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

To: Spekulatius who wrote (29429)	12/27/2007 1:07:34 PM
From: Jurgis Bekepuris	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78715

>i do not see a lot of leverage with RICOH. My mistake. Still their ROE is about 10%. >revenue growth where? 2007: 17,533,263 2006: 16,368,291 2005: 16,954,280 3% growth from 2005 to 2007. :( CAJ as I said is probably fairly valued. I would not buy it, but it's your choice. Regarding SSUMY and ITOCY, IMHO, the only worthwhile time to venture to foreign companies not reporting in US is when there is a huge story. Whatever you would say, the reporting varies country to country. I've done Mexico, UK, China, Brasil, Chile and they all have quirks. I have not yet looked at any Japanese reporting companies but I can guarantee there are quirks and that website reporting is worse than SEC 10Q/K. So there is pain. What about gain? Let's go back to story. You claim that story is Asian buildup (mostly Chinese I guess). I buy that a bit, but I am concerned about cyclicality and being late, actually being very late to the party. Do you really believe that next 5 years will repeat the last 5 years for these companies? This is the main question. If the answer is "yes", then they are cheap. If the answer is "no", China crashes or at least cycles, then they are not. :) >As far as cheap US manufacturing is concerned, i wonder what the values are that you are seeing. Not much around for PE <15 except for microcaps, or very cyclical industries as far as i can tell. So you are dissing US cyclicals, but not concerned that your Japanese conglomerates are possibly at the cyclical top? Regarding US, yes, the biggest values are in financials, retail, housing, oil and gas, which I claim is no longer cyclical but you have to be careful not to buy declining companies. Weak dollar plays? HOG, definitely. COH, maybe.

To: Spekulatius who wrote (29429)	12/27/2007 1:19:45 PM
From: Madharry	Respond to of 78715

I just picked up a little aig at $58.35

To: Spekulatius who wrote (29429)	12/27/2007 1:32:51 PM
From: Jurgis Bekepuris	Respond to of 78715

OK, I looked really fast at Itochu: Positives: You are right, the debt is decreasing for last 9 years, equity is growing, earnings are growing too (for last 5 years), ROE is 20% Negatives: D/E is still high at 1.8. Net margin is very low at 1.5%. Now, to the story. Hmm, actually according to their geographical segment information, there is no real story. They have growth in Japan (not sure if this is connected to China or not and no way of checking really), they have some growth in Asia, some in NA and Europe... Asia is still <20% of revenues and not growing very fast, in fact it went down in 2007 (which ended in March 2007). Looking at industrial segments, it is a true conglomerate with no dominant segment. I don't really like that, since it means that I have no clue where this company will go in the future. Actually the largest segment seems to be Food. I wonder how does that gel with your story about Itochu supporting Asia growth... In short, I would not buy it. But thanks, bring more. :)