Caltorguy

Canadian Oil Sands Looks Attractive Despite Near Term Risk

Their costs are coming down - nat gas is a main input and its price has dropped from $14 to $7. AB is studying building a nuke reactor to fuel the oil sands. Let's hope they do!

Thinking About the Next Six Months

Well this is a learning experience....it IS amazing what happens to equities when both earnings estimates and multiples collapse....bubble after bubble deflates. Assets prices between 1929 and 33 dropped 90% and in many places you could buy a nice home for $1,000 by the mid 1930s...let's pray the world's central banks have something up their sleeves!

Research in Motion Knocked Down, Not Out

I agree - I think RIMM and AAPL will end up in a sort of duopoly for high end data phones. The iPhone is great but they'll need to figure out some sort of data compression technology to get around the wireless capacity issues. Companies pay for wireless data so I have a tough time believing that they'll provide a multimedia device "iTunes enabled" for staff when they really just want them to be able to check email on the road.

Research in Motion Takes Hit from Component Costs and Dollar, Hints at New Product

Apparently the new Bold works seamlessly with iTunes so I'm not sure what the music issue is - it will also do great photos and video (can record video too). I still think that the data compression technology is BB's ace in the whole, and the fact that it has a keyboard that for the primary business purpose - email - makes like infinitely easier. The iPhone has apparently, after only 3 months, tapped out all of AT&T's 3G capacity - this would not be the case with the Bold. I also wonder if big business is going to be happy about providing staff with what even the AAPL fanboys acknowledge is primarily a multimedia device with a a phone attached. Companies pay for data too.

Morgan Stanley in Distress

RBC has ruled out US acquisitions for the time being. I never thought I would see the day though when a Cdn bank had a market cap more than GS and MS combined. Toronto is North America's new financial heavy weight!

When Can We Start Breathing Again?

My poor portfolio...Monday is going to hurt!

Avoiding Doomed Sectors, Redux

I agree that the economics of newspapers aren't great right now but I bristle when someone refers to them as "obsolete". Try as it might, the internet cannot replace old-fashioned news gathering because it is merely distribution medium (heaven help us when blogs replace actual investigative journalism...). Moreover no electornic screen, laptop or iPhone will ever duplicate the ease and comfort of use of newsprint. And a newspaper costs $2. I can't quite figure figure what an iPhone would cost me but I do know that Apple and the wireless companies should get together and start a financing division. Glad to see Cdn energy cos./trusts and railways on your "good" list though - seems like the "old" economy is hot indeed - can newspapers be far behind? ;-)

Six Reasons Why Apple's Still a Buy

AAPL is the victim of the overall market - no one is looking at fundamentals right now, it's just sell sell sell. I do think the US market will lead the global recovery in stock prices and AAPL is about as good a name as any to buy with true growth potential - the question is when -overall negative market sentiment probably could drag down the stock another 20%. Right now, my best performing stock is a railway, which is about as far away from an iPhone as you can get!

Canada's Snap Election Could Affect ETF

Canada has almost never had coalition governments - our "first past the post" electoral system (like England's) is designed to produce majority governments that control parliament and usually does. You only need to have a plurality of voters in a majority of ridings (electoral districts) to win, which with 5 parties can be as little as 30% (but is usually 40% or so). Harper got 36% last time around - he is hoping to get 40% this time which would give him his majority. In Canada it is hard to imagine a centre-right government getting 50% or more.

Strong Fundamentals and Oil Ties Make Transocean a Great Long-Term Buy

Stock...

Strong Fundamentals and Oil Ties Make Transocean a Great Long-Term Buy

Shouldn't this kind of stick pay a dividend?

Google Boosts Newspapers With Online Archive Search (Update)

Everyone keeps daying that newspapers are a dead industry but who will provide the content - bloggers? Lord help us when "information" comes from uninformed disgruntled partisan hacks plucking away at their laptops at 2 a.m....

$300/Barrel Oil Is Coming - Barron's Interview

OK famos, please then tell at what price per litre or gallon diesel made from coal can be profitably produced and sold. My point is that well it is technically possible, it will be very expensive, and require significant capital costs and energy inputs but ultimately these will be necessary. In fact coal-derived diesel hybrids may be the car of choice 20 years from now when straight up gasoline will probably cost $20 a gallon or more.

$300/Barrel Oil Is Coming - Barron's Interview

Nikola - Well if you applied our model for health care to housing it would look something like this: free housing would be declared a social imperative; the government would nationalize the entire US housing stock and private housing would be made illegal; every American would be issued a "housing insurance number" and bureaucrats would dole out housing according to need. Since the system would produce no revenue, no new housing would be built and each year Americans would get less and less housing, resulting heavily rationing and long wait lists (sort of like the situation the old USSR as I understand it). I don't think you are anywhere near that yet down there!

$300/Barrel Oil Is Coming - Barron's Interview

Human labour is a form of energy - I don't recall how many person hours of labour that a bbl of oil translated into but it's a lot and some say, this "free" input explains much of the economic and productivity growth over the last 100 years. Scarcity does determine value, and as value rises above the marginal cost to produce, more will be produced theoretically unless these costs are very high which they are in the case of oil. There are a trillion bbls of oil left in the world - what will the marginal cost be to produce the last one $300 a bbl or $3,000,000...?