DaveinHackensack

http://thehackensack.blogspot.com/
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76 Comments

    • Mon Nov 3rd 16:21 PM | Rating: +1 0
      Commented on:
      11 Stocks Selling Below Cash
      USEG, a stock I've mentioned on my site a few times, is selling for less than net cash at today's closing price. Yahoo! Finance shows $70.31 million in cash, and $14.15 million in debt for USEG, with a market cap of $53 million.
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    • Thu Oct 30th 23:25 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Deflation, Inflation, Rinse and Repeat
      When, within the next 24 months, would you suggest starting to short Treasury bonds?
      View article »
    • Wed Oct 29th 08:51 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Where Are Cash-Rich Companies Hoarding Their Money?
      <I>"Banks are going under, and the FDIC only insures deposits of up to $250K—they raised limits as part of the mega-bailout. Treasuries are looking less and less attractive with every intervention/ liability the Feds add to the US balance sheet."</I>

      What about investing it in TIPS or in the commercial paper of strong, non-financial companies (e.g., UTX)?
      View article »
    • Sat Oct 11th 01:52 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      @VIC: Unprecedented Value
      If these managers weren't buying anything -- if they were forced to sell even, due to clients pulling their money out -- do you think they would admit that?
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    • Wed Oct 8th 21:21 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      @VIC: A Radically Different Context for Value Was Going On Outside
      "So, at what point do we find "value"?&quo...

      One idea that comes to mind from reading Vitaliy Katsenelson's thesis about secular range-bound/bear markets: instead of considering a stock a value because it trades at a discount to market-average P/E multiples, look at what the market average P/E multiples were at the end of previous range-bound/bear markets. For example, after the range bound market ended in about 1950, the one year trailing P/E ratio on the S&P was 7x. So, theoretically, if you could find a stock trading at 7x today, and you thought that company's earnings were sustainable (a key point), that might be a value.
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    • Wed Oct 8th 21:05 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      The Beginning of the Endgame for Monetary Policy, Redux
      The key cause for optimism here is the resilience of the U.S. dollar and the demand for U.S. Treasury securities. That gives the government the ability to borrow at low rates to buy up distressed assets, provide more fiscal stimulus to the economy, provide direct capital injections into key companies, etc. Our debt as a percentage of GDP compares favorably to that of some other first world countries.

      After the current crisis dissipates, and the flight to quality recedes, the bond market may drive up the U.S. government's borrowing costs, but this can be ameliorated if we pass reforms that put our entitlement spending on a sustainable trajectory.
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    • Wed Oct 8th 20:58 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      The Beginning of the Endgame for Monetary Policy, Redux
      <I>"Did we ever have a financial crisis before we took the dollar off the Gold Standard?"</I&...

      Only about once every decade or so. The 19th Century was full of them. We even had a populist presidential candidate (William Jennings Bryan) blame one of these financial crises (a wave of deflation) on the gold standard.
      View article »
    • Wed Oct 8th 11:07 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      @VIC: Mohnish Pabrai the Dhandho Investor - Interesting Times, Interesting Opportunities
      To be fair, Pabrai did well in the 2000-2002 bear market, although he has gotten his head handed to him on a number of stocks over the last year and a half or so.
      View article »
    • Fri Sep 19th 13:16 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Cash Is King?
      David,

      As a commenter on my site noted when I quoted from your piece here, your arithmetic appears to be wrong here -- USEG's enterprise value, according to your numbers above, should be negative $2 million, not negative $20 million. Good post otherwise.
      View article »
    • Wed Aug 13th 10:46 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Is the Commodities Bull Market Over?
      "According to Jim Rogers, the famous commodities guru, commodity prices move in cycles of about 18 years, and since the current bull market started at 2002, he expects it to last until about 2020."

      Jim Rogers has said the current secular bull market in commodities started in 1999, not 2002, and I don't recall him definitively saying he expects it to last until 2020. He's usually more careful in his statements. He has said that, historically, the shortest such secular bull market in commodities last 15 years, and the longest lasted 23. If that history is a guide, the current secular bull market could last until 2014 or longer.
      View article »
    • Sat Aug 9th 20:51 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Has Exxon Topped?
      XOM's reserves grew by 1% in '07, if memory serves, despite the expropriation by Chavez. I wouldn't get too concerned about a quarterly decline in production. The company is investing -- prudently -- in growing reserves and increasing production, and it has plenty of cash to do so. XOM at these prices probably has about 5% downside versus about 20%-25% upside over the next 12 months. It remains one of the best-run companies in the world. Its E&P business can benefit from an increase in oil prices, and its plastics and refining business can make money when oil goes down.
      View article »
    • Wed Aug 6th 20:36 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      KSW, ePlus Look Like Bargains
      Jeff,

      That wasn't a quarterly dividend, it was an annual one. There are no plans, as far as I know, for KSW to initiate a regular quarterly dividend.
      View article »
    • Sun Aug 3rd 19:05 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Authentic: A Real Buy at Sub-IPO Price
      If SeekingAlpha lets you edit this, perhaps you could add a brief description of Authentic's business. You may have already done so in a previous post, but for those who haven't read it, a brief summary would be helpful.
      View article »
    • Thu Jul 31st 11:38 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Manitowoc Offers Investors Growth at a Discount
      Although the company now has a surcharge to offset high steel prices, I don't believe this surcharge applies to orders in Manitowoc's multi-billion dollar backlog. That would be a concern for me: the company sold giant cranes for $X when the cost of the needed steel was $Y; now it has to build those cranes when the cost of steel is $2Y. Normally, a large backlog of business is a bullish indicator, but here it's something of a liability, since MTW's CEO has said the company doesn't renegotiate the contracts in its backlog.
      View article »
    • Thu Jul 31st 09:54 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Buying Berkshire
      Imagine what Berkshire would be trading at today had Buffett dumped all of his housing and financial stocks before the burst of the credit/real estate bubble. Judging from the posts on GuruFocus over the last couple of years, it seems like a fair number of individual investors got burned buying those stocks simply because they were trading for less than what Buffett paid for them.

      Perhaps I'm alone in this opinion, but I think Berkshire would be better off if Buffett stopped investing in publicly traded stocks. Since he has constraints on his stock investing due to Berkshire's size, and since he himself has acknowledged that Berkshire will probably generate higher returns from its wholly owned companies going forward, why not just focus on those and special situations?

      That said, I still own a few of the b-shares, and am fairly bullish on them. I think we'll see an upturn after hurricane season is over.
      View article »
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