I2, re. RPM. Looks to me like all the specialty chemical makers are at multi-year lows. Yes, RPM is on my watch list still. And when it broke 10 (it's up to 10 1/2 today), it seemed like a very good buy - getting a 5% div. yield on a company that may have the best record on the NSYE for dividend (and sales) increases. I just could not step up.
I'm just wondering if there is a sea change with these type investments. Very unusual isn't it, to have so many good companies with these good records selling at such low prices? And we're not in a recession; nor does it seem that the sales, earnings of these companies are going down in '00. (I'm thinking about GPC here too.)
Money is being sucked out of these stocks and funds diverted from going into them, by the enormous interest in internet related stocks, imo. At this point it looks to me like it's impossible to get anyone interested in stocks like RPM. (although, that just might be my unbalanced perspective at the nadir) Maybe it will take a 6 or 8% dividend yield. Or a cataclysmic event. There are so many of these good companies and good stocks available at attractive prices, that EVEN I have a tendency to say, wait, let's look around, let's see if we can do better. For RPM - with a high pe and high p/book (relative to the cheaper stuff out there), because everything about it doesn't look perfect, it just seems easier to pass on it in this kind of market. That's imo, but since it's just you and I who are carrying the RPM discussion, I'll suggest that other thread value investors pretty much have made up their minds similarly. |
