Stock Analysis
Telecom New Zealand: Bull or Bear?
I'll spend the next few paragraphs making both a bullish and a bearish case for Telecom New Zealand (NYSE: NZT - News), and I'll let the reader decide which argument is more convincing.
Don’t be downbeat about Wal-Mart
The greatest investment opportunities are seeded not by warm sunshine but by chilling rain. It has been freezing and pouring in Wal-Mart’s (WMT) neck of the woods.
Government Goes Medieval on Telecom New Zealand
A political risk is present in shares of any government-regulated company, but it came to fruition for Telecom New Zealand (NYSE: NZT) when the New Zealand government unbundled the local loop.
Nokia: Slim Phones, Fatter Margins
Nokia (NYSE: NOK) announced that its average selling price (ASP) has increased in the first quarter from a projected 98 euros to 103 euros.
Westwood One to Avoid
The value guy in me always awakens when I see a stock scratching at multi-year lows, and Westwood One (NYSE: WON) piqued my interest a couple weeks ago.
Chicken Run: Value Manager’s Dream?
Are chicken stocks the value manager's dream, or are they a value trap in the making? I think the answer is a little bit of both, depending on an investor's time horizon.
Lloyds: Prime for Takeover
Lloyds TSB (NYSE: LYG) is up more than 5% at Wednesday's open, on the speculation that it will be bought out by Spanish bank BBVA.
The Profit Margin Paradigm?
As profit margins rise, corporations get to keep more of their sales, leading to improved profitability.
Protection Against a Dangerous Enemy
Emotions are a large part of both parenting and investing. Unfortunately, emotions often cloud our judgment and steer us toward making erroneous and irrational decisions.
Why Are Bank P/Es So Low?
Larger banks have lower P/Es generally because they are perceived to have a slower or more limited growth potential.
The China Bubble
Why should we care about what happens to China? As New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman put it in his book, the world is now flat.
Natural disasters may herald a ‘hard’ market
Last year's natural disasters (Rita, Katrina and Wilma) on the Gulf coast caused destruction and sucked out capital from the property and casualty insurance industry.
Mailbag: The Trouble With Timocracies
Those inefficient, bureaucratic, timocracies are losing market share and closing stores due to competition from the more efficient meritocracies such as Wal-Mart, Target (TGT), Costco (COST), BJ's (BJ) and Whole Foods (WFMI).
National Grid’s Boring Little Secret
If you need words to describe National Grid, "stable," "predictable," and "unexciting" spring to mind. Reading its financials stirs so little excitement that if you can't sleep, you might want to leave a copy of its 20-F (a 10-K equivalent filed by ADRs) on the nightstand.
Lloyds Weathers the Storm
Lloyds TSB's (NYSE: LYG) recent announcement that it experienced slower growth in consumer lending and higher defaults in its consumer segment did not come as a surprise, and its stock actually went up on the news.
Sporadic Thoughts: A quick look at Symantec
Symantec (SYMC) looks somewhat alluring on the surface: it is trading at 18 times next year's earnings. It looks even more appealing if you factor in a $4 billion cash pile, which accounts roughly for 20% of the company's market capitalization.
Mailbag: Corporate Citizen
Let's say Wal-Mart becomes "a responsible corporate citizen" and starts paying $16 an hour instead. Wouldn't that be great?
Sporadic Thoughts: Retail, Consumer and First Data
Are retailers stilling their future holiday sales with early deep discounts?
Cendant: The Anatomy of Sell and More
Buying stocks is easy, selling them less so. Therefore, in light of the Cendant (CD) news today, I thought it might be helpful to briefly look at the reasons we sold Cendant stock awhile back.
Mailbag: Buybacks and Dividends
This mailbag is in response to my Nov. 4 article on Buybacks and Dividends.
