Alternative Stocks, Alternative Facts

But first, money:

Fred C: “A year ago I wrote and asked you to write more about finance and suggested once a week and you agreed to try.  I haven’t kept track but I know you have failed miserably.  I looked at the ten most recent posts and they have all been political rantings and not a single stock was mentioned.  Do you not realize by now you are preaching to the choir?  Those that disagreed with you but kept reading for the money and stock tips are long gone.  PLEASE go back to an occasional stock tip, update, or even a way to go through your neighbor’s garbage to save money.  I will continue reading because I generally agree with you but I am getting concerned that you will be writing your column from an institution if Trump is re-elected.”

→ Point taken, except for the neighbor’s garbage.  I did once tell you how I rescued a perfectly good zucchini from my own garbage, but even I have my limits.  So here are some updates:

BOREF . . . I continue to counsel patience.  I believe the company — valued at less than than $35 million today — is a far better lottery ticket than it was ten years ago, or even just last year, when it was similarly valued but so much less far along.  For one thing: it had not secured the critical financing needed to (we hope) achieve FAA approval and begin actual operation.  Now it has.

CNF . . . I bought more for as little as $4.33 this week — someone snagged some at $3.93! I assume (but don’t know) someone else was looking to take a tax loss.  Anything can happen — which is why we only buy these things with money we can afford to lose — but a very smart, successful friend knows the company intimately and believes it’s real, with enough margin of safety to weather a major correction in Chinese housing prices.  So we’re getting a fast-growing company not for the 20X or 30X earnings one might normally expect to pay, but for more like 3X.  I also like that this comes from the same investor who suggested FANH back around $5.50.  We waited a few years and got to sell at $35.   (I sold all of it in my tax-sheltered account; continue to hold some, currently around $25, in my taxable account.)  There’s zero guarantee CNF will work out as well — or at all.  But I like the odds.

I’m also still holding my PRKR, as a true lottery ticket (bought more recently around a dime) . . . some of my INFU (something seems to be happening, because it’s now nearly triple what we paid ten years ago, and six time where I could have sworn I suggested you buy more, but can’t find that now so maybe I just dreamed that I did) . . . and my SPRT, now trading at $1.10, having disbursed $1 dividend last week.  I believe it’s again selling for about the value of its cash, so you get the business for free.  If the business, succeeds, we could make a nice profit from here.

As for others (having inherited the happy gene, I tend to forget the big losers) — feel free to ask.

But Fred is right: I’m even more obsessed these days with Putin’s ongoing — successful — attack on democracy than I am with stock picks.

Speaking of which, consider the Assault on Truth.  In both this long rant and as Chuck Todd laid it out so powerfully on last Sunday’s Meet The Press.

Have a great weekend!