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

To: Jurgis Bekepuris who wrote (32609)	10/26/2008 5:46:01 AM
From: Carey Thompson	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78748

I just bought some additional shares of Old Republic International. ORI is a consistently profitable, and very boring diversified insurance company headquartered in Chicago. ORI's two main divisions are general insurance and mortgage guaranty insurance. General insurance lines are consumer credit indemnity, commercial multi-peril, and general aviation coverages. I cover mortgage guaranty insurance below. oldrepublic.com Oophs, I mean it was boring until it was discovered the ORI mortgage guaranty insurance division insures unpopular mortgages. Subprime, ALT-A, 2-28, ARM, 0 down, negative amortizing, etc. mortgages. And you know what, ORI is booking losses and its stock is getting hammered. As reflected in the current quarterly results. biz.yahoo.com Yet, I am not distressed because ORI has been in business over 80 years and prides itself in maintaining its dividend (of 0.68) that now is yielding over 8%. Another perk is ORI periodically issues special cash dividends and stock splits. This is a 2 fold operation. 1) to buy consistently well managed financial under book value - ORI current book value is 16.91 while its market value is 8.05 - because in due course the market value catches up with the book value. 2) to buy in a bear market, specifically finance stocks are in the toilet, so now is a favorable time to buy well managed, proven stocks and wait until the financial panic subsides. I will report to the thread on ORI from time to time. Off the subject, did anyone get the name of that train that rolled over my beloved Colorado Buffs in Columbia, Missouri today.