"Schlumberger Limited (SLB) is the world's leading oil services company, assisting in exploration, production and most other oil services; its operations include being a leader in applying proprietary technologies to extract hard-to-extract oil and gas," says Michael Shulman.

The editor of The Short-Side Trader suggests, "Let's ask ourselves the following question: Over the next year is the there going to be more, less or an equal demand for oil? The answer is clearly more demand.

"Another question: Over the next year is there going to be more, less or an equal supply of oil?

Continue reading Schlumberger (SLB): A 'Great Opportunity'

Schlumberger (SLB): A 'Great Opportunity' originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 31 Mar 2011 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

A lot of investors think Amgen (AMGN) is a great next-generation biotech company. Wrong. Amgen was a decent last-generation biotech company.

It's terribly managed outfit living on EPO drugs for dialysis and oncology patients. True, it has a billion dollar (actually more) drug, Neupogen, but it could be subject to generic competition in the United States from TEVA within two years.

Continue reading Deadbeat Stock #6: Amgen (AMGN)

Deadbeat Stock #6: Amgen (AMGN) originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 21 Mar 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

This declining company lost patent protection for its statin, Zocor. It has replaced some of these sales with three new drugs, but, in reality, they cannot make up for the lost revenue from Zocor.

Merck's (MRK) revenues are stagnant and the company has a very weak pipeline. Even if health care reform adds more patients, it will also bring increased pressure to cut prices.

Continue reading Deadbeat Stock #5: Merck (MRK)

Deadbeat Stock #5: Merck (MRK) originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 21 Mar 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Pfizer (PFE) was the darling of the 1990s. Well, so was Bill Clinton, and like Clinton, the company pops up now and again in the news, but none of it really matters.

Pfizer's premier product, Lipitor, comes off patent this year and will get hit by generic competition in 2011. This drug has $11 billion in sales, which will shrink to $4 billion or less, and with that could go $5 billion or so in profits.

Continue reading Deadbeat Stock #4: Pfizer (PFE)

Deadbeat Stock #4: Pfizer (PFE) originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 21 Mar 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

A well-managed company that may be worth buying someday, currently Brunswick's (BC) profits rely too heavily on making and selling boats.

Who needs a boat? You may want one, but you certainly don't need one. And when you find the cash (since there's no credit available) to buy one, you can get a used one; they are falling off the dry docks.

Continue reading Deadbeat Stock #3: Brunswick (BC)

Deadbeat Stock #3: Brunswick (BC) originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 20 Mar 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Would anyone care if Palm (PALM) went away -- other than its employees and shareholders?

This company is seeing sales decline, and its new best hope, the Pre, is competing against the iPhone, BlackBerry and Droid.

That means a company with little cash and a market cap under a billion dollars is fighting, with an inferior and overpriced product, against the combined strength of Apple (AAPL), Research In Motion (RIMM) and Google (GOOG). End of discussion.

At the time of this writing, the author did not own shares of PALM.

Next: Deadbeat Stock #3: Brunswick (BC)

Deadbeat Stock #2: Palm (PALM) originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 20 Mar 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Harley-Davidson (HOG) shot up recently on takeover rumors, but in my opinion, they're just that -- rumors.

Who needs a high-end motorcycle during the Great Recession? Or its aftermath? And who needs the stock of a company with more than $4 billion in long-term debt, huge unpaid pension obligations, lousy cash flow to service its debt, and that is still in search of a partner to take customer loans off its hands.

Continue reading Deadbeat Stock #1: Harley-Davidson (HOG)

Deadbeat Stock #1: Harley-Davidson (HOG) originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 20 Mar 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Spring is finally here, which means it's time to break out the broom and dustpan for some spring cleaning.

But your home isn't the only thing that requires constant maintenance -- your portfolio does too.

And what better time than spring to get a fresh start by cleaning out the stocks that are sitting around collecting dust rather than making you money?

Continue reading Six Deadbeat Stocks to Clean Out of Your Portfolio

Six Deadbeat Stocks to Clean Out of Your Portfolio originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 20 Mar 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The market is wildly overvalued given the trajectory of the economy and is being driven by traders.

The trade of the day continues to be dollar/commodities/China, but more and more, individual stocks are being rewarded or whacked based on fundamentals, a good thing for stock pickers, but a bad thing for the vast majority of money managers who know little more than the movement of the indices.

Continue reading Reason #5 to Short the U.S.: The Market Is Overvalued

Reason #5 to Short the U.S.: The Market Is Overvalued originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Banks are the kink between the financial markets and the Main Street economy. They are also the lubricant -- when they are lending -- of a growing economy.

Using time-honored but now discarded accounting standards, U.S. banks, as a group, are insolvent. They are hoarding cash because deep in the recesses of little offices, they know they will be exposed as insolvent if they have to dump toxic assets on the market. They are also looking at reduced activity due to the economy and new taxes and regulations, and therefore lower profits. And when the Fed raises interest rates, their spreads will contract, also hitting profits.

Continue reading Reason #4 to Short the U.S.: The Banks

Reason #4 to Short the U.S.: The Banks originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

With reduced national income due to unemployment, reduced spending power due to tightened credit, reduced wealth due to falling home and stock market values and reduced confidence due to all of the above, we are seeing consumers take on new attitudes toward spending.

This "New Frugal" will not be a fad that passes quickly. U.S. consumers will continue to keep their purse strings tightened.

Continue reading Reason #3 to Short the U.S.: The 'New Frugal'

Reason #3 to Short the U.S.: The 'New Frugal' originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The optimism on Wall Street about housing is surreal given all the public data on housing values, mortgage defaults, foreclosures and new home starts.

Housing prices are going to fall nationally for another couple of years as foreclosures hit 6-7 million in the next 30 months, and the 600,00 to 800,000 homes foreclosed but not yet listed are added to housing inventory. The headwinds created by this will last until foreclosures peak and those homes hit the market in late 2011 to mid-2012. Foreclosures will not hit historical norms until a year or two from that peak.

Continue reading Reason #2 to Short the U.S.: The Housing Market Isn't Recovering

Reason #2 to Short the U.S.: The Housing Market Isn't Recovering originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 30 Jan 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Large and rapidly growing deficits and public debt at the federal and state level will eventually lead to a rise in interest rates and to the crowding out of other spending as governments service debt. This will likely start near the end of this year or early in 2011.

And please don't blame the Democrats, the party of fiscal rectitude. The Republicans doubled the debt while they controlled the White House and Congress, financing a war off balance sheet, led by a cheerleader in chief who told people to go shopping rather than tighten their belts after 9/11. And historically, red-staters spend more on their key constituents than the Dems, so if they grab power, nothing will change.

Continue reading Reason #1 to Short the U.S.: Public Debt

Reason #1 to Short the U.S.: Public Debt originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 30 Jan 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I love my country: the chaos, the hurly-burly of democracy, the hard work of quiet people and the great, big heart as shown by our private donations to Haiti at a time of near 20% unemployment and underemployment. We forgive wayward politicians and athletes, let our children make more decisions than virtually any people on Earth and we stand for something -- a true city on a hill. But right now, that city is in political chaos ... and pretty broke.

Although, I don't like to say it, it is time to short the United States.

Continue reading Five Reasons to Short the U.S.

Five Reasons to Short the U.S. originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 30 Jan 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

This little gem was perpetuated by tech guru and investor Roger McNamee. Of course, he is a member of the Palm (PALM) board of directors, and his firm is an investor in the company.

Did I mention that PALM shot up after his comment, before the mediocre and overpriced Pre hit the market? The company then issued shares a few days later? You and I would go to jail for doing this.

Continue reading Lie #11: The Palm Pre Is the Ultimate iPhone Killer

Lie #11: The Palm Pre Is the Ultimate iPhone Killer originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 27 Dec 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

If you think China saw double-digit growth this year, you may also believe swine flu is spread via flying pigs.

The London-based Lombard Group, using energy data from the International Energy Agency -- which we can assume is a bit more accurate than the nonsense printed by the Chinese government -- shows GDP growth may have been just 2% in the first quarter rather than the reported 6.1%. And even that growth is being held up by government stimulus and state banks lending money to anyone and everyone to build capacity no one needs or to invest in Chinese equities no one can fairly value since Chinese accounting is as good as Chinese government data.

Continue reading Lie #10: China Experienced Double-Digit Growth in 2009

Lie #10: China Experienced Double-Digit Growth in 2009 originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 27 Dec 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Monetary neurotics, led by the polite, appealing and economically brain-damaged Ron Paul, believe the U.S. dollar is dead because of our growing debt and the Fed running the printing presses, which must lead to inflation, which, in turn, will kill the dollar. Recent falls in the dollar seem to confirm this, uh, shibboleth (look it up again) of the monetary right.

In actuality, though, the dollar is no weaker than it was a few years ago. And it is the only currency in the world for the foreseeable -- and I mean long-term foreseeable -- future that can serve as a reserve currency due not just to our economic and political power, but our political system.

Continue reading Lie #9: The U.S. Dollar Is Dead

Lie #9: The U.S. Dollar Is Dead originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 27 Dec 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

This is a cornerstone of the Fed, a true shibboleth (Google that one). But one of the first set of bonds the Fed bought under the TALF program were bonds backed by motorcycle loans made by Harley-Davidson (HOG) to its customers.

The Fed program was designed to provide loans and capital to businesses that were shut out of frozen credit markets, which is a good thing. But loans to Harley made to boost the sale of motorcycles to people who could not get loans elsewhere?

Continue reading Lie #8: The Fed Only Buys AAA-Rated Bonds and Securities

Lie #8: The Fed Only Buys AAA-Rated Bonds and Securities originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 27 Dec 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

With 70% of the GDP driven by consumer spending, Wall Street wants to believe this lie so badly that it has convinced itself it's true. Even worse-than-expected Black Friday sales haven't forced the Street to give up this inane hope.

Real consumer wealth is down more than 40% in the past two years; credit is contracting and unemployment is rising. That is not exactly the recipe for increased consumer spending.

Continue reading Lie #7: Consumer Spending Is Returning to Normal

Lie #7: Consumer Spending Is Returning to Normal originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 27 Dec 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The headline consensus on Wall Street is that the banks are stable and no markets are melting down. In short, things are returning to normal.

But we've seen a $1.5 trillion reduction in consumer credit during the past 18 months, and another $1 trillion (at least) is likely to be pulled back in the coming year, according to uber-analyst Meredith Whitney -- someone I wouldn't bet against. And almost no one is getting a home equity line.

Continue reading Lie #6: The Credit Crunch Is Easing

Lie #6: The Credit Crunch Is Easing originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 27 Dec 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.