Share Picks 2023

PERI ..that's about it. Thinking of silver miners too as a hedge. Many commentators saying we may have a brief bear market rally this month followed by a big dump in Feb and March. So for now that's my gameplay.

Eying up TSLA below $70, maybe down all the way to $63'ish there if the markets have one final (hopefully) dump.

I'm nervous about Taiwan, Brazil and Ukraine escalations as well as COVID too, seems like we are headed into shark infested waters globally right now.

My plan for Q1 is to continue adding to a cash position. I think there is more pain to come, unemployment will go up and counties will start officially labelling the current economic situation as a recession.

Stock wise I'm looking at Amazon, Apple, Microsoft at maybe 15-20% lower. Tesla at $60-$70. Coinbase could also be a good buy.

Outside of stocks, I think Bitcoin and Ethereum could prove to be lucrative long term opportunities if they continue to plunge. Bitcoin at ~12K and Ethereum at ~600 are my targets. I'm happy to take the risk, so will probably allocate 30% of my portfolio to crypto.

I'm tempted to expose 5% of my portfolio to Gold and Silver.

Let's see how this year goes.

Home Depot is one that always seems to do well, it's a bit different from the usual Tech stocks i am attracted to but think that'll be one of the first I pickup this year when i'm ready.

Okay let us divide "Joe Soap" into two simplicity categories*:

•Home owners.

•Non Home Owners.

Do home owners buy Ikea(example for Ireland) to fully furnish their forever home or just bits and bobs? Do non home owners (renters, live at home and landlords) buy Ikea?

Which category do you suppose has the most spending power?

What do you think either category is going to spend their money on this year?

Recent home buyers (last 3 years)are spending feck all unless they are experienced in their niche. Probably have the new or nearly knew car.

The Tiger(great financial recession)home owners have got the laptops, pc's ps5, tablets, the 300ft next generation tvs and phones to beat the beat the band. New or nearly car(s) and a chunk of cash as they will never be caught out again.

The morgage free home owners as above and Probably board have the t- shirts to prove it( with a feck off tesla.

The non home owners are board and sick of saving only to realise that they are a chasing their own tail.

2023:

Home extensions/renovations.

Holidays (and I mean lots of holidays each and every subcategory).

Gambling.

*trying to be analytical not condescending or insulting.

I thought the below was a handy guide for anyone that appreciates a good visual - https://www.visualcapitalist.com/predictions-2023/

Home Depot (HD)

Is currently sitting at the top of a $67 trading range. It looks like a double bottom has formed from the June and September lows.

If it breaks out it would take it up to last years highs or 20% higher from current price.

Not beyond the realms of possibility with all the damage from hurricanes in the US of late.

Yeah dipped my toes in again today, Shopify, Crowdstrike and AirBnB. 3 big losers over the past year, but companies I expect to be far bigger in 5 years

Intel results not exactly impressing the market today 🤷‍♂️

What you are looking for is prospects vs costs. The former being the hardest part and the minefield. Generally speaking, someone finds or thinks there's gold somewhere, so they then look for geological clues as to where the gold ore body might be and where it's headed, like, say a seam running south west, X metres wide and Y metres thick, descending at 6°. This might be clued in by knowledge of the overall geology of the area. So they then drill a grid pattern of bore holes with diamond encrusted brill bits over where they think the thing is headed - hence 'diamond drilling' - to get rock cores. These, are then sent to a geophysics/assay lab where they test for the presence of gold along the length of each core and the type of rock along the length of the core. I believe gold is often associated with ancient processes where molten rock containing the gold was pushed into others that are barren, or possibly gold concentrated and dissolved in water at unbelievable temperatures and pressures, was injected through fissures and cracks into an existing ore body. Any actual geologists can stop laughing as this is just my rough and sketchy layman’s minimal understanding.

This data is then used to generate a 3D map of the ore body containing the gold and where the most gold is in that. So you have an idea of how much gold is in how much rock and how difficult (hardness) that rock is to mine and deal with. Then you have to calculate what it would cost to extract the rock and turn it all to powder so you can use chemicals, mostly cyanide I think, to dissolve the gold out of the powdered rock and then recover it from that hellish chemical slurry.

You have variables like mining methods, where an ore body might be best and most easily retrieved by open cut mining, which is relatively easy and cheap, vs digging mine shafts, which is not easy and not cheap and is dangerous.

So from a relatively small data set of a few holes - drilling isn't exactly cheap - you are having to estimate how much gold there is vs the cost of mining it vs the price of gold vs a guess as to the future price of gold.

Usually there is a pretty fine line between extraction costs vs the value of the gold and there is an awful lot that can go wrong, like the geological map being drawn by the dude who stands to make a quarter of a million per year if he can persuade investor mugs the mines a goer and he should be the MD, and a good few million off of selling the shares he basically granted himself. I have even seen suggestions there might have been salting, where the core samples sent for assay have gold added to them so the resulting prospect looks better.

Speaking as a fingers singed cynic, almost all the money in gold mining is to be made by those proposing and running the mine, followed by the assay labs, diamond drillers, consultant geologists who draw maps and write technical reports and the miners, truck drivers and plant operators and the maintenance people - oh yes, and the companies that make and supply the explosives. I really should have invested in Incitec Pivot, when I had the notion... actually, thank you for asking the question, because it's led to me having another look at them and It looks like a buy now or soon, as it's sliding nicely.

https://www.marketindex.com.au/

Search on IPL. Dividend yield of 7.85% pa and improving of course as the price slides. This is why I love the Australian share market, being an income investor, not a US Ponzi schemer.

Now to find out why it's sliding...

I don't see how anyone who isn't a geologist, or almost one, and who's also an expert on actual mining processes or costs, can begin to do DD on a gold miner. I have seen geologist investors on forums get it wrong, as the 'liar on top' bit is for real.

I have been a bit foolish in the past, but I'm not alone, but at least I have a reasonably good BS detector and bailed out in good time.

Not all gold mining is dodgy, the really big Australian market leaders like Newcrest mining, even I would be prepared to invest in, but with a dividend yield of only 1.78%, I generally can do a lot better than that..

Holy moly Facebook booming!!

Fair play, been a great day so far

Have we missed the dip? Massive rally since the start of the year. Only drip fed minimal amounts onto my tracker fund since October.

Probably the very bottom but have a look at the big picture, still a long way back for a lot of the stocks.

Some old favourites breaking about 200d average too is a sign a lot of analysts look for

Depending on what crypto you bought I think I you'll well over the next few years. Short term could be rocky though.