The Equity Risk Premium has once again drifted up to all-time high levels in recent weeks. The S&P500 has an earnings yield of around 7.9% (assuming S&P earnings of $105 versus current price of 1,330). Ten year treasuries are 1.6%, so the resulting 6.3% spread is back at levels not seen since the early 70s. […]
May 17th, 2012 was the 30th anniversary of my arrival in the U.S. On that day back in 1982 aged 19 I arrived for the first time in New York City fully expecting to be mugged as soon as I stepped off the plane such was the city’s reputation at that time. Although I grew […]
Here’s a brief interview I did for ABC Australia’s show “The Business”.
The New York Times has an interesting article today highlighting the dilemma for Louisa, KY, in the heart of coal country. American Electric Power (AEP), which operates the local coal-burning power plant, wants to switch to burning cleaner, cheaper natural gas. As might be expected this has caused an uproar, but there are few easy […]
On the radio this morning a journalist from the New York Times confidently asserted that Greece would soon leave the Euro and issue Drachma. Both the new Drachma and the resulting Euro were both likely to plunge as a result and therefore it’s a good time to book an August vacation to Greece (meanwhile German vacationers are […]
The Facebook (FB) IPO drama has been fascinating and entertaining if you’re comfortable being a Luddite like me and fully confess an inability to “get it” when reading bullish forecasts of their business. A brief glance at their S-1 (the registration document the company filed prior to going public) reveals that FB made $1BN in profit […]
I have watched the endless TV hype about Facebook’s (FB) IPO with great interest but from a safe distance. FB is SO not the kind of stock we’d ever invest in – not that anyone should feel dissuaded because over the years we safely avoided Apple and Google amongst others too. So nobody should interpret […]
We’ve been invested in Corrections Corp (CXW), the largest private operator of prisons, since 2010. Sometimes we’ve had a large position and at other times not; we think the current opportunity is compelling. We’ve written about it before here.Around 9% of the U.S. prisoner population is housed in privately run prisons. CXW is the largest […]
The Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, MO is to be commended for the open manner in which they’ve shared the results of their own venture capital (VC) investing. In a remarkably candid appraisal that covers twenty years of experience, the authors reveal that much of the conventional wisdom about this area of private equity is […]
Here’s an interview I did with this Montreal-based website that reports on hedge funds for Canadian institutional clients.
