I will say this about the next generation of investors, they are certainly an optimistic lot. I have been following the moves of this younger cohort, often known as Robin Hoodies, and they seem to buy with a gusto never before seen in my lifetime.
The younger investors, we know from reporting on them, came in with guns blazing right at the bottom earlier this year. They then proceeded to see stocks like Tesla (TSLA) create instant millionaires and they wanted their fair share. In fact the draw of finding the next Tesla infuses much of their thinking and why not. If you believe that Tesla was just a car company, as was the case, I think with the Goldman Sachs (GS) analyst who found himself forced to upgrade the stock after watching it levitate for ages, then you you would have missed this move.
But that’s not how many of the youngers investors – I correspond with a great deal of them – viewed Tesla. They thought of it like a technology stock, kind of like how investors viewed Amazon (AMZN) or Netflix (NFLX) all these years.
Yep these younger investors aren’t sitting around waiting for index funds, often with as many good stocks as bad ones. They are stock picking and by all accounts, including execs at Morgan Stanley (MS) and JP Morgan (JP) , they love doing the homework and pulling the trigger
How optimistic are these folks?. I want you to do something for me. Join me watching CNBC at 5 a.m. with Brian Sullivan some day and watch what we call the “ticker” underneath. This younger segment does not wait for the stock market to open to do their investing, or betting if you want to be cynical.
Right now they are betting on a vaccine and they don’t like to even wait until near when the market opens to do some buying.
All this week, like many other weeks since the vaccine story’s gotten legs, they have been buying the cruise ships, with Norwegian Cruise Line (NCLH) and Carnival (CCL) getting the lion’s share of the money. They don’t seem to care one whit that the companies have been offering stock left and right. Dilution, the enemy of most of Wall Street’s analysts because it means that numbers must be cut, means absolutely nothing to these buyers. And who can blame them. They are up big on every single one of the dilutive offerings.
Speaking of optimism, these younger buyers can’t get enough of the airlines. Why not? Less than a month ago, with American Airlines (AAL) burning through $44 million a day, which is down from $58 – yippee – the company sold 38 million shares at $13. It’s now at $16 and change.
That’s optimism personified.
Or how about Norwegian Cruise? Here’s a company that just this week announced a delay its relaunch for a couple of months. The result? The stock has one of its biggest moves ever, rallying more than 10%.
Now you might say they don’t know what they are doing. I come back and say if they don’t know what they are doing I would like to see how much they made if they did have more knowledge.
Or you might say, with their aggressive buying they MAKE themselves right. Again I say, so what, the fact is they are betting on the optimism of a reopening and someday they will be right.
We know they are in other stocks, like the high fliers, the EV Spacs and the DocuSigns (DOCU) and Snowflakes (SNOW) of the world, the latter the most expensive stock when it comes to price to sales in the entire market. It sells at more than 100 times revenues, with a gigantic leap today after our interview last night.
For some reason they love Simon Property (SPG) , the nation’s largest mall operator. Brick & mortar redux?
But it is with those remarkable cruise line rallies that the big money has been made for the Robin Hoodies, and I, for one salute them.
(Amazon and Goldman Sachs are holdings in Jim Cramer’s Action Alerts PLUS member club. Want to be alerted before Jim Cramer buys or sells these stocks? Learn more now.)
Get an email alert each time I write an article for Real Money. Click the “+Follow” next to my byline to this article.