Jake Berzon

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    • Cramer's Stop Trading! General Electric Brings Bad Credit to Light (12/18/08)
      I got into GE on Feb 22, 2008 @ 33.34, discounting problems within GE Capital: seekingalpha.com/artic...
      I still like GE and know it will survive and even thrive eventually, but I still didn't want to ride it all the way down to $10 in 2009, so I sold it on December 4, 2008 at $18.08, a 43.9% loss (including dividends and excluding commissions): seekingalpha.com/user/... . I really do hope to get back into GE mid 2009, when I hope this bear market will find its true bottom.
      Dec 20 11:24 am |Rating: +1 0 |Link to Comment |View article
    • GE: Nuclear Growth Galore
      Today I took a 43.9% loss (including dividends and excluding commissions) on General Electric (GE) stock by selling it for $18.08 / share. While I still love the company and all they do, I now see GE Capital as a much bigger liability than I could imagine when I bought GE stock back in February. In addition, I now expect GE's NBC Universal subsidiary to loose a significant amount of ad revenue in Q1 2009. Infrastructure spending and investments in alternative energy, touted by President elect Obama as solutions to the country's current predicament, should help GE grow their revenues, but none of this is likely to help GE's books until Q3 of 2009. Furthermore, I don't expect the overall market (as measured by the S&P 500) to find its bear market bottom until at least the summer of 2009. And GE stock's β has recently increased to equal that of the market. All of this is making me think that I should be able to pick up GE stock at an even more attractive price level next year.
      Dec 04 17:15 pm |Rating: +1 0 |Link to Comment |View article
    • General Electric: Genuine Risk of Collapse?
      You make some good points. Yet your prognosis is rather far fetched. GE may be a risky play right now, but it may be one of the more rewarding ones, as well.
      Nov 26 21:08 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
    • GE: Nuclear Growth Galore
      SF123,

      Thank you for your price update on the cost of Nuclear Power Plants. Unfortunately, the article does not mention how these costs break down and it is not clear whether these costs include real estate, regulatory process, time value of money and etc. It is also unclear what portion of the FPL Group's $12 billion estimate for a GE power plant would go to GE. My article assumed that GE can benefit to the tune of $5 billion a quarter in revenue over the long term from new nuclear power plant design ins. This still appears to be a valid assumption, based on this article. Here is a link: online.wsj.com/article...
      May 27 18:55 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
    • GE: Nuclear Growth Galore
      What about GE Capital?
      Feb 29 11:08 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
    • GE: Nuclear Growth Galore
      RichA, The only way I know to invest in pebble bed reactors is by buying stock in a Chinese utility company Huaneng Power International, Inc. It is available in ADR form, HNP. Or, you could hope and wait for Eskom to spin off PBMR... However, I would not count on pebble beds getting traction in the US.
      Feb 28 15:50 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
    • GE: Nuclear Growth Galore
      I am not a nuclear engineer and can't judge advantages of the various reactor types. So, separating hype from fact in this area is rather tough. I know that GE is getting design wins with their ABWR
      reactors. I know that others are also winning with their designs. The point is that GE will certainly participate in alternative energy (including nuclear) future and their stock is dirt cheap and very accessible. Which is not the case for Toshiba, Mitsubishi and Areva.

      I have read about pebble bed reactors in the past and you are right to say that they sound safer than others. But isn't Germany phasing out their nuclear power plants because of an accident that happened in such a reactor?

      Jees is correct and the sentence about 2% growth should have read as follows: "It's that I have a hard time imagining a scenario under which GE's long term earnings growth will be limited to 2% a year, which would justify current stock price. Over 10% is a common expectation among most analysts."
      Feb 28 13:17 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
    • GE: Nuclear Growth Galore
      GE is a safe bet with huge upside potential, but has only recently become a true value stock. I have never considered purchasing it before.

      Jim Cramer is fun to watch, but I don't trust his advice. I remember too vividly him recommending NCR after the TDC spin off last year, talking about it as if it had not yet happened. I had just sold NCR at the top and couldn't believe what I was hearing! It quickly dropped from $28 to $24 after that. He seems to like momentum stocks, in general and I don't. You know the old adage, "what goes up, must come down?"

      Those of you who are still discussing construction costs, my thesis would have not changed even if plant constructions costs would have not changed increased over the past 20-30 years. (Now, keep in mind that many of those projects were originally estimated at 1/10th there final cost.) The only thing that would have changed is the magnitude of the dramatic effect I was trying to achieve and that, my friends, will not make a difference on the price of GE stock.
      Feb 27 18:06 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
    • GE: Nuclear Growth Galore
      Most of you still appear to be missing my point. Analysts are not currently including any of the tremendous GE Energy potentials in their GE growth projections. On the other hand, small alternative energy companies are all about growth that is far less certain. In my quest to seek alpha, I am better of buying GE, which is dirt cheap and has very solid alternative energy growth prospects, among other things.
      Feb 27 13:46 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
    • GE: Nuclear Growth Galore
      First of all, I would like to thank all of my critics for keeping me on my tows. Perhaps a more careful reading of my original text would have alleviated most of your questions, but it can't hurt to clarify a few issues.

      1) The $90 Billion figure for building a reactor came from an article in the Christian Science Monitor www.csmonitor.com/2007... . My local utility, IREA published similar numbers. I believe them because 20 years ago it cost $3 billion to construct 1,000 MW reactors like the Limerick 2 query.nytimes.com/gst/... and final costs on these projects often were 10 times the original estimates. New plants will be larger and will cost more. In any case, my point was only to point out that analysts are not counting on this and other near certain upsides coming from GE Energy.

      2) From the Q3 of last year to the end of this year The Nuclear Regulatory Commission expects applications for 29 units www.nrc.gov/reactors/n...

      3) GE’s 300 or so projects around the Beijing Olympics are a done deal and they have been fully factored in by the analysts. I was alluding to the fact that the relationships GE has surely built in the process will serve it well in the future.

      I hope, all is clearer now!
      Feb 27 03:11 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
    • My Take on Fortune's Best Stocks for 2008
      A reference date of 12/14 (when these companies were originally recommended) vs. 1/4 (when I looked to see if they were still attractively priced) makes a big difference.
      Jan 23 21:34 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
    • My Take on Fortune's Best Stocks for 2008
      There has not been a succession plan announced for Berkshire Hathaway as of the date that I did research on the company is the longer and more accurate statement.

      I have no list for 2008, I simply look for opportunities to buy stocks in the companies that go "on sale" and than sell them, once they are trading at a fair price. You can easily see what my current favorites are simply by watching what I have bought and have not yet sold. As of this writing my personal portfolio consists of the following: BRC, CHN, CI, DD, ECA, EWJ, GCH, GLD, HELE, HW, JNJ, KCP, LUV, LVWD, NOVN, PDS, PNR, TRID, VLO, VVUS, WMT, BRKB, MOGA.

      I would take exception to the comment that I do not do my homework and as proof to the contrary point out that while the performance of my portfolio significantly exceeded S&P500 last year, it has also held up exceptionally well as the market descended from it's October peak. If anyone is curious about the specifics, I'll be glad to email them.
      Jan 11 11:51 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article

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