H.J. Huneycutt

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    • Ford (F): Dec. sales of -32.4% to 138,325 units vs. -33% consensus. Market share of 14.6% is up 0.77% vs. a year ago - the first time in a decade Ford has grown its market share three months running. (PR)
      I'm actually not surprised by this. Ford might be in better shape than people think. It's definitely a rough time right now, but if they'll pull through, they could emerge as a much stronger company.
      Jan 05 13:12 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View news story
    • Jeff Matthews says Doug Kass's 20 surprises for 2009 are a must read: "If anybody came closer than Doug Kass to getting the guts of the 2008 financial crisis - and much of its ramifications - right, ahead of time, we’d like to know."
      His surprises for previous years have not fared all that well (with the possible exception of '08). Of course, I don't think he claims that these events are "probable" merely that they are possible and that a few of them will occur.

      Most of his predictions for '09 seems a bit illogical to me --- the market rebounds but commodities suffer? That's sort of like having your cake and eating it, too. How does demand increase, but prices for already beaten-down commodities continue to fall?
      Jan 01 13:54 pm |Rating: +1 0 |Link to Comment |View news story
    • 10 Predictions for the Global Economy
      The view that commodity prices will continue to drop seems to be based on mindless pessimism. While I think the author may possibly be correct on oil (which could drop a little bit further), as far as agriculture and metals go, most of those commodities have already probably hit rock-bottom.

      I'm not familiar with every single commodity out there, but I know a lot of industrial metals are selling below the costs of production. That situation can not continue as people will not continue to produce a metal they can not turn a profit on. Hence, supply decreases and prices go back up.
      Dec 16 11:09 am |Rating: 0 -1 |Link to Comment |View article
    • The good thing about the Madoff scandal, Mean Street's Evan Newmark writes, is that it has demonstrated - again - the folly of investors trying to beat the market.
      The "nobody can beat the market" crowd seems like a rather insecure and head-in-the-sand bunch to me. How on Earth can you possibly ignore the fact that there are quite a number of investors who regularly and consistently beat the market over a number of years?

      Warren Buffett? George Soros? Jim Rogers?

      Certainly, it's not easy to beat the market consistently as it requires a lot of research, good financial analysis, understanding of company and industry dynamics, buying and selling prudently, etc., but it seems silly to me to argue that it's "impossible."... You can beat the market and you can underperform the market --- there's no two ways about it. There are mounds and mounds of examples of people who have done both.
      Dec 15 12:54 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View news story
    • Citigroup: The End Draws Near
      I don't understand the point of publishing articles like these. The author makes a bunch of bold statements without supporting them in any fashion whatsoever. Can't anyone come along and say, "[XX Company] is going to fail!"?

      I don't necessarily agree or disagree with his conclusions; as I haven't formed an opinion on the matter; I just don't see the point in this article.
      Nov 22 23:09 pm |Rating: +6 0 |Link to Comment |View article
    • Wal-Mart May Get an Anti-Trust Reprieve, But...
      What information out there suggests that there are any plans by anyone to try to break-up Wal-Mart based on anti-trust concerns? I don't think I've ever heard of a retailer getting hit on anti-trust and Wal-Mart still has considerable competition with Target (on the department store front) and several grocery chains.

      I think Wal-Mart is more likely to suffer if gas prices start coming back up. The Wal-Mart business model is based on the assumption of cheap gasoline. If gasoline costs $5/gallon, people start buying from their neighborhood grocery stores (a few miles away) rather than driving 10 miles out to the Wal-Mart Supercenter.
      Nov 14 08:02 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
    • Friday Market Preview: Was Dow 8,000 the Bottom?
      If this were a typical market crash, I would say that 8,000 would likely be the bottom. However, a lot of the huge declines are being driven by hedge fund liquidations --- as such, I think it's anyone's guess as to where the bottom is going to be. Maybe it's 7500 or 7000. But there are a ton of stocks that look like bargains out there.
      Nov 14 06:54 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
    • Raser Technologies: The Ugly Duckling of Alternative Energy
      Chris B,

      P/E ratios aren't always a great way to value a company and they are particularly bad for evaluation companies with high up-front costs. I'd argue you need to look at book value and cash flows and if Raser is successful on the geothermal front, it appears as if it would be a very great bargain even if they bring in half the cash flows they expect.

      My problem with ORA has been that their stock has looked significantly overvalued for a while. It's starting to look a little bit better now that it's dipped down into the mid- to upper- $20 range, but I still view it as a riskier investment than Raser due to the high built-in expectations (which apparently makes me a contrarian, but that's fine). Since there seems to be a large swath of investors who despise Raser based on their lack of success for their Transportation sector, it appears to me that their stock offers a much more attractive opportunity. Like I said in the article, even if their Symetron stuff fails, I'm not sure it matters so long as the geothermal segment succeeds given their current valuation.
      Nov 13 12:48 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
    • Defining a Depression
      Great article!

      I do like that last bit of advice, too.
      Nov 12 15:33 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
    • A Wal-Mart Earnings Miss Is Likely to Entice Short Sellers
      I'm not exactly sure where you are hearing masses of people suggesting that a company is "too big for its stock price to go down" --- especially right now. It sounds as if you are arguing against a ridiculous straw man.

      There's definitely a case to be made that Wal-Mart's stock is overvalued, but I don't get the point in this article. We're in the midst of one of the worst stock market crashes in history and nearly the entire market has gone down --- who on Earth is arguing that there are companies "too big" for stock market price declines?

      The only reason Wal-Mart has been semi-immune thus far has less to do with "being big" and everything to do with being in an industry that happens to benefit from a recessionary environment --- groceries.
      Nov 12 13:44 pm |Rating: 0 -1 |Link to Comment |View article
    • A Wal-Mart Earnings Miss Is Likely to Entice Short Sellers
      What do you mean "is Wal-Mart too big to fail?" Are you suggesting that Wal-Mart is going to go bankrupt? And how do you jump from Wal-Mart missing earnings expectations to Wal-Mart being on the brink of bankruptcy?

      Wal-Mart may be a little bit overvalued; that's certainly arguable, but I'm baffled by the comparison to Circuit City.
      Nov 12 09:44 am |Rating: 0 -1 |Link to Comment |View article
    • House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says General Motors (GM) is too big to fail. She wants 'immediate action' to help troubled automakers, but faces resistant Republicans and a noncommittal White House. (Bloomberg)
      Ugh. Why have the Democrats become the party that runs in to try to rescue every failing corporation? There is oversupply in the auto market; "saving" the automakers isn't going to fix the problem.

      If we're going to throw around government money, it should at least be spent on something we need, such as infrastructure improvements --- not to articifically sustain a contracting industry (which won't work anyway).
      Nov 12 09:35 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View news story
    • Raser Technologies: The Ugly Duckling of Alternative Energy
      Shorty & Alpha,

      Now that I used the word "revenues" in the article; I realize I probably should've said "cash flows", as I'm not necessarily quite as concerned with actual GAAP revenues as much as I am the cash flow element.

      Why do you say that Thermo is almost definitely a negative IRR? Not that I'm disagreeing --- I'm just curious to hear your analysis. My thought was that it was probably be close to break-even or slightly negative, but the value of all their properties and their know-how is worth something as well, and at $3-$5 per share, I think even if they don't live up to expectations, there still might be some value in the company.

      AlphaMS,

      I regret not clarifying some of my thoughts further. You are correct in that the power system technologies are not technically theirs --- however, to my knowledge, they are amongst the first to utilize it on this scale. Given the nature of the geothermal industry, I believe their early experience with UTX's technology might be a bit of an advantage. Mind you, they aren't out there manufacturing widgets, so even if others have access to the same equipment as they do, there is still significant value-added by them that can not be imitated without doing the same things they have.

      I certainly wouldn't suggest I have full trust of all the insiders of the company (trust must be earned, after all), but at this stage, given the market's valuation, I simply believe that the likelihood is that they are worth more than $4 or $5. And they might be worth quite a bit more. It's no safe bet, but it's not a bad position in a diversified high-risk portfolio.
      Nov 11 19:05 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
    • Starbucks Will Restructure and Rise Once Again
      I don't know --- it seems like the Starbucks brand itself is worn at this point. It's a coffeehouse with a cookie-cutter format all over the nation; I'm not sure how they did so well for so long as it was. They will probably be a value at some price point, but I'm betting their glory days are behind them.
      Nov 11 08:46 am |Rating: +1 0 |Link to Comment |View article
    • Raser Technologies: The Ugly Duckling of Alternative Energy
      JGK,

      I definitely agree on UTX --- it would be nice if they spun that division off. Much of RZ's success can be traced to that.
      Nov 11 08:28 am |Rating: +1 0 |Link to Comment |View article

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