Safehaven | The Forbes Article Gave the Mainstream Media a Bite of the BoomBust!

March 07, 2009

The Forbes Article Gave the Mainstream Media a Bite of the BoomBust!
by Reggie Middleton

I don't know if the readers at Forbes appreciated the value of the recommendations in the article last week, but they would have done rather well if they followed up on what they read. From the Going Short article.

"You're going to hear the word insolvent a lot," he says. Middleton has company in profiting by shorting financial stocks lately. But few shorts have been as vocal, or as prescient, as the Howard University graduate and self-taught stock-picker. Middleton, 41, started his BoomBustBlog in September 2007 and four months later declared Bear Stearns to be "in a fight for its life" at a time the investment bank's shares were trading above $90. On April 1 of last year he ridiculed regulators for blaming Lehman's problems on rumor-mongering short-sellers.

"I can solve this mystery," Middleton wrote with typical braggadocio. "The source of the rumors is Lehman's balance sheet."

Middleton says his Web site, www.reggiemiddleton.com, has 3,500 subscribers, including several hundred who pay up to $2,500 a year for access to more detailed financial reports. In the case of Alexander's, he used a video camera to record how empty its Brooklyn malls were.

Middleton's site combines self-promotion with meticulous financial analysis that is often delivered with a whiff of bathroom humor (a list of overpriced banking stocks last year went out as the "Doo-Doo 32")."

This is what I gave them to publish (a mere sampling of what is currently online for subscribers):

Middleton's Short Picks	Ticker	Price*	Reason To Short	Price as of 3/6/2009	Percent Change	Return if subscribed to Reggie	$50,000 evenly invested in short margin account would yield (for the one week after the Forbes article	$50,000 invested in the Barclay's hedge fund index as of last month would have yielded
Wynn Resorts	WYNN	$ 20.95	Shrinking margins; 50% premium to discounted cash flow	$ 15.40	(26.49)%	50%	$ 15,033.41
Alexander's	ALX	$ 140.40	Problems with commercial real estate holdings	$ 137.82	(1.84)%	3%	$ 10,349.15
Markel	MKL	$ 265.81	Financial investments to deterioriate; selling at premium to rivals	$ 225.21	(15.27)%	29%	$ 12,902.07
Ralcorp Holdings	RAH	$ 60.60	Cereal, packaged good maker faces margin pressure	$ 54.85	(9.49)%	18%	$ 11,802.81
Sears Holdings	SHLD	$ 36.76	Recession to hurt earnings, revenues	$ 35.53	(3.35)%	6%	$ 10,635.75
						Total	$ 60,723.18	$ 47,000
*Prices as of Feb. 27 close.							21%	-6%
Come see me at BoomBustBlog.com

This doesn't included the veritable implosion that is to occur in the subject of the latest REIT report, or the potential fraud to be uncovered in the consumer retail sector report, or the stuff that I have backpiled struggling to get out.

Let this serve as a notice to the MSM (the mainstream media) in general. There's a new sherrif in town, and he doesn't look, sound, perform nor act like the conventional MSM favorites, ex. Cramer. I am actually trying to make money! You people are really going to get your money's worth this month. I will be holding an institutional conference call for the month of March - potentially within a week. There may be a strategy issue to share.

To all, come meet, greet and chat with me at the Algonquin Hotel in NYC. Register and RSVP here, it's free: BoomBustBlog Networking - Trading Reggie's Research

For those who are interested, more on the MSM and why they should align themselves with high quality blogs - the transformation of the MSM:

A change is gonna' come Monday, 08 December 2008

Continuing the conversation of the future of main stream media... Tuesday, 09 December 2008

The Future of Main Stream Media, pt 3 Saturday, 13 December 2008

Sometime, to grow, you have to stick to your Core Compentencies!

Reggie Middleton
Reggie Middleton, LLC
Perpetual Interests, LLCTM
http://boombustblog.com/

Who am I?

Well, I fancy myself the personification of the free thinking maverick, the ultimate non-conformist as it applies to investment and analysis. I am definitively outside the box - not your typical or stereotypical Wall Street investor. I work out of my home, not a Manhattan office. I build my own technology and perform my own research - in lieu of buying it or following the crowd. I create and follow my own macro strategies and am by definition, a contrarian to the nth degree.

Since I use my research as a tool for my own investing to actually put food on my table, I can stand behind it as doing what it is supposed too - educate, illustrate and elucidate. I do not sell advice, I am not a reporter hence do not sell stories, and I do not sell research. I am an entrepreneur who exists just outside of mainstream corporate America and Wall Street. This allows me freedom to do things that many can not. For instance, I pride myself on developing some of the highest quality research available, regardless of price. No conflicts of interest, no corporate politics, no special favors. Just the hard truth as I have found it - and believe me, my team and I do find it! I welcome any and all to peruse my blog, use my custom hacked collaborative social tools, read the articles, download the files, and make a critical comparison of the opinion referencing the situation at hand and the time stamp on the blog post to the reality both at the time of the post and the present. Hopefully, you will be as impressed with the Boom Bust as I am and our constituency.

I pay for significant information and data, and am well aware of the value of quality research. I find most currently available research lacking, in both quality and quantity. The reason why I had to create my own research staff was due to my dissatisfaction with what was currently available - to both individuals and institutions.

So here I am, creating my own research for my own investment activity. What really sets my actions apart is that I offer much of what I produce to the public without charge - free to distribute and redistribute, as long as it is left unaltered and full attribution is given to the author and owner. Why would I do such a thing when others easily charge 5 and 6 digits annually for what some may consider a lesser product? It is akin to open source analysis! My ideas and implementations are actually improved and fine tuned when bounced off of the collective intellect of the many, in lieu of that of the few - no matter how smart those few may believe themselves to be.

Very recently, I have started charging for the forensics portion of my work, which has freed up the resources to develop the site to deliver even more research for free, particularly on the global macro and opinion front. This move has allowed me to serve an more diverse constituency, which now includes the institutional consumer (ie., investment turned consumer banks, hedge funds, pensions, etc,) as well as the newbie individual investor who is just getting started - basically the two polar opposites of the investing spectrum. I am proud to announce major banks as paying clients, and brand new investors who take my book recommendations and opinions on true wealth and success to heart.

So, this is how I use my background and knowledge in new media, distributed computing, risk management, insurance, financial engineering, real estate, corporate valuation and financial analysis to pursue, analyze and capitalize on global macroeconomic opportunities. I have included a more in depth bio at the bottom of the page for those who really, really need to know more about me.

Visit his blog Boom Bust Blog.