I noticed on Yahoo! finance a couple of days ago that Paul Otellini, CEO of Intel, publicly complained that, owing to high taxes and regulatory uncertainty, innovation and growth in the US would be stifled and, of course, Obama is to blame. Of course, this would be the same Intel that paid AMD a $1.25 […]
I find that the stocks I like seem to come in pairs. I liked oil and gas producers Linn Energy and Breitburn; I liked phone companies Windstream and Qwest, and now in the contract manufacturing sectors, I liked Keytronic and now I like Amkor Technology (AMKR). Amkor produces semiconductor packaging for other manufacturers, and also […]
I have a certain weakness in my heart for junk bonds. Junk bonds, of course, are bonds with a sub-investment grade credit rating, and they can range from just barely on the cusp of investment grade to the point where the purchaser would have to be crazy to consider them. As Ben Graham wrote, an […]
The below post was a foray into the world of macroeconomics, a matter which I have no formal and little informal education in but I nonetheless feel perfectly qualified to give my opinion, just like everyone else. Now I would like to talk about issues in valuing United Online, a matter with which I have […]
I should make it clear at the outset of this article that I’m not an economist. But, like many people who begin their speeches with those words, I won’t let it affect what I have to say. I have made it clear in the past that I take a sanguine view of the possibility of […]
Benjamin Graham gave two useful pieces of advice that are applicable during earnings season. First, don’t pay too much attention to the results of a single quarter. Second, when paying too much attention to the results of a single quarter, make sure that you strip out the nonrecurring events in order to get a better […]
Linn Energy (LINE), the other company I wanted to discuss, has a more opaque set of figures, and this may be due to the fact that their derivatives strategy is more integral to their business. But on the other hand, Warren Buffett has stated that if a company wants you to understand its financial statements, […]
For once I can mention a company that most of you may have heard of. Seagate Technology (STX) is the world’s largest hard drive maker, producing a wide range of standard hard drives and since December of 2009 has also been producing a line of solid state drives, although they were a late entrant to […]
I have had occasion to suggest Capstead Mortgage as an attractive purchase partially based on attractive economics created by historically low interest rates, and partially based on the number of difficulties in evaluating most other investment firms that are not encountered with this one. Capstead Mortgage purchases adjustable rate mortgages on a leveraged basis and […]
A couple months ago I saw a car driving along the freeway with a windmill in its roof, merrily milling the wind along as the car was zipping towards San Francisco. Of course, the car was some manner of hybrid. Although I commend the car owner for its efforts, I do not commend him for […]