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  • Is it Time to Buy Dry Bulk Shippers?
    Nice summary for investors who knows nothing about shipping. Otherwise, there's nothing new here. In a year or two, people will look back at today as a golden buying opportunity because ALL stocks are so undervalued (not just dry bulk shipping). The trick is buying companies that will survive the shakedown. Long-term contracts are good now, but they will expire in the near future as well and they'll lock in low long-term contracts, which when the shipping rates rebound will turn around and be considered a negative. I'm long GNK, and while I don't expect the current dividend to last, I think they'll survive the shakeout. When I say long, I mean 20+ years.
    Dec 29 09:28 am |Rating: +1 -2 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Freeport-McMoran: Dead Money Until Copper Prices Recover
    I just tripled my stake in FCX today. I'll re-evaluate it in 5 years. I have a hunch I'll have made quite a bit of money.
    Dec 05 09:53 am |Rating: +3 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Comeback Stocks
    Nothing like some good old performance chasing. Did it take both of them to do the chart?
    Dec 05 08:11 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Will All Shipping Companies Suffer Equally?
    I'm not saying things look rosy for shipping in the short term, but I will say this... Forbes must have a columnist dedicated to shipping, because it seems that I'm reading this "week-by-week&quo... drop in the Baltic all the time from a Forbes article. Not trying to shoot the messenger, but when Cramer gets on and hypes a company I tend to listen very skeptically. I am now doing the same when Forbes pumps out their doom and gloom articles on shipping.
    Dec 01 08:16 am |Rating: +2 -1 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Canadian Royalty Trusts Will Never Return to Their Former Glory
    "Can oil and gas return to former pricing? I doubt it until after 2011 or 2012"? Are you kidding me? The average price in 2007 was $72, and you really think that its current $40-50 price is here for good? Mexico and Russia have projected 5-8% declines in production next year. Venezuela's actions over the last year won't boost production. Saudi Arabia proved that their running at maximum. Those are long-term trends that will not reverse. Meanwhile, despite any short-term demand destruction from a recession, you have increasing demand from China and India. Sure they're not booming at 9-11% anymore. They've slowed to ONLY 5-6%. Less oil... more demand.
    Nov 24 09:44 am |Rating: +2 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Looking Good: Genco in Particular, Shipping in General
    You can pretty much count on reductions in dividends. Many of these guys are hanging on by the skin of their teeth, and the next year or two will be a period of washing out the weak. But I do agree that Genco is in a good position compared to the others. It has been riding a wave of 90%+ contracted fleet, and even though they recently wrote down $23M for the forfeited deposit on a fleet of new ships that they canceled, at least they bit the bullet, did it early, and kept losses at a minimum. When a bunch of the others go out of business and shipping picks up (which it will) they'll be in a very good position. But I agree with oneslip that there's no rush to buy, unless you want to just sit on the dividends (my guess is they'll cut those back to the 10% range to reflect the new stock prices). The price can ALWAYS go down, no matter how ridiculously low it is now. They MAY have bottomed, but my guess is they'll be hovering here for a while anyway.
    Nov 24 09:20 am |Rating: 0 -1 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Four Chinese Solar Stocks Under Threat from Pollution
    Is this article for real?!? Are you SERIOUSLY trying to argue that solar is dead because the sun can't make its way through Beijing's smog?!? Even if that were the case, it would be an argument for MORE SOLAR IN CHINA! Smog comes from burning fossil fuels. How do you get rid of smog? Stop burning so many fossil fuels. Do I really need to continue the argument (maybe I do with the author of this POS article). Hey, since there won't be any sun anymore, do you think I should invest in Chinese subterranean real estate?
    Nov 18 12:47 pm |Rating: +1 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • As Solar Plummets, Stocks Drop Below Book Value
    Obama was just on 60 minutes, and he said something that I think he just might be able to pull off. He said that the US has a history of dependence on oil --- much like narcotics (his words) --- where we're all screaming about it when the price gets high, but then the price comes down and we get adjusted to the new lower price (which is actually higher than before). He said now is the best time to break that addiction. I'm no starry-eyed supporter or any politician, but his frankness and directness about the subject was refreshing, and I think that this country will finally have a REAL energy policy put in place soon, and that will include cutbacks in imported oil and increased incentives for solar, wind and NG.

    And in reference to the last comment about states laying off people, he (or she) doesn't realize that most states have already put into place mandated increases in the percentage of "alternative"... energy sources that utilities must use. It has nothing to do with the state --- its all on the utility companies to do it. That is the bulk of this stuff --- not private individuals and subsidies. Just like WPSPIKER said the subsidies, while they are there, are currently not enough to push the average Joe to invest in panels for his roof. I've looked into it and even with big incentives from CT that nearly pay half of the system, its still 15 years to break-even.
    Nov 17 09:42 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Don't Let Bulk Shippers Sink Your Portfolio... For Now
    When someone mis-spells "Genko" (it's "Genco"), it makes it fairly obvious that they don't really follow that stock, so I don't put too much weight in what they say. It's when companies are "stuck in the mud" that you want to invest in the strong ones that will survive the washout. A "slowdown" is just that --- a slowdown, not a collapse. Last time I checked ships were still transporting goods all around the globe. Now is the perfect time to invest --- when people like you are saying not to --- and hold until everything returns to normal. If you don't, by the time the "all clear" has been sounded, you've missed out on a lot of the returns. And I've collected my dividends while they've waited on the sidelines.
    Nov 10 08:09 am |Rating: +4 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • More on TARP and the Insurance Industry
    Remember how California was saying they didn't need bond insurance and how they were going to start their own line? That was before their Gubernator went begging for cash from the Treasury. By almost all estimates I've seen put out there (except for the shorts), MBIA is highly capitalized. And they've got a CEO who has proven that he's actually WORTH the money they pay him. He is savvy and quick on his feet. Sure they've been downgraded and that triggered some losses, but they've calculated all that in. They have been very conservative. I don't want to take any blame away from their increase in riskier practices, or from the rating agencies for not properly analyzing their (or anyone's) risk, but people started acting like these bond insurers were worthless business models and needed to go under, and that their struggling was indicative of that, yet we now know that they were the first red flag of a systemic financial crisis. Yet, given all that, I don't think MBIA should take any money from the Feds. I don't think they really need to. Sure, it would boost them to AAA overnight, but I think damage has been done to the credibility of bond insurance as a whole, and what it will take to cure that is time, not a quick cash infusion. If MBIA surfaces from all this without Fed money, they gain back more credibility than if they take the money. I agree with appro that an FDR approach of an increase in government spending (especially at the state or local level) could help us dig out of a recession, but I also doubt that will happen. Towns and municipalities are now starting to tighten their belts as their tax bases erode. That means less projects, not more. I don't think lowering the costs of bond insurance (and thus the cost of projects) will cause more projects to come about. I think the projects are being shelved at any cost. You would have to have targeted Federal injections at the local or state level to change that, and I haven't heard any kind of talk along those lines.
    Oct 27 09:11 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Nothing To Ship - Cramer's Stop Trading! (10/22/08)
    There's no rhyme or reason for the share price of anything these days. A railroad sees a decline in traffic of what? 5%? 10%? And suddenly "they're shipping nothing". What BS. Cramer is full of hot air. I used to hold Woodward Governor (WGOV), but I pushed the button and sold a while back because their PE was just getting too high. A few days later Cramer gets on and hawks them to the moon. They get about a 15% bump (I kick myself for selling a week too early). Of course, 2 weeks later they're back where they were when I sold, and now of course the stock is 20% cheaper.
    Oct 23 08:54 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Trina Solar Looks Good, Though Market Yawns
    Peppio is more right than he realizes. The REAL push for alternative energy is not coming from the Feds. It's coming from the states that are gradually increasing the percentage of "alternative"... energy that utilities must use. These are called RPS's (Renewable Portfolio Standards) and 29 states have them in place, including my home state of CT. California is just getting on board with this. This is a good article regarding RPS's: seekingalpha.com/artic.... Not only that, but many states have tax incentives for home use of "alternative"... energy. CT will subsidize a huge chunk of a solar system you put on your roof. BUT, even with the subsidy it still is 15 years before you break even. As traditional energy costs rise, the ROI equation changes and makes alternatives more enticing even at the household level. But as energy prices back off like they have done recently, it does hurt the alternative energy market. It is very closely linked, although more to natural gas and coal than to oil.
    Oct 16 10:00 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Seven Stocks for an Impending Apocalypse
    Great article! It's really refreshing to see someone ACTUALLY ANALYZE something, giving you both a realistic upside and downside for each stock. As opposed to the many articles on SA either ultra-hyping or ultra-bashing stocks depending on whether they are long or short. Really good analysis. Keep up the good work.

    Question: You mention TSL scares you due to the cash flow lay (which of course scares me because I have TSL shares). Can you elaborate a bit?
    Oct 16 09:10 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Chesapeake Bites McLendon
    Oh c'mon Lea. CHK is down just like everything else in the market is down. The recent drop is proof of nothing other than fundamentals went completely out the window. Did Aubrey being forced to sell his puts contribute? Yes, for about one day. It was down something like 10-20% the other day because of it. The huge slide came long before news of this broke, and EVERYTHING has been sliding. NG has taken huge hits as prices have come down. CHK has a lot of money coming in, and worst case is they'll start selling off some of these leaseholds to the majors like they did with BP. You've been harping on this leverage issue before, and while I don't think they're going to have enough to keep up their former pace of break-neck expansion, they definitely are not going away. Aubrey's interests are completely aligned with the shareholders, ESPECIALLY since he gets the 2.5%. I just don't buy into this cult of personality thing. But aside from that, CHK has great prospects, and if I didn't have XTO right now as my gas play (which I picked merely based on valuation at the time), I'd be picking up CHK. Were they hyped a lot? Sure. But I wouldn't count them out by a long shot.
    Oct 14 09:52 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Chesapeake Bites McLendon
    I don't want to sound like I'm bearish on CHK, because I'm not. They're still huge and bought up nearly all the leases around, and I think they will always be the major contender in the NG field. But at its peak, you couldn't write one negative thing about CHK without everyone jumping all over you like you were an idiot for doubting Aubrey. And mostly the thinking went like this: Aubrey is spending all his money buying CHK, so that shows that he as an insider believes its going up, up, up. That thinking always made me nervous, and even though I rode one of CHK's waves to jump off near the top, I never got back in because my "hype-meter" kept blinking (I picked up XTO instead but still follow CHK closely). Now I think its clear that Aubrey was really just buying everything on margin --- not REALLY spending his own money, but merely speculating in it. It's also likely that the CEO of XTO (and lots of others) probably have been doing the same. Again, I'm NOT bearish on CHK or tying to bash them. Just maybe a little less enthusiastic than some. Also, I think the time for a buyout was when they were dirt-cheap last week. It's not like the oil majors are running around scooping up gas right now. If they had good incentives to do that, they would have been doing it already full force at these prices.
    Oct 13 15:06 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article

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