It’s 13-F season, which means the world gets to find out most of what the world’s top fund managers have been up, on a tape-delay basis. The likes of Warren Buffett and Carl Icahn it is fair to say are not day traders but like to stick around in a stock for a long time.
The opposite of long-term investing is speculation, and it’s worthwhile knowing what those stocks are, too. That’s all the more so this year, when investors have been encouraged to take more speculative activity in light of the view, real or imagined, that the Federal Reserve will pause, and possibly reverse, interest-rate hikes.
There’s a simple way to identify so-called lottery stocks. A research paper from authors including Alok Kumar of the University of Miami notes that, if all market participants were passive investors, the ratio of dollar volume to market cap would be equal for all stocks. So, look for the stocks with the highest turnover ratios to find the most speculative stocks.
MarketWatch did just that, screening New York Stock Exchange- and Nasdaq-listed stocks, with market caps of at least $500 million.
The winner, so to speak, by some distance was Mullen Automotive, the California electric-vehicle maker. Others include ContextLogic, the e-commerce company that this week was backed by Citron Research; Marathon Digital, a bitcoin miner; two AI plays, SoundHound AI and BigBear.ai; Carvana, the struggling used-car retailer; and Silvergate Capital, which has aggressively lent to crypto clients.
| Company | Ticker | Avg volume-to-market cap |
| Mullen Automotive | MULN, | 31557 |
| ContextLogic | WISH, | 5720 |
| Marathon Digital | MARA, | 4962 |
| SoundHound AI | SOUN, | 2642 |
| BigBear.ai | BBAI, | 2245 |
| Carvana | CVNA, | 2143 |
| Silvergate Capital | SI, | 2129 |
| Opendoor Technologies | OPEN, | 2009 |
| Riot Platforms | RIOT, | 1788 |
| AMC Entertainment | AMC, | 1567 |
| Source: FactSet | ||
That methodology, applied in reverse, also reveals some of the least speculative names. They include Coca-Cola
KO,
Chipotle Mexican Grill
CMG,
Morningstar
MORN,
BlackRock
BLK,
and, to the surprise of no one, Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway
BRK.B,
The prize for the least speculative company that had at least some volume was Brooge Energy
BROG,
an oil refinery and storage company based in the United Arab Emirates.
The market
U.S. stock futures
ES00,
NQ00,
were pointing to a weaker start, after Tuesday’s close in which the S&P 500
SPX,
didn’t move much at all. The dollar
DXY,
rose, and the yield on the 10-year Treasury
TMUBMUSD10Y,
was 3.78%.
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The buzz
U.S. retail sales jumped 3% in January, or 6.4% from the previous year. The biggest gains in January were food services, motor vehicles and parts, and furniture.
The 13-F from Berkshire Hathaway revealed Warren Buffett didn’t do much at all in the fourth quarter. His Apple
AAPL,
position went higher, probably due to the closing of Berkshire Hathaway’s acquisition of Alleghany, and he boosted its stake in Occidental Petroleum
OXY,
while he sharply cut his stakes in U.S. Bancorp
USB,
Bank of New York Mellon
BK,
and contract chip maker Taiwan Semiconductor
2330,
Buffett’s partner in crime, Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman Charlie Munger, will speak at the Daily Journal’s
DJCO,
annual shareholder meeting.
Elon Musk disclosed he donated about $2 billion of Tesla
TSLA,
stock to charity, while the White House said Tesla will open up its charging network to other EV makers by the end of 2024.
Musk separately told the World Government Summit that he wanted to find a chief executive for Twitter by the end of the year. Twitter engineers reportedly changed settings after a Musk tweet saying he was supporting the Eagles in the Super Bowl got less engagement than a similar missive from President Joe Biden.
Advertising-technology company Trade Desk
TTD,
rallied after an upbeat outlook. Airbnb
ABNB,
and TripAdvisor
TRIP,
both benefited from strong travel demand as their shares climbed following fourth-quarter results. Lender Upstart
UPST,
guided for a bigger loss on worse-than-forecast revenue for the first quarter.
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Top tickers
There were the most active stock-market tickers on MarketWatch as of 6 a.m. Eastern.
| Ticker | Security name |
| TSLA, | Tesla |
| BBBY, | Bed Bath & Beyond |
| AMC, | AMC Entertainment |
| GME, | GameStop |
| TSM, | Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing |
| AAPL, | Apple |
| MULN, | Mullen Automotive |
| NIO, | Nio |
| APE, | AMC Entertaiment preferreds |
| PLTR, | Palantir Technologies |
Random reads
The missile that missed a UFO cost $400,000.
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Source: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/by-one-measure-these-are-the-most-speculative-stocks-this-year-49066dd5?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo