hold posts

Feed

Coca-Cola: no one ever went broke, holding Coke

Wall Street, financial arbiter in the capital of the world, has amassed dozens of adages since the dawn of publicly-traded companies. Adages that -- while not proving to be 100% accurate for every historical case study -- nevertheless do contain substantial amounts of truth.

And one of Wall Street's adages is: "No one ever went broke, holding Coke."

That's The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO), not the bottler. Coke's shares closed Friday at $48.24 up 14 cents.

Sluggish sales, as well as competition from generic colas, and the U.S.'s trend toward the consumption of health-oriented, non-carbonated sports drinks, like Gatorade, have created a substantially different soft drink sector than a generation ago, when KO was dominant both domestically and internationally.

And that sluggishness has been reflected in Coke's stock price, which, for the most part, has been stuck in a $40-$55 range for about 6 years.

Continue reading Coca-Cola: no one ever went broke, holding Coke

My take on Hilary Kramer's 10 Stocks to Sell Now

Hilary: great smile, great dimples, and best of all, GREAT calls... (Sorry, I just can't be PC -- not in a blog.)

Hilary Kramer (HK) in her stock blog, HilaryOnStocks, has changed direction and decided to make people money by saving them some money, suggesting it may be time to bail out of certain holdings. Generally speaking, her comments on the 10 stocks she reviewed were very good.

However, I must take exception to the overall principle of trading in and out of stocks because that may not be smart for certain investors. For example, she suggests that Apple may be over, with its long run-up behind it and that taking some profits is in order. I made a similar argument last week.

More in depth review might reveal that if you got in early and live in a high tax state like California you are looking at losing 22% to 24% of your gain to taxes when you add the state tax to the federal capital gains tax and then add up the transaction fees. So while HK is correct that Apple may start moving lower, the question is by how much?

Also, you must consider where you will put the money when you get it. And if you put it in cash or short-term investments, then when will you get back into the market and what will you buy? And you will be putting back 25% less perhaps.

I am not against paying taxes or rotating out of questionable companies, but you must always look at the broad picture as it applies to your own situation.

Here's my take on the 10 stocks she suggests selling:

Home Depot (HD) and KB Homes (KBH): Solid companies and while they my lag for a while, if you got in at the right price they can be good core holdings depending on your personal circumstances.

Carnival Cruise Lines (CCL), Coach (COH), Gap (GPS), General Motors (GM): You don't need to bother with them now.

Apple (AAPL) and Hewlett Packard (HPQ): Big maybes.

Krispy Kreme (KKD) and Jet Blue (JBLU): No reason to own in any market!

Also check out my recent posts: "Dividends are very sexy -- no joke" and "A bad rap for a bad market"

Symbol Lookup
IndexesChangePrice
DJIA+35.8712,837.10
NASDAQ+17.072,920.95
S&P 500+4.891,347.53

Last updated: February 13, 2012: 10:46 AM

Hot Stocks

General Electric

18.95+0.075(+0.40)

Alcoa

10.31+0.02(+0.19)

Apple Inc

499.36+5.94(+1.20)

Google Inc 'A'

611.51+5.60(+0.92)

Bank of America

8.24+0.17(+2.11)

Wal-Mart Stores

61.93+0.03(+0.05)

Exxon Mobil Corp

84.01+0.21(+0.25)

Ford

12.55+0.11(+0.88)

Citigroup

33.44+0.515(+1.56)

IBM

192.40-0.02(-0.01)

Yahoo

16.075-0.065(-0.40)

Starbucks

49.01+0.19(+0.39)

Microsoft

30.455-0.04(-0.13)

Home Depot

45.615+0.285(+0.63)

DailyFinance Headlines

AOL Business News

BioHealth Investor Headlines

Sponsored Links

My Portfolios

Track your stocks here!

Find out why more people track their portfolios on AOL Money & Finance then anywhere else.

BloggingStocks Partners

More from AOL Money & Finance

Page Loaded in 1329148016189 ms.