Today on CNBC’s Fast Money Halftime report Kevin O’Leary stated the QQQ should just change it’s name to AMZN. After he was challenged on that, he changed the point he was making to be that AMZN and NFLX had “insane” valuations.
He went on to say that these names will eventually blow up and that “grown men will weep”. Are we to believe that grown women will maintain their composure during this apocalypse? Perhaps he just left them out accidently.
His relatively short exposure on the show at the beginning made me wonder, is his appearance on the show really just an arrangement whereby the show gets a bit of apocalyptic talk and O’Leary gets some exposure for his O Shares investment product?
O’Leary appears on CNBC with regularity. He always projects an image of calm and sanity. He only recommends stocks with dividends, particularly if they are “succulent”. Today he criticized Josh Brown for owning AMZN (despite Josh correcting him that he doesn’t own it).
He also implies that he is studying all the balance sheets of the US based mid-cap companies finding those that will have outsize benefits from the most recent tax cut legislation.
I think O’Leary is just marketing with these appearances. He’s not trying to give good advice to those of us trying to trade. He is just trying to scare us into buying into his ETF products.
O’Leary is not the first of these marketers. In the relatively recent past, Dennis Gartman used to come on frequently and used to tout the buying of gold in a currency other than dollars. I thought at the time, and still do, that this is an absurd recommendation to those that may be watching the show. Gartman went on to launch some Risk On/Risk Off ETFs. I always got the impression that Melissa Lee didn’t really think much of Gartman.
Before Gartman, there was Peter Schiff who believed that buying gold was the answer to everything. He was always sitting in front of a backdrop promoting his firm.
And before him was Scaramucci . . . . .
All of them, well maybe not the Mooch, had an apocalyptic shtick. They were the voices of reason in a topsy turvy world. Maybe just the sort of advisor that a senior, retired investor or widows/orphans might want.
Who doesn’t love free advertising?
Hell, I’ll go on if they want. Problem is, I don’t have an apocalyptic vision. That’s what sells . . . .