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

To: James Clarke who wrote (3897)	4/23/1998 10:01:00 PM
From: Ron Bower	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78458

James, What I find interesting during the bearish posts to the thread is that the analysts are issuing a large amount of buy and strong buy upgrades and initiated coverages. Looks like it's 10,000 DOW and 2,000 NASDAQ by mid-summer. Anybody for average PE's of 40? Over the past 15 months I've been on the thread, when it stops posting stocks for consideration and gets bearish, it's usually an indicator that no one can find anything worth buying, the market is overpriced, and a correction is soon to come. I sold my US stocks and went to Asian during the tax selloff in December. Ron

To: James Clarke who wrote (3897)	4/26/1998 2:11:00 AM
From: Jurgis Bekepuris	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78458

James, >I have sold 85% of my St. Joe shares in the last two months, > not entirely because of my market view. Can you tell why? Here's my ramblings about SJP's future. It's a cheap real-estate play assuming real-estate is still on a boom track. The management will try to get the company going. If they fail, they may squander company's cash hoard in the process. Is it possible to notice the failure? Hmmm... They develop the land into sellable estates and have an infant entertainment division. It's difficult to check whether they are squandering resources on development, because that won't show on the valuation records. (They bought a developper-contractor company, so SJP pays itself to develop the land, but such deals have perils of vertical integration and conflict of interest. They also bought a realtor, which is another vertical integration move.) It would possibly improve the value of company's land holdings, but these holdings are on books at 19XX prices anyway. So the ROI is totally unclear - i.e. they spend $X mln on development and land value increases by unknown percentage - what's the ROI? It's even unclear how you decide the valuation increase. Open market price of X mln. acres of land? Now SJP's entertainment division is an attempt to get into theme park business. I have my reservations about the field. DIS may get profit from DisneyLand, but EuroDisney was a failure. I don't know if Anheuser-Busch gets much profit from their theme parks. Golf courses for profit? Hmmm... I am afraid that it's gonna be an uphill fight. So in the summary, it would be better if they did nothing, just sold the whole company or sold parts of the land that would get good prices now. Owning and developing real-estate is a lousy business unless you hit Silicon Valley. If it was an easy and simple call, Buffett (or KKR) would own half of America. BTW, owning your own house is different because of tax benefits, reduced renting expenses and socio-pshychological reasons. Of course, if they have good timing and come out with developed estates when real-estate is booming, the stock may explode. The same would happen if the entertainment division is successful or successfully hyped. But I would not buy on these assumptions. I'd rather buy a real growth story - see my next post. :-))))) Good luck for all Jurgis

To: James Clarke who wrote (3897)	4/26/1998 2:21:00 AM
From: Jurgis Bekepuris	Respond to of 78458

Hi guys, Here's a business plan that I got from a friend. It's hilarious - and it's THE REAL GROWTH STORY!!! I am buying a minority interest. Let me know if you guys are interested in a real opportunity to make money. :-)))) Enjoy. Jurgis ---------------------------------------------------------------- I am starting an internet business Buck-for-99. I will sell 1 dollar bills for .99 cents. What a bargain, everyone will want to get this deal. :-) I will take my company public and ramp up sales to millions in no time. OK, the company will lose a little money in the begining, but look at the sales growth. :-) I estimate that with only 10M of capital I can almost get 1 Bln of sales. The overhead will be low because I am on the internet so really you only have to consider my salary, which should be at a reasonable level for a person of my talents and position as CEO. That way, the company can attract the best people. I will have to be quick before other entrepreneurs figure out how to sell 1 dollar bills for .98 cents. But in that case I will undercut them by selling for .97 cents. Establishing a market presence and getting the volume is the key. Profits will come later. I will cash out my options and retire rich. Sounds like a good plan? :-) I will let you get in on it early. :-)