Look at the bright side: At least now the ambiguity over whether Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM ) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE ) are public or private entities has been cleared up. The fact that the government has stepped in to backstop both institutions means that even though equity value hasn't been explicitly erased, it's pretty much gone. That's a rough outcome for Fannie and Freddie stockholders, because the stocks were as high as $68.60 and $65.88, respectively, within the past year.
How well did you call the Fannie and Freddie collapse? I know one Fool who was on top of the situation, and that was epc53. This CAPS All-Star rated Freddie's stock an underperformer on 12 separate occasions and was on the money every time, earning himself 264 points and outpacing the other 540 CAPS members who have been bearish on Freddie.
epc53 is one of CAPS' All-Stars -- players with a rating of 80 or greater -- and he has managed a stock-picking accuracy of 59% on his calls while racking up more than 4,000 points. Freddie Mac hasn't been his only great call. Here's a look at a few of his other prescient picks:
|
Company
|
Date Picked
|
Call
|
Points
|
CAPS Rating (5 maximum)
|
|
Aluminum Corp. of China (NYSE: ACH )
|
April 10, 2007
|
Outperform
|
98
|
****
|
|
GateHouse Media
|
July 8, 2008
|
Underperform
|
71
|
*
|
|
Omniture
|
May 31, 2007
|
Outperform
|
67
|
****
|
Data from CAPS. Points is how many percentage points the call has outperformed the S&P 500 since the time of the call.
So what is this investor looking at these days? Here are a few of his most recent calls on CAPS:
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Company
|
Date Picked
|
Call
|
CAPS Rating
|
|
Lehman Brothers (NYSE: LEH )
|
Sept. 9
|
Underperform
|
*
|
|
Canadian Solar (Nasdaq: CSIQ )
|
Sept. 9
|
Underperform
|
**
|
|
Radian Group (NYSE: RDN )
|
Sept. 9
|
Underperform
|
**
|
Data from CAPS.
While not all of these picks may pan out, they could be a good place to start some further research. I decided to take a closer look at one of these stocks.
Lamenting Lehman
It can happen -- we've seen it already. Bear Stearns lost its way and blew up supernova style, with the left-over bits sucked up by JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM ) . Could the same happen to Lehman? Frankly, I'm sick of the question because Lehman has been facing it for months now. But it's not going to go away unless Lehman does fold or it does something that can convince the market that it has a strong capital position and will be able to weather this downturn.
What could change the market's mind? Well, Lehman could try selling off some of its assets or its still-valuable businesses. Or it could be something like a major foreign bank (cough, cough, Korea Development Bank) making a big investment in Lehman. But if a deal like that was rumored to be in the works and then apparently fell apart, that likely would elicit a whole new round of pessimism.
We don't have to tell CAPS members much about Lehman's risks. The stock carries a rock-bottom one-star rating, and more than half of the CAPS members who have rated the stock have been bearish. One CAPS member, chronicallyill22, recently put the thumbs down on this stock, writing that "the fed won't be nice to lehman after bailing freddie and fannie, and bear stearns."
So what's your take on Lehman? Is the one-star rating misleading, or will the company wind up like Freddie? Get in on the debate by clicking over to CAPS. CAPS is absolutely free and already has more than 115,000 stock pickers chipping in to find the best stocks out there.
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