Leucadia National: Strong But Silent

Eddy Elfenbein submits: Leucadia National (LUK) seems to be weathering the subprime crisis quite well. If you’ve never heard of Leucadia, well . . . that’s pretty much how the company wants it. They own a hodgepodge of businesses; some real estate here, some timber there. Nothing terribly exciting.

The only interesting thing about Leucadia is that it’s about as close as you can get to owning a private company that just so happens to have a ticker symbol. The company might as well have “no comment” as its slogan. They have no earnings calls, no guidance, no investor conferences, no analyst coverage, nothing.

Despite this, they somehow make money! In the last 25 years, shares of LUK are up 34,000%. That’s more than almost every other stock—Intel (INTC), Apple (AAPL), General Electric (GE), even Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) (BRK.B) —you name it and LUK probably beats it.

But here’s the interesting part: Leucadia’s last 22% has come this week. I have no idea why. (More buyers than sellers?) Make no mistake; this is a rough market but there are still a lot of good stocks out there.

LUK 1-yr chart:

Comments

[CrossProfit:]

"I have no idea why"

Eddy, the market is reacting to the last quarter operating results. Revenue is up 50% YOY. Earnings are down on a lower share count; 3 month $0.12 verses $0.17, 6 month $0.16 verses $0.53 - but the market is looking only at revenue these days.

See article (on our site) "CPHD: Forget Profits, It's All About Revenue". Article was posted yesterday morning on symbol CPHD.

Best regards,
Saul

2007 Aug 09 04:18 AM