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

To: Jurgis Bekepuris who wrote (31933)	9/5/2008 7:17:58 PM
From: Paul Senior	Respond to of 78753

SM I've no concern at all about debt load. They have many options if need be - doing jv's, selling shale acreage. Also, my risk with the stock is somewhat controlled by position size. For me, SM is not a large holding.

To: Jurgis Bekepuris who wrote (31933)	9/5/2008 7:33:06 PM
From: Paul Senior	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 78753

How about this one then, with its lack of long term debt-- ACTS? Profitable company. You get the stock ($258M market cap) for less than its cash and marketable securities. "Actions Semiconductor reported gross margin of 50.1% and operating margin of 16.7% for the second quarter of 2008. The Company ended the quarter with $127.8 million in cash and cash equivalents together with restricted cash and time deposits. Marketable securities at the end of the quarter was $140.0 million." biz.yahoo.com I look at current assets of $285M, subtract total liabilities of $19M, divide by 84.4M shares out. (per Yahoo) to get nca (net current assets) per share at $3.15. Vs. stock price of about $3.06/sh. Not a Ben Graham net-net (We'd want to see stock price at 2/3 nca), but afaik, in this downtrodden market, so far, it's a decent opportunity for bottom fishing. Otoh, maybe more/better opportunities are coming, or exist. In any case, I'm in for a few ACTS shares as of today.

To: Jurgis Bekepuris who wrote (31933)	9/5/2008 11:23:41 PM
From: Paul Senior	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 78753

Fill for me for few shares of Israeli company, G. Willi-Foods, WILC. gurufocus.com A great pick for somebody (not me) here back in '02 or earlier when it traded about 1 or 2x earnings. A sometimes profitable company - not sure I can state so now with arbitration payment and closing down of a business. biz.yahoo.com I figure net current assets as: Total current assets @ $59M (USD) a/o 6/'08 less: current liabilities @ $22M less: long-term liabilities ~ $1M less: minority interest ~ $4M That's $32M to be divided by 10.3M shares = $3.11/sh. The stock's now at $3.47, about a three year low. Company expects to do $100M (USD) this year. With a market cap of $36M, that gives a hefty p/sales ratio for a grocery (compared to US grocery chains I am following. OTOH, it might be THE significant grocery operation in a less-competitive (??) Israeli market (I do not know.). Also a large component of that $36M is cash/marketable securities-- about $23M which could be backed out of market cap to show a "better" p/sales figure. And of course the $23M cash/equiv vs. just $4M in debt, provide somewhat of a margin-of-safety.