FOOL PLATE SPECIAL
With the market still staggering from last week's tragedy and a war on terrorists looming, where should investors turn? Perhaps to the solid companies they've always wanted to buy, which are now getting cheaper and cheaper. Rick Munarriz is looking for quality names at bargain prices, but most of all he's exercising patience as he buys into America.
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I had no problem buying into America this week. I had moved a little cash off to the sidelines earlier this summer, and I was ready to do my part. But I wasn't ready to simply buy into companies like All-Star Equity Fund (NYSE: USA) and Flag Financial (Nasdaq: FLAG) just because their ticker symbols screamed out Americana. No sirree, bub. If I was going to buy in, I was going to hook up with stocks that would see it through these very trying times. I wasn't alone. The obvious plays were played the moment the New York firefighters helped ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Monday morning. Airport security technology specialist Invision (Nasdaq: INVN) tripled at the open. It's been ticking lower ever since. Trying to play the best defense was already spoken for too: Everyone knew about Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) and its F-16 and F-22 fighters and Northrop Grumman's (NYSE: NOC) handiwork on the Longbow Hellfire missiles and the B-2 bombers. Like the flag vendor on the corner or the chap selling power generators during rolling blackouts, the hefty markups were there from trade number one. How dare Wall Street gouge me? I had to do better than the obvious. I had to take things to the next logical step. Last week we were all stung, then numb. Trying to find an investing angle on all this was almost therapeutic. At the very least, it gave my mind something else to do. Everyone was glued to the television set, but the media companies were going ad-free. Not good. No one wanted to venture far from home. Not good. But, wait! Homebodies still crave filmed entertainment and the major networks would have none of that. Would it be blue and yellow to the rescue? Video rental giants Blockbuster (NYSE: BBI) and Hollywood Entertainment (Nasdaq: HLYW) had to be doing big business, and the industry did in fact report double-digit same-store gains last week. Bingo! But while the market has given up plenty this week, both of those stocks are trading comfortably higher. Okay, we can't live like hermits. How about driving to the local multiplex? It was a spectacular weekend at the movies. The box office take was 43% higher than the same weekend the year before. But, AMC Theaters (Amex: AEN), which traded as low as $8.50 during last week's lone trading day, has been perched above $9 all this week. Man, this isn't easy. Let's go in a different direction. Let's assume that people still need to get around. They'll just drive. What's a road trip without a stop for some comfort food at Cracker Barrel? But parent company CBRL Group (Nasdaq: CBRL) is going for pretty much what it was trading at last week. I wanted to go bottom-fishing, but I wound up skimming stones. Lovely. What was I to do? I began to see the downticks just about everywhere else. I saw the stocks of companies I always wanted to own getting cheaper and cheaper. Granted, the near-term fundamentals were shot in most cases, but I was willing to look beyond that. I saw quality names at bargain prices. It wasn't a matter of finding the layups. Those shots had already been taken from the jumpball line. I found attractive deals for the stocks behind the companies that seemed poised to bounce back eventually. Patience is a virtue for the thrifty. I bought into America. I bypassed the obvious and went against momentum to make the trade less traveled. Robert Frost would say that that would make all the difference. I'll let the future guide me the rest of the way home. Rick Aristotle Munarriz did buy a few stocks earlier this week -- all beaten down, none mentioned here. (Well, he actually does own seven shares of CBRL he has through a dividend reinvestment plan.)Rick's stock holdings can be viewed online, as can the Fool's disclosure policy.
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