Josh Stern

Morgan Stanley: What's Behind Mexico's Extraordinary Resilience?

Nice column. Does your name have a middle initial that could distinguish it from Gary B. Smith and Gary D. Smith, who have both published a lot about equity related topics on the web?

CALM Longs Walking on Eggshells

Here is an article on the factors driving egg costs: www.infozine.com/news/.../

I believe the parent article makes a good negative point that in the long term one would expect egg production to rise to meet demand at some sort of average agricultural profit margin, but it misses several factors that have caused production to lag demand including export demand, changes in de facto chicken care standards, changes in the health view of eggs in the diet, and the general environment of rising food costs where eggs are still very competitive as a convenient protein source.

Signs That Foreclosures May Be Peaking

I believe people have done research to see whether (negative) home equity levels or resets were more important to predicting defaults and foreclosures, and they all found that equity levels were much more important.

China's Agriculture Sector Is Ripe for Investment

Just to follow up...the biggest valuation differences show up when one looks at price to sales ratios. Of course it all depends on what one expects for future profit margins, but I'm a lot more comfortable with P/S near 1 than P/S in the 6-9 range.

China's Agriculture Sector Is Ripe for Investment

I agree with the theme, but I like the fundamentals of CAGC and HOGS better than the ones you mentioned. CAGC is current OTCBB, but working on moving to a major index.

4 Microcaps Warren Buffett Would Love

I was interested in ELSE based on your description and took a look at the numbers. Turns out that shareholder equity and tangible equity have trended *down* since 2004. There might be other bullish things about the company, but since your methodology was explicitly designed to find companies with good trailing performance, methinks the methods need some tweaking.

How Google Killed Web Subscriptions

The thesis of this article - that Google search is the main problem for NY Times Select and other attepts to monetize the NYT's online presence - is in the right neighborhood, but at the wrong address. The problem for Times Select is that, in the context of all the information sources on the internet, that product isn't competitive at the price they want to charge for it. The Internet offers a very different competitive landscape than what the print edition faces. The costs to publish something internationally on the web are incidental, and on the web it is easy for readers and secondary sites to aggregate content from many different sources, picking the most interesting sources in each area of interest. Participating in 'searched for' news is definitely one part of that market, but it's a small part. In order to charge fees on the Internet, the NYT should consider offering less costly al a carte choices in just a few areas where they have a lot of expertise, being more realistic about the competitive value of those offerings. It would make more sense for them to produce greater quantity of content on the Internet - where publishing cost is much cheaper - and pick only the best of those items to use in their print edition.

Memo To Retail Investors: Smart Investing Is A Serious Business

Professional behavioral scientists also take a dim view of descriptive theories based on anecdotal newspaper articles...

Gold's Value In the 21st Century: About As Real As the Myth of El Dorado

Some people above mentioned the fact that gold was traditionally the investment of choice for common folks in India. One question that I don't know the answer to is whether that source of demand will increase or decrease as India emerges economically.

I do agree with the author that gold is not safe as a hedge of last resort. Diversifying across all currencies and asset classes is the hedge of last resort because everything can't decline relative to everything else.

The Existing Home Sales Report Beats Expectations

Zillow.com does estimates of value for individual homes, and these estimates seem to have stabilized recently (up in some places, down in others).

Stocks: The Long View

Forward earnings are probably too high *and* the 2000 bubble was silly. Unfortunately, it also seems silly to suppose that the two wrongs cancel each other out and somehow allow precise quantification in the running aggregate.

Why Stocks Unrelated to Mortgage Lending Are Falling As Well

Good article. AA, I believe redemptions were frozen at a third BSC fund.

Assurant Down 10% - Good Buying Opportunity

This stock looks very cheap. However, recently I've looked at other insurers who also look very cheap and have similar looking charts. Each company with a stock falling off a cliff has some individual issues which may or may not be material to future earnings, but I have to think that the common factor explaining no bids for all of them is worries about their investment portfolios of fixed income and high yield equity.

Should One Invest in Unethical Companies?

Individual investors should avoid companies they find unethical because (among other things) that belief will tend to make them weak holders that sell at the wrong time. Similarly, someone investing a clients money should avoid the pressure of holding something you believe they will look askance at.

On the question of whether going long helps a company, I believe the correct answer is yes, by some tiny, immeasurable amount. The economic benefit of public offerings is access to capital and the equity market is a social organization that sets the valuation terms for a given company and others like it. Just like someone who invests in a holding company that buys mortgage backed securities is in some microscopic way helping somebody somewhere afford a house with an acceptable finance arrangement. On the other hand, the effect is so small that if you knew you were going to make $X more with that investment then the overall benefit of avoiding it would certainly be less than doing it and giving, say $X/10 to a worthwhile charity.

On the topic of Walmart, I don't think their business practices are unethical - they work within the system and the laws that exist, and nobody forces their workers to take those jobs or their customers to shop there. But people who support a combination of laws, economic, and educational policies that will clearly result in the long term destruction of economic security for current and future workers with median or lower levels of skills in demand and geographic access to commercial centers lack compassion. And people who deliberately confuse and mislead voters for the benefit of their own economic interests are unethical.

Energy Stock Trader: Wednesday Outlook

Last few days it seems that NatGas stocks are going down while the commodity futures have finally reversed and are going up? Is that an opportunity or something else going on?