Email question about:
BB & T Corp. (BBT)

Q:        Jim, Booyah and go Eagles! Who would have thought that the market would rally AND the Eagles would be in the playoffs? Just goes to show… that sometimes both the market and sports don’t make sense, but like a true Philly fan, I’ll take both, no matter how ugly. I’m interested in your thoughts on BB&T Corp. (BBT) I have a good position in my IRA portfolio (for the yield), but it looks like the street is pessimistic about the performance of regional banks in 2009. I’m sure the dividend is safe, but do you think that BBT will prove to be the exception to the regional bank stigma?

Jim:     That is how I have been feeling Bob. Just understand that all the bank stocks are under pressure. A lot of it has to do with the fact that people are very worried about the consumer defaulting. BB&T is a great lender. I am not concerned. It is the regional bank that I put in my protect list.

Email question about:
Short Sellers and ETFs...

Q:        Booyah Jim!...  You have talked a lot on your show about the damage that short sellers can do to a stock. I now look at the short ratios and short % of float, and try to avoid stocks where too many short positions are held or where the number of short sellers has been increasing. Should this be a part of my analysis, or am I on the wrong track here?

Jim:     I think that what you have to do is you have to merge the short selling that happens in the ETF’s… particularly the pro ultra ETF’s… with your numbers in order to get a better look at what the real short pressure is. Remember my show where I revealed that sometimes up to 30, 40% if a stock was sold short… but that was my proprietary New York stock exchange data that I got… that no one else seems to have. And it is certainly not discussed by anybody other than me.

Email question about:
United States Steel Corp. (X)

Q:        Jim, While I agree with you that Caterpillar (CAT) is a good pick, I think that many of the steel stocks are an even better buy. For example, I’m buying more United States Steel Corp. (X) any time I can get a decent drop. I missed it at $21, but in the recent past it was $196! Why won’t X go back to $196? Considering the likelihood of infrastructure legislation, I would expect X to continue its excellent EPS. Buying and holding 100 shares of X in any portfolio seems like a good idea to me.

Jim:     No remember, we talked about letter X… which is U.S. Steel. We talked about this stock, saying that it pretty much filled out exactly what it had done in the great crash… where it went from about $220 down to $21, and sure enough it went to $196 down to $20 this time. And that is where we recommended this stock. It was in the low $20’s. Now it at $39, its at $40. I cannot stand here and recommend it anymore. I gotta wait for a pullback… as I have to do with NUE, which I recommended at $27 as an accidental high yielder, and now its at $47. I can’t step up to the plate after that kind of run. That is not my style… I have a lot of 4% yielders. I think NYSE Euronext, Inc. (NYX) is about to break out. I think CAT, if it goes below $40. But we gotta be price sensitive, or else we just become bull market jokers.

Email question about:
NYSE Euronext, Inc. (NYX)

See X comments above for:
NYX

Email question about:
Caterpillar Inc. (CAT)

See X comments above for:
CAT

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