Refinitiv Newscasts - Not time to sell stocks yet -Ball
02/06/2021 21:12
Click the following link to watch video: https://share.newscasts.refinitiv.com/link?entryId=1_ehudr7mq&referenceId=tag:reuters.com,2021:newsml_OVEFPRHXN_930&pageId=RefinitivNewscasts Source: Reuters Description: As the Dow and S&P 500 sit just below record highs, Wall Street veteran George Ball of Sanders Morris Harris tells Reuters' Fred Katayama he senses a bullish bias in trading that indicates the market hasn't topped yet. Short Link: https://refini.tv/3fLuIv6 Video Transcript: The Dow and S&P 500 inching higher Wednesday ahead of the Friday jobs report. With two of the major indexes near their all-time highs, is it time to sell? Well, let's ask George Ball. He's CEO Sanders Morris Harris joining us today from Basalt, Colorado. Welcome back, George. The answer, Fred, is it's a categoric, not yet time to sell. The market today probably reflects the overall trends beautifully. There's a gentle upward bias to it. The main participants of the market, by the way, are retail traders who have a strong bullish bias and the algorithmic traders who are 50% of all for profit volume. And their algorithms have something of a up is better than down cant to them. So, for now, the trend is mildly upward. My advice would be, stay long, stay fairly aggressively long, and whatever you do, don't try to sell at the top. That'll be a mistake. Do you sense how much more upside there is? Yes. Fred, the obvious answer is nobody knows for sure. The trend is your friend until it decides to bend. And for now, the impetus is upward. Shocking statistic. If you take all the penny stocks in America, things that sell for $0.99 or less, the flotsam, the jetsam of all stocks, they're up 65% this year. The retail traders aren't as dominant as they were, but they're still 25% of volume and they want things to go up. So, don't sell yet. You'll miss out on too much. So if you try to sell at the top, you're probably making a mistake. Wait, let things drop, see the trend change, and then lighten up on equities, I think considerably. George, if one of those equities you held was AMC Entertainment, which is up more than 90% today, up 2800% year to date, would you be selling? It is certainly the poster child of things that go up just because they are. And Fred, if you think back far enough in history, even before me, take the famous speculators. They basically were pool operators. They were saying, what are the other famous speculators doing. They got together, they were in cahoots. Jesse Livermore, who made three fortunes before he finally shot himself in the head after he lost his third fortune, they were all doing what the retail traders are doing really, and Reddit and other online chat rooms today. So it's not new. Don't knock it, but don't try to do it either. Alright, George, thanks a lot for that little bit of history by the way, colorful as it is. So if you're an investor as opposed to trader, you got a long-term outlook, we've seen a lot of appreciation in stocks, tech earlier on, but now especially with the reopening trade, the cyclicals. Are there any stocks that you'd recommend now? Yes, if I were buying stocks now, the stocks to own now, what I would term, the new tech stocks. Not the FANGs, they're yesterday, but the TelaDocs, the MercadoLibres, the Squares, the Cheggs, those are things with still unlimited upside, big companies, turning profitable, but not so big that they can't continue to grow. So I'd also own in the more conventional sense, the politically noncontroversial infrastructure stocks. I use United Rental or US Concrete just as examples of things that aren't going to be a fighting point between the Democrats and Republicans. They're things to own. And I would own the VIX if it trades under 14 or 15 as a hedge. That's a hedge in this bullish market. Yes. Alright. And US Concrete, I might add, is up 40%. So it's already had a good run this year so far. Thanks again, George, for your tips. Our thanks to George Ball of Moore Sanders Harris. I'm Fred Katayama in New York, or Sanders Morris Harris that is. I'm Fred Katayama in New York. This is Reuters