Boy, it seems that the word "bubble" has been used in Seeking Alpha titles quite a bit. Just a few days ago Felix Salmon wrote a terrific article (Don't Fear the Bubble) where he explained the varied definitions of the "bubble" term. One of his versions was centered on the way investors pursue risky investments or speculation; Salmon explains:

People buying an asset which is going up in price, just because they think they're going to be able to sell it to a greater fool at a substantial profit.

In this instance, Salmon's definition of the word "bubble" has implications that the less speculative investments would have a greater "margin of safety" and the larger the bubble, the greater the opportunity for profit.

Salmon added another definition of the word bubble by implying that some investments are not rooted in speculation but more so by rapid price

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Lancashire Holdings Limited (LCSHF.PK) is a Bermudian short tail insurer operating in Bermuda, London, and Dubai. The shares are traded on the pink sheets, as the ticker indicates, but can originally be found on the London stock exchange under the ticker LRE.L. Lancashire entered the short-tail insurance business after the large losses from Katrina. Its first 6 years of business have been a smashing success and the outlook remains good. The shares are also attractively priced. The company follows, and has followed, a strategy of "if you can't spend the money give it back" and the company has paid out significant capital in dividends over time.

Many of the other insurers I've looked at recently were selling below book, which will likely be temporary in cases where the return on equity is above average. Lancashire, on the contrary, is at a premium to book but this premium is for

It turns out Elon Musk kicked in $100M of his own cash, and it looks like Tesla (TSLA) successfully raised $1B in a recent public offering. They are really going for it; The DOE loan will be paid off and the Model X will likely be manufactured.

TSLA, which closed at $87.59 on May 21st, has seen an impressive rise since they announced beating earnings on May 8th. I would have guessed that we would see a price drop after the dilution announcement, if it had not been for Musk kicking in $100M. I was curious where Elon got the money from so I decided to investigate. All his cash is tied up in SpaceX, Tesla and Solar City (SCTY) so I knew something tricky was going on. Don't forget, he almost went broke in 2010. It didn't take long until they let the cat out of

After yesterday's kerfuffle over slowing down asset purchases, it's time to ask whether the Fed Reserve should be tightening. The answer is an emphatic "YES!" and I'll get to the reasons why in a moment.

Many economists have been predicting dire consequences if the Fed begins to shift away from its current policies. Bernanke, the current Fed Chairman, is amongst this group, arguing yesterday that "premature tightening [would] carry a substantial risk of slowing or ending the economic recovery."

Unfortunately, Bernanke and the dovish camp are fighting the wrong war. They are so determined to prevent a repeat of the Great Depression and/or Japan's "Lost Decade" that they seem to be completely ignoring what's actually happening on the ground in the US in 2013. The housing market is recovering rapidly and loose monetary policy has the potential to create malinvestment and another wave of debt-fueled "growth". With housing finally

The consumption of media and other forms of content is changing rapidly in today's world, primarily driven by the proliferation of smartphones and tablets. In addition to these mobile device related changes, personal computer, or PC, hours spent viewing videos and other digital content is also increasing at a very high rate.

These shifts create an interesting dynamic for the future of advertising across multiple channels. While mobile represents a newer avenue for advertising, the reliance on consoles, smart TVs, and Internet connections for streaming media and content directly to households and businesses provides a sustained shift of advertising to video-based platforms.

ARM (ARMH) is the biggest pure play technology licensor in the world with a market capitalization in excess of $23 billion. The company's IP is used in a vast majority of graphics and logic processors shipped in the world today. ARM architecture has a near monopoly in the mobile devices market with all the major players such as Qualcomm (QCOM), Nvidia (NVDA), Samsung (SSNLF.PK), Apple (AAPL) etc. using ARM IP to design and produce their mobile chips. The company's design places emphasis on low power consumption which has made it a favorite for use in mobile devices. x86 architecture is not optimized for energy consumption, as a result of which it has almost no presence in the mobile industry. ARM gets a licensing fee for each processor that is shipped using its IP and also a royalty payment from its customers. Mobile device shipments have boomed in the last 3-4

2013 Electrical Products Group Conference Call

May 22, 2013 11:00 AM ET

Executives

Jeff Immelt – Chairman and CEO

Analysts

Deane Dray – Citigroup

Presentation

Unidentified Analyst

If I could ask everybody to take their seats that would be fantastic. So, obviously, Jeff Immelt doesn’t need any introduction. Thrilled, as always, to have you here. Thank you for sponsoring lunch. I also want to remind everybody that even with Jeff, we’ll be accepting buy side questions by BlackBerry, or sell side, if you want to do it that way too anonymously. And I can always be shot on the side. All right. Thanks, Jeff.

Jeff Immelt

Great, Steve. Thanks. Good morning, everybody. It’s great to be back to my favorite resort in Florida. I just want to say that at the offset. I’m thrilled to be here once again. Same themes you’re going to hear from

Electronic prescriptions, or e-prescriptions, accounted for just 6% of all drug prescriptions written in 2008. By 2010, that number had grown to approximately 25%, equal to roughly 326 million prescriptions. E-prescriptions are expected to be at the top of the list in terms of growth of all electronic health applications (the broader healthcare IT market is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 11% through at least 2015), and according to some estimates could account for over 90% of all drug prescriptions in just the next few years.

Fueled by recent healthcare reform legislation, the rapid growth in healthcare information technology has created new markets, facilitated growth of others and sprouted a slew of novel technologies and new companies. Allscripts (MDRX), the largest electronic prescribing provider with almost 100,000 U.S. physicians using their service, is expected to be a direct beneficiary, as are the handful of other major e-prescribers and

On Tuesday, May 7, Seadrill (SDRL) announced the sale of the T15 tender rig to Seadrill Partners (SDLP) for total consideration of $210 million. Since this new rig will increase the revenues and cash flows of Seadrill Partners, this seems to be the perfect opportunity to re-analyze the company as an investment candidate. Seadrill Partners is an offshore drilling company that was formed via an equity carve-out from parent Seadrill and structured as a master limited partnership for tax purposes (although the entity is actually taxed as a corporation). I examined this company last year and determined that there is little reason for the average investor to favor Seadrill Partners over Seadrill itself. Seadrill owns 75.7% of Seadrill Partners so the company will benefit from positive developments at the partnership. So, this argument is still valid. However, there is certainly a case to be made to invest

In January, I wrote about why I thought there was significant upside potential for Multiband (MBND) in 2013. And just like a broken clock is right twice a day, the stock is up better than 30% subsequent to my analysis. Normally, when I'm bullish on a stock, I become incrementally less bullish the higher it goes. My reasoning for this is pretty simple: the higher a stock goes the greater the symmetry becomes between risk and reward. If I buy a $10 stock thinking the downside is 10% and the upside is 50% and the stock goes to $13, I start getting nervous. Provided that nothing has changed fundamentally with my investment thesis, I wouldn't buy a $13 stock with 30% downside and 15% upside. To me, not selling a stock I have profits on at $13 is the same as buying it at $13.

I'm changing my

When Apple CEO Tim Cook appeared in front of Carl Levin on Tuesday, I was hoping for an epic showdown, as presaged by Levin’s highly aggressive press release from Monday. I was sorely disappointed — although I did end up with a newfound admiration for Tim Cook’s ability to acquit himself with dignity and intelligence and integrity in the toughest of situations.

The Apple (AAPL) executives at the hearing spent most of their time politely listening to various senators pontificate about taxes. But every so often, in response to a rare direct question, they would try to explain why they didn’t think they were evading billions of dollars in taxes.

The Levin report is very long and dry, so let me oversimplify a little. Apple revenues basically end up in one of two places: California, for sales in the Americas; and Ireland, for sales everywhere else. Apple pays

The PowerShares S&P 500 High Dividend Portfolio (SPHD) was launched in October 2012 as an exchange traded fund that seeks investment results that correspond to the S&P 500 Low Volatility High Dividend Index. Characteristics of this underlying index have led to long-run outperformance versus the S&P 500 (SPY). With lower volatility and nearly double the annual dividend yield of the broad market index, this fund could be an excellent vehicle for the income investing community on Seeking Alpha.

S&P 500 Low Volatility High Dividend Index

While there is a limited history with the SPHD ETF, data on the underlying index is available back to 1990. The S&P 500 Low Volatility High Dividend Index takes the seventy-five highest dividend yielding stocks in the S&P 500, selecting the fifty stocks with the lowest realized volatility over the trailing one year. The number of stocks from a given industry is capped at

Investors, or more accurately, speculators who have followed the MannKind Corporation (NASDAQ: MNKD) saga over the past several years know fully well that the end game is rapidly approaching. Wall Street research coverage has increased of late, trading volume is surging, and the stock has more than doubled in price over the past three months. The pivotal phase 3 clinical trials - Affinity 1 and Affinity 2 - that the developmental stage biotechnology company is conducting of AFREZZA is about to conclude and the recent broad-based enthusiasm clearly reflects the growing collective confidence that the inhaled insulin product could be a "major weapon" in the battle against the global diabetes pandemic, as has been suggested by the company's founder, largest stockholder, and chief executive Alfred Mann. It also may be instructive to note that during a conference call with the investment community on May 9th, Mr. Mann stated

Shares of Saks (SKS) had a monster day Tuesday, rising 11.3 percent during the regular session after posting strong fiscal first quarter results, then gaining another 19.4 percent in after-hours trading (as of this writing) when the New York Post reported the company had hired Goldman Sachs (GS) to "explore strategic alternatives," including a potential sale. The short Post article added that "likely bidders" included KKR & Co. (KKR) and Leonard Green & Partners.

All told, the stock gained some 33 percent to reach $16.32 per share in after-hours trading, blowing through its 52-week high en route to its highest levels in some five years. But a look at both the company's earnings and the Post report raise serious questions about how sensible, and how sustainable, Tuesday's rally was.

To be sure, there was some good news in the report. Same-store sales rose nearly 6

There is a fair amount of market skepticism when it comes to mREITs. Many have paid dividends in excess of the sustainable magnitude, which temporarily props up the stock price and erodes book value, leading to the eventual crash. Northstar Realty Finance (NRF), however, offers a sustainable and growing 7.99% yield. In this article we will analyze Northstar's fundamentals and demonstrate its cash flows to be sufficient to sustain the dividend. We will then examine its recent and planned activity to show tremendous growth potential. The buy thesis will then be completed with valuation analysis and addressing the counterarguments.

Dividend sustainability

In a previous article, in which we examined the dividend history of the legacy commercial mREITs, we revealed that NRF was the only one to pay a dividend through the entirety of the Great Recession.

(click to enlarge)

While this history is a nice framework from

Henry Schein (HSIC) is a leading global distributor with business operations in 3 segments: 1) Dental supplies 2) Medical supplies 3) Veterinary supplies. Although the dental supplies business is currently its largest segment, its veterinary supplies business is expanding rapidly as well. The company primarily conducts its business in the US but has been aggressively expanding its international footprint and has been garnering impressive results. Henceforth, this article aims to discuss if the company is worthy of the attention of a long-term investor.

Industry study

Dental:

The aging population around the world is a trend that is known to many. As the number of seniors grows, there will be increasing cases of dental problems which will lead to an increased need for dental services.

Besides the aging population, more and more people are coming to the realization of the importance of having a healthy and good looking set of teeth.