Stocks the Top Investors Are Betting Against
By
Todd Wenning
September 16, 2008
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It takes a lot of guts to short a stock. By hoping the share price will decline, your best-case scenario is that the company goes bankrupt -- a 100% gain. On the other hand, if the stock miraculously rebounds, your potential losses are infinite. Put simply, if you're going to make a short call, you'd better be sure you're right.
Using Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's 115,000-plus-member investing community, we can see which stocks are receiving the greatest percentage change in "underperform" calls that CAPS All-Star players have made each week. The All-Stars aren't necessarily putting real money behind their shorts, but they do put their CAPS score and their reputations on the line by making such bold calls. A sudden increase in bearish interest from top-rated investors could signal that the stock's one to avoid, or at least deserves further research.
Here are five stocks being bombarded by "underperform" ratings from CAPS All-Stars over the past month:
|
Company
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Sector
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Change in All-Star Bears From 8/18 to 9/15
|
CAPS Rating
(Out of 5)
|
CAPS Research
|
|
General Electric (NYSE: GE)
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Conglomerates
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35%
|
****
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GE
|
|
Dell (Nasdaq: DELL)
|
Technology
|
33%
|
**
|
DELL
|
|
FirstFed Financial (NYSE: FED)
|
Financials
|
32%
|
*
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FED
|
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Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO)
|
Technology
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29%
|
****
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CSCO
|
|
EMCORE (Nasdaq: EMKR)
|
Technology
|
27%
|
**
|
EMKR
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