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

To: E_K_S who wrote (54965)	2/18/2015 9:48:56 PM
From: robert b furman	Respond to of 78657

HI E_K_S, As I was driving from Houston to visit a long time friend in Nebraska I went past an AGCO factory - very impressive - in rural ag country.Must have been Kansas or Oklahoma?? Yes I'm now in Wisconsin sturgeon spearing and the friends I grew up with are dairy farmers. The good ones all drive green machines - I'd love to catch that stock at a low but has been too rich for my blood. Always appreciate your posts. Our proximity to Lake Michigan yielded a horrible corn crop - most of it went to silage. Today I drove by a field of seed corn still sanding in the field. The yield was so low that the grower did not want to dry as mother nature has now taken care of that at -4. Bob

To: E_K_S who wrote (54965)	2/20/2015 1:42:34 AM
From: Jurgis Bekepuris	Respond to of 78657

DE does carry a lot of long term debt, more than any of my companies when you look at current net income to long term debt. That was a big reason why I went w/ AGCO. DE's debt is vendor financing. You have to ask yourself if AGCO does not do vendor financing. Actually it does. It just does it via off-balance-sheet entities. So its lower D/E is just a sleight of hand. I currently don't have any DE and a tiny position in AGCO. IMHO, the bottom of the cycle has not been reached and we will see much more attractive prices for both. (And if I am wrong, I don't care much. Currently I am looking for very attractive prices before I buy something. Especially if it's a cyclical play with headwinds.).

To: E_K_S who wrote (54965)	2/20/2015 5:44:30 AM
From: bruwin	Respond to of 78657

"DE does carry a lot of long term debt" Yes, the Balance Sheet reported number is big, but wouldn't you say that it's the affect of debt on the Income Statement that may be the number to consider. After all it's the Bottom Line, after dividends, that primarily contributes to the Balance Sheet, if no shares are issued. In the Annual's extract below (where the 2014/10 coincides with its Q4) one sees that for the period 2010 to 2012 DE's Interest Expense/EBITDA went from 35% to 19% to 17%. In the last two years it's fallen quite dramatically to 10.1% to 9.8%. So less and less of EBITDA is being lost to Debt and hopefully improving its bottom line.

To: E_K_S who wrote (54965)	2/20/2015 1:29:14 PM
From: E_K_S	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78657

Re: AgJunction Inc. (AJXGF) Started a position in this micro-cap that provides Farms w/ in the 'cloud' software suite and Drones to better manage crop production. Company selling at 0.6x BV, has $0.11/share in cash and is growing revenues now at $40mln/year. I see this as a growing high-tech development into managing farm production. Insiders hold a substantial amount of the stock. Here is a write up I did on the SI Farming thread FWIW, been watching this one for over a year and liked it at $0.96/share. So I really like it now at $0.45/share. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Closed out my micro-cap position in International Barrier Technology Inc. (IBTGF). Booked a 50% gain after holding for over a year. I moved the proceeds from this sale into AJXGF. About Agjunction: AgJunction, Inc. provides innovative hardware and software applications for precision agriculture worldwide. The Company holds numerous patents and markets its products and services under leading brand names including Outback Guidance®, Satloc®, and AgJunction® Cloud Services. AgJunction Cloud Services supports advanced farming practices and enables seamless data connectivity among growers and their agricultural service providers. System users can easily share data from many types of precision agriculture controllers on the market enabling service providers such as fertilizer dealers and agronomists to work directly with growers through the AgJunction platform for seamless data management. The system streamlines retailer and farm operations with equipment tracking, work order management, data layer management, and comprehensive reporting. The Company is headquartered in Hiawatha, Kansas, with facilities in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Manitoba and Queensland, Australia. AgJunction is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) under the symbol “AJX” and is one of the TSX Cleantech designated companies. ----------------------------------- EKS

To: E_K_S who wrote (54965)	5/1/2015 4:13:54 PM
From: E_K_S	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78657

Art's-Way Manufacturing Co. Inc. (NASDAQ: ARTW) - peeled off 30% of shares for small profit ZBB Energy Corporation (AMEX: ZBB) - doubled up on position at $0.825/share Took a bit off the table for ARTW. The company is now selling above BV (@$4.75/share) and sales do remain higher even w/ a slow AG equipment market. CORN prices at historical lows. As the cycle turns, this one could move a lot higher but selling my high cost shares leaves me some wiggle room to keep as a long term hold. I continue to add to my recent purchase of ZBB Energy Corporation (AMEX: ZBB). TESLA's Energy division is getting the market interested in storage batteries but the better more efficient technology is the 'flow-battery'. The company can be bought for less than cash value and has a JV partner that will grow sales in China. Position still small but to me a good value bet on the emerging technology. Company is profitable so now it's all about growing revenues. EKS