Loading...
Symbols:
Get Seeking Alpha Free Stock Alerts by Email!
Get Free Stock Alerts by Email!
Transcripts
- IntegraMed America, Inc. Q3 2008 Earnings Call Transcript
- Cell Genesys, Inc. Q3 2008 Earnings Call Transcript
- Columbia Laboratories, Inc. Q3 2008 Earnings Call Transcript
- Pacific Sunwear F3Q08 (Qtr End 11/1/08) Earnings Call Transcript
- Mad Catz Interactive, Inc. F2Q09 (Qtr End 09/30/2008) Earnings Call Transcript
- Provectus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. The Wall Street Analyst Forum Call Transcript
- Point Blank Solutions, Inc. Q3 2008 (Quarter End 9/30/08) Earnings Call Transcript
- Navios Maritime Holdings Inc., Q3 2008 Earnings Call Transcript
- Gran Tierra Energy Inc. Q3 2008 (Qtr End 09/30/08) Earnings Call Transcript
- Oxygen Biotherapeutics, Inc. The Wall Street Analyst Forum Call Transcript
-
Editors' Picks
-
Most Popular
- My Reconsideration: Why Share Buybacks Are Pointless
- GM Could Benefit from Bankruptcy
- Throwing in the Towel on This Market?
- General Electric: Genuine Risk of Collapse?
- Food: Against Self-Sufficiency
- The Fed: Now the World's Largest Private Bank
- Full list of Editors' Picks »
- General Electric: Genuine Risk of Collapse? »
- Memo to Warren: AmEx Preferred at 15%, Warrants at $12 »
- Peak Oil's Bell Is Ringing »
- Should We Really Bail Out the Big Three Automakers with $73.20 Per Hour Labor? »
- The Pickens Plan Changes Its Strategy »
- Jim Rogers on China »
- Thornburg Mortgage, Inc. The Wall Street Analyst Call Transcript »
- The Biggest Problem Detroit's Big Three Face »
- Tech May Be a Wreck, But This Isn't 2001 »
- Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News »
- Precious Metals Will Depose Cash from Its Temporary Throne »
Hedge Fund Jobs
Job Seekers: Search jobs by category, get job alerts by email or live feed, apply online See full list of jobs »
Employers: See all recruitment options, get applications online or by email Post a job »
THofler
30 Comments
Democrats or Republicans: Who's Better for Wall Street?
1) Apply an 18 month delay time to the White House transition dates. While the market psychology may change overnight, real economic factors do not.
2) Don't compare Dems. & Rep. presidents; instead compare fiscal conservatives vs. fiscal liberals. This would move Kennedy into the conservative column and Nixon (& Ford?) into the liberal column.
Discerning the Value of Market Dividend Yields
Energy Independence: It's About Demand, Not Supply
Even if every drop of domestic oil produced were immediately sold on a "global oil market" those dollars of revenue are generated domestically. Those dollars do not end up in some mid-east sovereign wealth fund.
Guru Picks: Five Blue Chips
Eni or "Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi" is a stock I already own. It has a great dividend with a high dividend growth rate.
Grid-based Energy Storage: Birth of a Giant
I think pumped hydro-power is really the only realistic one & that is very limited by geography & environmentalists & other fish freaks.
Solar power is only strong for a few mid-day hours. Wind power can be strong at any time of day with the exception of sun-rise or thereabouts.
While the dependability of wind is poor in small geographic areas, this problem can be largely mitigated re-destributing power over a large geographic region. T.B. Pickens' "wind corridor" is a huge region. The wind is likely blowing somewhere. This requires a high capacity grid that covers the whole corridor & beyond. (We need better grid infrastructure anyway.)
The remaining wind dependability issues can be bridged with nat. gas turbine peakers (& hydro/geo-therm/nuke power). I think this is appropriate use of nat. gas, unlike our main power plant here in central coast CA, that burns nat. gas 24/7.
What Business Can Expect from Obama
Can the SEC Really 'Quell Rumors'?
IF the SEC can find the source of that rumor, I could care less what he/she believed. All I care about is the size of his/her short position. A significant short position should result in a perp walk & hard time. I have never owned shares of LEH.
Dividend Growth Investing Can Payoff in the Long Run
How Models Caused the Credit Crisis
And before that crew hit the street, there was the crew of physics wash-outs (& wised-ups) that went there.
Having built a few computer models & seen a great many presentations of others, I'd cynically suggest that the modeler's confidence of the model's applicability to the problem at hand is proportional to the the number of man months or years invested in the model. Even in the area of physical science these models frequently miss major portions of the realities at hand.
I'd suggest to Max that the assumption of a "normal" market when applying a financial model is invariably a mistake. Maybe someday we will have models that include factors to compensate for a variety of possible market & economic shocks, but so far collapses of the LTCM type seem to be the norm.
Over reliance on models badly applied, is not the whole problem, but a big contributor. My guess is that the substantial contributors are: a very preferential tax structure for real estate; Greenspan easy money; Greenspan lax regulation of mortgage brokering; bad models applied badly by lenders; grotesquely irresponsible and ignorant ratings agencies; and financial illiteracy about debt in the general population.
Dividend Analysis: Bank of America Corp.
But then I remembered that Graham doesn't use trailing 12 month earnings numbers, but a much longer time period. So then I was suspicious of the author's accuracy. I pulled out my copy of "The Intelligent Investor" & sure enough, a Graham number calculation must use trailing 36 month earnings numbers. This is crucial because Graham's intent is to minimize the effect of a couple of great quarters as well as a couple of rotten quarters.
If I use a BAC price of $34, a 12 qtr av. EPS of $3.74, a P/B of 1.1, I get a (P/E)*(P/B) Graham value of 10.0. This is far below Graham's limit of 22.5.
On the other hand, it is also true that Ken Lewis has recently suggested that BAC will likely have another 2 lousy quarters going forward. So the trailing 36 month average EPS should continue its decline until 2009.
New BlackBerry, New Fund: Is RIM's Moat Wide Enough?
Why You Should Short Companies Doing Share Buybacks
Excuse my possible ignorance, but perhaps in your next post you could address the issue of whether a share bought-back is a "retired" share or merely a "warehoused" share? How easy or common of a practice is it to sell such a share? Does it always require a formal secondary offering?
Penn West Energy Trust: An Underappreciated Gem
Focus Funds: Does Concentration of Risk Improve Returns?
Oh, wait a minute; his performance has been pretty spectacular. I guess he's just been very lucky for the last 50 years.
Here is some ABC-type news: Most active mutual fund managers are not very good investors. Hence ALL inclusive statistical analyses of mutual funds are worthless. There are lots & lots of bozos out there & once you fold them into the data it becomes a case of garbage-in/garbage-out...
Fortunately the mutual fund investor does not have to throw darts at a fund list. Sure, smart fund picking is not easy, but it's easier than buying individual stocks.
2nd point: While high volatility adds greatly to short term risk, volatility does not equal risk over the long term (unless you define them to equal). Which is riskier? A low volatility fund that consistently loses money, or a high volatility fund that grows rapidly?
I don't know that a great fund must be focused in order to be great, but I do know that some of the best are focused. My favorite fund has averaged 23.9% annualized return since it's inception 10.5 years ago & it has a 40.5% annualized return since I started investing in it 2.4 years ago. I'm talking about the CGM Focus fund (CGMFX) run by the almost legendary Ken Heebner. IMHO Ken is worth every penny of his 1.27% expense ratio.
Global Dividend Yield Trends
I think that XOM has prefered to increase its share buybacks instead of substantial div. increases. Why? Maybe they believe (correctly?) that the current 15% div. tax rate is a flash in the pan & that in the long run investors will thank them for sparing them from a crushingly high div. tax.