How does these Stocks sounds?

Question

Just begin trading. after some investigation, i find these stocks are quite good. Can some expericend trader give some input?

Unitedhealth Group Inc. (UNH)
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=UNH
Got sued few months ago, CEO just got laid off. But I dont see anything significantly affect the financial status. And it is Cheap..relative to its average.

India Fund, Inc. (IFN)
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=IFN
Asian has a growing market, good divident 12.5%

ConocoPhillips (COP)
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=cop
This oil company has 100B in capital, and their share price is below average. Good opportunity?

Answer 1

UNH has been in a a tailspin lately and they lost TWO major execs for backdating stock options. SELL! This one is goign down fast let the dust settle on it next year.

IFN has a HUGE premium attached to it 12.03 meaning the buying price is 12.03% higher than the NAV of that days stock. Plus it is in an emerging market whose neighbor to the north may (or may not) be hiding UBL. PASS! (good returns though but the last quarter left a lot to be desired) http://www.blackstone.com/india-asia/india/fact_sheet.html

COP With the glut of an inventory in Oil right now this is one sector that is getting hammered right now (I expect this trend to continue the rest of the year and today cashed out on my profits on XLE) I would wait on this to see what Iran develops. Its a don't buy and sell only if you have a profit in it already.

overall 0-3 sorry.

Answer 2

I love 2 of these picks - the India fund and COP, but I really hate UNH. The reason I don't like it is because the company's CEO just left the company because he was involved in the "stock options backdating" scandal. Backdating is where the company prices the options at the lowest point from the prior month, instead of what the stock price was when the options were granted. This is an easy way to basically take money from shareholders and hand it over to insiders. Other companies like Apple AAPL, and Analog Devices have also been implicated.

There is a further discussion of Analog Devices at http://www.top10traders.com - here is a link to an article on the site about how Analog Devices is the king of backdating:

http://top10traders.com/ViewPost.aspx?postID=83

Here is a complete list of companies involved in backdating:

http://slw.issproxy.com/securities_litigation_blo/2006/07/options_backdat.html

If you want to find out who is having a lot of success in the market, I would suggest looking at

http://www.top10traders.com

- the site lists out the best performing stock portfolios. You can also create your own portfolio with $100,000 in "play" money. The site is totally free. If you want to find out some investing ideas, just look at what the best traders are buying. Good Luck!

Answer 3

I made a big bet on COP this spring. It didn't pay off. I was looking at similar numbers as you...P/E ratio was below their competition...their growth rate was higher and the dividend yield was slightly higher...as far as I am concerned those are three good reasons to put some money to work. I lost big and pulled out. In my opinion it would be worth it if you held off on putting new money into energy at the moment. Let OPEC boil over and frankly I think there is more room for crude to fall (settle between $52-55/barrel).

Answer 4

How do they check out compared to all stocks? Go buy an Investors Business Daily and check them out. That will be a good start. I am guessing none of them are in the top 5% of stocks that are offering the best trading opportunities unless you are familiar with shorting stock.

Answer 5

The conoco isnt going to grow until next spring, but its probably a sure bet.
The other two seem like big risks to me, but sometimes big risks pay off

Answer 6

After the election ConocoPhillips (COP) will skyrocket!

Answer 7

Seems like they are all stable stocks for longer period of investiment