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

To: jeffbas who wrote (5950)	2/6/1999 2:22:00 AM
From: miklosh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78462

Re:<small cap oil sector leaders that have strong balance sheets that you see as survivors> threads thoughts on FLC? TIA

To: jeffbas who wrote (5950)	2/6/1999 7:52:00 AM
From: Wallace Rivers	Respond to of 78462

This is JMHO and I have no position in it, but you might want to take a look at Gulf Island Fabrication (GIFI). Announced 4Q earnings of .35 (which beat the street) vs. .25. For the full year 1.60. Trades at about 7, down from 28. BV about $6/share. No debt. Did give some cautionary outlook in the CC (IMHO, to be expected, given the depressed state of the oil industry). There is a thread on SI.

To: jeffbas who wrote (5950)	2/6/1999 1:09:00 PM
From: Michael Burry	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 78462

Re: Oilpatch Among the small caps, hard to see one. But among the mid caps I see quite a few. "Small cap sector leader" to me is an oxymoron. Among the mid-caps I see Tidewater (TDW) as a leader of its sector, with the only strong, debt-free balance sheet among its competitors. Among the drillers, Diamond Offshore (DO) and Noble Drilling (NE) have strong balance sheets and are sure to survive until the next cycle. Transocean Offshore has a weaker balance sheet relative to these two but which is still nevertheless strong enough to survive a lengthy downturn, IMO. These are all $1 to 4 billion companies. And the market, IMO, despite overselling them, is still placing relative odds on their ability to survive. You can see this by simple PE on average earnings. TDW seems the most expensive of its competitors, but it's the only one that definitely will survive a lengthy downturn. Even among DO, NE, and RIG I see the market valuing them correctly in the relative sense if not the absolute. NE is more "expensive" than DO which is more "expensive" than RIG, which is how I see them as far as safety. Disclaimer: I own all of the above, having recently bought them at prices a little below the current levels. DO I own via Loews (LTR), which owns a 50% stake. In the portfolio at ValueStocks.net, I own LTR, NE, and TDW. Good investing, Mike

To: jeffbas who wrote (5950)	2/7/1999 2:09:00 AM
From: Bill Zeman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78462

Jeffrey: I will have to check out some of the suggested mid caps I have read here today. I like Pride Intl, (PDE) and have been holding some shares for about a year now. I am down almost 50%. They have a half decent debt to equity of 1.09. All their debt is colateralized with their ships and rigs, and they are trying to get more debt to set up more rigs. They will keep making money through all this because they have long term contracts. They just recently broke an upwards sequential earnings pattern in 9/98. They will still make good cash flow and should weather this storm. Bill Z