The Tao of N.W.A. - Investing in 2007 like a true Gangsta'

I was celebrating a nice, unseasonably warm Christmas day in my usual fashion: listening to some slamming tracks in my custom Cadillac Eldorado, aka Stockmaster One, tha Motha' Ship... and I came upon a realization that nearly forced me to break my head-nodding stare-down with a confused 12 year old pedestrian.



It occurred to me that the gentlemen from the seminal gangsta rap group, N.W.A., had an innate ability to cut through the confusion of life on the street with lyrical precision. Life in Compton circa 1988 was no Christmas day joy ride, and Cube, Eazy, MC Ren, Dre, and company broke onto the scene with gritty, relevant, and often poignant rhymes. America was forced to listen, and I believe many of the lessons found in N.W.A.'s music are as true today as the day they were yelled into a Long Beach microphone. Many of the elements of survival in a world of dope slangin', straight pimpin', and pipe hittin' can be translated directly for use in investing. Based on this idea, I have put together some stock strategies for 2007 based on the lyrics of these prophetic gangstas from the West Side:
The Tao of N.W.A.....

…Clockin' much dollars on tha 1st and 15th
Big wad of money nuttin less than a twenty
Yo you want a five-oh the dope man gots plenty

"…Clockin' much dollars on tha 1st and 15th" - the American consumer has shown an insane propensity for spending well past reasonable means. What is true of selling dope is true of providing consumer credit: be in the right place with the right product at the highest margin possible. With its seemingly endless portfolio of consumer credit products and services, Wells Fargo (WFC) represents an example of a firm that appears to understand this lyric well. At a WFC ATM (possibly the one at the Compton City Hall), a customer can even secure an advance on a direct deposit paycheck and then use a portion of those funds to buy modestly marked up stamps to put on this month's (or possibly last year's) gas bill. According to filings, WFC's commercial division even lends to money to publicly traded payday advance companies such as Advance America (AEA). AEA has been beleaguered all year due to regulatory problems, making it a nice value candidate for pure-play exposure to payday advance industry.

But you know it ain't all about wealth.
As long as you make a note to...
Express Yourself...

YouTube showed the power of harnessing people's insatiable urge to be heard. With a $1.65B price tag, we gasped at the value of concentrating consumer attention for the purposes of self expression. Like our insistence on overspending, our step-childish need for attention on a personal and global scale will remain in 2007. That said, we will include Google (GOOG) in our Gangsta' Index. Google will continue to innovate in the means for self expression, But you know it ain't all about wealth. Google can attract eyeballs without worrying about the VC phone calls about cash flow or exit strategies. Users will pour onto YouTube like a bottomless Olde English 40 on the curb that is self expression. Take it from from N.W.A.: Let knowledge be the tool for suckers to stop guessing...

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