February 8, 2011
Future economic historians may refer to the period beginning in 2009 and continuing for some years into the future as the era of deleveraging, at least for everyone except the U.S. government. I have often voiced the opinion on this site that companies that are in compliance with the times by voluntarily paying down debt […]
January 19, 2011
As my loyal readers will know, I have been following Windstream (WIN), a phone company focusing on rural areas, for some time. Over the last couple of years, it has made a number of acquisitions in order to facilitate its strategy of expanding high speed internet and business services in order to offset losses of […]
January 11, 2011
Many of you may have no doubt noticed that my approach to investing is largely quantitative, concerned with free cash flow yields, interest coverage ratios, the gap between depreciation and capital expenditure, net working capital position, and other financial vital statistics. This should not be surprising; I take the position that corporations are machines that […]
January 10, 2011
So, my loyal readers who have been keeping count will know that this to be my 100th post. I thought I would celebrate this exciting occasion with a review of how some of my recommendations have worked out. I know hindsight makes everything look more certain than it was, but it is definitely a useful […]
December 22, 2010
I find very often that I seem to be the one who is interested in the investments I’m interested in. Certainly that is true of the River Rock and Mohegan casino bonds, where I seem to be the only person on the Internet who has even considered their investing attributes. So, when I find people […]
December 12, 2010
Behavioural Investing by James Montier is a weighty book with much to tell us about an aspect of investing that has long been overlooked. Behavioral investing, of course, is basically determining why market participants do not act in a manner consistent with the fancy equations of the financial economists, as they frequently don’t. Of course, […]
November 30, 2010
It appears that Seagate (STX) will not be taken over after all, as it has rebuffed its buyers for not meeting their price. The stock price seems to have taken this development in stride, dropoping only 3.25% today. However, the market’s incurable impatience had already caused the price to drift down from the $15 level […]
November 23, 2010
Netsuite is a company that produces an integrated suite of business applications for medium sized businesses. Within this core area they also produce industry-specific applications, and also a platform that allows for customer-driven development. The company was born in 1998 and seems to have brought some of that era’s valuation with it, as the company […]
November 19, 2010
Hugh Hendry, the hedge fund manager and inflation skeptic whose views I have always found informative and interesting, sat on a panel at a conference last February called the Russia Forum. I finally found footage of the full panel. On the whole, he was his usual opinionated self, but he did shed some light on […]
November 10, 2010
As you may have noticed, the stock market has been doing very well over the last few months, and even my staid old telecoms have been caught in the updraft despite (or perhaps because of) the high dividend payouts. As the entire market now seems to be looking for yields now that cash and most […]