Opening Segment #3:
'The Sell Block'
'Going Against The Grain'

Thursday, June 18, 2009
 

Jim's
rating on
this stock

STOCK
SYMBOL

Closing
price that
day

Full Company Name

MON

82.30

Monsanto (MON)


Jim:      Tonight, I want to talk to you about one of the most difficult aspects of investing… knowing when it is time to change your mind… it is incredibly difficult to switch views… especially on a stock that you really liked and have championed… so you need a process to prevent yourself from holding on all the way to oblivion… how do you recognize a red flag when it is being waved right in your face… and realize that you have got to take it seriously… that is what we are going to explore in this special off the charts sell block… and I want to use Monsanto, the global leader in genetically altered seeds, as well as herbicides… I like to think of them as a agriculture bio tech stock as an example… and that is why I have built a Round-Up-Amid… one of the most familiar products to go with all of our other mids.

Now, I have been optimistic about
Monsanto (MON)

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Thursday, June 18, 2009

(Cont'd from above)...

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Jim:      I have said that I think it is a good place to be… and just two nights ago in response to a question about Syngenta (SYT), which happens to be Monsanto’s Swiss little brother, I reiterated that I like Monsanto in general… then along not one but two technicians, the people who look at the lines on the stocks chart to divine its future… and they do not like the stock…. and they are telling me, be careful Jim, be careful of the Round-Up-Amid… and these guys are among the best in the business… back at my hedge fund, whenever we had a stock that was twice hated by technicians… we would always absorb what they were saying… and then actually, literally try to find reasons to sell… so we could get in the heads of people who were trading the stock were thinking… we wanted to find some problems with the fundamentals because we did not want to ignore two enormous red flags that we got from technicians.

That is right, we would embrace technicians who were speaking in unison… albeit it in tongues, and try to find out what was wrong with the company… at the hedge fund I would use technical analysis to keep my bullishness in check… and to make sure that I was not being too optimistic… and in this sell block I am teaching you how to do the exact same thing that I did at my hedge fund where I ran a half a billion dollars worth of stock… lets start with the chart itself.

Remember, we have got two chartists who think that Monsanto is a sell, sell, sell… first, Helene Meisler, who writes the Top Stock Newsletter for TheStreet.com where I am chairman… Helene “Top Stocks” Meisler taught me everything that I know about technical analysis back in the 1980’s when she worked at Cowen and Company and then went on to become the top technician at Goldman Sachs before going out on her own… she says, this is really important… that this stock at $82.30, could be headed down to $70... based on its chart… Meisler sees two, not one, but two big negatives in this chart.

First, Monsanto sold off on high volume at the end of May… okay, to go back to May… see that high volume at the end of May… and since then has rallied back but on lighter volume… remember the technicians they have no use for the Fifth Amendment, just like me… and they do not believe in due process, neither do I… they are all about trying to figure out exactly what the truth is… they want to know what the truth is, and they skip straight to the polygraph… which is what volume is to them, a lie detector… and the sell off on high volume told the truth… see the big volume… and this, I have to tell you, I really love this stuff, I have to admit… see it goes back up on low volume… but it sold off on big volume… that is the definition of what you need to be scared of.

But it gets better… she thinks that this rally is making a… this is the best example I have seen in all of the time that I have been doing off the charts… she says that it is making a right shoulder on what is known as a head and shoulders top… now, you will be able to see this too… see this, there is the left shoulder, there is the head, there is the right shoulder… but this is one of those predictive patterns that technicians see over, and over, and over again… and while it may seem silly… that does not mean that it is not often right… if this stock falls below $78 or $77... then it crosses what is known as the neckline.. and that is where if this were a person, it would confirm the pattern… and would make Meisler even more bearish… especially since it would also be breaking thru the uptrend line… which is almost a universal signal to chart watchers that the uptrend is dead.

A plunging neckline could seem positive to 51% of the audience… but in Cramerica it is a sign that the emperess isn’t just dressed skimpily… she may have no clothes on… you can imagine what happens with the head and shoulder pattern… you get the head, the shoulder, this is the right shoulder… and then boom.

Now, Bert Dohman, another widely respected technician, especially by me because I have followed him from the original FNN from the ‘80’S…. he is the writer of the Wellington Letter, this network introduced me to him, he is another colleague of mine, I read him every single week, he also writes for RealMoney.com, the subscription side of TheStreet.com where I am chairman… he hates Monsanto… he thinks that the entire commodity boom is phony… including agricultural, as farmers cannot get the credit to buy machinery, fertilizer, seeds like Monsanto… Dohman thinks the stock, gets this… he is a great technician, I love his work…. and this is what really freaked me out, he said that the stock is going to get cut in half… definitely not preferable to a sharp stick to the retina… which is what I think I would be doing myself if I were to buy Monsanto after hearing this… and it took a 50% plunge.

These people are good… when one technician disagrees with me on a stock… it does not bother me… but when two highly respected ones… Helene “Top Stocks” Meisler, and Bert “Wellington Letter” Dohman, say listen be careful… they do not like a stock that I am recommending… I start feeling out there… I feel exposed… I feel naked… I wonder if I am being too optimistic… so instead of trying to prove the technicians wrong… which is a great way to dig in your heels and cling to an incorrect thesis… long after it does not make any sense.. I try to find out what is wrong with Monsanto… so I look… and what do you know… just yesterday Potash, the big fertilizer company.. the worlds largest supplier of Potash, the crop nutrient… announced yet another cut to production… 800,000 metric tons… its total cuts now yielding 5.5 million since August… and that is in response to slow demand… the company prefers production cuts to price cuts.

 

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Same day… K&S, European fertilizer company… announced production cuts over a range of products… and says that it foresees an extraordinarily week demand for fertilizer… if farmers are not buying fertilizer… why would they buy Monsanto genetically modified seeds… which because they cannot reproduce are much more expensive to use than normal seeds… because every year the farmers have to come back for more… Monsanto is a play on farmers trying to increase their crop yields… but when the demand for crops is not that high… than neither is the demand for anything that increases those yields.

You know what… I think the chartists are right… I now see what the bears see… and I have been too bullish on Monsanto… I have been to complacent… in light of the fertilizer production cuts, and the charts… I know think that you have to lighten up on Monsanto… especially if it goes higher.

Here is the bottom line…

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The Bottom Line!:     When a stock is twice hated by two highly respected technicians.. that is your first clue that something could be very wrong… it told me to worry about Monsanto… and then when I saw the weak demand for other ag products that increase crop yields… I knew it was time to change my mind and stop liking the stock… let the technicians clue you in when something is wrong… they are the CSI of investing… with forensic data this strong, it is time to change my mind… and with the stock on the move upward just from the other day when I said that I liked it… I have got to tell you… I see in Monsanto (MON) the germination of a sell idea… that I have to be blind not to heed.

 

[verbatim recap]

[end of segment]


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