re: travel related companies:
Have had some difficulty in resolving conflicting aspects of some of these businesses.
Grommit, others who have been long-time followers of car rental companies: I closed my position in DTG. I see Dollar Thrifty as the low price company among the major players, and one of the few independently, publicly-held companies in the sector. I see the travel industry as booming still. Therefore, it came as a surprise to me that DTG recently announced a difficult pricing environment and lowered expectations. I don't understand how this could be- given my assumptions. The stock dropped on the company's report, and at current price, it's not a value - especially if earnings might be impaired. I sold on the announcement and now have completely exited my position.
I sold ASR recently too. This originally was a Dale Baker pick in '03. ASR operates and administers nine airports in southeast Mexico. It's primarily controlled by Danish partner Copenhagen Airports with a Mexican partner. I sold because I read hurricane Emily damage reports coming from Cancun. I believed that tourism would be greatly and adversely affect from the damage. But that doesn't seem to be so - hotels and airport, etc. are operating, and ASR stock still remains near its 12-month highs.
I've re-entered the stock today with a small purchase. While the buy now is not the bargain it was when Dale Baker mentioned it, it still offers okay value and decent growth potential - imo. Although the psr is high, the profit margins from those sales are high too. The stock still sells below stated book value.
The company is a toll booth: It extracts a small fee from each passenger who passes through its airports. And as per my assumption, tourism is booming. Furthermore, I now read that several (maybe four) low-cost airlines may receive gov't approval to enter the Mexican market which heretofore (I like that word -g) has been characterized by "monopolized, high-cost air travel". Opening the market to additional passengers/tourists has got to benefit ASR - I will bet.
I've also taken on a few shares of recent IPO, Macquarie Infrastructure Trust (MIC). Too new and perhaps too diverse for a real value investment, but I'll take a few shares assuming I'm holding a conservative investment that provides services at airline terminals, and that it might have a good dividend yield. (Div. yield shown by Yahoo is based only on one quarter's dividend.)
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