Mayor Bloomberg put on a new hat yesterday – investment adviser.
In an unusual move, the city’s billionaire CEO singled out for high praise three “great” and “irreplaceable brands” – General Electric, Macy’s and Saks – that he said appear to be undervalued in this severely depressed stock market.
President Obama made headlines Tuesday by suggesting stocks were cheap and represented a “potentially good deal” for long-term investors.
Asked if he agreed, the mayor went into a lengthy riff about the state of the economy that concluded with him tipping the three well-known firms.
“You want to make sure – and I think [Ponzi schemer Bernie] Madoff is as good an example as to why – you need to diversify. I don’t care how good any manager is. Nobody should have a very large percentage of your funds. You should split them among various things,” he said.
“And if you have cash now, buy a little bit, wait a month, buy a little bit more.”
Bloomberg monitors the stock market every day from his desk at City Hall and is a big fan of Exchange Traded Funds, which are similar to mutual funds.
But that didn’t stop him from singing the praises of the three companies.
“Long term if you look back, I think you’re going to find that this morning, when General Electric traded below $6 a share, it is one of the great companies. You have companies likes Saks and Macy’s which are irreplaceable brands,” Bloomberg said.
Stu Loeser, the mayor’s spokesman, said his boss wasn’t becoming a stock tout.
“GE is the quintessential American blue chip,” said Loeser. “People who keep an eye on the market keep an eye on GE. It is the baseline firm.”
He said Macy’s and Saks are strongly identified with the city, which is why the mayor frequently mentions them in public comments.
“It’s not our place to back one or another firm,” declared Loeser.
A spokeswoman for Bloomberg LP said it doesn’t confirm the names of its customers, but it was likely all three firms used Bloomberg terminals just like “their competitors.”
Investors who acted on the mayor’s observations lost money yesterday.
GE closed down 32 cents at $6.69; Saks fell 13 cents to $2.12, while Macy’s jumped 17 cents to $7.35.