I recently purchased Value Investing by Montier. It’s an interesting book, but it seems to focus more on behavioral finance issues and value investing philosophy than actual techniques. Now, of course, no one describes their investing style as “behavioral finance,” but to a large degree every investment philosophy depends on exploiting some mistake that most […]
I have spoken highly in the past of a stock selling for less than its net working capital with the additional criterion that the firm be profitable. On top of the attractiveness of the stock recovering at least to its asset value, the net working capital level serves as a price floor, thus reducing the […]
A great deal of value investing is the process of elimination. Warren Buffett, when asked how he finds undervalued stocks, simply replied “Start with the A’s.†But in most markets only a small fraction of securities count as underpriced on an absolute basis, so value investing requires wading through an endless sea of crap in […]
The trouble with getting in on the ground floor of a new technology is that you never know how tall the building is going to be. Too many investors confuse technological brilliance with competitiveness, and a typical example of that is Rentech Inc. On the whole I’ve never been too excited about technology for its […]
Since I last proposed Callon Petroleum bonds, and following my success with the Bon-Ton junk bonds, I’ve been considering focusing more attention on this part of the market. Junk bonds, of course, offer massive yields, higher than nearly all dividend-paying stocks and certainly higher than normal bonds; however, defaults are a constant worry and the […]
Windstream has announced their fourth acquisition since they started, this time for Iowa Telecommunications Services for 1.1 billion, consisting of 26.5 million shares of stock, $260 million in cash, and assuming $600 million of debt. The target firm has 256,000 access lines, 95,000 high speed Internet customers, and 26,000 digital TV customers, which the article […]
If you have been following this blog for some time, you may recall the first move I recommended was the bonds of Bon-Ton Department Stores, which I suggested could be hedged by shorting an equivalent dollar value of the stock. At the time the bonds were at 46 and the stock was at $4. Now, […]
The Greek word for marketplace is “agora,” so the word “agoraphobia” literally means “fear of the marketplace,” and Congress seems to be suffering terribly from it lately. Given what has happened over the last couple of years their reaction is unsurprising. Indexing, long touted as the safe long-term option for the passive investor, has shown […]
As some of you may recall, I called Coinstar an attractive short target some months ago, and it didn’t exactly go so well. In fact, it did go exactly as high as $38.28, when I called for the short at $25.91. Of course, that was during a massive stock market rally; one of the purposes […]
Windstream (WIN) has just announced that they are acquiring yet another phone company, NuVox, for 280 million in cash, about 180 million in stock, and 180 million in assumed debt, total 640 million. NuVox focuses specifically on business, which makes it a desirable fit with Windstream’s plan to offset landline loss with high revenue customers. […]