Glen Doth Know

This Blog has moved to www.GlobalSpeculation.com

Yeah, I was actually strategizing if I was going to blog about my findings anymore since I'm running a hedge fund. bottom line, it's something I like to do... and I also like to write for thestreet and seekingalpha and run around on ihub.

so, i'm going to keep doing what I like to do.

apwr- yuck
holi- yuck
cpst - yuck
ceua - 30% growth rate, p/e of 9, 2x book value
llfh - 25% growth rate, p/e of 8, 2.5x book value
anrgf - no clue
sutr - 30% growth clouded by recession, P/E of 5
wemu - 100% growth this year, 30% into the future prolly, P/E of 9
aemd - icky
ceua - p/e of 9, microcap for a couple years yet.
niv - growth of 20%, P/E of 10
bhrt - icky
qgp - yoink, yuck
blsw - icky
xsnx - nope
lege - nope
etak - nope
rxii - nope
npws - hype + potential? i don't care... waiting on this one.
gsi - looking into this one
csgh news
cphi news
yhgg - big potential pinkie, better than SIAF in my opinion
ciwt - expensive for my taste
chio - expensive for my taste
sutr - dip in fundies and already on the nasdaq
ors - still a/r hurting
caei - lots of upside, but still not cheap
mbrx - not profitable
cheh - not a stock
cga - expensive
cdii - expensive
ceua - expensive
rino - will likely outperform the market and probably pull 200% in the next 2 years, not enough for me seeing other opportunities
jngw - hurting, check Q2 earnings
chbo - no revenues, i just threw up in my mouth
ddr- payed out preferred dividend
inmd - too expensive for this type of investing climate
UNG – not interested
SD – not interested
HGT – looks interesting, prolly an 8% yielder. Upside is $25, not enough for me
NGLPF - dont like it
CPTC - dont like it
domr - no track record
vlov - no volume, but looks to have a p/e of around 5
pmi - and risk-o was his name-o
spng - appears to be a $100M company, price says that too, and lots of potential growth. not cheap enough right now
octi - no revenues
cagc - not cheap enough, but growth of 33% NEG CASH FROM OPERATING ACTIVITIES
jngw - revisit in Q2
zolt - too expensive
zagg - wayyyy expensive

pulled the following from some crazy analytical guy that sells ideas that will in my opinion beat the market, but who cares about marginally beating the market? I don't. Not now, not when I can make 200% in 4 months.
* Kirby Corporation (KEX): Strong Interest (93%), Peter Lynch-based model
* Diana Shipping (DSX): Strong Interest (93%), Peter Lynch-based model
* Overseas Shipping (OSG): Strong Interest (93%), Peter Lynch-based model; Some Interest (90%), Joseph Piotroski-based model
* TBS International (TBSI): Strong Interest (93%), Peter Lynch-based model
* International Shipholding (ISH): Strong Interest (93%), Peter Lynch-based model; Some Interest (83%), Motley Fool-based model
* SEACOR Holdings (CKH): Some Interest (86%), Benjamin Graham-based model; Some Interest (74%), Peter Lynch-based model

kex - not interested --- too expensive + turnaround
dsx - dry bulk - interesting, but i think china is bidding these up in the short term and so i like FREE, SBLK, DAC more
osg - looks appealingly cheap with high growth, will look deeper
tbsi - not profitable last quarter, so more risky, but i picked outperform in CAPS (not real money)
ish - volatile stock price, buy below 18 and sell above 22 seems like a good gig ... i might be doing it - did it with CAEI for a couple "20% in 3 day" pops
ckh - price looks a lot like the baltic drybulk index. too expensive. no way.

my thoughts on the following list, i'm only going to cover ones i havent covered.
ABAT, AKRK, BKYI, CAEI, CCTR, CHFI, CHGY, CNOA, CSGH, CYXN, ETFC, GHII, LTHU, LTUS, NWD, ORS, XING

abat - too expensive
byki - too expensive
cctr - well... scam, or deal of a life time? referenced nmkt too. looks interesting, see below
cctr - revisited immediately - 110,944,194 shares outstanding, P/E > 50. not a growth story, not interested
lthu - haha NO WAY
NMKT - revisited again, pink sheets, and they've got videos from this really clean cut guy in a suit with what he thinks are good mba presentation skills. i hate these people. empty suits, but maybe i'm wrong here, bottom line is i am risk averse., their lead people make $200,000+, and share dilution is out the butt, screw them
siaf - still a pink sheet, seeks quotation on the OTCBB. cool. but looks like 52M shares outstanding yields a market cap of 37M, which upts the p/E higher than 5 and P/S > 2. i'm not interested
mtxx - down huge, for a reason. not interested.. icky -- but if you wanna dig deeper, let me know. prolly will go up above $5.70

aib - whoah nilly. why haven't i looked into this sooner.
ire - whoah nilly. why haven't i looked into this sooner.
txic - looks like a forward looking p/e of 3.58
hwd - wow - the motley fool keeps sucking less in their newsletter picks. but hell, they are getting better. this one will outperform and be a multi-bagger.

ACAS - If American Capital survives, let’s see here. They are paying out stock as a dividend. Looks like a $200M dividend ballpark. Just assume that none of this dividend is cash. So now they throw out another 50M shares. If they do this 3 times, that’s 350M shares outstanding and a current market cap of 1.361B
Still cheap in my book, but I’d take the price back in 2006 and say $35 is your high point, so with 50% dilution, $17.50 is your new high point. So, I’m saying banks are fairly valued down 50% from where they were, so I’d be out at $9 unless the market turns up big and they aren’t diluting.
Lazy analysis is better than anything an analyst can do for you.


chgi - Yeah it’s a pretty compelling story as they already have money making lines…and given the fact they’re the only company in China with the ability to produce “nuclear graphite”. The gov’t in China is currently building 40 nuclear reactors at 12 facilities throughout China by 2015. CHGI is the only publicly traded Chinese company with the technology to produce this type of graphite.
cpe
- looks cheap, but i can't figure out


China Real Estate Opportunities SA
(Public, LON:CREO)

chump of the day
http://finance.yahoo.com/special-edition/active-investor/options-beyond-fear

philip guziec
http://www.moneyshow.com/directory/speaker.asp?speakerid=5E54BF2B5F7547959B039BA50831C736

Being the CFO for OPAI
http://caps.fool.com/Blogs/ViewPost.aspx?bpid=208628&t=01000000000214846910

Labels: ACAS, aib, chgi, ire, llfh, wemu

The purpose of this article is to outline my quest for the cheapest broker that lets me “do what I want” with the least amount of hassle and how the real hassle is always behind the scenes. I’ll also outline the public companies from the perspective as an investor.

I currently can trade with Firsttrade, Schwab (SCHW), Ameritrade (AMTD), E*Trade (ETFC), Merrill Lynch (BAC), and I have checking accounts with Fifth Third (FITB), and a savings account at Bank of America (BAC). So, what’s the scoop and why am I writing this article? I’ve been setting up a new E*Trade account for the past month and my patience is wearing thin. Why did I choose to open another account with E*Trade?

Merrill Lynch (BAC) won’t let me buy stocks less than $1. This is to protect me from myself, I suppose. But what happens when a company that you value over $10 goes below $1? Odds are you’d like to buy more and now your left buying it at a higher price of at least $1, whenever it surfaces back above that waterline. All for $29.95 a trade. What a great deal! Not.

Ameritrade (AMTD) has the best interface and is honestly in my opinion the best, except for that it won’t let me buy certain penny stocks because it doesn’t like the transfer agent. I fought Ameritrade on this a little bit, because if they would simply let me buy the companies that I want to buy, I’d push all my accounts to them.
Schwab lets me buy pretty much anything I want, but Schwab has proven to be a little more hands on than what I’d like them to be. I got a margin call on a $30,000 account that was over half marginable securities and we were sitting on about $1,000 of margin. That’s pretty ridiculous. Also, Schwab is more expensive than E*Trade.

So, here I am, setting up another account with E*Trade (ETFC) because I know it will be the most flexible once I get it going. I’ve been trying to set up this account for over a month now and have made a frustration timeline that you can see below. I’m still in limbo and haven’t received a phone call from E*Trade. I’ve had to take the initiative to call them up and follow up as to where exactly the money I sent them is. They still aren’t sure, so there is roughly $115,000.00 floating out there in E*Trade land.

Alright, how do these companies stack up as far as investments go? I would say that Schwab (SCHW) and Ameritrade (AMTD) are reasonably priced. Bank of America and Merrill (BAC) still appear to have over 100% upside potential within the next year and so does Fifth Third (FITB).
Lastly, I’ll note that I’ve been asked by a couple Fifth Third employees what I would consider investing in. I asked them if they had ever considered buying Fifth Third (FITB).

Disclosure: Glen and his investors own FITB and BAC.

Labels: BAC, FITB

My thoughts:
We need a bottom in the housing market, and in order to get one, US interest rates must remain low until inflation and foreign investment put a bottom into this market. Inflation will scare away foreign investors, but will help US home owners. Loans being restructured at lower interest rates will help too --- but idiots will restructure with variable interest rates and get squeezed out later down the road or possibly walk if their home is worth less than their mortgage (underwater). This will potentially dry up market liquidity and hurt banks and insurers and all that jazz as well as kill global GDP in the short term. Now that that's how I feel, let's see how the market reacts and react accordingly. China is still the best bet. Commodities already reflect these inflationary tendencies.


“‘Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.’” - Albert Einstein

I wrote all of this the weekend of Sunday, June 7, 2009. I am not publishing it that weekend, but instead possibly mid-week or even later depending on how long it takes me to buy positions in some of the companies below. If you are reading this, it is public. Good luck.

llfh - my current lowball target is 71% price appreciation (and my estimates have a unreasonably strong tendancy to be conservative)
slm - will likely outperform the S&P500 by 100% over the next 12 months (if that's what you're interested in... i'm not, but I still may buy some)
canl - pricey but going to the nasdaq and selling around book value "A conversion to a Nasdaq listing can be completed as early as this summer," Guo said. "We will issue $70 million worth of new shares at that time." - i'm not interested in being diluted. that's like 50% dilution.
ccgy - opportunity knocks only for those who listen. buying opportunity of a lifetime? hint hint, nudge, nudge. I am buying.
wemu - It could triple. They say they have a lot in the pipeline. They say they are moving into the USA and PRC markets. They say they have a monster backlog.Although this would be operating on "he said, she said, the company said" --- the growth they are talking about is over 100%. This company isn't selling less than book value or significantly off its 52-week high. It isn't "cheap" to me. But, I feel that it is cheap to most.In the land of investing, it doesn't matter what the company is actually worth. What matters is how much people are willing to pay for it. Solar right now is hot, and this company is getting listed.They are profitable and have an optimistic outlook. I plan on picking some up casually, but nothing extravagant.
yuii - you will likely make money and beat the market, but i'm not excited about this one
chcg - like it, and this will go up and outperform the market. +300% in the next 3 years is 90% probable
abwtq - abh - haha.. no way
jgbo - an easy double before it gets listed
myst - weak cash flows and i can get better p/s ratios elsewhere. i don't think this is large enough to uplist. but it's definately worth more. cloud computing is an extreme thing. not mediocristian.
siaf - don't mess with pinks
feed - i'd rate around market perform, but it will likely beat the market.
ntes - too expensive, go with sohu instead
hrbn - probable valuation: $18.60
sina - worth more, but too expensive. Sell around a P/E of 40, or around $50 in the next 6 months if it gets there
ltus - love it.
cbak - not interested
cphi - i support this one. lots of upside
txic - looks very interesting, p/E around 4, so upside of around 200% fairly easily. the asian car market is very strong right now
acas - one of my turnaround plays
gls - this is the best airline stock i've found. profitable, i like this one. strong dividend, could shoot 200%.
gnk - my P/E = 4.6, at book value, should be an easy double
cno - like this one a lot.

--------------Note from a fellow Blogger
You should really read some of the articles on www.blogtoamillion.com about CNO.
I have followed your picks a lot, and this stock is one of my favorites - among
ACAS, GLS, and GNK. With 13 cents of Q1 earnings x 4 = 52 cents, or a PE ratio of 5.
..not sure about their insurance reserves (mortgage backed securities, treasuries,
corporate bonds), but they did have writedowns to protect themselves. The upside
here is $10-$15/shr, IMO, but just some disclosure: I am long CNO...
---------------------End Note

Earn a living or earn a fortune. I want to be rich. How do I plan on doing it?
Definitions:
OPM - Other People's Money
OPT - Other People's Time
IQ - My intelligence

I intend to promote my IQ to control OPM to own OPT.

Since I'm lazy, I would rather not reinvent the wheel here. In fact, I don't really want to manage other people or tell them what to do. I'll just stick to evaluating the performance of other people who like to work hard and buy stakes in their hard work when the stakes are cheaper than they should be and capture the value over time.

Now, I'm not claiming to have the best ability to value every company in the world. But, I figure if I focus on not owning anything that seems risky and only recommend the best deals I can find --- that puts me ahead of Wall Street.

Labels: canl, ccgy, cphi, gls, gnk, LTUS, sina, slm, txic, wemu

jade - tried to write an article about it, but although i believe this thing is more likely to go up than it is to go down --- i'm very uncertain and uneasy making that call, good news is that i don't have to.
cgdi - i'm going to sit out on this one - shareholders equity has other people involved and not poriftable last quarter.
Ccgy - I would weed it out right now because it wasn’t profitable last quarter.
sblk vs dac vs free

--------------------------
jade - i did write an article and included it. just not as a top pick

chln - too expensive for me to want to own right now
cgyv - rumor has it cheap because a hedge fund dumped it. this isn't cheap enough for me. this last quarter sucked, but will be made up for in the next quarter.
chfr - P/S > 1. not cheap enough, this is a very small company based on first glance, could grow fast and stock could go with it. but it feels like a gamble, cash position low
glcc - scammy, and on top of that it's a pink sheet, no way.
gspg - maybe a good idea, but it looks too risky for me.
llfh - not cheap, not expensive, getting listed. will go up, compare to chgy and pudc.

Tommy,

Glad someone looks through my notes. I just added this to my to-do list --- which is currently 7 companies long.

My dad ran a business called ARM Computing for 15 years. I am just carrying on the legacy.

A couple things:

1. Your notes reflect that you dig deep enough and that you have a sense of what you are looking for. That's a plus.
2. If I had any advice, or a cautionary statement --- make sure you never get caught up in 1 company and try to continue to prove that it is a good value. Always be nimble and always be comparing that which you are invested in to that which you could be invested in. If you like another opportunity better. Switch.

A couple similar companies off the top of my head that you might be interested in/familiar with

oil
Cneh, lpih, I think snen too. (snen is not a buy for me, but it's interesting)

Coal:

Sclx, chgy, pudc

Anyway, I'm sure there are more. The bottom line: Find the best way to allocate your money so that you are the most confident that you will not lose. I can't emphasize that enough. By doing that, with that mindset, you should do fine. The trick is figuring out what not to own instead of wasting lots of time evaluating 1 single potential opportunity. I call this relative valuation.

Maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about, but empirical evidence suggests otherwise,

Glen

-----Original Message-----
From: Tommy Gallagher [mailto:thomasmgal
Sent: Monday, June 01, 2009 9:51 PM
To: Bradford, Glen Richard
Subject: Re: CCGY

Hey Glen - congrats on getting the hedge fund started up. I wish you
luck. Does the ARM name have any significance? How'd you come up with
it?

A stock I came across tonight is CCGY - China Clean energy. Looks
like it may have bottomed in early March at .10 cents. With the
increase in diesel margins today of 8% and their new facility coming
online in September - this may be decent bargain. Their earnings
weren't impressive for last year or the first quarter. I didn't see
this in any of your round robins and was wondering if you've looked
into this stock at all. At 20 cents its pretty inviting. they were
initially on the docket to present at the china rising conference, but
they didn't. I'm not sure why Glass half empty - i should stay away,
there is a bad reason why they didn't present, couldnt get their act
together, were disinvited etc...glass half full - too much going on
with the economy, not enough time, another, some other benign reason
and now not everybody knows about this stock yet since it didn't
present and its an opportunity.

looks like it is getting some notice with 175k volume today.

Below is the link to the china conference website showing they were
originally scheduled to present and a piece of their quarter
filing...let me know what you think.

Thanks,

Tommy


http://www.chinarisingconference.com/news/news20090416.html

Labels: ccgy, CHGY, CNEH, lpih, PUDC, sclx

A market beating friend on REITs:
Of the REITs, I like Winthrop (FUR), Brandywine (BDN), and Lexington (LXP) the most. There are others that I haven't researched as thoroughly that still look fairly attractive, as well. HRPT Properties Trust (HRP), BioMed Realty (BMR) top that list.

There have been a few that I have recommended that have skyrocketed over the past few months to... Read More the point that I need to re-evaluate them. Those include Colonial Properties (CLP) and CapitalSource (CSE). For that matter, BioMed has spiked considerably.
-----------------------------------
problems in china microcaps http://www.chinafirstcapital.com/blog/?p=552
---------------------------
his reccos: fur, bdn, lxp, hrp, bmr, clp, cse ---- i like CSE the most based on charts only and i looked at it before. will look at it deeper (again)
abc - not cheap enough
atai - potentially worth looking into, explosive growth. wow, really expensive. nevermind
stv - too expensive, but you'll probably make money. i have companies that make mroe money than this trading on the otcbb. retarded!
cner - appears too expensive, selling more than book value anyway
gfre - worth looking at again
pudc - i've established i like pudc.
simo - says they made money and decreased shareholders equity in 2007 to 2008? what gives? it's cheap. worth a second glance
apwr - too expensive
agm - too shaky, has been in the past and i just don't know
sclx http://crystalequityresearch.blogspot.com/2009/04/coal-fired-dragons.html
mic - too shaky, but looks cheap. too bad i'm not in the risk business, this is where most people would justify buying it because there is upside and say that the risk is justifyable. i don't like risk
prsc - too expe
gbe - too risky
tiv - not profitable
cxpo - still like it.
smrt - profitable, solid quarter, not interested.
lei - oil and gas company not profitable in 2008? not interested.
nni - not interested
zbb - too expensive
cnoa - like this one. woohoo
utvl? i like this one. new ticker since it's getting uplisted, UTA
expe - not cheap enough, but it makes you like UTA/UTVL --- above. lol
pcln - not cheap enough, but it makes you like UTA/UTVL --- above. lol
oww - not profitable. no wonder they gave me such a deal on spring break 2007.
ctrp - not cheap enough, but it makes you like UTA/UTVL --- above. lol
cpst not profitable. not interested! http://www.distributedenergy.com/march-april-2008/microturbine-market-growing-1.aspx
sblk - looks very interesting, comparable to my idea FREE, looking at again
dac - contracted through Q2 2010, but their last statement screams risk
sacq - 17% dividend in the works paid in a couple days? HELP?! SOMEBODY, TAKE MY MONEY!
mxc - too expensive
mwhgf - pink sheets not interested
mwh:ln - too risky
snen - still watching, not buying
seb - too expensive
cmfo - still a winner in my book
atk - not profitable
ttm - too expensive
uoy - not interested, buy lpih or cneh, or cxpo instead
jada - well, last time it was too expensive at $2. Now it is 1/10th that cost at $0.19
mhh - not cheap enough

looking at deeper:
cse - like it, but i haven't looked deep.
gfre - looks good, boo yah.
simo - turn around - not interested
sacq - $1 dividend? i don't care, not playing this game
jada - looks like a chicken dinner winner, buy-time

sblk vs free vs dac

no need to look at because i like them:
cnoa
cxpo
utvl/uta

One last piece of wisdom-----

You don’t need an umbrella if:

1.You don’t mind getting wet.
2.You don’t go outside when it rains.

I would meet constraint 1 as far as rain goes and constraint 2 as far as money goes.

Glen

If you are looking at the US markets, you may believe that since early march investors are waking up and pouring themselves bowls of Risk Crispies for breakfast --- if only Kellogg’s (K) made these too. The stocks that have been rallying the hardest are the ones that have been sold down sometimes more than 90% in the past 2 years. Now, do note that I’m not here to recommend what I consider to be highly speculative plays, like *snap* General Motors (GM) *crackle* or Ambac Financial (ABK) *pop*. Actually, I wrote this before I knew GM was becoming Government Motors. I have been thinking of GM as the Titanic. Nobody wanted it to sink, but they structured the ship with too much optimism and it looks to be taking all the shareholders down to Davy Jones Locker.

What I will say is that I believe that the more you pay for the stake in a business, the less likely it becomes that you will be able to sell it to someone else at a higher price. In the land of investing, risk comes from overpaying --- the winner’s curse. I would say that it is certainly less risky to pay less for something if your objective is to make money by selling it off at a later date.

The way I see it, there are two kinds of risk in the stock market. There is good risk and bad risk. More emphasis should be placed on the bad kind of risk because by being able to avoid it, investors can outperform the market in the long run --- which is what most of us are interested in. Most bad risks come from people that don’t understand what they are doing.

A few examples of bad (dumb) risk would be: picking up pennies in front of a steam roller, riding your bicycle down the Autobahn, lying under oath, drinking and driving, or deciding to fight the guy at the bar that looked at you funny. The outcome is unknown, but you are likely to not be excited about it. The examples here are the stocks listed above. Battleship sunk!

A couple commonly believed good (intelligent) risks: studying for an exam that you want to pass, going to work if you want to keep your job, or exercising and eating a healthy diet to feel good. The outcome here serves more as a confirmation bias that makes these risks sound self-evident, but they aren’t that obvious to everyone. I try to keep 100% of my portfolio in this category. A couple new ideas that I haven’t talked about yet are Patriot Capital Funding (PCAP) and MCG Capital Corporation (MCGC). That said, you might want to consider the rising tide in Bulk Shipping with Star Bulk Carriers (SBLK), FreeSeas (FREE), and Danaos (DAC).

There are only a few examples of definable risk: rolling a dice, most games in a casino, and flipping a coin. The outcome can be precisely calculated. There is nothing in investing that I would say has a definable future real net present value. There is so much fluctuation between stock prices, currency prices, inflation, treasury yields, and expectations that I don’t feel confident predicting anything with 100% accuracy.

Believe it or not, there are examples of no risk: jumping out of a plane with no parachute, driving your car at 100 mph into a brick wall, traveling into outer space without a space suit. The outcome is in my opinion well-known. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a sure thing in the stock market. Deals can always change --- even after they are announced.

Some investors justify making risky decisions based on their likelihood of achieving higher returns. In times of crisis, the price of the stock market goes down. Some perfectly good stocks go down more than 90%. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to find these and pick them up for pennies on the dollar? That’s what I try to do. The trick is not stepping into the “fear breeds fear” market and wait for the lower valuations to begin to appreciate across the markets and signs of early strength. Then, hop aboard the rising tide on the companies marked down 90% in price that are fundamentally set to appreciate more than anything else you can find.

Some investors pay people to actively diversify their money across companies at mediocre prices. The investment vehicles here tend to be ETFs and Mutual Funds. That said --- this is a generalization. I know of several mutual fund companies and managers that I really like and I would even go as far as to recommend them to people who don’t know how to invest themselves.

In the investment world, there are 2 questions. Where do you put your money? When do you do it? It’s just that simple. You could put your money into high flying stocks at market bottoms, or you could put your money into undervalued companies at market peaks. Either way, you are fighting the wrong battle. At the market bottoms, you don’t want to be fighting off Winner’s curse. At the market peaks, you’re missing the perspective of how a negative trend bludgeons most investors’ risk appetites to death. Even though I’m making money since June 2008, I’ve been fighting the wrong battle for the majority of my tenure. I was simply trying to outperform the market. That’s what I used to be interested in. Now I’ve refocused on not losing money and I’m doing a lot better.

Discloser: Glen and his investors own PCAP, MCGC, DAC, SBLK, FREE.

Labels: DAC, FREE, mcgc, pcap, SBLK