Saturday Readings And Observations

Key to being a successful investor is doing lots of reading to get great ideas. On Wall Street, many of the best ideas come not from original though but rather reading and drawing inferences about stories that have been written.

My favorite weekend reading sources are The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Barron's, USA Today and well as my subscription to Briefing.com. Why these? I read The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and USA Today during the week as well. They are considered to be the most reputable sources over the years. Yes many think The Wall Street Journal is too conversative and The New York Times is too liberal. However, their business units are class acts.

So I rely on them and always will. Barron's is a must read for anyone who is looking to pick the brains of professional investors as well as company insiders.  Last from a newspaper standpoint, USA Today is deserves more credit than they get. I have found many good ideas in this publication.

Briefing.com is a newsfeed and a great source during the trading day. I love to read their summaries of the week and look for hidden gems. So what did I find this weekend that might be of interest?

USA Today had a great article about how Travelers are ready to fly and go on vacation. This will drive me to do some work on airlines and hotels. I already have an eye on Airbnb (ABNB). Also, there was an article on retailers like Costco (COST), Sam's and  Trader Joes dropping the mask requirement thanks to the CDC announcement. This type of article has appeared in other places as well.

The New York Times had an interesting article on how states are going to tighten what social media companies can do when the Feds will not. This could keep the heat on Facebook (FB) and Google (GOOGL) for sure.Also, there was an article about how hackers are giving up on ransomware. It looks like the Feds might finally have an effective tool to fight the hackers. This would be a game changer.

The Wall Street Journal featured an article in the Markets section on IPOs being in trouble along with SPACs and sepculative stocks. This has been the case for a while and makes sense away from those speculative names until they find a base. They also looked at stocks that defined the week including Walt Disney (DIS) that ran out of steam on earnings as its subscriber growth on Disney+ began to slow.

Last but not least, Barron's cover was on the "I" word, inflation. Wednesday saw CPI come in hot at 0.8% and on Thursday PPI came in at 0.6%. The ramifications of a long bout of inflation could be problematic but if it is short term in duration then stocks should rally to new highs.

Following such a process allows one to make investment in a more systematic and thematic process. Try to think this way and you may find you like your results!

Cheers,

Geoff