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21 Comments

    • Numbers Check on Sears Holdings - It's Cheap [view article]
      To Will Jul 17 09:33 AM

      "If you observe the comments following any Long-Sears article, it's very interesting. The longs typically discuss fundementals, balance sheets, assets vs. liabilities, and cash flow. The shorts bring up Jim Cramer..."

      Not only can you not spell "fundamentals,&qu... you also seem to fail to realize that fundamentals are mushy and in the wrong hands, are just as dangerous, misleading, and meaningless as a Buffett or Cramer quotation or a parking lot survey, and can be manipulated with not great difficulty.

      Fundamentals are statistical evidence (sometimes accurate/truthful, sometimes not). Nothing more.

      For example, I think Sears will make $0.5B to $-0.5B of cash flow this year. The guy who wrote this thinks it will make $2.3B (not a chance in hell). Who is right and why?

      Thanks, Will, because you're the guy with all the answers who has a job to boot.       Aug 20 10:23 PM
    • AutoNation, Sears, and Autozone Getting Closer Together [view article]
      Todd,

      Do you ever respond to reader comments? Or are you content with posting propaganda-laden fluff pieces?       Aug 20 10:16 PM
    • Foster Wheeler: Solid Results, If Anyone Cares [view article]
      I hold no position in this stock. I'm just trying to understand others' points of view.

      About the $9B backlog. That will translate into $9B of sales. Cramer on Mad Money said that the company is trading for less than its backlog. But $9B of sales translates into about $900 M of earnings, if one uses a, seems to me, generous 10% margin multiple. So it seems not to be trading below the profit on its backlog. Then what happens after the $900M? How does one reach the remaining $5.9B of market cap from there?       Aug 20 12:33 PM
    • Foster Wheeler: Solid Results, If Anyone Cares [view article]
      OK, the growth rate is 40%. For how long?

      I do not know if this company can grow at 40% for the next 5 years.

      With Cisco, I'm not saying that it seems like a deal, but with Cisco, at least the growth rate seems sustainable, in part because it IS so modest, at 5%-10% or thereabouts.

      Finally, I disagree with your use of the "PEG Ratio" because it's a bad ratio to use. A stock with a PEG ratio of 0.01 is not necessarily better than a stock with a PEG Ratio of 100. The former could be value-destroying, the latter, value-creating.       Aug 20 12:06 AM
    • Earnings Preview: ValueClick [view article]
      Does anyone know what is going on with tech valuations?

      I presume that prices are going down because of the recession, and possibly the perception that tech co's sales growth is slowing dramatically with a global recession.

      But these companies seem to be superb businesses in the traditional sense of the word - and seem to be undervalued, to the naked eye- ie valueclick has a TTM free cash flow yield of 15%

      does anyone know what's going on, as I'm out of the loop...

       Aug 02 07:36 PM
    • Oils Well That Ends Well [view article]
      I disagree. I watched the C-SPAN broadcast a couple of days ago. During the broadcast, a Congressional panel listened to a panel of experts, including George Soros, about suggestions on how to reduce the price of oil. Soros and the other experts suggested that eliminating speculators from being able to participate in the oil futures market (in other words, permitting only those people in the petrol industry from accessing the markets) would eliminate a great deal of buying from investment banks such as Goldman Sachs, and hedge funds, and this would eliminate much of the "speculative froth" as Soros called it, from that market, decreasing the price of crude.

      Some of the experts quoted the $55-60 per barrel figure from oil industry executives from Sunoco and Exxon Mobil. The $55 figure represents the high end of a range that estimates the cost of getting the crude out of the ground into commercially salable form WITHOUT the surcharge imposed by (1) the OPEC cartel and (2) "speculative froth."

      Congress in my opinion seems more responsive than the other branches of government, especially the executive, in taking the initiative to do something to reduce oil prices. Don't bash Congress, bash Bush.       Jun 05 12:45 PM
    • Is Lampert Making the Grade at Sears Holdings? [view article]
      Why did you roll your 401-K into it if "all the good managers are gone" etc etc Jun 02 09:17 PM
    • Seared [view article]
      bulrun, you're long just because of the manager. this isn't always a great idea, as people make mistakes. ie buffett made a huge mistake in buying berkshire hathaway. lampert made a pretty big mistake in buying citicorp just recently (amazing considering he worked for an investment bank and wouldve been thought to know how to value one). buffett bought BUD I think 3 or 4 years ago and that stock is now only about 40% higher today, which is like 10% annualized. he has held wmt also for about 3 years at least and that stock has gone almost nowhere. these guys are human and make mistakes.

      lampert hasn't been able to do many, many things at shld. he hasn't been able to expand the store base, as far as I know. he hasn't been able to boost operating margins. the company has $50B of sales, and if you slap an industry average operating margin on that, this is a much more valuable company, but he just hasn't been able to do it.

      can you come up with a reasonable independent valuation of the company far in excess of its current market value? Im obviously no expert, but I sure cant. i think the current valuation reasonable but not extremely cheap, but that's just my opinion       Jun 02 01:21 PM
    • Seared [view article]
      this isnt warren and this isnt berkshire May 31 07:28 PM
    • Seared [view article]
      I meant the quote from the original article doesn't make sense May 31 02:51 PM
    • Seared [view article]
      "Sears is losing money, which means that Lampert can't invest its free cash flow"

      This makes no sense at all, unless I missed something here.       May 30 08:49 PM
    • Steak n Shake: No Plans for a Shakeup Despite Dismal Performance [view article]
      How do these people still have a job? They don't own a controlling interest in the company. May 23 10:29 AM
    • Upstream MLPs and Canadian Royalty Trusts: High Return, High Risk? [view article]
      Can someone explain why these companies (these oil-royalty trusts) are selling stock and debt to finance their dividends? Isn't this, in all likelihood, value destroying (instead of paying the dividends out of FCF)? (Because usually cost of capital for debt and equity are higher than for internally generated capital).

      All of these trusts have been going up, but it seems to me that's because: people like big dividend yields + "oil is good; buy oil." But like I said the financing here makes no sense, at least to me...can someone, who wants to, explain what I'm missing? Additionally, on a FCF basis, also, most of these companies are in the red because their capex exceeds their operating cash flow, and probably will for the foreseeable future. These things are like some kind of twisted version of a "growth stock". After the above, seems like a bubble with these royalty trusts.       May 18 01:17 AM
    • Trans World Entertainment: Insider Trading on Busted Buyout? [view article]
      Care to comment why you think this company has not yet been liquidated? Seems there are few, maybe none, willing buyers; the company is losing money, can't get a positive return on its assets as an operating business; wonder why no large shareholder has made a push for the company to sell of its inventory, real estate, etc. and pay off shareholders? May 17 12:22 PM
    • Why You Should Short Companies Doing Share Buybacks [view article]
      Sajal

      Speaking of Korea, do you know how an average investor can find out more about and invest in South Korean stocks? I don't have access to much more than Yahoo/Google Finance. I've been wanting to maybe invest in Korea but info has been real tough to find. I don't want to buy the ETF bc those companies don't seem too appealing       May 11 11:27 AM
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