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Charlie Sheen Shorts Berkshire Hathaway. Proves you can still make a killing in the market while wasted.

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The Sax Angle created a hypothetical portfolio for Charlie Sheen.  Our extensive backtesting proves you can still get wasted and make a killing in the stock market.

Charlie Sheen’s stock portfolio produced enormous gains while his career floundered.   That’s the conclusion that the analysts at the SAX  ANGLE came to while building a hypothetical portfolio of Charlie Sheen’s stock holdings.  Based on public information, TV shows, and extensive web gossip, we concluded that Charlie Sheen should own or control significant stock in nine companies, some private and public.

1. Playboy Enterprises– PLA.A

Charlie Sheen should get involved in a group offering a rival bid to Hugh Hefner’s attempt to take Playboy (PLA) Enterprise private.  Once a sought out guest of the Playboy Mansion, Charlie should plan behind the scenes to throw out its namesake owner. Once his buyout group gets control of Playboy, we suggest that Charlie plan to move into the mansion and mummify Hef and display him wax figure like descending the entrance stairs.

2. Laboratory Holdings- LH

Sheen should work with the drug testing giant’s research lab to make drug tests anyone can pass.  Charlies should direct his agent to make a deal for him to be the spokesperson for the new “Easy Pass Come Clean Machine.”

3.  Betty Ford Clinic Buyout

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Recently Discovered Video Interview with Seth Klarman

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For those who don’t know Seth Klarman, here’s some brief info from Jacob Wolinsky at Valuewalk:

Seth Klarman is undoubately one of the greatest investors of our time. Klarman manages Baupost Group, the 11th largest Hedge Fund in the US, with over $20 billion in assets.  There is a rumor that Buffett, (a big fan of Klarman) keeps a copy of Klarman’s out of print and super expensive book Margin of Safety, by his bed. Seth Klarman’s Baupost fund has produced returns of approximately 20% annually since inception in 1983. Klarman has produced phenomenal returns despite the fact that he usually holds huge amounts of cash.

According to a lecture given by Bruce Greenwald: Warren Buffett says that when he retires, there are three people he would like to manage his money. First is Seth Klarman of the Baupost Group, who you will hear from later in the course. Next is Greg Alexander. Third is Li Lu.

Below are the videos (6 in total), enjoy:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0aRiDI1wnk&feature=related&w=400&h=300]

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XOIL Tries to Be Spot-On Spot

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  Global X launched a new equity ETF on Tuesday (3/15/11) that attempts to achieve high correlation to crude oil spot prices. Global X Oil Equities ETF (XOIL) provides exposure to pure-play oil companies with significant oil reserves that are typically not involved in other industries such as natural gas or downstream operations.

The underlying Solactive Global Oil Equities Index tracks the performance of 25 equal-weighted companies that have shown a high correlation to the spot price of oil. Constituents are ranked and chosen by their correlation to the spot price of oil in the quarter preceding the selection day. The index has a global mandate, but only North American stocks passed the most recent correlation screen with 80% currently allocated to the U.S. and 20% to Canada.

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Get Ready for ETF Changes: QQQQ Becomes QQQ Again

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by: Ron Rowland

PowerShares is changing the ticker symbols for 10 of its ETFs starting with tomorrow’s (3/23/2011) opening of trading. Included in the changes are the PowerShares QQQQ Trust along with the nine small cap sector ETFs that were the subject of a lawsuit filed by the Select Sector SPDR Trust.

I never understood why PowerShares changed the ticker symbol on the Nasdaq 100 ETF from QQQ to QQQQ while simultaneously making QQQ part of its name back in 2004. Perhaps it had something to do with it becoming a Nasdaq listing when the Nasdaq wasn’t allowed to have three letter ticker symbols. Anyway, apparently enough time has passed (or the letter count restrictions were relaxed enough) to allow it to revert to the former ticker – the one with just three letters that matches its name.

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What to Buy in Rebuilding Japan

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   Japan has been hit by a triple calamity – monster quake, killer tsunamis’ and nuclear disaster– that only a Hollywood disaster film director could imagine. The damages wrought by this catastrophe in terms of human life and suffering as well as economic damage will be remembered as one of the worst in history. From our standpoint on the ground in Tokyo, it was (and is) hard to be an objective observer given the ongoing Fukushima nuclear crisis, daily earthquake aftershocks, checking radiation levels, gas lines and empty shelves in neighborhood convenience stores and supermarkets. But Japanfs stock and financial markets, being the amoral animals they are, have largely or completely discounted the worst in losing 12.6% or 1,305 points on the Nikkei 225 from a mid-session high on Friday March 11, 2011 to a mid-session low on Friday March 18, 2011; the caveat being that the Fukushima nuclear crisis does not deteriorate into a level 7 Chernobyl-like nuclear disaster.

  • Historically, monster quakes (in 1855, 1923 and 1995) have marked or

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12 Technology Stocks Hedge Funds Are Insanely Bullish About

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By Insider Monkey

  Insider Monkey, your source for free insider trading data, has started publishing some of its content on Seeking Alpha. Here is the latest article we published about    the most popular stocks among hedge fund managers:

  Based on the transactions of nearly 700 hedge funds, we compiled the list of the top 12 technology stocks hedge funds were buying like crazy during the most recent fourth quarter:

1. Apple Inc (AAPL): Nearly 200 hundred hedge funds own 4% of the outstanding shares. Hedge fund stars like David Einhorn, John Griffin, Stephen Mandel, Chase Coleman and John Burbank all own AAPL in their portfolio.

2. Microsoft Co (MSFT): Microsoft was owned by 161 hedge funds at the end of last year. Barry Rosenstein’s Jana Partners, David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital, Craig Effron’s Scoggin Capital, and Brevan Howard are some of other hedge funds bullish about Microsoft. Whitney Tilson was extremely bulish about Microsoft too. He predicted that Microsoft will reach $35 by the end of 2011.

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UN: Radiation to Hit U.S. By Friday

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     A United Nations forecast of the potential path of the radioactive plume coming from crippled Japanese reactors shows it churning across the Pacific and touching the Aleutian Islands on Thursday before hitting Southern California late Friday.

     However, the weather (more importantly the wind) has been just as volatile and inconsistent as the markets themselves.  Over the next few days wind will be one of the most important variables being factored into the markets.                 

**  CLICK TO SEE VIDEO OF FORECASTED RADIATION PATH   **

     According to the New York Times, A forecast by the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization shows how weather patterns this

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5 Stocks with Substantial Insider Buying

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By Insider Monkey

Insider trading is most profitable when several insiders buy around the same time. Academic studies have shown that insider purchases beat index funds by more than 7 % per year  when there are several insiders purchasing. Insider Monkey, your source for free insider trading data, compiled the list of stocks where at least two insiders made recent purchases. Here are the stocks with substantial insider purchases:

General Motors (GM): As GM’s stock price fell below its IPO price, several insiders stepped in and purchased modest amounts of shares. Daniel F. Akerson, CEO, purchased 5,000 shares at $31.81. Hedge funds snatched 6% of GM’s outstanding shares and amassed a $3.4 Billion position during the last three months of 2010. There were 112 hedge funds with GM positions at the end of December. John Griffin’s Blue Rigde, William Ackman’s Pershing Square, George Soros, David Tepper’s Appaloosa, Roberto Mignone’s Bridger Management,  Richard Perry’s Perry Capital, and Leon Cooperman’s Omega Advisors are among the several high profile hedge funds with GM positions.

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Japan…The new Black Swan.

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Before the discovery of Australia, people in the Old World were convinced that all swans were white, an unassailable belief as it seemed completely confirmed by empirical evidence. The sighting of the first black swan might have been an interesting surprise for a few ornithologists (and others extremely concerned with the coloring of birds), but that is not where the significance of the story lies. It illustrates a severe limitation to our learning from observations or experience and the fragility of our knowledge. One single observation can invalidate a general statement derived from millennia of confirmatory sightings of millions of white swans. All you need is one single (and, I am told, quite ugly) black bird.   — Nassim Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

 The earthquake, tsunami and current nuclear crisis in Japan, as well as the current geopolitical unrest in the Middle East challenge the concept of market stability. Black Swan events have tested the limits of the financial markets and banking systems for decades (some might recall the “Tulip Mania” bubble in the early 1600’s).  Reflect on the following list, via Doug Kass of those once in a lifetime events that have occured over the past decade:

  • the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon;
  • a 75% decline in the Nasdaq;

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GM and the Japan earthquake disaster present a compelling opportunity

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GM reawakened from the dead and bankrupt went public again at the end of 2010.  It was a heavily subscribed gigantic IPO and the stock did well peaking at around $39 during the first of the year 2011.  It began its descent and recently plunged below 32 on the news of its CFO, Chris Liddell would be leaing the company.  Barron’s reported, ”

Fourteen months after becoming CFO of General Motors (GM), Chris Liddell is leaving the company. He will be replaced on April 1 by Dan Ammann, the company’s senior vice president for finance and treasurer. The company gave no reason for the transition. Shares fell 3.3% in early trading.

Liddell joined GM in January 2010. He had previously been the CFO at Microsoft (MSFT). At GM, he was instrumental in engineering its IPO. He was also praised for strengthening the company’s accounting methods — when it was emerging from bankruptcy, GM acknowledged “material weakness” in some of its statements, but the company’s audit committee said this year that weakness had been fixed, CNNMoney noted.

The company’s statement indicated Ammann had been groomed for this position. Ammann, who is 38, helped Liddell prepare the company’s IPO and has helped set the company’s financial strategy. Prior to joining GM, Ammann was managing director and head of industrials investment banking at Morgan Stanley (MS).

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The Insomniac Hedge Fund Guy

The Insomniac Hedge Fund Guy provides market macro-analytics and public-file aggregation models for data-tracking purposes. Content should not be treated as individualized investment advice or a professional financial-planning directive. Past performance does not guarantee future performance cycles.

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