# Stocks you want to avoid in 2014



## cannadian (Dec 30, 2011)

What stocks do you guys think will be losers in 2014?

Personally, if I owned any of these stocks I don't think I'd be able to sleep very well at night:
Tesla
Facebook
Twitter
BitCoin (not a stock, but...)
Google (great company but I think the stock is pretty pricey given its size)
NetFlix

Edit: Linked In as well.


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

5 of your 7 stocks are ones I plan to trade and make money from this year


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## cannadian (Dec 30, 2011)

marina628 said:


> 5 of your 7 stocks are ones I plan to trade and make money from this year


On the long side or short side?

I'm not saying they can't keep going up a ways from here - their prices are just so far removed from anything I could understand to provide any significant margin of safety that I'd be so worried about losing all my money.

I mean is it conceivable that Linked In could trade at 25% of the price it's now trading at from a value perspective? It would still have a PE of 175. Social media stocks seem like our version of those crazy dotcom stocks. 

I'd much rather a company with high returns on invested capital, strong balance sheet, and a long record of high free cash flow generation relative to the price of the stock for a long-term bet.


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

I think all the 'internet' stocks will be up 15-20% in 2014 .I remember google being crazy when it hit $1000 a share ,none it make sense .I have more time to watch things closely now so going to ride things out instead of pulling the trigger at my usual 10-14% profits.


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## cannadian (Dec 30, 2011)

marina628 said:


> I think all the 'internet' stocks will be up 15-20% in 2014 .I remember google being crazy when it hit $1000 a share ,none it make sense .I have more time to watch things closely now so going to ride things out instead of pulling the trigger at my usual 10-14% profits.


Got any stocks you think will be dogs in 2014?


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

I am in South Florida so can't really think Negative right now lol.


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

Since many of you followed my gambling stock post I can tell you that I sold off IGT and took my profits ,that stock likely will be flat in 2014.I do plan to get back in again at some point, I took a larger position on MGM when I sold.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

gold stocks are the new pariah. Everybody says Avoid Gold Stocks.

normally one might Think About Gradual Accumulation but the problem as argo pointed out recently is that gold stocks can stay locked in the basement for close to a decade. So anybody accumulating now might see their $$ going into the deepfreeze until 2020 & beyond ...

marina pls listen up when cannadian says social media stocks are acting like the new dotcom rage. Although i wouldn't class Goog as a social media stock.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

marina628 said:


> Since many of you followed my gambling stock post I can tell you that I sold off IGT and took my profits ,that stock likely will be flat in 2014.I do plan to get back in again at some point, I took a larger position on MGM when I sold.


horrors IGT is now a numero uno stock to avoid? 

& me with my nice diagonal call spread in IGT that's set to run until 2015 ... poor thing doesn't know that marina has dissed the stock ...


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

NOT horror but flat under 10% for 2014 me thinks. We had a couple good gaming stocks that nearly doubled in 2013.Things are happening too slow in USA for the growth to keep up that pace.


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

I sold all my precious metals at least 2 years ago so I will do same with the social media stocks ,get off before the ride ends lol


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## GoldStone (Mar 6, 2011)

humble_pie said:


> gold stocks are the new pariah. Everybody says Avoid Gold Stocks.


I say, avoid gold stocks in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and forever thereafter.

Reason #1: The gold mining industry has a terrible track record of destroying long term shareholder value.

Reason #2: The whole idea of digging a useless metal out of the ground (_at a great expense_) so it can be buried in the bank basements (_at another great expense_) seems barbaric.


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## Taraz (Nov 24, 2013)

If you were 100% sure a stock was going to tank, you'd short sell (not just avoid it). 

As for the stocks you've listed, some of them might be in bubble territory, but it's always hard to predict when a bubble will pop. Google's 31.74 PE ratio is a bit high, but not insane (at least they have profits, unlike twitter).


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## cannadian (Dec 30, 2011)

humble_pie said:


> gold stocks are the new pariah. Everybody says Avoid Gold Stocks.
> 
> normally one might Think About Gradual Accumulation but the problem as argo pointed out recently is that gold stocks can stay locked in the basement for close to a decade. So anybody accumulating now might see their $$ going into the deepfreeze until 2020 & beyond ...
> 
> marina pls listen up when cannadian says social media stocks are acting like the new dotcom rage. Although i wouldn't class Goog as a social media stock.


Hey Humble! Long time!

Yeah I wouldn't put GOOG in the same category as LNKD. But I still think GOOG (although it's an amazing company) is a little pricey right now (given its size its starting to be priced for perfection). So if bad news hit I could see GOOG easily shedding 1/3 of its market cap.

Then again it's an incredible company and they can stay "overvalued" for a very long time.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

marina628 said:


> We had a couple good gaming stocks that nearly doubled in 2013.Things are happening too slow in USA for the growth to keep up that pace.


won't u pls just keep this to yourself. The options haven't heard the news yet, IV is still high, they're worth selling.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

GoldStone said:


> I say, avoid gold stocks in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and forever thereafter.
> 
> Reason #1: The gold mining industry has a terrible track record of destroying long term shareholder value.
> 
> Reason #2: The whole idea of digging a useless metal out of the ground (_at a great expense_) so it can be buried in the bank basements (_at another great expense_) seems barbaric.



lol *gold* *stone* is there something else u don't like? can u tell us about it/them? the list might be too long to publish? will it kill u if i say my carefully-plucked tfsa is now $54,802.41?

but i made a terrible mistake in late 2013, u will be glad to hear. I sold africa oil in the $7 range - it promptly soared into the 9s - & i bought 332 shares of goldcorp - which promptly sank like Icarus into the bottomless sea. I'm working back to breakeven via option sales & i'll recover all the capital soon; but that missing $5k in the tfsa rankles today.

ah the sorry lot of a stock gamblin gal ...

gold would u happen to have some sensational radmusik for this first saturday night of the new year? would be grateful ...


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## Argonaut (Dec 7, 2010)

Mr. Goldstone, although I frown at the betrayal of your username with your ill-informed metal bashing, I tend to agree on a point or two. Gold stocks aren't the place to be now, and most of the miners are pretty poor investments. But there's a few gems, and I love the metal itself. The nice thing about physical gold is you are getting the same thing no matter what price you buy it at, so lower is better. I'm a gold bug, but a realistic one. Judging by the comparison of 1979-80 and 2011-13, we could be in for a 10-20 year bear market for the metals. But the bull will come again, sooner or later, and I'll be there for it.


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## My Own Advisor (Sep 24, 2012)

Gold stocks for sure....

Mining companies are poor investments, I have and intend to stay away from them since there are very capital intensive. I suppose these companies will surprise investors now and then with returns but that's it.


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

humble_pie said:


> won't u pls just keep this to yourself. The options haven't heard the news yet, iv is still high, they're worth selling.


hp i am just one person


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## Toronto.gal (Jan 8, 2010)

GoldStone said:


> 1. I say, avoid gold stocks in *2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019,* and forever thereafter.
> 2. The gold mining industry has a *terrible track record of destroying long term *shareholder value.
> 3. seems *barbaric*.


*1. *Surprised you didn't add some mixed fractions, too. 
*2.* You seem to have forgotten that the metal has outperformed for a long time!
*3.* What Argo said.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

argo i believe cycles are shortened now, anyhow there was an upcycle in between the 1980 & 2011-13 hi's which hosted the breX froth

the downcycle after breX - from 1996 to about 2001 when reverse occurred - only lasted 5 years


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## Greyhound86 (Feb 21, 2010)

I am a bit negative on the ag stocks. The prices that farmers receive for wheat, corn, soybeans, canola etc have really come down a lot.

Sales of combines, tractors and other equipment might be lower in the next year or so. The huge crop of 2013 will offset the lower prices for the immediate short term but if the prices received for the 2014 crop stay low with a return to normal yields the cash available for any equipment purchases will be much lower a year from now. 

Companies like Deere and Rocky Mountain might see their sales decline.

The fertilizer companies might be effected as well. Potash is one of the nutrients that sometimes get cut back first. A move from corn acres to soybean acres will reduce the demand for nitrogen, potash and phosphate. Corn requires a lot of fertilizer and is expensive to grow. If the price for corn is low more acres of soybeans will be grown which require much less fertilizer.


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## blin10 (Jun 27, 2011)

im avoiding anything to do with gold/silver/social media/technology


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

I'm avoiding financial stocks including Canadian banks. In my opinion the banks are under-capitalized in Canada, US and Europe. There's been a mania in financial stocks and I think it's on very weak foundations, and I also don't think anything has changed since 2008.


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## cannadian (Dec 30, 2011)

For everyone talking about gold, here's my favourite Buffett video on investing in gold:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuJBMVz5DLQ


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

i think tech will do just fine but i would never pick individual stocks, i will stick with QQQ which contains all these stocks (except tesla and twitter) and has done very well for me, i expect it will do very well going forward

i think there is still a lot more innovation / churn to happen in the web and mobile space, nobody is safe especially twitter, facebook and social media, users have still not created a predictable and reliable consumption pattern that can be monetized ... they are defensive, fickle and elusive

as far as gold goes, i am clueless, i think it will go sideways to slightly down

gold is for the trader not the buy and holder ... i agree with others that it has the potential to stay down for a decade and i don't have that kind of time to park money in a non-performing asset

i hope i don't buy any :rolleyes2: :tongue-new:


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## Synergy (Mar 18, 2013)

^ but it's so shiny!


> my precious


Even though it's becoming a smaller portion of the canadian index, if you buy the index you're buying some gold to


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

How is gold not suitable for the buy-and-holder? If I'm going to buy something and forget about ... not bother checking financial statements or business conditions... it seems to me I'd want to buy something that's a physical asset that never degrades (like gold) rather than a company, whose conditions are ever-changing and at the whims of managers and many things


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

james4beach said:


> How is gold not suitable for the buy-and-holder? If I'm going to buy something and forget about ... not bother checking financial statements or business conditions... it seems to me I'd want to buy something that's a physical asset that never degrades (like gold) rather than a company, whose conditions are ever-changing and at the whims of managers and many things


what are you buying it for ? ... the fact that it doesn't tarnish or as a financial asset ? ... as a financial asset it is really volatile and hard to predict ... sure you can put it away for a decade but that doesn't do much good if you pull it out and find it hasn't even kept up with inflation ...


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

fatcat, there's nothing volatile about an ounce of gold sitting in my safe. It's always an ounce of gold. What's volatile is the number of dollars that others decide to trade it for.

I think it's a legitimate store of value. Many other hard assets are too.


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

james4beach said:


> fatcat, there's nothing volatile about an ounce of gold sitting in my safe. It's always an ounce of gold. What's volatile is the number of dollars that others decide to trade it for.
> 
> I think it's a legitimate store of value. Many other hard assets are too.


except that, at no time, with the possible exception of a massive, prolonged social breakdown, are we going to use gold as a medium of exchange for goods and services

which means that as an asset, gold is only a store of value if, when you exchange it for fiat money, you get more than you paid for it ... 

predicting this future value is harder to do than say buying stock in a company that makes things people need like ketchup and toilet paper 

people have no need whatsoever for gold ... none


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## Hawkdog (Oct 26, 2012)

Seems like a good contrarian view would be to buy mining stocks 

Remember that as the economy rebounds so will prices of base metals.

Fun Fact:

Gold in Phones: Gold in connectors, switches and relay contacts allows phones to remain free of corrosion and are an important part of modern cell phones. An average of 33 gold-plated contacts are present in phones which allows rapid dispersion of heat and prevents tarnishing. U.S. Geological Survey estimates that a single mobile device contains an average of 0.034 grams of gold – which translates to $1.83 of gold per phone under today’s prices. The number of cell phones sold annually has surpassed 1 billion, which has naturally opened up added incentives to recycle gold out of older cell phones.


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## Argonaut (Dec 7, 2010)

I doubt anyone here would invest in it, but my pick is New York Times (NYT). It's trading at a four year high, and newspapers are the least relevant they've been in the last 100 years. Unfortunately option contracts don't go out far enough to make any long term play on this; only to July.

Gold's value will last forever, newspapers won't last another generation or two.


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

Argonaut said:


> I doubt anyone here would invest in it, but my pick is New York Times (NYT). It's trading at a four year high, and newspapers are the least relevant they've been in the last 100 years. Unfortunately option contracts don't go out far enough to make any long term play on this; only to July.
> 
> Gold's value will last forever, newspapers won't last another generation or two.


ok argo, i'll be brief ... i agree completely with you and james that gold's value will last forever , it's beautiful, i have some gold coins and they are beautiful to hold ... 

but as an investment, as an asset class, gold's value will always be relative to it's exchange value in fiat money and that value is both unpredictable and erratic since it (the gold / fiat exchange value) is often based purely on fear and little else ... it's just too difficult to properly value ... 

but i love it and am also a gold bug in my own twisted way ... i just would never put any real money in it other than buying the odd coin here and there, which i still do (just bought some morgan dollars at auction as they are such beautiful coins)


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## donald (Apr 18, 2011)

You really think Nyt is in trouble?(long-term)Some Chinese billionaire was/is recently making a run at acquiring it.
I think obviously news print is on the decline but......they are moving into digital(online fees) so there is a fundamental shift but that might consolidate the news papers and the times being the new York times is a national paper(they are the Americas paper) and imo would become stronger?
There will always be a need for journalism(social media will not imo decline that need,might even help it)
I honestly think nyt would be a alright investment.They have a huge name brand(wide moat).
I don't know much about media companies but at 1st blush I wouldn't think the times is a company in any kind of trouble(short or long).
I'm sure everyone on wall/bay street pick it up almost 1st between all world paper/media.
It is extremely widely read.


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## Synergy (Mar 18, 2013)

I think print media will eventually be a thing of the past. I personally can't wait for the YPG to stop printing out phone books - such a waste.

Kamloops daily news closing after 80yrs. No comparison to the NYT's but a trend nonetheless.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...ly-newspaper-closing-after-80-years-1.2486241

As for gold, no harm in accumulating a small position at these levels. Who's to say what the future will hold...


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## Islenska (May 4, 2011)

Avoiding the stock market generally for now----too toppy

Have been reducing my margin and using DRIPS, market timing and all that

But that could change:distrust:


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## Argonaut (Dec 7, 2010)

fatcat said:


> gold's value will always be relative to it's exchange value in fiat money


Always? As in.. only in the last 40 years? The universal acceptance of fiat currency is a relatively new thing. It represents less than 1% of civilized human history. I'm not hiding underground with canned goods and ammunition, but I have no assurance that the monetary system will be as it is now in the next 100 years. But I know that gold will still be a relative store of value, and as you say, beautiful to look at and call my precious. There's lots of other benefits which I've talked about ad naseum and won't rehash. But here's one: you can pass it down to your next generation with no annoying paper trails or taxes.


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## torontoguy87 (Jan 4, 2014)

you all need to avoid u.s. stocks, the market is in a 2007 like state very frothy. reblance with natural resource stocks that have been in a viscious bear market that has most likely bottomed


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## Hawkdog (Oct 26, 2012)

torontoguy87 said:


> you all need to avoid u.s. stocks, the market is in a 2007 like state very frothy. reblance with natural resource stocks that have been in a viscious bear market that has most likely bottomed


related article. http://www.kitco.com/ind/Maund/2014...arket-Update-No-New-Paradigm-Get-Out-Now.html


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