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by Fred Fuld III
Do you like collecting old stuff? Do you have any interest in putting your money into alternative exotic investments? Then how about investing in a 76 million-year-old dinosaur skeleton?
Now is your chance. The auction house Sotheby’s will be auctioning off the skeleton of a Gorgosaurus dinosaur on July 28, 2022 in New York City.
This 22 feet long and 10 feet high skeleton is estimated to be hammered at between $5 million and $8 million.
by Fred Fuld III
Everyone knows who Elvis Presley is, the King of Rock and Roll. So how would you like to own his three-bedroom, 1,260-square-foot house where he lived during 1943 and 1944, with a possible price of less than $50,000?
Yes, it’s possible. The house that Elvis lived in with his parents, Vernon and Gladys Presley, is going to be auctioned off by Rockhurst Auctions, on Sunday, August 14, 2022, at the Holiday Inn at 3411 Elvis Presley Blvd., in Memphis, Tennessee.
The house was originally located at 1241 Kelly Street, in East Tupelo, Mississippi. It was carefully dismantled and preserved, ready to be rebuilt. The dismantling was videotaped, and the house is currently stored in a trailer, which is included as part of the auction.
The estimate is between $30,000 and $50,000 with a starting price f $25,000.
What a great casita this would be to reconstruct in the back yard of an Elvis fan.
Almost a hundred other Elvis artifacts will also be offered at the auction.
Elvis has left the building.
by Fred Fuld III
A SPAC is a Special Purpose Acquisition Company, also known as a blank check company. It is a company created specifically to raise money as a publicly traded company in order to finance a merger or acquisition opportunity within a set timeframe, usually two years.
They have no operations but go public with the intention of merging with or acquiring a company with the proceeds that were raised from the SPAC’s initial public offering. The SPACs are generally sold at $10 a share or often in $10 units which includes of one share of common stock and one or more out-of-the-money warrants or a fraction of a warrant. The units, stocks, and warrants usually start trading on either the NYSE or NASDAQ.
Probably the most famous SPAC (which no one remembers the original name of but most remember the new name after the merger) was Social Capital Hedosophia (former symbol: IPOA). This is the company that merged with Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic (SPCE), the space travel company.
Unfortunately for most investors who invested in these SPACs, the investment hasn’t turned out well, especially when measured from the stock’s high to todays price. Many came out at $10, then started dropping and never looked back. Other SPACs jumped way up in price, then later tanked way below the original $10.
For example, Romeo Power (RMO), a southern California manufacturer of lithium ion battery modules, came out at $10 a unit. Some poor soul paid 38.90 a share right after Christmas in 2020. What a Christmas present.
The stock is now trading at 44 cents a share. This is a drop of 98.9% in share price.
Another example is a company called Ucommune International Ltd (UK), a provider of agile office spaces in China. An investor paid 241.40 a share on a split adjusted basis a couple weeks before Thanksgiving in 2020. Happy Thanksgiving. The stock is now 3.71 per share, a drop of 98.2%.
To explain how the split worked on this stock, there was a 1 for 20 split on April 22, 2022. That means that if you had 100 shares to start with, you would end up with only 5 shares. So the investor who paid the high price, if had a 100 shares, actually would have paid 12.06 per share, for a total of $1206. However, after the split, he would have only 5 shares at 3.71 per share, or a total value of only $18.55.
So here is a list of SPACs that have fallen dramatically.
| SYMBOL | LOSS |
| RMO | 98.9% |
| UK | 98.2% |
| LOTZ | 96.6% |
| MILE | 95.4% |
| DAVE | 95.1% |
| UPH | 94.8% |
| RIDE | 94.5% |
| SFT | 93.9% |
| IRNT | 93.0% |
| NKLA | 92.8% |
| MNTS | 92.2% |
| GOEV | 90.7% |
| GMTX | 90.4% |
| SPCE | 88.6% |
| ATIP | 88.3% |
| MAPS | 88.3% |
| VIEW | 86.9% |
| ME | 85.4% |
| LVOX | 84.7% |
| BBAI | 70.6% |
| MYPS | 64.6% |
Disclosure: Author didn’t own any of the above at the time the article was written.
by Fred Fuld III
During the last six months, the stock market has taken a tumble, with the S&P 500 down almost 20% year-to-date.
Some investors and traders are now looking for bargains, hoping for a short term or even a long term bounce.
So how do you go about choosing a stock to buy in these volatile times? One strategy is to look for stocks that are not only selling below their book value, but also below their cash per share, especially if the company has low or no debt.
The cash per share is the amount of money that would be distributed for each share if the company went out of business today. In other words, if all the other company’s assets were totally worthless, how much would shareholders receive for each share, just from the cash in the bank the company has.
So if you can buy the stock for less than the cash per share, you should be getting a fairly good deal, not counting other factors.
If the company is also profitable, that is another benefit.
The following are four stocks with have low or no debt, are trading below the cash per share, and are profitable with price to earnings ratios below 32. As a matter of fact, three of the companies have P/E ratios below 15. All of the following are low cap or extremely low cap, so should be considered very, very speculative.
Atea Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (AVIR), with a market cap of $577.00 million, is a biopharmaceutical company, which is involved in the development of antiviral therapeutics for patients suffering from viral infections. The stock has a reasonable P/E of 14.02, debt amounting to 2.88 million, and is currently selling for 17% below its cash per share.
Rubicon Technology, Inc. (RBCN) is an Illinois based company, involved in the production of monocrystalline sapphire for applications in optical and industrial systems. It has a market cap of $22.61 million. The P/E ratio is 30.63 and the company has no debt. It is selling for 15% below cash.
Sesen Bio, Inc. (SESN), based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, develops targeted fusion protein therapeutics for the treatment patients with cancer. The market cap is $163.72 million and the P/E is 3.23. The company only has $100,000 in debt. The stock is selling at 4% below cash.
SunLink Health Systems, Inc. (SSY) is a provider of healthcare products and services, and is based in Atlanta, Georgia. It has an extremely low, and therefore extremely speculative, market cap of only $7 million. The P/E is 1.47 and the amount of debt is $1.31 million. The stock is selling for 1% below cash.
As previously mentioned, all these stocks should be considered extremely speculative. Remember, often stocks sell for a very low price for a reason.
Disclosure: Author didn’t own any of the above at the time the article was written. No investment recommendations are expressed or implied.
by Fred Fuld III
Have you ever wanted to own your own island? Hav you ever wanted to own your own castle? Have you ever wanted to have a title of Lord (Laird)?
How would you like to have all of the above? Well you can. An island, The Isle of Vaila, located in Walls, Shetland, Scotland, is for sale.
The price? Offers over $2,146,288 are being considered. The island is being offered by Savills in Edinburgh.
Here is what you get as part of the purchase price:
This island, with beautiful views, has a private shore base into a sheltered bay with a pier.
The mansion/castle has four reception rooms and is furnished with the original late 1800s furniture.
So you get an island, a castle, and because the word “Lord” or “Laird” is generally used to refer to any owner of a landed estate in Scotland, according to Wikipedia, you technically get a “title”, although that is not specified in the listing and would require further research of titles with the Lord Lyon. In the traditional Scottish order of precedence, a laird ranked below a baron and above a gentleman.
So what more could you ask for? Anyone want to go in on this island with me?
by Fred Fuld III
The number one financial topic that seems to be on everyone’s mind these days is inflation, and more specifically, the price of gas at the pump. Just in the last week, gasoline prices in the United States have increased by over 2.6%. That’s a lot for a one week increase!!!
The price is now around seven dollars gallon for high octane gas in California. As a matter of fact, the price oof gasoline in California is so bad, that the U.S. Energy Information Administration has two separate categories for the west coast: West Coast and West Coast Less California. I assume that the outrageously high price of California gasoline skews the west coast average.
Have you ever wondered how the US gas prices compare to other countries and how prices compare across the United States? The following is a selection of prices per gallon in US dollars from various American cities and countries around the world, based on recent averages.
| Average Prices per Gallon of Regular Gasoline Around the World | |
| Hong Kong | $11.35 |
| Italy | $8.20 |
| UK | $8.66 |
| Switzerland | $8.57 |
| Japan | $4.74 |
| India | $5.06 |
| US – West Coast | $5.87 |
| Canada | $6.55 |
| US – West Coast less California | $5.43 |
| China | $5.66 |
| Australia | $5.41 |
| US – Midwest | $4.97 |
| Mexico | $4.40 |
| US – Rocky Mountain | $4.92 |
| US – AVERAGE | $5.01 |
| US – East Coast | $4.85 |
| US – Gulf Coast | $4.63 |
| Russia | $3.53 |
| Saudi Arabia | $2.35 |
| Iran | $0.20 |
| Venezuela | $0.08 |
by Fred Fuld III
The following informative interview was provided by Sachin Khajuria, the founder of Achilles Management and a former Partner at Apollo, one of the world’s largest alternative asset management firms. He has twenty-five years of investment and finance experience and holds degrees in economics from the University of Cambridge. He is also the author of Two and Twenty: How the Masters of Private Equity Always Win, which was recently released.
This interview contains a lot of great information about the private equity fund industry and the economy. Some of the topics included are as follows:
Enjoy listening to the great insights and information that Sachin Khajuria provides.
To stream the interview, click:
It may take a few seconds to load. You can also download the interview as an mp3 file by right-clicking (or Control clicking) HERE and choosing “save as”.
The book, Two and Twenty: How the Masters of Private Equity Always Win, is available through Amazon and other book stores.
Additional information can be found about Sachin Khajuria and his company at Achilleslp.com.
Enjoy the interview!
All opinions are those of Sachin Khajuria, and do not represent the opinions of this site or the interviewer. Neither this site, nor the interviewer, nor the interviewee are rendering tax, legal, or investment advice in this interview.
Affiliate links are on this page
The following is a short list of some of the many stocks going ex dividend during the next month.
Many traders and investors use the stock trading technique called ‘Buying Dividends,’ also commonly referred to as ‘Dividend Capture.’ This is the strategy of buying stocks before the ex dividend date and selling the stock shortly after the ex date at about the same price, yet still being entitled to the dividend.
This technique generally works in bull markets and flat or choppy markets, but you need to avoid the strategy during bear markets. In order to be entitled to the dividend, you have to buy the stock before the ex-dividend date, and you can’t sell the stock until after the ex date.
The actual dividend may not be paid for another few weeks. WallStreetNewsNetwork.com has compiled a downloadable and sortable list of the stocks going ex dividend in the near future. The list contains many dividend paying companies, lots with market caps over $500 million, and some with yields over 2%. Here are a few examples showing the stock symbol, the ex-dividend date, the periodic dividend amount, and the yield.
| Company & Symbol | Ex date | Amount | Yield |
| Dollar General Corporation (DG) | 7/1/2022 | 0.55 | 0.95% |
| Comcast Corporation (CMCSA) | 7/5/2022 | 0.27 | 2.79% |
| Campbell Soup Company (CPB) | 7/6/2022 | 0.37 | 3.26% |
| Intuit Inc. (INTU) | 7/8/2022 | 0.68 | 0.74% |
| Oracle Corporation (ORCL) | 7/11/2022 | 0.32 | 1.89% |
| Foot Locker, Inc. (FL) | 7/14/2022 | 0.40 | 5.57% |
| Caterpillar, Inc. (CAT) | 7/19/2022 | 1.20 | 2.49% |
| Colgate-Palmolive Company (CL) | 7/20/2022 | 0.47 | 2.54% |
| Krispy Kreme, Inc. (DNUT) | 7/26/2022 | 0.035 | 1.09% |
| Signet Jewelers Limited (SIG) | 7/28/2022 | 0.20 | 1.31% |
| Hasbro, Inc. (HAS) | 7/29/2022 | 0.70 | 3.50% |
The additional ex-dividend stocks can be found HERE . (If you have been to the page before, and the latest link doesn’t show up, you may have to empty your cache.) If you like dividend stocks, you should check out some of the other high yield stock lists at WSTNN.com HERE .
Declaration date: the day that the company declares that there is going to be an upcoming dividend.
Ex-dividend date: the day on which if you buy the stock, you would not be entitled to that particular dividend; or the first day on which a shareholder can sell the shares and still be entitled to the dividend.
Record date: the day when you must be on the company’s books as a shareholder to receive the dividend. The ex-dividend date is normally set for stocks at two business days before the record date.
Payment date: the day on which the dividend payment is actually made, which can be as long at two months after the ex date.
Don’t forget to reconfirm the ex-dividend date with the company before implementing this technique.
Disclosure: Author did not own any of the above at the time the article was written; affiliate links are on this page.
by Fred Fuld III
In case you haven’t noticed, the stock market has tanked recently, with most stocks dropping by a substantial amount. Some traders think we are due for a bounce, even if we are in a bear market (which I think we are).
If we are do for a bounce, what do you do?
Traders and investors can make money on the long side from short squeezes. One technique that stock traders utilize is buying short squeeze stocks, companies have been heavily shorted. Here is a more extensive explanation of short squeezes.
When you short a stock, it means that your goal is 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. This all happens electronically, so you don’t actually see all the borrowing and returning of shares; it just shows up on your screen as a negative number of shares.
Short sellers can be profitable, but sometimes when the stock moves against them, and begins to rise, the short sellers jump in right away to buy shares to cover their positions, creating what is called a short squeeze. When a short squeeze takes place, it can cause the share prices to increase fast and furiously. Any good news can trigger the short squeeze.
Some traders utilize this situation by looking for stocks to buy that may have a potential short squeeze. Here is what a short squeeze trader should take into consideration:
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.
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.
All these stocks have more than 30% of their float shorted, have days-to-cover greater than 6, and all are generating earnings with trailing and/or forward price to earnings ratios less than 15.
| Company | Symbol | Short % of Float | Days to Cover |
| Big 5 | BGFV | 38% | 9 |
| Big Lots | BIG | 34% | 5.8 |
| Conn’s | CONN | 42% | 8.5 |
| Camping World | CWH | 35% | 9.1 |
| Groupon | GRPN | 33% | 6.2 |
Just keep in mind that just because a stock has good earnings ratios and are heavily shorted, doesn’t mean that the stock won’t continue to drop, especially in a bear market. Also, stocks that are significantly shorted may be shorted for a reason.
Disclosure: Author didn’t own any of the above at the time the article was written.
by Fred Fuld III
I’ve been seeing so-called experts on TV explaining about ways to survive during these inflationary times. They recommend such things as spending only the bare minimum when you go to the supermarket, buy just enough gas to get you through the next few days, and avoid going on vacation.
This is about the stupidest thing you could possibly due during a rising inflationary environment.
The best thing you can do is the exact opposite. When you shop for groceries, stock up on as many non-perishable as you can, such as canned goods (soup, vegetables, fruit, seafood), peanut butter, dried fruit, protein bars, oatmeal, honey, syrup, salt, sugar, spices, and bottled water.
Why? Because prices will continue to rise. You might as well pay lower prices now and have plenty to last you for a long while, instead of buying a little now and paying higher prices a few weeks or months from now.
You may have seen a previous post, called The Amazon Inflation Rate is Running at 68% Per Year, which showed that in a recent one-year period, the average price increases from items I ordered through Amazon increased by 68%, and even if you excluded the outliers, the items that more than doubled in price, the overall average increase was still an outrageously high 38%!!!
Inflation cannot be stopped immediately. It is not a light switch that can be turned off at any moment. It is more like turning around a giant ship, which can take a long time.
So, the same situation exists with buying gas for your car. Fill it to the maximum that the gas station has set for your credit card. (I keep hearing about people saying the pump stopped at $100 or $120.) You might as well fill your tank now instead of waiting a week, and paying 25 cents a gallon more.
As for vacations, why wait? Prices for flying will continue to rise. Airlines use petroleum fuel for their jets, and since the price of oil has been rising significantly in price, the airlines have to pass that cost along to their customers, along with all the other costs related to running an airline.
Plus, if you were considering traveling overseas, there is an additional reason to take your vacation now. The U.S. dollar is very strong compared to other currencies, so your spending will go a long way in many European and Asian countries.
Therefore, you should have no guilt about spending your money now. As a matter of fact, you would be doing yourself a financial favor.
