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October 2, 2008


Short McMansions, Long Self-Storage

Commenter EricC mentioned recently that he has a long list of financial and real estate stocks that are trading at or near new highs. While I don’t follow that many stocks, I am familiar with the Financial SPDR (XLF) components and know that JP Morgan Chase (JPM) is very near a new all-time high, as are PNC, US Bancorp (USB), Wells Fargo (WFC) and BB&T (BBT). (Read what BB&T’s CEO thinks about the $700 billion bailout.)

One XLF component stock that has been remarkably strong (besides JPM and the others I mentioned) is Public Storage (PSA), the self-storage REIT. Renting empty space is a dream business (a landlord with absentee tenants!), and it makes sense that downsized and foreclosed Americans need a place to put all their accumulated junk (which they’ve presumably paid for with credit cards).

I personally am a client (pro bono) of a different PSA, Parent Storage Associates, having staked out a corner of their garage long ago, where I keep dozens of boxes of no-doubt rapidly molding and mouse-eaten books on trading and investing (many of them “classics” worth thousands of dollars … assuming I can find another fool buyer :) ).

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 at 4:36 pm (utc+8) and is filed under Investing.

6 Responses to “Short McMansions, Long Self-Storage”

  1. Anthony said:
    October 2nd, 2008 at 9:18 pm

    Maybe if you autograph your ‘classics’, there might be a few more fool buyers out there! :-D

  2. C. Maoxian said:
    October 2nd, 2008 at 10:19 pm

    @Anthony: I’ll write a classic myself one day… have to start trading again first. :-)

  3. Soulek1 said:
    October 3rd, 2008 at 12:15 am

    Chairman why did you quit trading? Please post link if you already explained this earlier.

    Thank you.

  4. KC Trader said:
    October 3rd, 2008 at 6:40 am

    MaoXian,

    I thought you were going to start trading again in the 4th quarter, which started on Monday.

    Did the spiritual adviser and wife not give the green light?

  5. C. Maoxian said:
    October 3rd, 2008 at 9:00 am

    @Soulek: Time zone change, baby change, work change, old age change. :) Don’t worry, I’ll overcome it all and get back into the fray.

    @KC: The guru was booked last month and this month (seems many people are in need of spiritual advice of late, lol), so things have been delayed. His understudy (who answers the phone) says that I should concentrate on the Chinese stock market instead, and I may just follow that advice.

  6. speed said:
    October 5th, 2008 at 7:34 pm

    The short-selling and margin loan rumor finally got confirmed. Year zero for Chinese securities market! The guru got some inside stories? Awesome.

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