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

To: bruwin who wrote (1785)	6/25/2012 10:44:07 PM
From: Shane M	1 Recommendation Respond to of 4720

hi bruwin, My balance sheet comment probably wasn't as precise as it should've been. I guess I'm referring to my impression that I see lots of companies with lots of cash, getting good returns and having having strong earnings currently. Many have refinanced at very low rates and/or added to cash stash. My working paradigm, at least from many of the companies I track, is that they have the cash/capital to do what they want to do - but the problem is more on the demand side (which I attribute to consumer de-leveraging). My impression is that this lack of outlet for their capital is why many firms I watch are initiating or increasing dividends. They've got more capital than they need and more than they know what to do with. but in essence, my net impression is that U.S. companies are in considerably better shape than the economy as a whole, (if that dichotomy can make sense). (I exclude banks from my thinking there because I have no idea if they're improving or not. Evaluating banks is just not in my skillset.) thanks for the datapoint on Africa. Efforts of the west haven't seemed to have made much progress in many places in Africa - maybe the Chinese way will prove to be more effective.