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- Three "Shark Tank" investors weighed in on stocks, real estate, and cryptocurrencies.
- Daymond John loves Apple and Amazon; Kevin O'Leary likes index funds but worries about commercial space.
- Barbara Corcoran thinks house prices will rise, and says she lost $50,000 betting on bitcoin.
A trio of "Shark Tank" investors shared their views on stocks, real estate, and cryptocurrencies in a Fox Business interview on Tuesday.
Kevin O'Leary touted index funds, rang the alarm on commercial real estate, and predicted the crypto industry will clean up its act. Daymond John trumpeted Apple and Amazon, and said he's turned a small profit from crypto trading.
Meanwhile, Barbara Corcoran issued a bullish outlook for house prices, warned some parts of the real estate market are in trouble, and revealed she's lost $50,000 on bitcoin.
Stocks
O'Leary — whose nickname is "Mr Wonderful" — said stocks make up about 50% of his portfolio, but he invests in index funds instead of individual names.
"Stock picking is really hard," the founder of O'Leary Funds and O'Leary Ventures said. "The market's volatile but I own the best stocks in the index, and I just sit back and let them do their thing."
John, the founder and CEO of FUBU, declared a post-pandemic renaissance for retail, noting that Amazon stock has jumped by more than 40% this year. He also praised companies like Apple for building ecosystems of products and services.
"Amazon's not going anywhere," he said. "Now they catch us on Ring, they feed us at Whole Foods, and then they deliver our boxes. It's a universe."
Corcoran, the founder of The Corcoran Group, said she caps her exposure to the stock market as she prefers to buy properties.
"I like investing in stocks but I limit myself to 30%," she said. "I like finding my own gods to serve, and for me that's real estate."
Real estate
Mortgage rates have surged to more than 7% in recent months, but house prices remain near record highs due to a shortage of homes for sale. A key reason for that is many prospective sellers don't want to give up their cheap mortgages and take on more expensive ones.
"No inventory is like an insurance policy," Corcoran said. "If you don't have enough houses to go around, prices continue to go up. There's nothing that's going to make more houses available while interest rates remain high."
In contrast, steeper borrowing costs, high amounts of leverage, and trends such as remote working and online shopping have weighed on the commercial real estate sector.
"The shopping malls are in trouble, these big-box stores aren't doing so well," Corcoran said.
"They're going to zero," O'Leary said about some of the worst-hit parts of commercial real estate, such as offices in less attractive markets. He noted that asset values have plunged, and embattled regional banks have raised interest rates on loans to highly indebted developers from 5% to between 11% and 17%.
Crypto
O'Leary, a former frontman for Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX before the crypto exchange imploded last year, predicted a bright future for digital currencies.
"All these shenanigans, all these rogue crypto cowboys, they're all going to be gone in a few years," he said. "The SEC's running around the world after all of them."
O'Leary said he still sees potential in bitcoin, the "granddaddy" of digital-payment systems, as well as ether and others.
Corcoran struck a far less enthusiastic tone: "I lost $50,000 in bitcoin, I don't like the whole thing."
As for John, he hailed crypto as a promising space, and said he's dabbling in it.
"I'm actually up a little bit," he said, adding that he doubted crypto would disappear entirely given its size and profile.