VP of Common Sense

Total Rating:
0 / -1

63 Comments

    • Thu Nov 20th 21:32 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Four Commonsense Clues to a Genuine Market Bottom
      Is it possible that the market, or markets, are actually backwards looking?
      View article »
    • Wed Nov 19th 21:21 PM | Rating: 0 -1
      Commented on:
      General Electric: Genuine Risk of Collapse?
      Let's say GE is levered to 10:1, heck, let's make it 12 or 15:1. By bank standards that is quite low. Going 6.6 to 8:1 is not levering up; see Bear Stearns, Lehman etc.
      View article »
    • Tue Oct 21st 20:02 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      General Discussion on ETFC
      So, ETFC all done?
      View forum topic »
    • Mon Oct 20th 19:51 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Buffett Likes to Be Early; Don't Rush to Follow
      This article is a joke. The fact that the example 2008 purchases are nearly flat supports the exact opposite of the author's conclusion.
      View article »
    • Tue Sep 16th 23:12 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Federal Reserve Buys AIG
      I'm with Capricorn, at least we bought something. The insurance side of the business throws off $6-20 billion a year. Sell off everything else to pay back as much as possible of the initial investment, spin off and fold the CDO side of the business as a total loss, and IPO the insurance business. With any luck WE might even break even... Well, maybe not, but here's to optimism!
      View article »
    • Sun Aug 3rd 23:04 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      In the Battle of Best Solar Plays, U.S. Is a Distant Second
      Didn't CSIQ already release Q2 earnings, or pre-release them? Estimated earnings were $33-35M etc., should be around $0.77/share...
      View article »
    • Sat Jul 19th 10:45 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Expect Continued Canadian Solar Financing This Year
      Unless I am reading things incorrectly, their 'purchase obligations' are merely raw material contracts. Since they are in a very raw material intensive business this seems like a normal practice.
      View article »
    • Sat Jun 7th 08:23 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Why I'm Not Cutting Back Trina Solar before Earnings
      Steve,

      You were pumping FSLR a month ago at $300/share. Lay off the insults.
      View article »
    • Sat Jun 7th 08:18 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      How Bad Is the Oil Shock of 2008?
      Purely for entertainment:

      We do have a functional energy policy... USE OIL!
      View article »
    • Fri Jun 6th 16:28 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Why I'm Not Cutting Back Trina Solar before Earnings
      I think the technical discussion is great, but mostly rehashing of old news.

      Here's my thesis:

      I think we can all agree that poli prices are going down. Maybe they don't reach parity with thin film, but within 20% is close enough due to installation costs. Once that occurs in about two years we'll be splitting hairs about which technology better.

      At that point it will simply come down to regular stock analysis, and that's why the TSL's and CSIQ's of the market with their relatively low P/E's look good to me.

      ASTI seems interesting, but their production line (which isn't running) is very small at 1.5MW (unless they mean 1.5MW per day, which if they do, someone please tell me!).

      Finally, I believe stock investing is primarily forward looking. Since I think that thin film's cost advantage will be greater today than at any day in the future, the opportunity for big gains from investing in thin film has passed.
      View article »
    • Fri Jun 6th 16:03 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Which Solar Stocks Will Continue To Shine?
      West1: I *think* the yuan is pegged off the dollar, so even though they do business in europe they still suffer the dollar/euro exchange issues.
      View article »
    • Fri Jun 6th 11:10 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      How Bad Is the Oil Shock of 2008?
      I find all the social commentary amusing, but irrelevent. Bakken oil shale, Canadian oil sands, ANWR, drilling 5 miles off Biscayne Bay, my evil imperialist capitalist views on the world etc. etc. etc. We get it, there is more oil, and high prices will bring some or all of this online over time. The problem there is the market is not elastic, the only people that can bring 2MM bpd on tomorrow are in the midde east. Further, those people have said they like prices right where they are now.

      The USA is a functional supply and demand marketplace, yet the price of oil continues to rise, thus we are not the culprit. I think it's great that US demand is clearly decreasing, but again, look at price. We are not driving the market.

      Nearly half the world's population purchases oil in NON supply and demand marketplaces where the price is fixed or modified by the local governments (see: India, China, most of the Middle East, Malaysia, Venezuala, etc.)

      Because all of those governments are pumping money into oil subsidies at close to a billion dollars a day, speculators are irrelevent. Said governments actions have affect of driving up demand, which is what speculators depend on. As I've said before: (speculators : supply and demand) as (amplifier : guitar).

      So, keep track of news regarding subsidy modifications. In the last week Malaysia and India have both moved towards lifiting their subsidies, once China blinks the bubble will burst.
      View article »
    • Sun May 18th 09:04 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      PNC Financial Services: Facing the Heat
      I thought about the ETFC comparison some more and realized that I had oversimplifed. Evaluated as a bank ETFC looks terrible, but they have the brokerage business as well. It's two companies in one, and the brokerage is almost as good as the bank side is bad.
      View article »
    • Sat May 17th 15:04 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      PNC Financial Services: Facing the Heat
      I was browsing their balance sheets and noticed a high amount of intangible assets ($9.55B) relative to total asset value ($14.5B). I can only guess that intagible assets are not very useful as collateral. Either way the -intangible leverage is about 23:1.

      With NPL's at 0.77%, up moderately from 0.64 in 2007Q4, and an EPS of $1.09 I don't see a problem here. Frankly they would would like a long play to me if the share price wasn't so high.

      What scared me more that that was doing the same comparison for ETFC. If you back out intangibles their leverage is about 154:1.

      I bring this up because BSC and TMA were leveraged around 33:1 irrelevent of intangibles when the proverbial shit hit the fan.
      View article »
    • Fri May 16th 21:58 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      E*Trade Primed for a Breakout
      I'm just plain long, but I can see a play to buy at 4.15+ and sell at <4.00 (or the reverse) over and over lately.
      View article »
Loading...
Symbols:
Authors:
Quick Links:
Contribute an Article Become a Seeking Alpha Contributor

Transcripts

More Transcripts»