To All, I am taking the weekend to pen a long, boring think piece. That's my next post. First, a media review.
1. Fred Hickey is very good this month. He slam dunks Intel, Microsoft, Compaq, IBM and can't believe his luck at getting another shot at Micron puts at silly prices. I felt the best bits were his discussions of conference calls with pc distributors who are screaming bloody murder about Compaq and IBM stuffing the channel.
I was pleased to see that Fred is now using a put buying program similar to mine instead of trying to sell short when crazy people still have cash. Too bad he didn't give me credit for the idea. -vbg-
2. Barron's has a lot of good stuff, too. First, Abelson allows some puff daddy analyst to tell us why the Compaq takeover of DEC is brilliant. He only ignores one fact: the seller usually knows more about the real situation of the company than the buyer. Meanwhile, Savitz again talks about Compaq's major channel stuffing and the lengths they are going to to cover the fact. The company is stonewalling everyone about their inventory situation, which they usually do when they are pulling some sort of flim flam. Also, the firm is now selling its receivables, which is an odd practice for any co. who has real demand and expects sell-through. So odd that most pc firms don't do it, though many commodity companies do when sell-through falls on its face.
They talk about Asian CEFs on page 17, trying to show that area funds are at discounts and country funds at premiums. Although I like the concept, having written about a few days ago on this thread, they are careful to stack their country funds with only the most overvalued. Thus, no mention of the Taiwan funds which still sell at discounts and are making me a fortune. One, TYW, is up 40 pct. in about 3 1/2 weeks since I bought it. I guess that isn't spectacular enough. Also, no mention of Webs as an alternative. I guess that would require a reporter who really knew something. -g-
They rate the fund families for one year, five years and 10 years. Eaton Vance is first for one year, showing how bad these ratings are. -g- Also, I trust no rating system that gives Alliance a rating of 3 out of 84 when this is the company that had to pump cash into their money market funds to make up for their lousy management. My old firm, Waddell & Reed got a #8 rating for one year, so good for Hank, Russell and the guys. My old firm, Van Kampen/American Capital, got a 53 rating. Ugh! This firm was number one in everything in 1984 and 1985. It shows what can happen when investment people are not allowed to run the show. Closet indexing with high fees will put you behind the 8-ball every time.
If you want to know more, buy or steal the rag. -g- MB |
