Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: benbuffett who wrote (50094)	11/19/2012 12:48:45 PM
From: Spekulatius	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78744

Re NSC and CSX - yes you can look The performance of both either way. NSC was a top performer within it's peers in terms of profit margins and went to be an average performer. CSX was the bottom of the barrel after the disastrous merger and now they are average with an apparent momentum for further increases (they plan to get from 30 to 35% in a couple of years. I think. They will succeed. Another way if saying that NSC had better cash flow is that they are underinvesting. My observation with these RR companies is that while they move together in the short term, the long term performance can diverge quite a bit, just look at UNP versus CSX and NSC during the last 2 years. It appears to me that once such a trend in business performance: is established, it continues for a couple of years. The disastrous performance of CSX after the merger was another example of that, they did severe damage to their franchise, when they mismanaged the merger and created a self inflicted problem that took many years to resolve.