Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Liberty of Thought and Discussion:

I read a very logical and convincing work today by John Stuart Mills entitled "Liberty of Thought and Discussion". Mills makes the argument that society should promote discussion and debate, because "the only way in which a human being can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject is by hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind." The biggest evil is to silence opinions or brand a differentiating opinion as "evil", because it inhibits discussion.

Sadly, several examples of this occur today in our society, especially in politics. President Bush's chronic characterization of Iraq war critics as "unpatriotic" and "weak" is prohibiting debate on the best course of action that America should take. "All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility." It is wrong for any President to act in this way. It is even worse to permit this type of demeanor given all the mishaps his leadership has already committed. Unfortunately, most of politics is now ran on a similar behavior. In our world of short attention spans and 30 second media ads, are we doomed to fall prey to propoganda and ignorance?

Mills' logic is very provoking and hits the heart in today's society. I urge everyone to read the mentioned chapter by Mr. Mills. The link is displayed below as well as under the links section of this blog.

Liberty of Thought and Discussion: Chapter Two

Sunday, October 08, 2006

The Emergence of Online Saving Accounts:

It seems everywhere you look these days in the investment community, there is another ad for an online bank offering very attractive rates in FDIC insured accounts. HSBC, ING, Emigrant, and even Washington Mutual have all sprung up online savings accounts. Because online accounts require no "brick and mortar" locations, they have minmal fixed costs to deal with. And, there is little advantage to one institution's online operations compared to anothers besides the rates they offer. This has led to vicious competition, with APYs reaching over 5%. This compares to under 1% offered by most "physical" banks. The accounts have practically no inconvenieces associated with them- money can be transferred from an online account to a regular bank account within three days and there is no additional fees.

The emergence of online savings accounts has big implications for customers and for investors. Personally, I recommend anyone with a sizeable savings balance to transfer excess money into an online account. I use Emigrant Direct, as it offers one of the most competitive rates with no minimums. E-Loan currently offers 5.50% APY, but requires a minimum of 5,000 dollars. With very little extra effort, you can add a hefty sum into your pockets. For investors, the internet seems to qualify as a disruptive technology. For the moment, checking deposits seem to be safe from online competition, but banks typically recieve most their deposits from savings. Overall, the cost of deposits will surely rise, eroding interest margins and increasing the risk for institutions. The internet can not destroy the traditional business model- their will always be a need for physical locations to deposit and withdraw. But as is usually the case, this increased competition from the internet will likely mean hard times are ahead for most banks.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Closing Out the First Position:

Since first written up on 9/21, Aegis Communications has appreciated from $.043 to .0475 . That is a 10.5% pre-tax return in 15 days. At this point, the stock offers 5.2% further appreciation potential for a deal that should see a payment recieved within 2 months. This is still a respectable 30%+ annualized return, and would be worth it the opportunity was essentially riskless. Unfortunately, as mentioned in our previous report, the closing of this deal had a risk involving the necessary court overridings. Though the approval of this seems likely based on incentives, the legal issue is still beyond my comfortable understanding. And, if the deal were to fall through, the investment would likely get decimated So, with the arbitrage position no longer as favorable as before, today marks the closing of the first investment on this site. (Note: in the near future, i will attach an excel file that will record the buys, sells, and dates involved in recommended investments)

For original write up on Aegis on 9/21, click here.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

The Supply and Demand behind Natural Gas:

As natural gas prices have fallen from 15 to the mid-4 range, I thought it would be a good idea to do a initial overview of the natural gas industry, as well as the economic consequences of the recent decline in price.

First, a general overview of the demand for natural gas. In 2005, consumption of natural gas was 21.9 trillion cubic feet. To give a historical perspective, demand for 2000 was 22.2 trillion while in 1980 it was 19.9 trillion. (Appendix A, B) Their are four major sources for natural gas demand: Residential, commercial, industrial, and electric power. Residential and Commercial consumption has always remained relatively constant, as fuel efficiency has negated any increased demand. Therefore, the major sources of consumption increases over the past few decades have been from industrial uses and electric generation. This has been augmented by the huge misbalance that used to exist in the relationship between the price of natural gas and crude oil. Up until 1980, this ratio traded at an 18:1 ratio, compared to the 6:1 ratio of their energy content. As regulation has loosened, this ratio has steadily adjusted downward as companies made the switch to the more cost efficient natural gas. By the late 90's, this increased demand brought the ratio to a more appropriate average of 7:1 by the late 90's. Since 2000, this ratio has very closely following 6:1. That is, until now.


Crude oil is currently at $63, while natural gas is at 4.50, for a ratio of 14:1. This is just speculation, but the prices of natural gas and crude oil have probably traded so closely in recent years due to hedge fund arbitrage, rather than true economics. Thus, the recent break in the relationship could also be a result of their trading and the unwinding of severe loss positions from companies like Amaranth. Due to the huge divergence in their respective prices, one might expect more demand to emerge for natural gas as it switches from crude oil. Unfortunately, this might not be true (at least not any time soon).

The following excerpt from Alan Greenspan describes the elasticity of these four sources of natural gas demand.

"Residential and commercial prices of natural gas respond sluggishly to movements in the spot price. Thus, to the extent that natural gas consumption must adjust to limited supplies, most of the reduction must come from the industrial sector and, to a lesser extent, utilities."

So, if you were to look for increased consumption, it would have to arise from industry or power generation. I speculate that we will not see a surge in demand emerge anytime soon. My first cause arises from the fact that until '97, the ratio of natural gas prices to crude oil favored the switch for industrials to natural gas. Since '97, the price has hovered close to the 6:1 ratio. Thus, I would
believe that most businesses before 1997 that could switch to natural gas have already made the switch, and they would have had little reason to switch back to crude oil since then. This leaves only the small possibility for increased demand from those industrials that were able but never made the switch, or those businesses that started since 1997 that decided to go with petroleum. With respect to utilities, their power generation and consumption has been growing steadily for several decades. Since natural gas prices have been at hitting new high's recently, I would find it hard to expect any abnormal surge in natural gas powered plants. This is especially true when you take into account that coal has become far more cost competitive, even after carbon reduction requirements. I will keep a close eye on link A below regularly over the next several months to see if my beliefs are indeed true.

Now, for supply. The supply side situation is far more difficult to predict, but at least we can use it to establish a sort of "floor" price for natural gas. Consumption in the US has been satisfied recently by increased imports from Canada, and help from decreased demand due to increased fuel efficiency. Depletion rates (a given years production as a percentage of reserves) have recently been at 27 percent, according to Alan Greenspan. This is higher than usual, and the very motivated or industry experienced might want to see how much of this depletion is occuring to the lowest cost production and how much of the reserve replacement is happening at higher costs. I was unable to find any data regarding that though, so I will rely on the current information I do have. Industry operating costs are currently running at about $1.00 per mcf(Appendix E), making this the extreme worst case scenario price. A severe recession and severe glut in supply would have to occur for prices to reach anything near this area(the possibility of which should never be discounted fully). A more likely scenario though would also take into account finding and development costs, which are basically the amount of money per mcf that companies must invest in order to establish new reserves. FD is currently at approximately $1.50/mcf, and adding in operating costs establishes a reasonable "floor" value at $2.50/mcf natural gas. But even this scenario assumes a lot of negativity. Natural gas companies would no longer be profitable, and supply would have to replace the 27% depletion and probably any increases in demand in the future. I admit my ignorance to this supply situation. I do know many companies have been able to increase their reserves at costs of about these levels, yet I have no idea how long this may persist. In all reality, this may be the best number to use, but I would turn to a 3rd and probably better number - the cost of LNG imports. As many of you know, natural gas is not easily transportable, and in order to ship from foriegn countries it requires or either to be pipelined or converted to LNG and shipped. According to EIA, "the minimum costs range from $3.40 in Baja California to $4.64 in the Pacific Northwest"(Appendix D). Assuming this scenario would take out any concerns over inability to add supply. I would highly recommend readers to use at most $4.50/mcf as the base case in evaluating their investment ideas, and as always look for a significant margin of safety under those circumstances. Using this is not perfect; more industry competent people can probably come up with a far more precise number to use in their calculations, and it is very likely that this could be even below the $4.50/mcf I assume. But for the many people who rely on what they hear from the media or touting analysts, this number is far safer then assuming scenarios of $7, $8, or $10 gas. Remember, preservation of capital is always key. And to make things even more convenient, $4.50 just so happens to be natural gas' current price.

Sources:
A. September 2006 Natural Gas Monthly
B. Historical Natural Gas Annual
C. Historic price of Crude Oil
D. Current Natural Gas and LNG Projections
E. Peters and Co. Oil and Gas Conference- Encana

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

The Newspaper Industry: Cheap or destined for failure?

The onset of the internet has revolutionalized many of our lives for the better, but newspapers are clearly one exception. The internet has reversed the core advantage that newspapers once enjoyed. Newspapers used to dominate their market and people relied on them to inform them of major and local events. Their only other news source was television, which usually was not as extensive and informative. This established a huge audience for newspapers, which was truly their prized asset. Newspapers used this audience to give advertisements and classified ads a way to reach a targeted and local market. Once a newspaper dominated a market, it was near impossible to establish a competing brand. For a long period, these companies used this competitive advantage to earn extremely high returns. Most the cash went straight to shareholder value, because newspapers had minimal capital expenditures that they needed to make.

The internet has changed that. Warren Buffett recently commented on newspaper companies at the 2006 annual shareholders meetings. (courtesy of hypergene Mediablog for the comments)


Do you think that the media business has become permanently less profitable due to new technology?

WB: People will always want to be entertained and informed. But people just have two eyeballs, and there are only 24 hours in a day. Fifty or 60 years ago, media for most people consisted of the local movie theater, radio, and the local newspaper. Now people have a variety of ways of being informed faster (if not necessarily better), and have more entertainment options, too. But no one has figured out a way to increase the time available to watch entertainment.

Whenever more competitors enter a business, the economics of that business tends to deteriorate. Newspapers are still highly profitable, but returns are falling. The size of the audience for network TV is declining. For years, cable TV was thought to operate in its own world, but that’s changing. Few businesses get better with more competitors.

The outlook for newspapers is not great. In the TV business, a license from the government was essentially the right to a royalty stream. There were basically three highways to people’s eyeballs, and companies like P&G, Ford, Gillette, and GM would pay a significant amount of money to be get on those highways and advertise their products to a mass audience. But as the ways to get in front of people’s eyeballs increases, the value of those highways goes down.

World Book used to sell 300,000 sets per year in the mid-1980s, each for $600. Then the Internet cam along; it didn’t require printing or shipping, and people became less willing to pay for World Book sets. It doesn’t mean that it’s not worth $600. But competition has eroded returns.

CM: It’s a rare business that doesn’t have a way worse future than it has a past.

WB: The thing to do was to buy the NFL when it was first organized. There are now more ways than ever to transit events; value can be extracted from them in different ways.

If you were looking at newspaper publishers as possible investments, what would you use as a margin of safety?

WB: What multiple should you for a company that earns $100 million per year whose earnings are falling by 5% per year rather than rising by 5% per year? Newspapers face the prospect of seeing their earnings erode indefinitely. It’s unlikely that at most papers, circulation or ad pages will be larger in five years than they are now. That’s even true in cities that are growing.

But most owners don’t yet see this protracted decline for what it is. The multiples on newspaper stocks are unattractively high. They are not cheap enough to compensate for the companies’ earnings power. Sometimes there’s a perception lag between the actual erosion of a business and how that erosion is seen by investors. Certain newspaper executives are going out and investing on other newspapers. I don’t see it. It’s hard to make money buying a business that’s in permanent decline. If anything, the decline is accelerating. Newspaper readers are heading into the cemetery, while newspaper non-readers are just getting out of college. The old virtuous circle, where big readership draws a lot of ads, which in turn draw more readers, has broken down.

Charlie and I think newspapers are indispensable. I read four a day. He reads five. We couldn’t live without them. But a lot of people can now. This used to be the ultimate bulletproof franchise. It’s not anymore.

CM: I used to think that GM was a bulletproof franchise. Now I’d put GM and newspapers in the “Too Hard” pile. If something is too hard to do, we look for something that isn’t too hard. What could be more obvious?

WB: It may be that no one has followed the newspaper business as closely as we have for as long as we have—50 years or more. It’s been interesting to watch newspaper owners and investors resist seeing what’s going on right in front of them. It used to be you couldn’t make a mistake managing a newspaper. It took no management skill—like TV stations. Your nephew could run one.


That pretty much sums it up. The internet added a huge new competitor by providing a cheaper and quicker way to distribute the news. This clearly has hurt their circulation numbers as more people have migrated to the use of internet. But the problem gets even worse. The internet also provided more effective ways of advertisement. Companies can use pay-per-click models to ensure that every advertising dollar corresponds with an interested user. Classifieds can target national or local markets for practically free through the use of Craigslist or other online classified sites. Newspapers don't seem to have a way to counteract either of these trends. Most companies were too slow to realize the changes happening before them with the interact and didnt prepare for these shifts.

All these problems could be overlooked if newspaper stocks were trading at the right price. But unfortunately, most of the companies are heavily leveraged and their stocks continue to trade at hefty multiples. If you use a discount rate of 10%, you would need a PE of at least 10 to justify flat earnings. But most companies still trade at multiples in the mid teens. These prices do not justify the inevitable deterioration of their core business. At a recent media conference, Warren Buffett raised his hand and asked an executive "If the internet had been invented first, do you think we'd have newspapers today?"
The executive thought for a little and finally responded with a no. "Then that's all you need to know about the future of newspapers."

Of the potential stock investments in the newspaper industry, only one company has stood out as a possible value. This company will be written up shortly. But in general, readers will be best advised to keep newspaper companies out of their investment portfolios for the time being.

Monday, September 25, 2006

The Flaws of the American Democracy

Recently, my political science class was asked to write a paper answering the question, "Is our Constitution a democratic document?" Reproduced below are three paragraphs from my essay which discuss two important trends occuring in our country that need to be addressed. These factors are hurting our government by aligning the interests against democracy in our country.


"The Constitution was skillfully crafted with the provisions necessary to ensure a lasting democracy. The Framers felt they implemented all the ideals necessary to ensure the progress of the United States. Yet, as time has passed, special interests have been able to wield increasingly disproportionate influence and have harmed the democratic process. Is this a sign that our democracy is faulty and destined for failure? Not quite. Rather, certain trends after our country’s formation have allowed money and organization to increasingly influence elections.

Money has been used throughout the history of the country to influence elections and agendas. This problem has increased as campaigns have become more complex and costly, forcing politicians raise more funds. The problem with campaign contributions is that they make elected officials feel obligated to their financial supporters, and this causes them to implement the requests of these few wealthy patrons. The second problem has to do with the rising power of organized groups. Jesse Jackson has said that “in politics, an organized minority is a political majority“. Their political power has arisen due to the increasing pervasiveness of elections today. “A century ago, officials usually were elected on the same day,” but today a citizen is called to the polls repeatedly (FPSV 12). This has deterred a majority of people from participating, leaving the door open for any organized group have significant influence. These groups seek measures that directly benefit them, but the costs are usually spread amongst the entire population. The incentive is not in place for the population to participate in an election simply to vote against a measure that will marginally cost them. As a result of these two factors, special interests can wield unequal power and damage the democratic process as it was intended.

The root of this problem does not stem from a flaw in the design of the Constitution. The massive political organization of the population and the incredible complexity of campaigns were both unforeseeable by the Framers. Simplifying the voting process and coordinating elections so that they fall on fewer days will help voter turn out and decrease the power of organization. Stricter limits on direct campaign financing will limit the conflicts of interest regarding political donations. The Framers spent too much time coming up with an effective form of democracy that protected the individual’s powers and rights. The Constitution is proof that Agnes Repplier’s remarks are false and democracy can be achieved. Many foreign entities would be better off if they set up a government with similar properties of its structure. It would be a shame to allow these minor faults lead people to miss the truly intellectual beauty behind our democratic Constitution."

The Three Rules to Intelligent Investing

In order to practice sound investing, you need to religiously follow these rules. (Courtesy of Ben Graham) Once you truly accept these, your on the path to learning and growing true investment acumen.

1. that you should look at stocks as part Ownership of a business,

2. that you should look at market fluctuations in terms of his "Mr. Market" example and make them your friend rather than your enemy by essentially profiting from folly rather than participating in it, and finally,

3. the three most important words in investing are "Margin of safety" - which Ben talked about in his last chapter of The Intelligent Investor - always building a 15,000 pound bridge if you're going to be driving 10,000 pound trucks across it.

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Learning from Past Mistakes

I have a mistake that I hope none of us repeat. I invested in W Holding(WHI), a puerto rican bank, a little over a year ago on the belief it was chief. My reasoning was this. The company had a long history of making good returns on equity. It continued to gain market share in its home market, and it was even planning on starting expansion into the US. It had a CEO with a stake in the company and it had a history of never being unprofitable. Plus, it was trading under 10 times earnings.( An analysts estimate of earnings)

So What went wrong? Well, alot of things. For one, i ignored a lot of important factors that must be analyzed for a bank. These factors led to a steep drop off in the earnings/earnings potential of the company. I now understand some of these, though I havent invested in a bank since this incidence. One, WHI was able to grow their market share so fast because they were being very agressive in acquiring funds. A majority of their deposits were high-yielding, something I failed to consider. Whereas some banking institutions, such as Wells Fargo, have a huge supply of virtually costless deposits in the form of checking accounts, WHI was only able to attract all the money it got through its costly savings accounts and preferred shares. The second factor I didnt take into account was the difference between interest and non-interest income. This factor, when combined with the first, can lead to a deadly combination. A bank can only control so much when it comes to their interest spread and profitability. But non-interest income is usally recurring, safer, and far more desirable. Certain banks, again such as Wells Fargo, have a very high percentage of non interest revenue (approx 40%). WHI had under 10%. The result of all this is recent history. As the yield curve flattened, WHIs cost of funds increased while the yields on its loans decreased. It also began to take increased charges for loan due to an increase in bankruptcy filings in puerto rico. (This was another mistake.. the market and economy of the bank's constituency is also very important).

Two dreadful earnings reports and a 20% loss later, I cut my losses and realized there was a lot about the banking industry that was at the time outside my comprehension. The above factors are VERY important to consider when buying a finanial institution, and they probably illustrate two reasons why Buffett continues to add to his Wells Fargo investment.

For a read through several other mistakes, visit the link below.

http://groups.msn.com/BerkshireHathawayShareholders/general.msnw?action=
get_message&mview=0&ID_Message=24119&LastModified=4675590672449508333

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Aegis Communications (AGIS): Profitable arbitrage opportunity

Aegis Communications is currently trading at .044 . Its majority shareholder, World Focus, has offered to take the company private at .05 a share, offering a 8.8% after-tax return and naturally sparking my interest. So, as in all arbitrage opportunities, we turn to analyzing the risks and the rewards.

How likely is it that the deal will go through? There are currently 3 main risks inherit in this deal. First, shareholders have the right to protest and demand a fairer value for their share. Second, there is the possibility that World Focus will cancel the deal. Third, and final(and probably the greatest risk), There is approximately 30,000 preferred shares that need to consent approval of the merger, but the company cannot track down the holders and instead is seeking to bypass this step through Delaware courts.

The first risk is unlikely to lead to any problems. World Focus offered a 66% premium to the prior price and they used very generous multiples when coming up with the final price. Also, the only way this risk can bear fruit is if someone protests to the Delaware court of Chancellery. There is no common shareholder vote approval needed.

It is also very unlikely that World Focus will cancel the deal. World Focus currently owns 94.7% of Aegis' stock. To complete the transaction, they have to only use another 3.7 million. Given that World Focus is a subsidiary of the Essar Group, a 15 billion market cap indian company, it is unlikely that the price of the deal will have any funding problems. By taking the company private, they will also be able to eliminate $500,000 in audit and Sarbanes Oxley fees, and the managers can remain focused on the business. Thus, the means and incentive seem to be in place for World Focus to want to complete this deal.

The third risk is the one that could bring about the most problems. The company requires approval from the Series B shareholders in order to complete the deal. As World Focus was unable to locate these shareholders, they decided at the time of filing to go ahead and seek approval through the Delaware Court of Chancellery unless they could be located beforehand. There are several reasons the Series B shareholders will seek out the company though and approve the deal. Prior to this announcement, the Series B preferredholders were recieving no dividends on their shares as a result of one of Aegis's recent debt agreements. World Focus is offering to buy them out at face value plus accrued and unpaid dividends. This allows the holders to cash out with a nice profit on an otherwise risky and unprofitable investment.

BUT, even if the holders cant be located, World Focus has said they have bypassed approval before through the courts and they expect this to be closed by October 30.

*The author has a position in Aegis Communications. All information provided is believed to be reliable and presented for information purposes only.

That is one month and 9 days from now. Assuming it takes longer to complete and also to recieve the payment from your broker, we will assume a scenario of 2 months. That provides a 52% annualized gain, and there is no limit on the amount of shares you can own - unless you buy up all the 3 million in float. For smaller investors, and myself included, this offers a compelling return opportunity and the incentives are in place for the deal to go through.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Bancinsurance Corp (BCIS): undervalued and off the radar

Bancinsurance is a microcap insurance company whose main business involves providing insurance against collateral for lending institutions. Basically, if someone defaults on a loan, bancinsurance makes sure that the collateral is still worth as much as it was originally. Bancinsurance provides its services to approximately 400 lending institutions, and it operates in a small and highly profitable niche. So why the great opportunity?

5 years ago, Bancinsurance entered into a new line on reinsurance covering for immigration and bail bonds. The results were disastrous; the company was forced to take a big hit to reserves, their auditors left, and they were delisted from the Nasdaq. Bancinsurances responsed quickly, hiring a new auditor, discontinuing the business, and hiring a legal firm to dispute the charges.

This was 2 years ago. Bancinsurance has now returned to filing, its legal disputes are coming to a close, and its core business is still highly profitable. Adverse loss reserves from the discontinud bond program are pretty much not a problem as the company has already assumed close to worst case scenarios for its legal disputes and the policies were also short-tail. We are left with a company that is severely cheap and with a catalyst to improving earnings.

How Cheap?

BCIS currently has a market cap of 30 million, and total debt of 15 million, minus 4.2 million recieved from the sale of its publishing division, giving an Enterprise value of 40 million. It has a 95 million investment portfolio; assuming a 4% yield, this gives you approximately 4 million in earnings. If discounted at 10%, this gives you 40 million. With simply the investment portfolio, the current price is already justified.

Underwriting

05 04 03 02 01 00 99 98 97 96
Loss Ratio 45.8 95.1 66.1 69.3 56.6 60.7 57.8 63.9 54.4 53.3
Expense Ratio 47.8 34.6 26.0 21.0 35.4 27.4 26.6 16.5 22.1 30.5
Combined Ratio 93.6 129.7 92.1 90.3 92.0 88.1 84.4 80.4 76.5 83.8

BCIS currently writes over 50 million in premiums annually. Historically, the company has averaged combined ratios in the mid 80's. What has changed recently? A comparision of the loss and expense ratios makes this clear. BCIS's expense ratio has increased significantly in the past few years as a result of increased legal and audit fees. The company has been able to increase pricing to compensate for this, resulting in the lowest loss ratio in the company's history. This shows to me the pricing power the company possesses in this niche. Regardless, management has stated by the end of the year they should be mostly finished with their legal fees and the expense ratio should fall to a more normal level.

Assuming the 93% CR the company achieved in 2005, this would be an additional 3.5 million in pre-tax income, or 2.25 million after tax. If the company improves the expense ratio to 37%, that changes it to 5.5 million after tax. If it improves the expense ratio back to the historic average of 25%, it will earn 9.25 million after tax. Combine any of these figures with the 4 million earned from the investment portfolio and you get a net income range of 6.25 million to 13.25 million.

As for manamgent, the Sokol family owns 62% of the stock, does not take excessive pay, and has done a good job steering the company.
At an EV of 40 million, BCIS has a significant margin of safety and a huge potential for upside.

Disclosure: I own shares in BCIS.

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Hi Everyone. I created this blog in order to share my thoughts on a variety of subjects, but I will mostly focus on Investing, Economics, and Politics. I stick to facts and make my decisions based on what I view to be rational. My investment philosophy is based on finding severely undervalued companies that are usually misunderstood or unheard on Wall street, and generally requires a longer term time frame. Occasionally I will post about short term arbitrage ideas that generate attractive annualized returns. With regards to Economics and Politics, I believe in open trade and a free market society, and that government should only interfere to bring about a collective good that individually can not be accomplished. My knowledge and perspective has been influenced by the thoughts and teachings of several "value" investors, most importantly Warren Buffett, Ben Graham, and Martin Whitman. I also gain insight from chronic reading of The Economist. I hope that by sharing my thoughts I will be able to stimulate discussions and criticisms that will challenge me to more deeply analyze and understand my ideas.