Tim Meador

The Chubb Corporation: Dividend Stock Analysis

"Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) is also a competitor to Chubb(CB), although it trades at a P/E of 29, and does not pay a dividend. The company does spend a lot of its cash flow on stock buybacks, which could prove beneficial in the long run since it could provide above average dividend growth over time for the same effort."

According to information on Yahoo Finance, Berkshire Hathaway has not bought back any stock in the last three years. This is what most companies would do in lieu of paying a dividend, but Buffett has so far believed better returns can be found elsewhere.

Gigamedia: A Quick Take

Love your methodology and insight. Thank you for the quality analysis.

Hurco: A Buy at the Current Price

Given the information I had available at the time, I think there was a good case to be made for buying Hurco at $31. I didn't expect, and I imagine many people didn't expect, for things to go south so quickly and completely as they did. At $14, Hurco was down 55% from the time I recommended it. That is worse than the market average, but given the cyclical industry it's in, it is not unreasonable. My fault for not recognizing the bottom was a long way off. I must say that I really like it at $14 a share for a long term investor, as there is plenty of upside when manufacturing restarts.

Middleby Corp: From Obscurity to a Darling Stock

Morph and Glen: Valid points both. I should have qualified the bad news statement as there is no measurement for how much bad news there is, or when it's all accounted for. I do think that this is a good opportunity assuming a return to a more normal economic environment within a few years.

As to the market being a Ponzi scheme, I have yet to see evidence that the whole market is a house of cards. Tough argument to make convincingly.

The Magic Formula's Top 20 Price/Book Ratio Stocks

I've enjoyed your well reasoned insight on seeking alpha for sometime. Keep up the good work.

Hurco: A Buy at the Current Price

Chandler, your idea on input costs would seem to favor Hurco over its competitors, but like you I don't know to what extent this would help the company. I imagine it would give them an edge and allow them to take some market share in the down part of the cycle, which is never bad. Regardless, if one is to own an owner of manfacturing tools, I can't think of a better one at the current price.