Year: 2013

HUM, Humana Inc.

Hamilton

Hum feb 19 2013 bHUM feb 19 2013 s

Humana  has had a rollercoaster performance over the past 10 or so years. From $10 to $90, back to $20 and then back up almost to $96. As seems to be the case in almost every instance, there is no perfectly clear and unequivocal wave count that readily fits this pattern. It must either be a 4th and 5th wave one after the other or  a 5th wave followed by an irregular B-wave. There are some problems with that as the intervening drop might be viewed as a 5-wave move rather than an A-B-C.    However, looking at the short term chart, we appear to have 5-waves down followed by an a-b-c up retracement. Furthermore, today’s drop of 8% or so has all the earmarks of the beginnings of a third wave. A sell.

GOOG, update.

Hamilton

goog feb 19 2013 bgoog feb 19 2013 s

At $675 this one looked pretty toppish back in August of last year. It seemed to be a sell , but quite obviously it wasn’t. Looking at the Bloomberg website, I noticed a blog in which a young lady, Genna S. , pontificated that this stock was a buy, much better than a lot of others. At least three financial reporters around the table looked on in awe and then proceeded to proclaim that the young sage had all the attributes of a Warren Buffett. At the risk of making a fool of our self, once again, we would like to disagree with this precocious investor. The count is ambiguous but there is either a big, or a small triangle there followed by what looks like a wedge, none of which is positive for the near future. A sell.

BAM.A , Brookfield Asset Management

Hamilton

bam.a feb 17 2013bam.a feb 2013 s

There are a few “Brookfields” around so it can get confusing. This is not the real estate arm. As is so often the case in Canada , and elsewhere for that matter, the glory days for this stock were concentrated in a short 5-year time span. The banks had similar periods about 5 to 7 years earlier. Wealth management is  late to come to the table and is essentially just an euphemism  for the activities brokers engage in, previously referred to by some detractors as burn and churn, but with a somewhat broader base and a little more varnish. More fountain pens and sextants, yachts and so on in the brochures.

After dropping a good 2/3 this stock is fighting it’s way back up. Another $6/7 and it will double top. Given the distinct 5-wave sequence in the c wave of B, we doubt very much that it will get there. We would sell and be grateful for our good fortunes.

 

If you were thinking about that other Brookfield (Residential Properties) we would also sell;

brp feb 18 2013

Those of you that have a little grey hair, or none at all , may remember these companies better by the name Brascan, an underperforming conglomerate which also had extensive mining operations.

AEM, Agnico Eagle update

Hamilton

aem feb 16 2013

We did not anticipate the overlap, but otherwise this stock is progressing down according to the script. There may not be overlap if wave 2 was highly irregular, but that is academic now. We will assume that it is going down in a large wedge wave C. Most times the stock does not go to the trend line, but it could. It should , however make a new low, that is below $27. A wild guess right now would be something like $15. If you are long this stock, or any other big ones like ABX or G, as a hedge against inflation it clearly is not working and it does not look like it will in the immediate future. Deflation, not  inflation is the coming problem.