Cincinnati Bell (CBB) will celebrate 140 years since its founding this July. It has long provided phone and data communications to residents and businesses in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. We have been invested in them for the tiniest sliver of their history, and today endured our very first quarterly earnings release. We were lambs to […]
Barron‘s has a decent overview of MLPs today. They could have been more critical of the various funds, exchange traded notes and ETFs that offer MLP exposure. None of these pass through the tax benefits to clients as effectively as a portfolio of direct holdings – although the managers being interviewed run such funds themselves. […]
This call and webcast ended a little while ago. David Einhorn did a very good job of explaining his idea behind ingeniously named iPrefs, only slightly marred by the brain dead questioners who began the Q&A segment. We think the theme of perpetual preferreds is applicable to many companies including tech names such as Microsoft (MSFT) about which […]
This morning David Einhorn on CNBC elegantly highlighted the inconsistency in pricing of different asset classes, specifically in the case of Apple (AAPL), which he owns. Einhorn believes AAPL should exploit the low yields/high prices of preferred equity to the advantage of stockholders. You can read the transcript of Einhorn’s interview here so we won’t […]
Money has been flowing into bond funds for a long time. During the financial crisis of 2007-08 many of us contemplated hitherto unthinkable risks to our investments. I spent a few miserable evenings in September 2008 calculating the fall in the value of my own portfolio and wondering where it might stabilize. Avoiding leverage, and […]
I was fortunate to be in Boca Raton, Florida last week at the GAIM conference on hedge funds, enjoying a 50 degree temperature advantage over NY. I had the opportunity to meet with several retired people who live in Florida either part-time during the winter or all year. Chatting with them about investments really brought home to […]
Here’s an interview I did earlier today, discussing market outlook. http://reut.rs/W0fL9e
Terry Smith, UK-based CEO of Tullett Prebon AND Fundsmith, LLP (obviously a man of prodigious energy) has written an interesting piece in the FT commenting on the attraction of owning less volatile stocks. He is highlighting the Low Beta Anomaly, a weakness in the theory behind efficient markets which predicts more risky investments need to generate a […]
Barrons has a good piece highlighting dividend stocks and MLPs as sources of investment income. Andrew Bary, the writer, sounds as if he’s been reading from our playbook!
Fiscal issues dominated the last few weeks of 2012 and are likely to provide headlines during the next several months as well. Therefore, it’s worth contemplating what it means for investors. Following this most recent skirting of disaster with the Fiscal Cliff, it’s possible to draw some inferences about how the ongoing budgetary debate will […]
