to shore up their liquidity.

I'm taking a punt (excuse the 'pun'), but I'd suspect your €14k could turn into €11k by the end of June

i like to see myself as more of an optimist on these issues.
i reckon the worst has passed. 2008 will no doubt be a tough year, but from my position inside the banking world, i think there is a huge over-reaction from institutional investors towards irish equities.

i agree there will probably be a further dip in prices (c. 10%) so i'll be holding off till at least feb.

as i said though. these will be long term holds. looking to build up my asset column and there is, in my uneducated opinion, a lot of value in the market a the moment.

.... famous last words

silverharp

daveirl wrote: »

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I don't know CRH that well but their US arm would take a hit as the US goes into recession this year and the construction mkt in Ireland will also be slowing down.
with rising energy costs over the next few years I guess they would be hit on the cost front as well

AIB are bound to start suffering from the slow down and rising defaults as the irish and uk property bubble unwinds.

daveirl

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pokermonkey

......well technically they are 2008 picks!
just holding onto them for longer.

anyhow's, me think i'll be delving through whatever research papers i can get my hands on over the coming weeks before i take the plunge.

cheers for all the opinions though. always good to have devils advocates!

pjproby

why restrict yourself to irish stocks?
apple is around 198 dollars right now and has had a great year in 2007-confidently predict 250 dollars by years end.
you can remind of this next january lol.

NP14

Penn West

IAMGOLD

Great Panther Resources

Mega Uranium.

Pinetree Capital.

Long Term Hold. DYODD.

daveirl

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daveirl

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Zascar

Personally I think it's a lot riskier to try to pick your own stocks unless you really know what you are doing.

I'd spread them wisely on the Rabo Funds instead. Check out funds such as: China, India, Mining and Emerging Markets etc

Buttros

Am also looking to investment another few quid. Already have a couple of Irish stocks and a tech. Have decided to look into commodities. Im fair from an expert but will look to buy an ETF based on a basket of about 15 to 20 different commodites from oil to gold to wheat and see how it goes.

Think leaving everything in stocks is a bit risky. ETFs are def worth cosidering for a portion of what your investing.

daveirl

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pokermonkey

yeah, would delve into the american markets, but i'd need to know about the stock before i did.
not a huge fan of funds though. too many ongoing charges on those bad boys.

are there any alternative places i could put the money? investment in capital for a company etc. i know it aint a huge amount of cash, but if there was a pool which i could contibute or something?

Zascar

daveirl wrote: »

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Yes, however the Quinn funds are market index trackers, they do not actually have a fund manager like the Rabo ones do. The fees are only marginally higher and personally I think worth it if you have a better change of larger gains

daveirl

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PDelux

One of the Financial Times predictions for 2008 is GOOG going to $1000 and barring any major event I can see it happening.
I'm surprised they havent done any stock split.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/eb14b4b2-b6fe-11dc-aa38-0000779fd2ac.html

kickoff3pm

pokermonkey wrote: »

Story?
Have around €15k to lob at the market.
Any suggestions.

As this will be a long term hold, was thinking

1) AIB - €4,000
2) Kingspan - €3,000
3) CRH - €4,000
4) Amarin - €3,000

obviously the last one is a complete punt, but i like a little bit of a gamble!

what you think?

I tend to think "long term" and the terms punt or gamble don't go together. I mean whats the point of betting on a 3 or 4 year horse race ?

With that in mind, long term you should concider minerials or the exploration of. For punts you might want to look at smaller companies such as I do on the London Aim market. Here's a few to reaserch and if you find what I fine in them perhaps one or two will fill a few spaces.

1. Vane Minerals (VML) - This is a bit of a unique exploration company because they have bought an exclusive right to use a database which containes details of a 100 years of data on past mining projects. Now is a very good time to get in below 20p as they have just raised some £5m to advance their Uranium projects. They also have just open their own processing mill for their gold & Silver mine in Mexico. This will show on their bottomline in the next results as it should increase profitablity a great deal. Uranium is at an high and expected to go much higher over the next few years. They have a mixed bad of Uranium projects but mostly Bracca Pipes. Of almost 40 bracca pipe targets should just one prove success that alone will add 50p the the share price. I own a nice packet of these shares and I average a price of 13p. They are currently about 17-18p but I already sold 50% of these bought at 10p for 22p some few months ago now. The rest I aim to keep and won't concider selling to they reach £1.00. This I expect this year !!

2. Des Petrolium (DES) - This company is looking for oil in the Falklands. three years ago they raised £25m to contract a rig but since then they've been unable to find one for a number of reasons, not least the rig rates going though the roof. The Falklands is an expensive place to look for oil and all hope seemed lost but late last year BHP bought into FOGL who are also in the Falklands. This gives DES a chance to spread the cost of the rig contract with BHP. The deal is their to be done and although a company the size of BHP don't need DES's money it surely would be good business to take the the money DES have and even better business if DES allow them a slice of their project to force the deal. So to my mind the seems a very good chance that will happen. First bought these at 26p and sold the lot 3 years ago at 37p. Last month I decided it was time to return to them and so I bought back in at 20p. They are currently 27p but sure to be at least 32p soon I feel. Speculation in the past that DES have got a rig has seen the price move a lot higher so real news should see perhaps 70p but the will be spectulation and as you can see from my current trade the bounce of the floor has already started. I'll hold till 32p and then decide if this deal is worth waiting for. If not I'll take my 50-100% profit and move on.

3. Emperium (EME) - I'll say at the start I'm sitting a loss in this company but I'm not that concerned. I was told to invest a small amount by a person who should know and he keeps telling me to hold. The company now seem to have a lot of irons in the fire but are having trouble heating them up. Currently price at about 30p within days this could very well return back to well over £1.50 if they can put one of their wells online. I only have £2,000 in this one but I'm very positive about it. I always set sell targets on my trades so I'm not affraid to take the lose but my man is convinced this company is worth sticking with. If it had been one of my own finds it would have been sold long ago.

Hope that helps - please DYOR

KO.

eclectichoney

I quite like the look of Glencar Mining and Petroceltic, as well as of course kenmare, for a long term play.

SteadyEddie

CRH imo is a good play, little exposure to ireland, just had further good results, and little sign of them really slowing down too much. AIB i would wait for longer, as i do think you could get a better price.

Take a peek at a small oil company called Afren - commencing drilling 1Q 2008. Up 70% since Jan 06, but its a company that is just starting off. A former president of OPEC runs the company...these guys are no mugs, and have excellent connections in Africa.

DYOR.

kmick

Ryanair at 4.32 seems like a good price. Their natural home is 6.00 I would say and the major brokers (borkers?) were predicting 8 before the 'correction'. I figure you could make 20% on them in 6 months.

PDelux

Ryanair at 4.32 seems like a good price. Their natural home is 6.00 I would say and the major brokers (borkers?) were predicting 8 before the 'correction'. I figure you could make 20% on them in 6 months.

Would oil prices not be a problem for airlines though? Any economic slowdown could have an impact on travel too, companies i've worked for before have always cut back on non-urgent air travel during hard times.(not that they used Ryanair though)

pokermonkey

interesting stuf guys.

will research some of those exploration stocks.
they look interesting, but will keep the gamble to a minimum. don't want to go too nuts on the old risk side

thanks a mill for the input though;)

kickoff3pm

eclectichoney wrote: »

I quite like the look of Glencar Mining and Petroceltic, as well as of course kenmare, for a long term play.

I was in PCI for a while but sold on the share issue over a year ago now I suspect. This is the key thing with these small oil companies. They float on what looks a good idea for a project. You then have a time to get in and ride the share while they investigate and report. As long as all the surveys etc are good news you'll see the share price rise. But you have be awear of the full picture and in PCI, as with a lot of others, it was always how they would raise cash when they needed it and they all need to do that sooner or later.

In some respect it's far better that they farm out because as with PCI, just issueing shares kills the PIs interest. That's simply because so often they issue at a big discount to institutions who already own shares. They then turn around and sell to edge there holding. They either sell at a profit or because of other business reasons. This creates a consent trickle of shares and means the is no real demand.

No demand that is till after flow testing is done and production figures are known in most cases that's too long for IPs. They see the share stagnate and leave putting even more downward pressure on the share.

I always have to be happy a company is looking after share value and in PCI that wasn't happening at all.

Notorious BIG

Ive been watching Newcourt for a while. Its slipped back to 1.05 or something might do some further research.

The only Irish shares which interest me in the short term(for 2008) are Elan, dragon and tullow oil

dinswins

If you are riding out until things settle down a bit, then look at large US stocks like GE, P&G. These are companies everyone knows. P&G are always level in a recession, can't stop doing laundry just becuase of a recession. GE is a great investment vehicle and makes money no matter what.

Ireland will limit your options. Look around.

PDelux

This is the first i've heard of palm oil but this stock New Britain Palm Oil
is doing well since its IPO last month. Will have to find out what's the
deal with this!
http://markets.ft.com/ft/tearsheets/performance.asp?s=NBPO:LSE

eclectichoney

is tesco listed on the iseq? sometimes i see it listed and sometimes i don't! very confused

daveirl

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Clytus

Whats the thought on IAWS shares?? I wonder how thier exposure to the dollar/euro will effect thier share price?

Also theres been some positive talk about agri commodities....

Clytus

PDelux wrote: »

This is the first i've heard of palm oil but this stock New Britain Palm Oil
is doing well since its IPO last month. Will have to find out what's the
deal with this!
http://markets.ft.com/ft/tearsheets/performance.asp?s=NBPO:LSE

From what iv heard Palm Oil is now used alot in Non-Hydrogenated fats...which is a buzz thing now in the food sector.

ixus

pokermonkey wrote: »

4) Amarin - €3,000

obviously the last one is a complete punt, but i like a little bit of a gamble!


will keep the gamble to a minimum. don't want to go too nuts on the old risk side

There are other quotes I could pick but the point I'm trying to make is that you are simply risking all your money as you don't seem to have a clue about what is going on in the market at present. And this is from "the inside"! I really don't mean to be offensive, I'm trying to prevent you from throwing your money away.

I previously worked in Dublin in one of the US financials suffering from the subprime fallout. It has had a serious knock on effect on people in this country. There has been a mass shrinkage of bonus' this year as a result of it. This in turn affects the rest of the economy. People didn't seem to think that the turmoil in the US would affect them here, well they found out this month at bonus and pay review time!

The subprime is not the only skeleton in the closet, educate yourself on Collateral Debt Obligations (CDO) and Credit Default Swaps (CDS). These both have the potential to have just as significant affect as the subprime has had. You then have the issue of recession in the US, it is coming, it is unofficially already there. If Goldmans are saying it, take it as gospel. This would have a significant effect on CRH.

Kingspan are a good company and I like their products. They have the right vision in terms of energy saving products etc. Their problem is they are first to market with these and that regulations in the UK and Ireland aren't up to speed with their products. They are expensive and builders will always go for the cheaper options until regulations come in. Additionally, Kingspan only announced last month that they cannot foresee what revenue they will have this year due to market uncertainty. This in itself tells you how they are affected by current market conditions.

With regards commodity companies, you really need to know a lot about the sector and the management of the company. Jim Rogers said that you are better off investing in the commodity index rather than a single commodity company due to this. These companies can very easily run into difficulty, you just have to look a recent events in Kenya, or what the government are doing in Argentina.

daveirl

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El Stuntman

kmick wrote: »

Ryanair at 4.32 seems like a good price. Their natural home is 6.00 I would say and the major brokers (borkers?) were predicting 8 before the 'correction'. I figure you could make 20% on them in 6 months.

3.67 now, -15% since your post

will continue to hold off for the moment but they look really cheap now

ixus

El Stuntman wrote: »

3.67 now, -15% since your post

will continue to hold off for the moment but they look really cheap now

So they've dropped 15% in 11 days and you're describing them as looking cheap?! :rolleyes:

Why has it fallen 15%?
Is there something wrong with the company?
Is it the price of oil?
Not enough bums on seats?
Were they overvalued in the first place?
They are low because the market is only willing to pay that price for them.WHY?

If you're going to base your share picking on historical prices, you need to learn about technical analysis and be able to read charts.

Catch a falling knife and all that :eek:

Reyman

Ryanair are falling through the floor alright. Falling profits in a falling Sterling. The short term outlook is pretty poor with the UK looking in dire trouble

Anglo Irish are down 8% (3.30pm Tues). You need a cool nerve to buy shares at the moment. But all the literature says this is when you make your move in a down-beaten market.

Who's staying in cash and who's buying?

PDelux

Paddy Power is up a few % today for some reason, have to look into that.
The last time I bought it was back in March 2007 when it was breaking out(sold it since), it is back around the same price now.
Any views on Paddy Power?

Clytus

You need a cool nerve to buy shares at the moment. But all the literature says this is when you make your move in a down-beaten market.

It took nearly 40 years for Wall Street to fully recover from the Wall Street Crash.......wouldnt want to hold out that long!!:p

pokermonkey

ixus wrote: »

There has been a mass shrinkage of bonus' this year as a result of it. This in turn affects the rest of the economy. People didn't seem to think that the turmoil in the US would affect them here, well they found out this month at bonus and pay review time!

lol. it definitly didn't effect my bonus!!;)

But seriously though. i appreciate what you're saying, and it does make a fair bit of sense. I do have a reasonable insight into the markets though, and tbh, i could see the iseq dipping to 5800 over the next few months.
having said that, i'm a bit irrational when it come to investing. so i threw the cash at an irish financial, irish construction, uk retailer, and american pharmaceutical.
so i've had them in for the guts of a week now, and haven't completely lost my pants yet thank god!!! down 3% overall, which to be honest, i'm prettty happy with given recent events. means i've done a reasonable job diversifying i think on such a small budget.
i'll get back to you in a years time.... probably wont be as chirpy then :eek:

ixus

pokermonkey wrote: »

down 3% overall, which to be honest, i'm prettty happy with given recent events. means i've done a reasonable job diversifying i think on such a small budget.

How did you measure your diversification?
You've made your choices and best of luck, but I don't understand how you think these are well diversified? This is more for other people reading who are new to this so that they may understand diversification more clearly.

On a basic level, you should use the CAPM model, take those stocks and measure their performance over a period of time and plot a graph, maybe on excel. Correlation is the key word here. Your portfolio should ideally have negative correlation. http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/correlation.asp

A decent diversification might have been an index tracker or ETF (with cheap fees) in:
1. european stock index
2. hard commodities (gold, silver etc)
3. soft commodities (agricultural fooods)
4. emerging markets
5. utilities sector (gas,water etc)

For the european index, this would have had similar returns as the ISEQ over time but would be far less exposed in the current climate.

daveirl

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PDelux

Still bullish?

I wouldn't be bullish on any stock in the current climate:)
But as regards GOOG going to $1000 by years end, it's only Feb so long way to go.. could still happen. There is another variable in the mix now though which is the Microsoft-Yahoo story..it remains to be seen what happens there.. could it take market share from GOOG?

DUBNY

pokermonkey wrote: »

lol. it definitly didn't effect my bonus!!;)

But seriously though. i appreciate what you're saying, and it does make a fair bit of sense. I do have a reasonable insight into the markets though, and tbh, i could see the iseq dipping to 5800 over the next few months.
having said that, i'm a bit irrational when it come to investing. so i threw the cash at an irish financial, irish construction, uk retailer, and american pharmaceutical.
so i've had them in for the guts of a week now, and haven't completely lost my pants yet thank god!!! down 3% overall, which to be honest, i'm prettty happy with given recent events. means i've done a reasonable job diversifying i think on such a small budget.
i'll get back to you in a years time.... probably wont be as chirpy then :eek:

CRH and AAPL are good plays longterm.

CRH is busy leverageing the Euro to Dollar exchange rate to pick up construction materials companies in the US that are hurting. When the dollar corrects against the Euro and the market in the US picks up these will be v. profitable plays. CRH is alos investing heavily in China.....consolidating the concrete industry in a fast growing economy.....this type of bargain hunting is what has made GE so successful over the years.

AAPL is moving close to a monopoly in the US....other MP3 type players have failed to meet the grade no matter how hard they try. Talk is that soon they will be showing TV thru Mac in the US. Mac machines are now becoming mainstream and biting into the PC market.....they have a bright few yrs ahead.....just my opinion.

daveirl

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Raskolnikov

I actually laughed out loud at Google breaking the $1,000 mark. As we've seen from the recent reports, Google growth rates are slowing.

DUBNY

daveirl wrote: »

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You're right - 40% is not a monopoly....but who are the #2 and #3 players??

As for growth propects see:

http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/02/02/survey-mac-os-hit-record-757-in-dec-windows-lost-ground/?source=yahoo_quote


Normally I'll steer clear of any high profile/household name.....but this might be a nice play....again just my opinion.

PDelux

I actually laughed out loud at Google breaking the $1,000 mark. As we've seen from the recent reports, Google growth rates are slowing.

Pick a price for GOOG to be at the end of 2008 so. Everyone else is welcome to as well... should be a bit of fun

Zascar

PDelux wrote: »

Pick a price for GOOG to be at the end of 2008 so. Everyone else is welcome to as well... should be a bit of fun

$840

pjproby

$1000