Barron’s 2016 Roundtable, Part 1: A World of Opportunities

[Guest notorious546]

see attached

Barron’s_2016_Roundtable_Part_1__A_World_of_Opportunities_-_Barrons.pdf

[Guest notorious546]

after actually reading this it was disappointing.

[eclecticvalue]

I was surprised some of the people think Trump will win.

[HJ]

I was surprised some of the people think Trump will win.

 

I found it surprising as well.  Even Meryl Witmer, a Berkshire board member suggested a Republican win, although she did't say who.

 

The other question that I'm curious about is how good these investors are.  Not all of them have public track record that people can actually look at.

[Jurgis]

The first part of the roundtable is pretty much thrashing and tea leave reading very similar to macro threads. If these guys were held accountable for their macro predictions, most of them would be out of jobs long ago. Cudos to Witmer and Gabelli who mostly did not get involved in the talking head seance.

 

The section on stock selections and ideas is more interesting. A bunch of ideas have been mentioned in other places though.

 

BTW, 2015 roundtable picks beat the market significantly if you discard the crazy permabears (Marc Faber and Felix Zulauf). This is surprising, since it's better result than a lot of mutuals, hedgies and overall famous investors.

 

(Edit: 2015 roundtable results are not in the article posted. They are in Barron's though).

 

[DTEJD1997]

I was surprised some of the people think Trump will win.

I am surprised that some people think that Trump won't win...

 

Who is going to beat him?  Hillary?

 

Hillary's biggest problem will be staying out of jail.

 

If by some chance that doesn't happen, she'll get destroyed in the debates.  What about all the scandals?  Whitewater, bimbo eruptions, N. Korea, Vince Foster, Monica Lewinsky, foreign donations, Clinton Foundation, confidential & secret emails, Benghazi, Arab Spring....that is just what I could remember off the top of my head.  She simply has too much baggage.  Who is an enthusiastic Hillary supporter?  This election will be nothing like the last one...

 

The electorate is absolutely fit to be tied.  Many, many, many people think establishment politicians have sold the country out.  This is not only on the right of the political spectrum, but the left as well. 

 

We'll see...

[ni-co]

The first part of the roundtable is pretty much thrashing and tea leave reading very similar to macro threads. If these guys were held accountable for their macro predictions, most of them would be out of jobs long ago.

 

Maybe unsurprisingly, I find myself in full agreement with Felix Zulauf's macro view. We'll see.

[Ballinvarosig Investors]

It's been funny watching the several stages of denial that those opposed to Trump have been going through.

 

Stage 1 - "This is obviously a publicity stunt, or something" - at first, political commentators regarded him as nothing more than a joke candidate with no chance whatsoever. He was 100/1 with bookies here in Europe, the kind of odds you would have got for Sarah Palin.

Stage 2 - "Oh, so he actually is going for the presidency?" - people acknowledged he actually would be a candidate, but expected him to be one of the first to drop out.

Stage 3 - "Ok, so he has some extremist support, but he will never move mainstream" - Trump starts moving up the polls, by no means a front runner, but not without support.

Stage 4 - "Sure, he might get the Republican nomination, but why would anyone vote for him over Hilary?" - this is where we're at now, for some reason Hilary is favourite, which is strange given how much she polarizes public opinion.

 

Honestly, I think only Trump can get Trump beat. Only a gaffe or some skeleton in his closet will make him lose.

[giofranchi]

The first part of the roundtable is pretty much thrashing and tea leave reading very similar to macro threads. If these guys were held accountable for their macro predictions, most of them would be out of jobs long ago.

 

Maybe unsurprisingly, I find myself in full agreement with Felix Zulauf's macro view. We'll see.

 

Me too…

But I still think macro investing is poor business. One of the most important feature of good business is predictability. And the predictability of macro investing, at least as far as timing is concerned, is very low, almost non-existent.

Therefore, though I might agree with Mr. Zulauf, I would not invest with him.

 

Cheers,

 

Gio

 

[CorpRaider]

Gundlach is one of the only guys worth listening to on macro stuff and he always talks in terms of probabilities, likelihood. 

[eclecticvalue]

I was surprised some of the people think Trump will win.

I am surprised that some people think that Trump won't win...

 

Who is going to beat him?  Hillary?

 

Hillary's biggest problem will be staying out of jail.

 

If by some chance that doesn't happen, she'll get destroyed in the debates.  What about all the scandals?  Whitewater, bimbo eruptions, N. Korea, Vince Foster, Monica Lewinsky, foreign donations, Clinton Foundation, confidential & secret emails, Benghazi, Arab Spring....that is just what I could remember off the top of my head.  She simply has too much baggage.  Who is an enthusiastic Hillary supporter?  This election will be nothing like the last one...

 

The electorate is absolutely fit to be tied.  Many, many, many people think establishment politicians have sold the country out.  This is not only on the right of the political spectrum, but the left as well. 

 

We'll see...

 

It should framed the other way around. Who can defeat Hillary? Because she is the favorite to win the election. Trump has a lot of momentum going forward and we will see if he can win.

[asterisk]

Thank you for providing this. While the macro predictions can go either way, the conceptual thinking was very beneficial. Do you have previous versions of this?