Al in Oregon

Nigel Rendell Says Sell Eastern Europe, Buy Brazil

On Nov 11 07:02 PM Harvard_trader wrote:

> Can anything stop this bull market?


Yup. Obama, Pelosi, Reed, Geithner & Bernanke are working hard at it. I give them better than even odds at success.

Policy Lessons from the Great Depression

Agreed. What we really need is a command economy so we can all eat drab food, wear drab clothes, live in our state-supplied hovels but take pride in being pseudo-intellectuals while studying the words of Chairman Obama.

Nik-Nik is clearly a scholar and devotee of Adam Smith's writings.


On Oct 31 09:27 PM Nik Kondratieff wrote:

> A world catastrophe, like a war is the only thing that will stop
> the death spiral of the U.S. economy...that is the salient parallel
> with the 1930s Great Depression.
>
> The belief in "pure capitalism" or "free market capitalism" is pure
> folly. We live in a corporatist-fascist state. If Adam Smith were
> alive today he would shudder at the concentration of monopoly power
> in the largest corporations and in the organization of special interest
> groups. It's ironic...no tragic...that the loudest voices for "pure
> capitalism" are the most ignorant of what that really means.

Interactive Data Corp: Top Buy

I have a hard time seeing IDC as a buy - at least by the numbers. Comparing it to FDS in the same space, IDC sells for a cheaper P/E of 15.3 compared to FDS's 19.1. But IDC should be cheaper. The last 5 years its ROE, despite great margins, was a mere 12%. FDS did 29.1. IDC did show an increase in its latest 12 months ROE to 13.8%, so maybe it's starting to accelerate. FDS also increased to 29.9%. Both have no debt.

Maybe it's the growth? The last 5 years IDC has grown by a double digit 11.1%. FDS frew by 21%. Stocks are valued by their future earnings, however. Maybe it's IDC's expected growth? Unfortunately, according to MSN money's aggregate analyst projections, IDC's growth is expected to decline by 4.1% in the coming year. FDS is projected to grow 17.8%. Any growth IDC does will have to come by acquisition using their large cash war chest. FDS is doing it organically. Per their latest reported results, IDC did have more cash than FDS - $269MM to $191MM.

Unless there's something else going on, from my perspective IDC is a hold at best. I own neither stock but this fall, say in the November time frame, I will take a closer look at FDS and perhaps pull the trigger.

Enbridge, TransCanada: Pipeline Companies Offering Safety and Growth

My original reason for reading this piece was my interest in investments geared toward the inflationary environment. And not only has the economy crashed, I also suspect growth will be grudging in the years to come given the anti-business/high tax sentiment reigning in Washington. For all these reasons I’ve become attracted to high-dividend stocks in foreign currencies that can sustain their payouts.

If inflation pops in the coming months as seems likely, dividends and hard assets denominated in foreign currencies should hold their value - or even jump as capital seeks safe havens. At least that’s my thinking. Canadian oils fall under that category. Following that line of thought, recently I’ve been buying foreign telecoms with high yields, low P/E’s, relatively low debt (thus my original question), and good profitability. They are:

TKC 6.7 P/E, 6% yield, .15 D/E
TLK 12.9 P/E, 5.9% yield, .55 D/E
TSP 9.4 P/E, 8.8% yield, .33 D/E
SKM 9.1 P/E, 8.7% yield, .32 D/E

On the Canadian oils theme I owned ECA, TLM, and HSE.TO but got out with the run up of the last couple of months. I’m not sure we’re not in for another deflationary bout in the short term. I’m looking to get back in. An added attraction to Canadian oils arises out of the possibility of a Washington-inflicted carbon tax or cap and trade penalty on US oils. I’m not sure what the impact of a carbon tax would be on Canadian pipelines. Would it shut down US petroleum consumption and reduce pipeline volumes?

Enbridge, TransCanada: Pipeline Companies Offering Safety and Growth

Let me get this straight. TRP "has a strong balance sheet" with a D/E ratio of 1.65?

The Winners Will Be Those Who Look to Gold and Commodities

"There are so many junior oil and gas companies that are selling at minuscule cash flow multiples, and have very low debt service costs. Obviously, if the companies are in North America, they have no trouble selling their products."

Uh...with a Dem Senate, Dem House, and a Dem Prez, can you say "Windfall profits tax"?

Energy: A Value Trap - Merrill

What is "Insurance Machinery"? I've been an investor for decades and I've never heard that term. I have no clue as to what that is.

The Economic Cost of the Military Industrial Complex

Jim:

[The chart of expenditures starts in 1998. I believe it was 9/11/2001. The numbers speak for themselves.]

No – you tortured them to say that. U.S. military spending didn’t start in 1998 or 2001. See Pype’s comment above.


[Guess whose side the U.S. was on during the Iraq/Iran war. We supported Sadaam with weapons and money because we hated Iran, so I guess we are responsible for the 1 million deaths.]

Actually it goes back further – when Jimmy Carter brought Khomeni back to Iran. It was similar to the Germans back in WWI shipping Lenin back to Russia. Your argument is like the gun control problem where people blame the guns and not the gunner. In England they’ve outlawed handguns and now they have a “knife problem“.


[Russia just invaded a sovereign country this week. Should we launch the ICBMs towards Moscow?]

No, would you? And neither would I invade Pakistan as Obama advocated. You can always tell a weak argument when someone tries to put words in your mouth.


[The French supported our war of independence. They didn't start it. There was no conflict in Iraq when we invaded.]

There was no conflict in Iraq before we invaded if you ignore the suppressions of the Kurds and the Marsh Arabs. However, putting that aside for the moment, the point of our efforts was to remove a serial aggressor who was a threat to his neighbors and world peace, collaborated with al Qaeda, had used WMD and was estimated by the CIA and all the leaders of his neighboring countries at the time to have WMD capability. We just finished removing 550 tons of yellow cake from Iraq and Saddam’s no 2 ranking Air Force General has said he shipped several truck and plane loads of WMD to Syria in the days leading up to the invasion.

I’m glad we liberated Iraq. I’m thankful that GWB had the cahonas to do the right thing. Had the “Father of the Internet” won the 2000 election, we’d still be negotiating with the Taliban for extradition of Osama and have incurred a couple more 9/11’s. As it is, Osama is rotting in some cave in Pakistan, Saddam has been removed, Iraq is toddling toward democracy, we’ve had no more 9/11’s, and Qadafi coughed up his WMD.

And I’m still glad the French didn’t use your logic back in the 1770’s. Instead of surging to Yorktown, they could have packed up and left.

The Economic Cost of the Military Industrial Complex

Gosh, if I had just realized that all we had to do was stop spending money for defense, that we’d all be safe from bad people, Putin, Iranian mullahs, Chavez, etc. then we could have gone pacifist a long time ago and we saved a nickel out of every GDP dollar. The wisdom in this is so apparent – not.

The economist Julian Simon used to warn about advocates skewing data by where they choose to start. Professor Simon always said to take it back to the start. And economists never use absolute dollars. The proper way is to show expenditures as a percent of the GDP. “Where did the peace dividend from winning the Cold War go?” Quinn asks. It went up in smoke on 9/11 after a defense holiday, which is where, not coincidentally, he begins his chart of U.S. military expenditures. Numbers don’t lie but it appears that “strategic planners” like Quinn do numbers.

Quinn claims that the piece is “not anti-military,” but, “… about unnecessary foreign intervention and the choices this country must make regarding our spending priorities.” Fine. If five percent of our GDP has been invested in removing a tyrant who started two wars that killed over a million people, creating a battle ground that’s been like flypaper for al Qaeda terrorists, with the chance of creating a democracy in the center of a volatile and strategic region of the globe, then I say it’s money well invested.

Thank God the French didn’t use Quinn’s logic back in the 1770’s.