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Strategies & Market Trends : Value Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jeffbas who wrote (9018)	11/25/1999 11:54:00 PM
From: James Clarke	Respond to of 78599

I greatly admire Philip Morris as a company and had a great couple of trades on the stock three years ago, but I am not buying now. Though maybe I should be. Lawyers are simply out of control in this country. Maybe a Republican president in 12 months will end this transfer of wealth, but I'm not counting on that. I have often said I do not invest in situations where I know my downside risk is zero.

To: jeffbas who wrote (9018)	11/26/1999 2:51:00 PM
From: Paul Senior	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 78599

Re: asbestos and bankruptcy; OWC. Looks to me like the only asbestos related company still standing is Owens Corning. And it looks pretty wobbly. Some settlement reached but apparently many new lawsuits and/or question of how many plaintiffs will opt out of settlement. Financials- earnings, book value, debt increases-- seem impossible (for me) to understand, yet alone analyze. Plus, co. is in housing - a cyclical business. Very ugly situation overall. Not a company or stock I could recommend to anybody. Yet price to sales is low, expected p/e looks low, and the stock is hitting new lows. They seem to have an active R&D section which delivers new products. The asbestos concerns for OWC have been around for many years. Still, in the past 5 years, the stock price has traded over twice the current $16+ figure. To me, I see it like I see MO: Either OWC is going to return to some substantially higher stock price than the current $16+ or else the market is saying the company is soon going to go into bankruptcy. I'll place a small bet (buy) on OWC at this time. (But I won't go for MO.) Paul Senior aside to asbestos followers: Yes, Johns Manville is still around too. Price, near lows, still looks a little too expensive, imo.