Voice Revolution ratings, Gold allocation, North Korea, Hurricanes and more

Here is the transcript from today’s live Q&A in the Trading With Cody chatroom.

Hey everybody, let’s rock n roll. Ask me anything. I’ll answer all the past few day’s questions from here in the chat room too. Hit me, as the great Britney might say.

Q. Just because stocks are on The Voice Revolution list, it doesn’t mean YOU want to own them, right? Thinking of your current/past stance on TSLA and Chinese stocks. Has this changed? Would love your thoughts on this. Thanks, dude… and rock on!

Q follow-up. Cody, amplifying on question re: the Voice Rev, how does want to compare the revolutionary ratings on those stocks versus the ratings of your general TWC portfolio? (This was an extended discussion a week or two ago.)

A. I tried to make the ratings in the book the same as I would if each of those stocks were in my portfolio. I can’t own every 8-rated stock on the planet so there are several in there that I don’t own despite their being highly-rated.

Q. Is there any particular stock(s) you are interested in today/this week in light of North Korea and the hurricanes?

A. No, I’m not one who tries to game exogenous events or short-term trades off of things like War tensions or Hurricanes…Sorry. I do think Palo Alto $PANW, as a cybersecurity play is a derivative play off of North Korea and it’s potential and attempts at hacking US companies and systems.

Q. Hi, Cody – Do you think $NOK will play a big role in 5G, IoT, wearables, next gen network hardware? Do their patents provide any upside at today’s levels?

A. $NOK has so much legacy baggage and margin issues, I just don’t know if it’s going to ever get back to the double digits. I admit I haven’t looked in depth at Nokia in a long time though, and maybe it’s time to Flip my own mindset on it. I’ll take a look and let you know.

Q. Cody, any interest in adding to $AMBA?

A. No interest in adding to $AMBA. I’m rather sick of their missing quarters and/or guiding lower. 6 rated stock for now.

Q. Interesting article which implies that the Echo will lose out long term to Apple’s strategy of using IOS as the focal point for controlling things in the house house  http://www.barrons.com/article… Your reaction?

A. Apple’s eco-system is definitely powerful enough that it will keep me and a lot of other people in it, and we’ll use voice interaction with it. But Alexa’s going to dominate in other places and/or in addition to Apple, even as Apple’s voice efforts/services improve.

Q. $ICHR Is it too late to invest in a fiber optic play pitched at data-centers?

A. I’m just not interested in fiber optic plays. I hold the fiber optic near and dear to my heart because it was the first industry that I really dove into and analyzed stocks. I was at JDS Uniphase and Cienna..there were so many of them that I can’t think of them all. Many of them went bankrupt or dropped their stocks, I’m not joking, 90% including JDS Uniphase and never came back.  You answered your own question.

I typically stay away from the fiber optic space because it is commoditized. You don’t end up owning your own platform. They can switch from one vendor to the next. They can start sourcing their components from someone else. There is always someone else leap frogging their technology. $CSCO for example has its own platform, its installed base is huge and they use fiber optics components from a lot of companies. You’ve heard of $CSCO and you’ve seen its sustainable success, but you’ve never heard of its fiber optics suppliers or their sustainable success. So, no, I don’t own of them right now and I don’t really have very much interest in digging into them very much for that reason. Boy, I am looking at some of these stocks down 20%, down 30% in a hurry.

Q. OK, this is probably my limit. Is $QCOM going to come back because of its promise in 5G? If not, who is a good horse to ride for 5G?

A. Let me grab the same thing I’ve written about $QCOM since I sold it — same short-term and long-term issues hang over it as I’ve been saying for a year now. $QCOM‘s IP business is in big trouble and under attack by Qualcomm’s customers who are suing Qualcomm.

Q. Any thoughts on the $MSFT and $AMZN collaboration? Which one might benefit more? That’s a lot of Windows machines that Alexa can potentially reach. Both seem confident in their tech and are willing to battle but I can’t picture myself telling Echo to open Cortana unless $MSFT AI was significantly better.

A. Amazon partnered with Microsoft because they want to make Amazon Alexa work with any platform, over any platform, under any platform, etc. Cortana seems to suck compared to Alexa, but then again so does every other Voice Interactive platform seems to suck compared to Alexa.

Q. Any thoughts on $KSS partnering with $AMZN?

A. Kohl’s adding an Amazon Smart Home section to some of their stores shows you how Amazon Alexa has become the de facto standard for voice-controlled homes.

Q. Hello Cody.. staying on the cryptocurrencies theme MGTI has been getting noticed… John McAffee, a principal has taken the mining of currencies very serious.. stock has moved up big.

A. OMG, run from $MGTI. It’s a typical penny stock insider-controlled trading scam, IMHO. I don’t think they’ll ever even try to make real money for investors, they’re just going to hype the stock and sell insider shares and issue more insider shares as long as they can find retail investors to sell them too.

Q. I’m getting asked about NEO and IOTA crytocurrencies what are your thoughts Cody? By my CPA of all people. Bubble much?

A. I’d say it’s best to sell or run from any cryptocurrency right now, as yes, it’s bubbled up. There will come a great time to buy my the bitcoins I sold back, but I don’t think September 2017 is a good time to invest in NEO or IOTA or any Initial Coin Offering or anything like that!

Q. I know you like Gold Bullion and wondered if GLD is an acceptable alternative. Don’t currently own any gold in my portfolio. Is 10% a good portion to hold? Is now as good a time as any to pick some up or wait for a pull back?

A. Short answer — Read this, my book called “Everything You Need to Know About Investing in Gold and Silver.” Longer answer — I don’t like GLD since it’s just a promise for gold and the main reason I want to own gold long term is a hedge against fiat currencies and financial crises. That is, it’s better to just own some gold coins and/or bullion. 10% sounds like a lot to me, but I don’t know your personal risk/reward profile or your goals or your concerns, so it might be okay for you to have a 10% position in gold.

Thanks all, that’s a wrap for this week. Sorry for the delay in the middle of the chat.