Ben Stein Long On Financials

I was in Los Angeles for the past several days. While spending several hours parked on the 405 freeway I heard Ben Stein on the radio. He thinks financial stocks have been beaten up and are great values right now (as of November 13th 2007).

He recommended buying a financial sector ETF. I think he mentioned Financial Select Sector SPDR (XLF). He thinks stocks like Citigroup (C) and Bank of America (BAC) aren’t going to go bankrupt and the market is over-reating. Thats quite a contrast in opinion from last week’s comment by Jim Rogers, who’s short the financial sector via ETFs.

While I didn’t jump in and buy either Citigroup or Bank of America, I did close my positions in UltraShort Financials ProShares (SKF) and UltraShort QQQ ProShares (QID) yesterday for a slight gain. I’m still not convinced enough to go long though.

Stein also recommends buying Energy Select Sector SPDR (XLE) . I’m long on the energy sector ad I think XLE will probably do well. However, I’m already heavily weighted in Canroys and direct oil-gas drilling programs so I’ll stay out of XLE too.