jacosa

EZCORP: Value Play at Your Local Pawn Shop

I am also long EZPW, but a new investor is advised to check the capital and management structure. The voting stock is closely held, and many management and director functions are outsourced to a company owned by the holder of the voting stock. Public shareholders have historically been treated well, but this can not be guaranteed in the future.

How to Spend $700B and Actually Solve the Problem

I'd like to float "A Modest Proposal." For $700,000,000,000 (it DOES look pretty big with all those zeroes actually written) the government could go a long way toward paying off those shaky mortgages underlying this mess. That would take the pressure off the banks. Think about it.

The social consequences would be horrendous, and it's pretty obvious that there would be an artificial boom that would make 1999 look tiny. So maybe a few less hundreds of billions might be a better number: saving money on a bailout isn't bad.

Government Bailout: We Are All Keynesians Now

I'm sure a Keynesian, and my SEVERE problem with what I've heard about the proposal on the table is that it seems to neglect velocity of money issues. Buying bad assets will eventually free up credit, but it doesn't look rapid. Something closer to the consumer might rescue Christmas retailing and turn over more times in the immediate future.

Short Selling: The Free Speech of Wall Street

I always get [more] nervous when people blame the shorts for a price drop. Mostly, short sellers are the undertakers of the market, they help get rid of what's already dead.

Naked shorting is the same as watering a stock. It's very different from real shorting. There are plenty of honest alternatives, too (only...they don't distort the markets in favor of the people using them).

It looks to me like we had a teaser of tightening the lid on uncovered shorting, and now we're seeing restrictions on real short sales. That carries a risk of setting us up fpr a bigger collapse next time.

On Short-Sellers and Dishonest Executives

Obviously, insiders have a piece of the business that they could sell if they chose to, and will react negatively to anything that hurts that as a way to raise money. So they'll gripe about the shorts, and not about anything that creates artificial demand.

I'm an investor. Any irrational move threatens me (I can pick my opportunities, but that runaway truck could come through anywhere). If a company mends its evil ways and seems poised for a turnaround, a determined bear raid can drive it out of business. That's as bad for me as a rockstar CEO producing an unjustified run-up, and a good deal harder to anticipate.

So? Well I'd sure like to have the uptick rule back. And on the other side I'd like to see legal margin requirements (and related capital requirements) used to push back on buying stampedes.

Snuggling up to a New Position in Build a Bear Workshops

The company has marketing and merchandising problems. There appear to be 3 distinct "kids" markets: very young (around 3-7), boys (say 6-11) and girls (maybe 7-13). The name appeals to boys, the store concept tilts to girls and the "mom appeal" is more toward very young. This gets sorted out at each location, but it has a lot to do with the reason second year sales tend to trail first year and third to be lower yet (and this annoys stock analysts). The company appears to be recognizing the problems, but not being real nimble in their response. Until it's clear that they can get a growing share of toy dollars, a buy-out doesn't look likely; even stock price gains are tricky (although I agreee that the present stock price is illogically low).