Financial SPDR ETF (XLF): Favorite fund for financials

Posted Jan 31st 2008 11:36AM by Steven Halpern
Filed under: Newsletters, Mutual Funds, Citigroup Inc. (C), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), Goldman Sachs Group (GS), Stocks to Buy

"One of our favorite areas going forward for the next 1-5 years are the financials at these levels," says Daniel Frishberg, editor of TheMoneyMan Report and host of BizRadio. Here he looks at an ETF for the sector.

"The global growth story isn't going away and there are a ton of deals that need to be financed, trading volumes are high, private equity is still huge, and it takes big financial institutions to keep all of this running. They are really the fuel that keeps the (globally) economy expanding.

"Financials got caught up in the easy money craze by creating and buying risky derivatives. Many of the CEOs have already been fired and the books are being cleaned up by huge write downs. We think over the next couple of years, financials could actually gain the most on a return basis.

"This has been an area we have pretty much avoided or had very little exposure to. We continue to hold Citigroup (NYSE: C) in our capital gains portfolio and will average down at some point in the near future. But, for today, we want to buy the industry and dip our toe.

"Therefore, we're buying 3% of the Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund ETF (ASE: XLF). This is made up of Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), and JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM). These are the biggest financials in the world.

"Nobody knows where the absolute bottom is but we believe it's time to start grabbing the bargains in this sector. Over the next few months, this area could be the biggest part of our portfolio.

"We only have to look back to 1998 and the early 2000s to see the performance of financials after a major crisis like we've had in the past 12 months. Each one had a different cause but investors are behaving the same. Over time, we plan to build long-term positions in this sector and will start with the Financial ETF."

Each day, Steven Halpern's TheStockAdvisors.com offers the latest market commentary and favorite investment ideas from the nation's leading financial newsletter advisors.

Tags: bac, bank of america, c, citigroup, daniel frishberg, DanielFrishberg, financial etf, financial select spdr, financial stocks, goldman sachs, gs, jp morgan, jpm, moneyman report, xlf

Print this

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

2-01-2008 @ 2:45PM

alan said...

I hope that not too many investors hear the theme from"Jaws" in 60-90 days as 1Q results are made public.
If anyone really believes that Citi, etc. have written off all of their risk, well by putting your toe back in the water--you may lose it !!!