Month: May 2018

How Would You Like to Have Lunch with Warren Buffett? Here’s How!

If you have ever wanted to have lunch with arguably the greatest investor in the world, Warren Buffett, well now you have your chance. In addition to eating with Buffett, the head of Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA) (BRKB), you get to pick his brain about investing.

All you need to do is be the successful bidder for the eBay (EBAY) auction of the Power Lunch with Warren Buffett to Benefit GLIDE. The current bid at the time this article was written is $1,510,100.00. There have been 23 bids so far and the starting bid was $25,000.

Buffett will have a meal with the winning bidder and up to seven friends at Smith & Wollensky in New York City on a mutually agreed upon date.

All of proceeds from the winning bid will benefit GLIDE, one of the leading social service institutions working to alleviate human suffering and poverty in the San Francisco Bay Area.

You have less than four days to bid, as the auction closes on June 1, 2018 at 7:30 pm PDT. You must prequalify to bid.

How to Invest in Soccer

by Nkem Iregbulem

In America, football and soccer refer to two different sports. However, in the UK, American football doesn’t exist, so football and soccer are synonymous. While American football is the most popular sport in America, soccer, otherwise known as association football, remains the most popular sport in the world. With time, soccer has begun to win over the hearts of the American people. If you want to benefit from the increasing popularity of the sport around the world, consider investing in a soccer related stock.

You have five main choices: Manchester United PLC (MANU), Juventus Football Club S.p.A. (JVTSF), Goals Soccer Centres PLC (GOAL), Olympique Lyonnais Groupe (OQLGF), and Borussia Dortmund GmbH & Co KGaA (BORUF). The MANU and GOAL stocks can be found on the New York Stock Exchange and London Stock Exchange, respectively, but the OQLGF, BORUF, and JVTSF stocks are all traded over-the-counter.

Manchester United Football Club, a professional football club based in England, is widely considered one of the world’s best soccer teams. The team and its activities are managed by Manchester United. The company is responsible for the club’s news, sports features, media network, fan zone, and team merchandise. It generates most of its revenue from three principal sectors: Commercial, Broadcasting, and Matchday. The company has increased its revenue each fiscal year since 2015 and enjoys a 3-year revenue growth rate of 10.3%. The company’s stock has a very high PE ratio of 806.12 but a much lower forward PE ratio of 80.0. Manchester United has a market cap of $3.46 billion, and its stock pays a small dividend yield of 0.86%. With a price-sales ratio of 4.14, its stock is somewhat overpriced. This stock can be found on the New York Stock Exchange.

Juventus Football Club SpA is a company that operates as a professional soccer club based in Italy. The Juventus Football Club has one of the largest fan bases worldwide. It generates the majority of its revenue from advertising, sponsorships, ticket sales, and the licensing of television and media rights. The company has a market cap of $741.9 million. It has increased its revenue each fiscal year since 2011 and boasts a 3-year revenue growth rate of 21.24%. Its stock, which is traded over-the-counter, has a price to earnings ratio of 46.04, a price-sales ratio of 1.21, and a price-to-book ratio of 4.74.

Another soccer related stock to consider is that of Goals Soccer Centres PLC, a company based in the UK that operates more than 40 5-a-side soccer centers in the UK and one in Los Angeles. Of the five soccer related companies, Goals Soccer Centres boasts the largest market cap of $6.43 billion. The company’s stock has a current PE ratio of 14.26 and forward PE ratio of 12.39. Its stock has a price-sales ratio of 1.97 and a low price-to-book ratio of 0.65. The company faces a negative 3-year revenue growth rate of -1.56% as its revenue has been decreasing each fiscal year since 2014. You can find this stock on the London Stock Exchange.

You may also want to look at Olympique Lyonnais Groupe, a company headquartered in France. The company owns and manages the Olympique Lyonnais soccer team based in Lyon. This club is supported by a very loyal and active fanbase. The company generates a great deal of its revenue from ticket sales, player trading, sponsorships, advertising, and media licenses. Olympique Lyonnais Groupe’s revenue has been increasing each fiscal year since 2015 as the company boasts a 3-year revenue growth rate of 23.82%. Its stock is traded in the over-the-counter market, giving the company a market cap of $208.9 million. The company’s stock has a PE ratio of 20.22, an excellent price-sales ratio of 0.96, and a low price-to-book ratio of 0.65.

One last soccer related company to consider investing in is Borussia Dortmund GmbH & Co KGaA, which operates Borussia Dortmund, a German professional football club based in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia. Most of the company’s revenue comes from sponsorships, catering, player transfers, TV marketing, and ticket sales. Its revenue has been increasing each fiscal year since 2014 as it enjoys a 3-year revenue growth rate of 15.88%. The company has a market cap of $689.86 million and pays a small dividend yield of 0.85%. Borussia Dortmund’s stock has a PE ratio of 18.30 and a lower forward PE ratio of 9.74. Traded over-the-counter, its stock has a price-to-book ratio of 1.70 and a price-sales ratio of 1.16.

As soccer’s popularity grows across the world, you may want to consider getting in on the game by investing your money in the stocks of some of these football clubs and companies.

Unusual Facts About Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett

Do you think you know a lot about Warren Buffett? Here is some interesting trivia about the famous and successful head of Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA) (BRKB). Maybe you will find some interesting facts that you weren’t aware of.

1. Warren Buffett’s father was a republican congressman.

2. Warren Buffett is of Huguenot ancestry.

3. His first stock purchase was three shares of Cities Service Preferred purchased when he was eleven years old.

4. When he was fourteen years old, he filed his first tax return, which listed his watch and bicycle as a tax deduction of $35 for his paper route.

5. He was a capitalist at a very young age, not only delivering newspapers, but selling magazine subscriptions door-to-door, selling golf balls, and selling Coca-Cola.

6. He owned a chain of pinball machines in various barber shops when he was fifteen years old.

7. In his high school yearbook, under his picture, it says ‘likes math; a future stock broker.’

8. He received his B.S. in Economics from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln when he was only 19 years old.

9. He paid $31,500 for the Omaha house he lives in today (although he bought it 52 years ago).

10. He used to own a house in Laguna Beach, California.

11. Buffett attended Columbia Business School because Benjamin Graham and David Dodd taught there.

12. In 1951, he received a M.S. in Economics from Columbia Business School.

13. He made almost $10,000 by the age of 20 in 1950.

14. Buffett’s father and Benjamin Graham told him not to work on Wall Street.

15. He taught a night class at the University of Nebraska-Omaha called Investment Principals.

16. He owned a Sinclair Texaco gas station in his early 20’s.

17. His starting salary at Benjamin Graham’s company was $12,000 a year.

18. When he was 26 years old, he had $174,000 in savings.

19. He became a millionaire in 1962.

20. Buffett first bought Berkshire Hathaway stock at $7.60 per share.

21. 99% of Warren Buffet’s wealth was earned after he turned 50.

22. Warren Buffett believes gold is a bad investment with no real value.

23. Warren Buffett has only sent one email in his life — an email to Jeff Raikes from Microsoft.

24. Behind only Bill Gates, Warren Buffett has donated the second-highest amount to charity ($30.7 billion) among all of the greatest philanthropists.

25. Warren Buffett still uses an old Nokia flip phone rather than a smartphone.

26. Warren Buffett spends 80% of his days reading newspapers and books.

27. As of 2018, Warren Buffet’s net worth is $84.1 billion, which is greater than the GDP of Uruguay.

28. In 2013, Warren Buffett made on average $37 million per day.

If you like interesting trivia like this, you should get the book, Stock Market Trivia.

How to Make Money with Short Squeeze Stocks

by Fred Fuld III

Back in 2015, Keurig Green Mountain, Inc., jumped about 75% in one day, due to a takeover. The hedge fund manager, David Einhorn had a short position in the stock, which generated an enormous loss. But even a rumor of a takeover can send a stock higher, or even just good news, causing short sellers to scramble to cover their positions, creating what is called a short squeeze.

A technique that stock traders often use is buying short squeeze stocks. Here is a more extensive explanation of what a short squeeze stock is and what a short squeeze is.

When you short a stock, it means that you expect to make money from a drop in the price of a stock. Technically what happens is that you borrow shares of a stock, sell those shares, then buy back those shares at a hopefully lower price so that those shares can be returned. Of course, this all happens electronically, you don’t actually see all the borrowing and returning of shares; it just shows up on your computer screen as a negative number of shares.

Short sellers can make a lot of money, but sometimes when the stock moves against them, and begins to rise, the short sellers jump in at once to buy shares to cover their position. This is called a short squeeze. When a short squeeze takes place, it can cause the stock to rise fast and hard. Any type of positive news can trigger the short squeeze.

So other traders take advantage of this situation by looking for stocks to buy that may have a potential short squeeze. Here is what they look for:

Short Percentage of Float ~ The float is the number of freely tradable shares and the short percentage is the number of shares held short divided by the float. Amounts over 10% to 20% are considered high, and potential short squeeze plays.

Short Ratio / Days to Cover / Short Interest Ratio -This is probably the most important metric when looking for short squeeze trades, no matter what you call it. This is the number of days it would take the short sellers to cover their position based on the average daily volume of shares traded. This is a significant ratio as it shows how “stuck” the short sellers are when they want to buy in their shares without driving up the price too much. Unfortunately for the shortsellers, the longer the number of days to cover, the bigger and longer the squeeze.

Short Percentage Increase ~ This is the percentage increase in in the number of short sellers from the previous month.

Let’s take an example. Cars.com Inc. is a stock that is heavily shorted. As a matter fo fact, 23.1% of the float is shorted. In addition, the number of shares shorted has increased by almost 2% over the last reported two week period. Finally, the short interest ratio is 25. That means it would take the short sellers 25 days to cover their positions, based on the number of shares that trade each day on average.

So what stocks are heavily shorted that may be worth a closer examination? Check out the following list, but be aware, that often some stocks are heavily shorted for a reason.

Company Symbol % change % of Float Days to cover
Invacare Corporation IVC 2.5 28.9 41
Zoe’s Kitchen ZOES 1.6 35.1 35
Seritage Growth Properties SRG 2.7 34.1 33
Maxar Technologies Ltd. MAXR 4.8 7.2 32
McEwen Mining MUX 0.9 19.6 31
Lannett Company, Inc. LCI 1.7 53 31
Lee Enterprises, Inc. LEE 0.5 8 29
AU Optronics Corp AUO 1.6 … 27
Acushnet Holdings Corp. GOLF 2 15.9 26
Gildan Activewear Inc. GIL 1.4 3.7 26
The Buckle, Inc. BKE 0.1 33.8 25
Cars.com Inc. CARS 1.9 23.1 25

Would You Pay $40,000 for a Kramer Action Figure on Amazon?

Amazon (AMZN) sells a lot of stuff, some things that you never knew existed. For example, do you remember the Kramer character from the Seinfeld TV show?

One toy company has made an action figure out of him. The Funko Vinyl Idolz Seinfeld Kramer Action Figure is currently available on Amazon, but at a price.

At the time this was written, you could buy this eight inch tall toy that comes in a window display box for only $40,475.26.

What a bargain!

Like Dividend Stocks? Check Out the Aristocrats

by Fred Fuld III

Many investors prefer dividends. Yet, just because a stock pays a dividend does not make it a good stock. But if a company has been raising dividends, and raising them on a consistent basis, it probably means that the company has been doing something right.

A Dividend Aristocrat takes this concept to the extreme. It is a stock that has increased its dividend every year for at least the last 25 years.

One of the Aristocrat leaders is Proctor & Gamble (PG) which has increased its dividend over 61 years.

At 3.76%, the yield is fairly high, compared to a bank savings account, a certificate of deposit, or a money market fund.

Other well-known companies that fall into this elite category are the following:
Coca-Cola (KO) 55 years
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) 55 years
Lowe’s (LOW) 55 years
Colgate Palmolive (CL) 54 years
Target (TGT) 50 years
PepsiCo (PEP) 45 years

If you had bought any of these stocks ten or twenty or 30 years ago, and reinvested the dividends, your yield based on your original investment would be enormous.

Disclosure: Author didn’t own any of the above at the time the article was written.

Business, Investment & Financial Books on Sale

Here is a list of the finance, investment, and business books that have recently gone on sale, and available on the Amazon (AMZN) Kindle. If you have any interest in these books, I suggest that you order them right away, as these sales don’t last long.

The Effective Executive
By Peter F. Drucker
Essential principles of effective leadership
$2.99 Retail: $11.99

The Big Thing
By Phyllis Korkki
How to beat procrastination and remain motivated while working toward your biggest goals. 
$1.99  Retail: $7.99

The Rational Optimist
By Matt Ridley
Why prosperity is growing exponentially and how to embrace coming changes. 
$2.99  Retail: $10.74

Extreme You
By Sarah Robb O’Hagan
The secret to embracing your extremes and achieving monumental success. $1.99  Retail: $12.99

The Power of Why
By Amanda Lang
How curiosity spurs achievement and provides practical insights for attaining success and fulfillment.
$1.99  Retail: $11.99

Everyone’s an Artist
By Ron Tite, Scott Kavanagh, and Christopher Novais
Learn to treat business as art.
$1.99  Retail: $5.99

Beyond the Label
By Maureen Chiquet
Advice for succeeding in business on your own terms. 
$1.99  Retail: $12.99

Leadership Lessons Vol. 2
By Will Peters
Invaluable leadership lessons from six famous figures who led their nations during challenging periods.
$1.99  Retail: $9.99

Stocks Selling Below Cash Per Share and Little Debt

Do you think a return of 40% over a period of less than three years is pretty good? How about 157%? Those are the actual returns of stocks that you could have bought less than three years ago that were selling for less than the cash per share.

What is cash per share?

In simple terms, cash per share is the amount of cash the company has sitting in the banks divided by the number of shares. So if the company has little or no debt, and you can buy the stock below the amount of cash per share, you are getting a bargain. If the company went out of business today and all the inventory and equipment and all other assets were totally worthless, you would still make a profit because the cash you would receive for each share would exceed the price you paid.

Real Life Examples of Stocks that were Selling Below Cash

Let’s get back to those real life examples mentioned in the first paragraph of this article. MEI Pharma (MEIP) is an oncology company focused on the clinical development of therapeutics to treat cancer. Back in November of 2015, the stock was selling for 1.64, yet it had cash per share of 1.70, providing a discount to investors of 3.5% to the cash. Since that time, the stock has risen to 2.31, a gain of 40.85%. Not a bad investment for less than three years. Then there is Support.com (SPRT), a provider of cloud-based software and services. In November 2015, it was trading at 1.09, with cash per share of 1.25, a 12.8% discount to cash. The stock has now shot up to 2.81, a spectacular gain of 157.8%.

But what about companies that have a reverse split?

This is a great question. Let’s look at bebe (BEBE), the women’s clothing company, over the same time frame as the previously mentioned stocks. It was trading at a 22.6% discount to cash. Back then, the stock was trading at 0.41 per share, but the company had a 10 for 1 reverse split in December of 2016. What this meant was that for every 10 shares that you own prior to the split, you would now only have one share. So the effective cost basis of the original purchase price would be 4.10. The stock just closed last Friday at 7.00 per share, giving investors a 70.7% return. (To clarify this, assume you buy 1,000 shares at 41 cents, for a total cost of $410. The reverse split takes place, you now only have 100 shares at 7.00 or $7.00 total value, a gain of over 70%.)

Does the stock need to trade at a huge discount to make money?

Absolutely not. Here is a great example. GenCorp Industries (GENC) traded at a 0.1% discount to cash back then, actually one penny below the cash per share. The stock has gone from 10.18 to 15.50 a share, a very decent gain. But that’s not all. The stock declared a 3 for 2 stock split (what I call a “good stock split”) in July of 2016, which was effectively a 50% stock dividend. In other words, one and a half shares for every one share that you own. So the true gain on this stock from November 2015 is an incredible 128.3%.

Risks of Buying Below Cash Stocks

  • Possibility that the company is what we used to call the “walking dead” and what we now call “zombies”. These are companies that will continue to stumble along, never really grow but never go out of business, and they’ll just hold on to all their cash
  • Possibility that management may spend the company’s cash like a drunken sailor.
  • For biotech companies, the possibility that they will burn all their cash before they come out with an FDA approved drug

Advantages of Buying Below Cash Stocks

  • Provides a downside cushion for the stock price
  • In the event of bankruptcy or liquidation, excellent chance of getting back more money than your investment
  • Provides the company with a solid balance sheet – they can easily make payroll, buy new equipment, make acquisitions, without having to borrow

But the stock market is trading at lofty levels

Are there still stocks that can be purchased for less than cash per share? Yes, there are actually over a dozen different companies with stock prices below cash per share with little or no debt.

So what are some other companies selling below cash?

WStNN.com has come up with a list of over a dozen companies that are currently trading below their cash per share, and have little or no debt. If you are interested in getting this list, just subscribe to our newsletter. We will be emailing the list in an Excel format to all subscribers who have subscribed by 11:59 pm on Tuesday, May 8. The list, which will be sent out the following day, will provide the following:

  • Company name
  • Stock ticker symbol
  • Country where the company is based
  • Price per share
  • Cash per share
  • Percentage discount to cash
  • Debt to Equity

However, you must subscribe by May 8 in order to get this free list. The reason why we have this short timeframe is that the information may become stale a week from now, and we want you to get timely information.

What’s the Cost to Subscribe? Nothing!!!

We charge nothing for our WStNN/Stockerblog newsletter. It is sent out between two to four times a month, so we won’t spam you, we won’t overload your mailbox every day, and we don’t sell or give away our list. (Some clown actually called me about a revenue split for selling newsletters, and he said all I had to do was give him my email list and they would take care of everything. Yeah right!)

How to Get the Below Cash Stock List for Free

Just fill in the box below. We don’t ask for a credit card number, we don’t need your phone number, and you don’t have to give us your street address.  Once you submit, you will need to check your email account for a confirmation. You may need to click on the link confirming that you want to subscribe.

By the way, if you are already a subscriber, you don’t need to re-subscribe. Just remember, new subscribers need to subscribe by 11:59 pm on Tuesday, May 8. The list will be sent out the following day.

Thanks for subscribing and happy investing!

How to Invest in CRISPR

Did you happen to see 60 Minutes last weekend? There was a segment all about CRISPR. As a matter of fact, a while ago, I predicted that there would eventually be a feature  about CRISPR on 60 Minutes.

The acronym CRISPR means “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats”. What this means in very simple terms is that it is a technique for editing and splicing DNA much more quickly, simply, and less expensively than previously done in the past. It is a revolutionary technique that could potentially cure any genetic disease.

According to the free list of CRISPR stocks here at WSTNN.com, there are several publicly traded companies that have jumped on the CRISPR bandwagon, both big and small. Obviously, the CRISPR technology industry is at its very early stages, so there are risks involved with some of the purer plays, none of which are currently generating earnings. Here are some of the pure plays.






Editas Medicine (EDIT) is a Cambridge, Massachusetts based genome editing company, focusing on treating patients with genetically defined diseases through the development of a proprietary genome editing platform based on CRISPR/Cas9 technology. The company, which sports a market cap of a bit over $1.48 billion, and has $146 million in cash, but carries a significant amount of debt.

Intellia Therapeutics (NTLA) is another pure play CRISPR stock, and is currently collaborating with Novartis (NVS). Intellia is developing in vivo projects which target liver diseases, including transthyretin amyloidosis, alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, hepatitis B virus, and inborn errors of metabolism; and ex vivo relating to chimeric antigen receptor T cell and hematopoietic stem cell product candidates. The stock has a market cap of $937 million, cash of $341 million, and has no long term debt.

CRISPR Therapeutics (CRSP) is a Swiss company which is developing transformative gene-based medicines for the treatment of serious human diseases using its regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats associated protein-9 (CRISPR/Cas9). It has a market cap of $2.28 billion, cash of $239 million, and is debt free.

CRISPR is a narrow niche of the biotechnology industry, but it may become the fastest growing and most significant of all the biotech businesses. To see a list of over a dozen CRISPR companies, go to the WSTNN.com link here.

Disclosure: Author didn’t own any of the above at the time the article was written.

How to See Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Meeting Even If You Aren’t a Shareholder

Have you ever wanted to attend the annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway, the company headed by Warren Buffett? Well now there is a way you can see the meeting, even if you aren’t a shareholder.

The Berkshire Hathaway 2018 Annual Shareholders Meeting will be held on Saturday, May 5th, through Yahoo Finance, which is the exclusive online host.

The meeting can be viewed in either English or Mandarin.

The live stream will begin at 6:45am PT, 8:45am CT, and 9:45am ET.