Fundamental Analysis

(NewsVisual, powered by IntellectSpace)…
Original Source: www.newsvisual.com

We have analyzed Home Depot’s (HD) preliminary report for the January 2008 quarter, and this post reports our tentative results. The f…
Original Source

Stop using compound growth rates now! While using a percent growth rate for free cash flows might be conventional, mathematically convenient and easier to convey to others, it is not as accurate or conservative as using an absolute rate of change from a linear trend model. Value investing is all about being conservative and accurate, so think twice before projecting out future cash flows next time you value a company. My statistical analysis below will show you why using a linear growth trend is often the right way to go.
…
Original Source: www.fatpitchfinancials.com

Week 30 performance of the mutual fundComments: This week summarized the market over the past month and half quite perfectly. Direction-less. Volatile. Completely bipolar. After a huge rally last Friday in the last 30 minutes, the markets started slow this week but then did another huge parabolic rally on S&P confirming the AAA status of the bond insurers (it is quite laughable that companies in need of a bailout and who have to offer 14% for someone to buy their bond issuances are rated the same as GE or Berkshire Hathaway, but …
Original Source: feeds.feedburner.com/FundMyMutualFund

Amazing how things change that quickly, eh? Bear markets.Wednesday at this time, I wrote an entry in which I put out this chart of the S&P500 and said a picture is worth a thousand words. We were at S&P 1382 level and right below the 50 day moving average. Champagne corks were being uncorked around NYC. The bottom is in …
Original Source: feeds.feedburner.com/FundMyMutualFund

This article is something we’ve been discussing for quite a few months; it should hit the mainstream media by next fall when it becomes more and more rampant. As I’ve said in the past, taking the morality away, it’s actually the “right” financial decision in many ways. Instead of having an albatross of debt around one’s neck, just take the 1x hit to credit, and get back to a reasonable rental cost. This is the dirty secret of all these bailout plans - for many people it makes no sense to have a “frozen” rate to keep paying for an overvalued asset. Further as each week passes, more and more are underwater. We’ve talked about this many times in the past, so nothing new to blog readers….
Original Source

(NewsVisual, powered by I…
Original Source: www.newsvisual.com

(NewsVisual, powered by IntellectSpace …
Original Source: www.newsvisual.com

Traders market… all of these names are in nice uptrends but have pulled back in past 2 sessions, so I am beginning to re-expand positions, and buy back shares I sold off of late. $5-$6K type of additions to all 4 of my primary coal namesPeabody Energy (BTU)Consol Energy (CNX)Massey Energy (MEE)Arch Coal (ACI)Wishing the fertilizers would pull back more - solid as a rock……
Original Source: feeds.feedburner.com/FundMyMutualFund

I don’t believe in any homebuilder recovery. I don’t believe in these stocks. I don’t believe in the Kool Aid. That said, I don’t need to believe… I just need everyone else to believe.I…
Original Source

Hansen Natural (HANS) is giving back the last month’s gains today after reporting higher than expected sales and lower than expected margins. Both were explained by customers stocking up ahead of a price increase. Count on the same thing happening to Hershey’s (HSY) when they report a March quarter enhanced by customer stock-ups and an early Easter.
While it’s true that the sales were boosted by robbing sales from next quarter, that is a short term issue. I said last month that “Hansen should be able to maintain its current f…
Original Source: feeds.feedburner.com/StockMarketBeat

Dean Foods (DF) announced this morning they would sell 18.7 million shares in a secondary offering. The 13% dilution is expected to be “significantly offset” by a $20 million reduction in interest expense. At current prices, the company should raise nearly $400 million through the sale. $20 million is 5% of that - so “significant” seems to be in the eye of the beholder.
Even better, the offering comes because “operating results were below the expectations we had when we recapitalized the b…
Original Source: feeds.feedburner.com/StockMarketBeat

Off the back of y…
Original Source: bp2.blogger.com/_vIR9lEpVYYw/R8gj0Cggsy

As we have mentioned each of the past few Fridays, I plan to lighten up on the Ultrashorts as we get near the weekend. We always have to fear government interventions. I watched one show on Fox Business last night, and the first 20 minutes literally was devoted to (I kid you not) comparing about 7 different “intervention” plans, 3 from Dems, 2 from Republicans, and 2 from Hillary/Obama. It is sickening to be blunt, but something we talked about last summer… as the situation worsens we will get bailout proposal on top of bailout proposal by these panderings *edited for content* Now when one of these passes eventually, the market will scream higher, because after all, we are all about free markets here in America right? Right….
Original Source: feeds.feedburner.com/FundMyMutualFund

We mentioned a few weeks ago how the charts for the exploration & development companies, specific the ones with more focus on natural gas, were doing extremely well [Feb 11: An Interesting Development in Natural Gas]. Since then I’ve been keeping an eye on this space for news flow and everything coming out of this space has been quite bullish….
Original Source

The poster child of the perils of following Wall Street’s whims must certainly be Dean Foods, the low-margin Dallas-base dairy company that almost one year ago to this day proudly “returned value to shareholders” through a special one-time, $2 billion dividend, just before commodity inflation was to rip the guts out of Dean Foods’ cost structure.Its share price was north of $45 at the time….
Original Source: jeffmatthewsisnotmakingthisup.blogspot.com

We have already written numerous times about Lampert and the fact that we are still giving him the benefit of the doubt and that it is too early to judge if his bets will pay off. As some of you may have read in various headlines, in his latest shareholder letter, he compared himself to Eli Manning who lead the Giants to win the Super Bowl. We wanted to post his letter for you to read….we still stick behind Eddie:
…
Original Source: ei-forum.com

Each Friday I highlight the Carnivals I participated in over the past week, along with any notable articles that I come across. For those readers not familiar with carnivals, it’s where personal finance bloggers submit their best articles of the week with one blog serving as the host. The entries are separated into various categories such as Investing, Credit, Debt, Budgeting, Frugality, Wealth Building, Money Management, Financial Planning, Insurance, Taxes, The Economy, Real Estate, et. al….
Original Source

…
Original Source: farm3.static.flickr.com

If you look at the chart of SDS above, you might see a stock that is worth buying on the long side (profit when the stock goes up). SDS appears to have had strong resistance at around $59 and SDS has tested the resistance at least three times within the last year. Then early January 2008, SDS appears to have broken out.

As of February 28, 2008, SDS is pulling back towards the 50 day moving…
Original Source: techfarm.blogspot.com