Russ Winter

California Real Estate Market Is Up

Gosh, what I read here is this, "The fall in home prices is helping to stimulate home sales, as the Law of Demand would predict."

Although that hardly constitutes a boom or "go run out and buy before prices go up", it does suggest some healing taking place.

Bill Gross: Buy Early What the Government Buys Later

Left unsaid in the Gross strategy is what happened when the US Treasury market starts to quickly gag, and in turn be badly routed when all this extreme borrowing from foreigners and Banana Republic monetization meets the real world. Apparently Gross believes in both the Tooth Fairy and the Wizard of Oz?

Freeport-McMoran: Dead Money Until Copper Prices Recover

Actually the conversion when FCX is below 61.25 is 1.6327 shares. Thus the premium or parity of the cv pfd is very small right now: 1.6327 x 16.80 FCX= 27.42, with FCXpfM trading about 32.50. Thus the pfM will get a direct play on the stock while paying a huge yield. In my opinion buying the stock over the pfM would be almost criminally negligent right now.
www.quantumonline.com/...


On Dec 05 03:44 PM SouthShore wrote:

> First Davy, decent write up. Thanks. Will look for any comments
> from FCX investor relations that you post.
>
> Regarding the preferreds: The convertible preferred mentioned above
> isn't as attractive as I thought at first glance. As long as FCX
> common moves down, then the payout from the FCXpM convertible preferreds
> is more like a return of capital with the preferred share price not
> rebounding. Upon conversion you won't have a dividend to look forward
> too, either. Thus, unless you can buy the convertible at a large
> discount to its conversion including cumulative dividends, then you
> are just buying the common. Probably better is the FCXGL preferreds
> that can't be redeemed unless the common shares trade above $69.14/sh.
> I would like to hear thoughts on this PK. They are cumulative and
> perpetual.
>
> Also, if Copper returns to historic levels below $1/lb and stays
> there, can anyone be confident that FCX is viable long term? Again,
> the more models the better here. I put FCX under $10/sh as a guess
> if this happens.
>
> Cheers,

Freeport-McMoran: Dead Money Until Copper Prices Recover

The FCX cv pf M yields 20% and the payout looks well covered, Not bad for "waiting".

Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company: Perplexing Freefall

This stock to be gamed by Gangsters/Financial Mobster types. I have been watching the ticks and it is all mechanical 100 and 200 share nonsense to give the impression of "selling pressure". I'll bet one carefully placed 250,000 share order from a 'real' investor, or the Gangsters themselves ends it all.

Five Great Businesses Currently on Sale

Legg Mason looks like a solid annuity franchise. I do have a question about their exposure to maintaining par value on their money market funds. Could they take some major hits on that?