Macroeconomia Usa-Europa Possibili opportunità di investimento azionario

Rule No. 3

Look for companies whose customers have the cash or credit to keep buying.

In a recession, customers -- individual or corporate -- stop spending because they don't have the cash, because they don't have the credit to raise the cash and/or because they're afraid of what the future might bring. Companies can't do much about it if their customers fall into the fear group. Fear clamping down on consumers' wallets is, after all, one of the reasons we're likely to have a recession in 2008-09 to begin with.

But as an investor, you want to make sure any growth company you own has customers flush with cash or with hefty lines of credit. If you want to see what happens when customers can't borrow, just look at how auto sales have plunged as Ford (F, news, msgs), General Motors (GM, news, msgs) and other car companies have cut back on their leasing programs.
Ideally, you want to own shares in a growth company such as Middleby (MIDD, news, msgs). In October, the company announced that Yum Brands' (YUM, news, msgs) KFC chain had successfully tested Middleby's new oven. Middleby's Blodgett Hydrovection oven is the key to a new KFC product line that will include new signage at KFC stores ("Now Grilling!"), a redesign of the company's iconic bucket and a whole new direction for the chicken empire that has never been a bastion of healthful eating.
Whether Kentucky Grilled Chicken provides the turnaround in KFC performance that Yum Brands is looking for, or turns out to be a marketing disaster of New Coke proportions, the news couldn't come at a better time for Middleby. Wall Street analysts estimate the rollout of the ovens across the chain over the next seven to eight months will bring in about $700 million in business for Middleby.
And, best of all in the current market, Yum Brands itself is buying the ovens. That means Middleby doesn't have to worry about the franchisers who own a good chunk of KFC's 5,200 U.S. locations deciding they can't come up with the cash in the current economy.
Customers with deep pockets. Yum.
In my Oct. 6 column, "Everything's changed now -- for the worse," I laid out a goal of having 40% in cash and then dividing the other 60% of the portfolio evenly among dirt-cheap natural-resources stocks (see my Oct. 17 column "Be ready for the commodity comeback"), cheap growth stocks and income stocks.
Current Jubak's Picks Deere (DE, news, msgs), Gilead Sciences (GILD, news, msgs), Gorman-Rupp (GRC, news, msgs), Itron (ITRI, news, msgs), Maxwell Technologies (MXWL, news, msgs) and Middleby fit the bill.
Adding Nucor if the price was right would fill out that part of the portfolio. Apple doesn't make the cut, and neither does Nokia (NOK, news, msgs). In hindsight, buying them was a big mistake caused by a serious underestimation of the force of a consumer-led recession. I will sell them when I get the chance -- into a rally, should we get one that lasts more than a day or so.

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.co...l/cheap-stocks-theyre-an-illusion.aspx?page=2
 
Developments on past columns

"To mix oil and profits, think small": It's only logical that shares of an oil-drilling-rig company like Transocean (RIG, news, msgs) should sell off along with the price of oil. As oil prices drop, oil companies cut their budgets for exploration and development. At some point down the road, that will translate into lower earnings for the companies that lease drilling rigs.

But enough to justify a 53% drop in share price from July 15 through Oct. 23? I don't think so. I think what we're seeing here is panic selling by investors -- hedge funds, mutual funds and private-equity funds -- that need to raise cash and that are now selling off anything in their portfolios that will bring in some bucks. Even if the current selling price makes no sense.
And it doesn't in the case of Transocean. The company specializes in deep-water rigs, and that's the part of the market that's least likely to see big numbers of cancellations and big drops in day rates. The supply of deep-water rigs was so tight and the demand so high before the plunge in oil prices that customers are rightly worried that if they lose their place in line now, they won't be able to lease a deep-water rig for two to three years. The Wall Street analysts who are cutting their earnings estimates for Transocean are doing it with a scalpel rather than a meat cleaver. Estimate cuts for 2009 are now on the order of 2% to 5%. That's not enough to justify a 50% drop in share price.
Transocean is now selling at about four times projected 2009 earnings per share. But maybe Wall Street estimates are still way too optimistic. So then value the stock in other ways. The book value -- that's the value of the stuff like deep-water drilling rigs that Transocean owns at the price the company paid for them -- per share is $46.91. That's not so far below the stock market price of $69.45 on Oct. 23. Book value underestimates the value of assets, such as drilling rigs, that have climbed in value since they were first purchased.
Using measures that try to capture the current value of Transocean's assets gives a much better estimate of the value of tangible stuff that supports the company's business. The net asset value, for example, for the company comes to $97.58 a share, calculates Jefferies & Co. The replacement value -- what it would cost to duplicate Transocean's biggest-in-the-industry fleet of deep-water rigs today -- comes to $123.97 a share. As much as I'd love to reduce the heavy overweighting of Jubak's Picks to the energy and natural-resources sectors, there's no way I'm going to sell tangible assets worth $124 a share for $69 a share.
I know I've got no idea where the selling might stop on this stock, but I'm willing to hold for a price that more accurately reflects the company's long-term value -- especially since, unlike the big boys, I'm not facing pressure from antsy investors to sell, and I don't have losses from risky bets that I need to cover.
As of Oct. 24, I'm setting a new target price for Transocean of $117.60 -- that's a 20% premium to net asset value per share -- by December 2009.

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.co...l/cheap-stocks-theyre-an-illusion.aspx?page=3
 
Poteva darsi che fosse presto per investire ma J. Montier ai prezzi di chiusura del 25/11 notava alcune azioni che costituivano una profonda opportunità value

Nov. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Societe Generale SA strategist James Montier said he’s never been so bullish after the financial crisis dragged down prices for stocks, corporate bonds and inflation-protected government debt.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index is “distinctly cheap” because it trades for 15.4 times the 10-year moving average of its companies’ profits, compared with an average of 18 for the U.S. market since 1881, London-based Montier wrote in a research note today. Fifteen stocks in the U.S. index, from Chevron Corp. to Gap Inc., pass his test for “deep value,” while a tenth of shares in Europe and a fifth in Asia qualify.
“This is a value investor’s version of heaven,” wrote Montier, SocGen’s global equity strategist. “From a bottom-up perspective, the equity market is offering some excellent companies at truly bargain prices for those with the fortitude to shut their eyes, or at least switch off their screens and buy.”


Montier was a member of the top-ranked investment strategy team in Thomson Extel’s surveys the past three years.
“With all of these opportunities available I have never been more bullish!” he wrote. “Will I be early? Almost certainly yes, but if I can find assets with attractive returns and I have a long time horizon I would be mad to turn them down.”

S&P 500 stocks that Montier characterizes as “deep value opportunities” based on profit and dividend yields, debt levelsand price relative to earnings:
Allegheny Technologies Inc.
Carnival Corp.
Chevron Corp.
ConocoPhillips
Cummins Inc.
Dow Chemical Co.
Gap Inc.
Illinois Tool Works Inc.
Ingersoll-Rand Co.
KLA-Tencor Corp.
Marathon Oil Corp.
Molex Inc.
Nucor Corp.
Tesoro Corp.
Valero Energy Corp.
Last Updated: November 25, 2008 16:41 EST

http://bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=conewsstory&refer=conews&tkr=COP:US&sid=aUZdvU7elPDY
 
E' iniziato un nuovo mercato Toro per l' S&P500 con l' avanzata di ieri.
Infatti l' S&P500 è salito di oltre il 20% dal minimo di Novembre, e un rialzo di oltre il 20% per un indice da un punto di vista tecnico indica l' inizio di un bull market e la fine del mercato orso.

Technical End
All 10 industry groups in the S&P 500 have risen at least 9.2 percent since the benchmark’s low last month. Financial stocks led the rally, climbing 46 percent collectively, followed by consumer discretionary and telephone companies.
Today’s gains put a technical end to the 13-month bear market that began after the S&P 500 reached a record close of 1,565.15. An advance of more than 20 percent from a low is the standard definition of a bull market.

“There’s an awareness now that this is across the board,” Birinyi said. “You have bleeding all over and a Band-aid here and a Band-aid there is not going to form a solution. You’ve got to really take some dramatic action, and I think that’s what investors are responding to today.”
Last Updated: December 8, 2008 19:46 EST


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aq4i1OFmdt6I


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601213&sid=aN_y.vihuXMo&refer=home
 
December 09, 2008

Today we have Professor's and ultra short sell side analysts trying to convince us that the market will not rebound till 2010-2011
...
They are all betting against a tidal wave thats about to hit Named "OBAMA Infrastructure Tidal wave" Biggest spending spree since the 1950's. Which was done to help America get out of the War World II job depression. Guess what? It worked and America rallied bigtime.
Ever heard the term never swim against the tide?

Well shorts are now swimming against the tide.
Time to start loading up in overbeaten sectors such as Drybulk, Infrastructure, and Fertilizer, ahead of big 3 bailout, ahead of another rate cut, ahead of Christmas, ahead of Obama infrastructure spending.
Stocks to watch for jumping in on any weakness:
EXM, MOS, DRYS, X, AKS, LAYN POT, TWI

http://caps.fool.com/blogs/viewpost.aspx?bpid=117638&t=01007468826027738866
 
In base ad un modello teorico le azioni sono convenienti in ottica di medio-lungo termine, ed entro fine anno si dovrebbe notare che il fondo è stato toccato.

11:20 p.m. EST Dec. 9, 2008
ANNANDALE, Va. (MarketWatch) -- It is one of the ironies of stock-market timing that it is easier to forecast where the market will be in several years than where it will be in several days.


And, according to a valuation model from a research firm with an excellent long-term record, the stock market is likely to be significantly higher in several years' time -- regardless of whether the final low of the last year's bear market has been seen.
The firm in question is Ford Equity Research of San Diego. This firm is on my radar screen because it publishes a newsletter entitled Ford Equity Research Investment Review. And its market-timing model deserves to be on your radar screen because it has a good long-term record.
Ford bases its model on an analysis of individual stocks' valuations. For each of several thousand issues, Ford calculates a so-called price-to-value ratio, which "is computed by dividing the price of a company's stock by the value derived from a proprietary intrinsic value model."
According to Ford, "A [price-to-value ratio] greater than 1.00 indicates that a company is overpriced while a [ratio] less than 1.00 implies that a stock is trading below the level justified by its earnings, quality rating, dividends, projected growth rate, and prevailing interest rates." After calculating a price-to-value ratio for each of the several thousand stocks that it monitors, Ford calculates an overall average.
Since 1970, when Ford started calculating the ratio, this average's record high level was 1.81, which it hit at the end of September 1987, three weeks prior to the worst crash in U.S. stock market history. Its second highest level, 1.79, was registered at the end of February 2000, just a couple of weeks prior to the bursting of the Internet bubble and the beginning of the 2000-2002 bear market.
Today, this average stands at 0.68. That's the lowest since December 1974, when it got slightly lower, to 0.61. Other than that December 1974 reading, the current level of this average is the lowest since 1970, when Ford began calculating it.
In addition, the current level is well below the four-decade average, which stands at 1.17.
This would certainly appear to be good news for the stock market.
To test whether Ford's model has statistical significance, I fed the monthly values for the average price-to-value ratio into my PC's statistical package, along with data on how the stock market performed. As expected, I found an inverse correlation between where the Ford average stood and the stock market's performance over the subsequent one-, three-, and five-year periods.
That is, higher price-to-value ratios were more often than not followed by lower market returns, and vice versa. And these correlations were significant at the 95% confidence level that statisticians often use to judge whether a correlation is genuine.
Can the Ford data be used to forecast anything shorter term?
Ford's analysts pointed out in a recent special report prepared for their clients that the average price-to-value ratio of U.S. stocks "dropped below 1.0 [only] seven previous times - April 1973, April 1976, April 1980, September 1990, August 1993, August 1998, and June 2002. In each of these cases, the market made an initial low within the first three months" after breaking below that 1.0 level.
In the current bear market, the 1.0 level wasn't broken until October.
As a result, Ford's analysts conclude that, "We should expect to see that the market has bottomed by year-end."
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http://www.marketwatch.com/news/sto...-A23A-4B6F-B22B-6A138ACE25CB}&dist=TNMostRead
 
RBC Picks 20 Companies That Might Benefit From Obama's Infrastructure Plan

December 10, 2008

...

a list of 20 names that could benefit from public spending on bridges, roads and the equipment and systems required to improve energy efficiency. EMCOR Group Inc. (EME), which makes systems for voice and data, electrical power and lighting, topped the list. It was joined by engineering and construction company Fluor Corp. (FLR) and facilities maintenance product supplier W.W. Grainger Inc. (GWW).Nuts-and-bolts distributor Fastenal Co. (FAST) and specialty contractor Quanta Services Inc. (PWR) came next in RBC’s ranking, which shows that these top names have the best odds of outperformance over time. Caterpillar, Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. (JEC), Terex Corp. (TEX), Vulcan Materials Co. (VMC), Evergreen Solar Inc. (ESLR) and Fuelcell Energy Inc. (FCEL) also made the top 20.
Mr. Zyblock also looked at the characteristics of various policies as short-term economic stimulus, including individual tax proposals, business tax plans and spending proposals. For individuals, a lump sum rebate is typically going to be more effective if it is focused on people who are likely to spending it, the strategist said in a research note. “Experience is mixed with respect to effectiveness, introducing some uncertainty about the rebate’s effect,” he said, adding that processing and mailing rebate checks also takes time.
Temporary tax reductions such as a withholding holiday for the Employee Payroll Tax could be viewed the same as a rebate, which might reduce the stimulus, Mr. Zyblock said. Meanwhile, an across-the-board tax rate cut gives most of the breaks to higher-income groups, who are probably less likely to spend it. RBC also considered a reduction in corporate taxes, suggesting that while they have a limited impact on new investment decisions, improved cash flow could help smaller firms in particular.
Spending proposals such as direct transfer payments to households through extending or expanding unemployment benefits – something that is frequently done in recessions – was praised for being cost-effective, fast-acting and with a relative reliable outcome. So too was the temporarily increase of food stamp benefits. Meanwhile, investing in public works projects is not considered very cost-effective, may take a long time to have a positive impact, but the positive outcome is predictable.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/110...ight-benefit-from-obama-s-infrastructure-plan
 

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