Friday, May 31, 2002

Here We Go Again Energy alert issued in California [USA Today : Front Page] 9:43:04 PM     Comments[]

India is attempting to reassure, but the U.S. is saying "get out!" Americans in India were advised by the U.S. State Department to leave the country because of rising danger of conflict between India and Pakistan. [Wall Street Journal] 11:21:29 AM     Comments[]

What A Tangled Web J. P. Morgan Cited in Failure of a Global Crossing Bid. The collapse of an agreement last week for two Asian companies to make a bid for Global Crossing is being attributed to actions by J. P. Morgan Chase. By Simon Romero. [New York Times: Technology] 6:36:09 AM     Comments[]

Qwest's Yellow Pages business might bring in $6-$8 billion. That would seem to (temporarily) help with a number of different problems. Moody's must know something more! Technology Briefing: Telecommunications. Moody's Cuts Qwest Credit Rating. [New York Times: Technology] 6:33:36 AM     Comments[]

Buying a business and buying a stock should involve the same disciplines and methodology. Buying a stock "seems" easy because we can now enter a ticker symbol and a share count for something we read about in the morning paper. Nearly 100% of the time that 's the wrong thing to do and the wrong way to do it. I take John's recent references to investing in public companies as "casino" or "speculative fiction" to mean there are plenty of places this is true. However, there are disciplines that can be followed when buying all or part of a business that not only reduce and measure the risk, but enhance the likelihood of reward. The universe of those following such disciplines is admittedly small, but their results can be staggering! Here is a post on stock ownership from the perspective of a mouse.  What do individuals buy when they buy stock?  The books say that you buy rights to a share of future cash flows.   When stocks looked more like bonds (when they distributed excess earnings as dividends to shareholders), this was a valid definition.   What individual investors buy today is speculative fiction in regards to valuation, potential for acquisition, momentum, earnings surprises, etc.   This is a volitile basis for ownership and leads to excess.  The books are right in that over the short term dividends don't matter, but longer term they matter a lot.  Why?  They force corporate management to avoid low yeild investments and opaque accounting. [John Robb's Radio Weblog] 6:25:42 AM     Comments[]

Robert Louis Stevenson. "Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary." [Quotes of the Day] 5:54:46 AM     Comments[]

© Copyright 2002 Steve Pilgrim.