AMCON Distributing Co. is a wholesale distributor of consumer products, which constitutes the bulk of its business, and also runs fourteen health food stores. The wholesale segment is the 9th largest in the country and provides mainly tobacco products, but also candy, beverages, paper products, health & beauty, frozen foods, and institutional food services. It […]
It may be Stockholm syndrome, but I do think some of the criticism of Goldman Sachs regarding its subprime deals is overblown. I don’t deny that there have been apparent violations of the securities laws in terms of disclosures, but the central issue that upset Senator Levin and Matt Taibbi so much has not seemed […]
I have often found compelling values in rural telephone companies, such as Windstream and Qwest (now acquired by CenturyLink, as they throw off large amounts of free cash flows and are kind enough to produce dividends. My latest discovery in this area is Consolidated Communications (CNSL), which pays 8.4% and which has a free cash […]
Since my last foray into the paper industry with Boise Inc., I thought it would be appropriate to review the rest of the sector. After some searching, I have settled on Domtar (UFS). Domtar is the largest producer of uncoated freesheet paper in North America, and also a producer of wood pulp, with operations in […]
As I generally adopt a bottom-up investing policy, and go into investing without any preconceived notion of what sector my stocks are going to be in. As a result, I am often surprised at the odd niches where attractive stocks hide. However, Mac-Gray Inc. (TUC) is one of the more unusual ones. They operate laundry […]
One of the great debates among fundamental investors, whether they are value investors or whether they should be value investors, is the question of bottom-up or top-down. The top-down approach involves examining the economic outlook, the state of the financial markets, and the trends among the sectors, in order to determine the best stocks in […]
I have over the last few months been forming the conclusion that Cisco offers an attractive potential return situation based on its earnings yield from operations. The company, with a market cap of $105 billion, is sitting on $35 billion in excess bonds because the CEO is unwilling to repatriate its overseas profits under the […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]