It's the last day of the year and solutions pertaining to the
fiscal cliff disagreement remain far and unseen. What we are
seeing, however, is the continuous outpouring of commentators and
pundits reflecting on the entire debacle, inflating into one big
ongoing extravaganza.
Amid all the back-and-forth in Capitol Hill, a common curiosity
for investors is where to place their bets for the upcoming year.
Do you invest in REITs, financials and
ETFs
? Do you slash your healthcare and tech stocks?
As Forbes highlighted about a month ago, small-cap Guru Chuck
Royce of the Royce Funds was quoted to avoid utilities, despite
attractive dividends. "There's a speculative bubble in yield.
Utilities have been bid up for yield only, but they generally are
not high-returning companies," he said.
From the same segment, John Buckingham of Al Frank Asset
Management similarly noted that the utilities sector, along with
consumer stocks, though having done well in 2011 and 2012, were
not left with many good values. "We are not finding a lot of
inexpensive stocks in those sectors. Valuations are generally
tilted more toward the high end of their historical range and
above the metrics associated with the average stock in our
broad-based Russell 3000 benchmark," he said.
Sometimes, the accumulation of media coverage could make it
daunting for a value investor and his or her research. Luckily,
GuruFocus offers useful tools to help in their quest for
potentially promising stocks to invest in.
Besides tracking the latest investor trades on
GuruFocus Real Time Picks
, the
GuruFocus Sector Trends
reveals which sectors Gurus are buying new stocks, and which
sectors they've sold out the most, to get a better sense of
actual buy/sell sector activity, aside from information heard
through the grapevine.
The data used in the trend charts are the most recent, going back
only as far as the previous quarter.
As Sector Trends are revealing now, banks and the technology
sectors seem to be the current leaders as far as where Gurus have
purchased stocks as new buys the most, with the retail and
industrials sectors showing the next two largest chunks of Guru
buys. The same four sectors appear as results for the areas where
Gurus have chosen to completely sell out their shares the most.
Below is a preview. (
Tip: Click on the number of either Buys and Sells and it
gives a full list of Gurus who have purchased in that sector
recently.)
Because of the looming uncertainty in the U.S. market, investors,
such as Jeremy Grantham of GMO LLC, have been seen advising to
avoid U.S. stocks, but if one must, to stick to only "big, safe
brand names with rock solid franchises," like Johnson &
Johnson (
JNJ
), Coca Cola (
KO
) and Microsoft (
MSFT
). Grantham also likes emerging market equities, as well as
Japanese and European stocks.
As we plunge into the new year, international stocks can be a
good thing to monitor.
GuruFocus International Picks
allows members to see the latest international stocks that the
best investors are buying and selling, allowing to screen by
different countries. Similarly,
Geographic Trends
reveal the latest international trading patterns by Region and
Country.
Current data from the Geographic Trends chart shows that besides
the U.S., Asia comes in second with the most number of recent
buys, but Europe comes in second with the most recent sells.
These are just some of many ways GuruFocus research tools can aid
you in generating 2013 stock ideas. GuruFocus wants to wish you
all a Happy New Year, and also, Happy Stock Picking!About
GuruFocus: GuruFocus.com tracks the stocks picks and portfolio
holdings of the world's best investors. This value investing site
offers stock screeners and valuation tools. And publishes daily
articles tracking the latest moves of the world's best investors.
GuruFocus also provides promising stock ideas in 3 monthly
newsletters sent to
Premium Members
.