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 […]
Tech Data (TECD) is a distributor of electronics in the US and European areas. Its role is to sell a mix of primarily IT products from original manufacturers and entities identified as “value-added resellers” and to perform various related ancillary services, and it is one of the largest such distributors in the world. Approximately 30% […]
Orient Paper (ONP) seems to have much in common with my other Chinese ideas: A high historical growth rate; a P/E ratio of 9 at current prices, a decent balance sheet, a Byzantine corporate history involving an offshore holding company and this time not even lumbered with a set of unusually high receivables; and being […]
No doubt all of you have noticed that China has recently unpegged their currency to the US dollar, preferring to key it instead to a basket of foreign currencies. Of course, having a fully floating yuan is pegging it to a basket of foreign currencies; it’s just that the peg is to every currency in […]
Investors nowadays have an unhealthy obsession with growth (and by nowadays, I mean since about 1870). I, for my part, have no objection to growth, but as I have stated, I don’t like overpaying for growth, which usually simplifies to “I don’t like paying for growth.” But if growth is king, and people are willing […]
As you may recall, I recommended Chiquita Brands a couple of months ago, and since then it has gone down from 15.17 to 13.58 today, or down about 10%. So, not really my best work, I suppose, but an economic crisis in Europe, where Chiquita Brands performs 40% of its operations, would naturally dampen enthusiasm […]