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High and higher: The Money in Marijuana!
In 1992, when Bill Clinton was running for president of the United States, and was asked whether he had ever smoked marijuana, he responded that he had, but that he did not inhale, reflecting the fear...
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An October Surprise? Making Sense of the Market Mayhem!
I don't know what it is about October that spooks markets, but it certainly feels like big market corrections happen in the month. As stocks have gone through contortions this month, more down than up,...
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The GE End Game: Bataan Death March or Turnaround Play?
It seems like ancient history, but it was just 2001, when GE was the most valuable company in the world, commanding a market capitalization in excess of $500 billion. The quintessential conglomerate,...
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Investing Whiplash: Looking for Closure with Apple and Amazon!
In September, I took a look, in a series of posts, at two companies that had crested the trillion dollar market cap mark, Apple and Amazon, and concluded that series with a post where I argued that...
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Is there a signal in the noise? Yield Curves, Economic Growth and Stock Prices!
The title of this post is not original and draws from Nate Silver's book on why so many predictions in politics, sports and economics fail. It reflects the skepticism with which I view many 'can't...
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January 2019 Data Update 1: A reminder that equities are risky, in case you...
In bull markets, investors, both professional and amateur, often pay lip service to the notion of risk, but blithely ignore its relevance in both asset allocation and stock selection, convinced that...
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January 2019 Data Update 2: The Message from Bond Markets!
I must admit that I don't pay as much attention to fixed income markets, as I do to equity markets, other than to use numbers from the markets as inputs when I value companies or look at equity...
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Back to Class: A Teaching Manifesto!
I am convinced that each of us is granted moments of grace, where, if we are open to the possibility, we find out what we are meant to do with our lives. For me, one of those moments occurred in the...
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January 2019 Data Update 3: Playing the Numbers Game!
Every year, for the last three decades, I have spent the first week of the year, looking at numbers. Specifically, as the calendar year ends, I download raw data on individual companies and try to...
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January 2019 Data Update 4: The Many Faces of Risk!
I think that all investors would buy into the precept that investing in equities comes with risk, but that is where the consensus seems to end. Everything else about risk is contested, starting with...
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January 2019 Data Update 5: Hurdle Rates and Costs of Financing
In the last post, I looked at how to measure risk from different perspectives, with the intent of bringing these risk measures into both corporate finance and valuation. In this post, I will close the...
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January 2019 Data Update 6: Profitability and Value Creation!
In my last post, I looked at hurdle rates for companies, across industries and across regions, and argued that these hurdle rates represent benchmarks that companies have to beat, to create value. That...
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January 2019 Data Update 8: Dividends and Buybacks - Fact and Fiction
In my series of data posts, I had always planned to get to dividends and buybacks, the two mechanisms that companies have for returning cash to stockholders, at this point, but an op ed on buybacks by...
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January 2019 Data Update 7: Debt, neither poison nor nectar!
Debt is a hot button issue, viewed as destructive to businesses by some at one end of the spectrum and an easy value creator by some at the other. The truth, as is usually the case, falls in the...
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January 2019 Data Update 9: The Pricing Game
In my last eight posts, I looked at aspects of corporate behavior from investments to financing to dividend policy, using the data that I collected at the start of 2019, to examine what companies share...
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The Perils of Investing Idol Worship: The Kraft Heinz Lessons!
On February 22, Kraft Heinz shocked investors with a trifecta of bad news in its earnings report: sub-par operating results, a mention of accounting irregularities and a massive impairment of goodwill,...
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Lyft Off? The First Ride Sharing IPO!
Last week, Lyft became the first of the ride sharing companies to announce plans for an initial public officering, filing its prospectus. It is definitely not going to be the last, but its fate in the...
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Uber's Coming out Party: Personal Mobility Pioneer or Car Service on Steroids?
After Lyftâs IPO on March 29, 2019, it was only a matter of time before Uber threw its hat in the public market ring, and on Friday, April 12, 2019, the company filed its prospectus. It is the first...
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Tesla's Travails: Curfew for a Corporate Teenager?
It should come as no surprise to anyone that Tesla is back in the news, though it seems to be for all of the wrong reasons. From Musk's Twitter escapades with the SEC, to talk about electric lawn...
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Meatless Future or Vegan Delusions? The Beyond Meat Valuation
In a big year for initial public offerings (IPOs), with Uber, Lyft, Pinterest and Zoom, to name just a few, already having gone public and more companies waiting in the wings, it is ironic that it is...
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