HQ Sustainable Maritime Industries – The HQ Stands for High Quality?

May 17, 2010

I suppose that my loyal readers are tired of hearing me going on about cheap Chinese stocks, but value investors have to go where the value is. Some Chinese stocks, small and overlooked, seem to show up on my screens more often than I would expect considering the China cult, and although HQ Sustainable Maritime […]

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Keep an eye on China Security & Surveillance (CSR)

May 9, 2010
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You may recall that cheap and Chinese is starting to become a theme on this blog, and today is not an exception. This one, however, has nothing to do with food: it is China Security & Surveillance (CSR), which trades at an exciting P/E ratio of 5.44, although they did pay an unusually low amount […]

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Definitely time to be in Capstead Mortgage (CMO)

May 5, 2010

I have gone over the details of Capstead Mortgage previously: that their exclusive concentration on adjustable rate mortgages insulates them almost completely from interest rate movements, and the blank check that Fannie and Freddie got from the government makes their loans absolutely safe, so the only thing to worry about is what premium to book […]

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Drink the low hanging fruit (Skypeople Fruit Juice).

April 28, 2010
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I have recommended cheap Chinese stocks as desirable as a way to bet on the possibility that China will be forced to let the yuan float against the dollar, and of course, a cheap stock anywhere is a cheap stock, although markets outside of the first world should be given a higher equity risk premium. […]

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CenturyTel to Steal Qwest Communications Inc.

April 22, 2010

It was announced today that CenturyTel will buy Qwest Communications, subject to shareholder and regulatory approval, for $10.6 billion, or $6.02 per share, in an all stock deal. If you’ll recall, way back in June I recommended Qwest as a company with an ample free cash flow in excess of its reported earnings. At the […]

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Beware of the Gumbiner (Hallwood Group)

April 20, 2010

Much of the issues surrounding executive compensation is a concern that the manager’s interests should be aligned with the shareholders’. We have seen large cash salaries giving way to stock and options grants, and now the concern is that CEOs will do whatever they can to juice the price of the stock when their options […]

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Blaming the “victim” (Chiquita Brands)

April 15, 2010

As my loyal readers may recall, my verdict on Chiquita brands was “Cheap, but evil.” It turns out that the law firm of Boies Schiller agrees with me, since they have recently filed a class action on behalf of 242 Colombians who were the victims of a Colombian paramilitary group that was running a protection […]

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The Dark Side of Valuation: The power of smug

April 10, 2010

One of the chief benefits of value investing is the pleasant feeling of smugness it incites in its practitioners. The impression created among value investors is that we are really the only people who know or care about valuation or fundamental analysis, or who have the slightest hope of achieving long-term investment success. Well, on […]

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Be careful what you wish for with China’s currency

April 6, 2010

Now that Easter is over and the spiritual affairs of the world are in order, we may look again at temporal matters. And when it comes to temporal matters, a coming trade war with China is a big one. We now read that there is pressure on the administration to declare China a currency manipulator, […]

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United (Online) we stand

March 25, 2010

Sorry for the silly pun. United Online (UNTD) is a conglomerate of three online companies joined at the parent level. Their first, and oldest, company is a dial-up ISP that was created when Juno and NetZero merged. Their second segment is made of Classmates Online and Mypoints.com, which is an Internet marketing loyalty service. Their […]

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