MARKETPULSE
An observant friend recently noted, without a trace of irony, that Ben Bernanke’s beard is markedly whiter than when he became Fed chairman—clear evidence that you should be careful what you wish for. We haven’t always been fans of Bernanke. But we can’t fault him for not doing the impossible—which essentially is what confronts him now. His dilemma is that he is facing not one but two potential vicious circles. If he solves one—the debt crisis—he…
Apple’s Trojan Horse Strategy: From Music to Macs, the Company’s Cool Systems and Gadgets Inspire Loyalty; We Sell Toyota
Whenever possible, we like to invest in franchises—companies that dominate their markets and thus have enough control over pricing to weather almost any storm. Automaker Toyota has long been one of our favorite franchises. But while we still think the company will do well over the longer term, we’ve become concerned about its prospects over the next year or so, and we’re selling. Toyota is still a great company. But it has fallen behind in diesel…
INCOME PORTFOLIO
Welcome Back PetroChina: Its Stock Price Is Back Down to Earth; We Also Add Rohm and Haas
Many TCI readers may remember PetroChina, China’s biggest oil company. It was a longtime member of Income Portfolio until we sold it last October because the company had become too richly valued. Now, the stock price having come back down to earth, PetroChina rejoins Income Portfolio. All our original reasons for liking the company remain intact. Overall production growth is in the mid-single digits, an impressive number in today’s world. And the undervalued yuan puts this…
FUNDFOLIO
Another Way to Get Into Gold: We Add a Fidelity Fund That Focuses On Larger-Cap Miners
Mutual funds offer easy diversification while taking much of the hassle out of investing—particularly with foreign stocks, which can be a pain. A mutual fund lets you sit back while someone else takes care of all the details of handling foreign transactions, converting currencies, and other stumbling blocks of foreign investing. Such issues apply with equal force to gold investing, since most gold exploration occurs outside the U.S. With gold so critical in today’s world, we…
FUND FINDS
What They’re Buying
Two Tech Winners With Further to Run: Hewlett-Packard, Logitech, Still Look Good; So Does Mohawk
FAST TRACK
Palm’s Latest Sour Results: Meanwhile, Helix Energy, With a New Kicker, Is a Great Buy
Although FastTrack short Palm recently boasted about the sale of its millionth low-priced Centro smartphone, financial results for the most recent quarter didn’t ring any bells of joy. The company’s fiscal third-quarter results not only came in below expectations, they swung to the loss column, with total sales dropping significantly to $312.1 million vs. $410.5 million for the year-earlier period. Palm is counting on the Centro, which constituted a “huge chunk” (management’s words) of the…
SECTOR SENSE
Eastern Promise: Eastern Europe’s Diverse Countries Share Outsized Economic Potential
Eastern Europe is an amorphous concept that means different things to different people. Hungary, for instance, prefers to identify itself as part of Central Europe, while Turkey sprawls all over the map. For practical purposes, though, Eastern Europe is generally considered as the successor to the former Eastern bloc, minus most of the Eurasian former Soviet Republics but including Albania and the nations that once made up Yugoslavia. For investors, the real point is that Eastern…
MARKET BITES
Market Bites
Housing on the Mend … But at the Price of Inflation, A REIT to Run From, CHINDIA, MasterKey
WHAT THEY'RE THINKING
Patrick DeSouza: Securities for Security
Patrick DeSouza tends to look at the investment world mainly through the prism of national security, broadly defined. That’s not surprising; his background—which includes a B.A. in economics from Columbia University, a law degree from Yale Law, and a Ph.D. in international law from Stanford University—encompasses a stint serving on the National Security Council during the Clinton administration. And he is author of the book Economic Strategy and National Security (2000) in which he makes…
SMALL CAP VALUE PORTFOLIO
Catch-Up Appeal in Natural Gas: It Lags Oil, Giving Bill Barrett and Union Drilling a Lot of Room to Grow
Despite a raging bull market in fossil fuels, the price of natural gas relative to oil is roughly half of what it was four years ago. While oil and gas prices both have risen during that time, the move in gas has been far more muted. Some might argue that crude oil is overvalued. A modest short-term pullback in crude prices is certainly possible here, but we’re inclined to view it more as a case of…
