EBITDA, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, is a straight-forward measure (not a perfect measure, though) of a company’s cash operating profits. But, like seemingly all metrics published by company managements, it is usually adjusted for unusual items that may be non-recurring.
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Waiting for a Buying Opportunity
Let’s start with the good news this week.
Fourth quarter results are in for all but one of our companies (Jushi) and they were terrific, showing average revenue growth from the year before of 167%—a number that would be even without...
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Stop-losses, or more fully, stop-loss orders, are trading orders that are placed to execute a sale automatically if a stock falls below a specified trigger price. The idea is that these orders can prevent a small loss from becoming a large loss. It also...
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There’s no doubting the dominance achieved by mega-tech companies like Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google and the other members of the “FANGMAN” club (Microsoft, Apple and Nvidia). Over the past decade or two, these have created entirely new industries, grown to unprecedented size and shareholders...
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Being a contrarian investor often means buying stocks that are outside of the current zeitgeist. Many investors would look at a list of new buys in a contrarian’s portfolio and wonder just what, exactly, the contrarian was thinking. “Why don’t you just buy stocks...
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Each day brings something new. Some days every stock falls, other days they all surge, and some days, like Monday, undervalued stocks in the industrial, consumer and financial sectors jump (the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1%) while the Nasdaq slipped 2.4% - enormous...
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“Legal Weed Stocks Dip Despite New Jersey Governor Signing Recreational Cannabis Bill Into Law”
That was the headline on one of my news sources yesterday morning, implying that the action of the stocks in light of that legalization event was somehow illogical. But as know...
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The stock market is clearly accelerating the “reopening” trade. Small cap and cyclical stocks as well as commodity prices are surging, interest rates continue to tick up (the 10-year Treasury yield is now 1.38%, up from 0.92% at year-end), and novel financial vehicles SPACs,...
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With the stock market regularly surging to record highs, it may seem like an unusual time to focus on valuation. After all, many stocks are remarkably expensive on traditional measures, and even somewhat lofty on non-traditional measures. But valuation still matters, especially if market...
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Last week, we outlined four ingredients of a market bubble that were usefully outlined in a recently published book1”and briefly described how it clearly appears that our stock market is in a bubble. These ingredients include easy trading of assets, cheap and easy rising...
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2021 Kicks Off With a Bang
A funny thing happened while I was preparing this issue yesterday. Not funny ha-ha. Funny odd.
I was updating my performance tables and noticed that the performance of the Marijuana Index year-to-date was exactly the same as its performance all...
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Intel’s recently publicized struggles with its own chip production highlight the trajectory of this story. The company has been unable to successfully transition to leading-edge manufacturing technologies, and is seriously considering outsourcing to companies like Taiwan Semiconductor. Intel has long been the industry’s in...
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As value investors in a remarkably robust (exuberant) stock market, full valuation impels us to want to sell a stock. Such is the case with General Motors. On most conventional metrics, the stock is fairly priced. Through the courtesy of several friends, we’ve some...
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Most stocks on the Cabot Undervalued Stocks Advisor recommended list had strong performance this past week. Part of the strength was perhaps due to money managers’ general optimism that seems to brighten with turn of the calendar. With last year’s bonuses firmly in bag,...
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The Point of Peak Perception?
It’s a truism of investing that stocks bottom when the news is terrible and pessimism and fear are the prevailing sentiments—but peak when the news is good and optimism and greed reign.
You have only to look back to March a..
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With the turn of the calendar only a few days ahead, just about every investor is mapping out their market views for the coming year. Some do this formally, like Wall Street brokerage firms who publish their opinions on where the S&P 500 interest...
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The Cabot Undervalued Stocks Advisor has an investment horizon that is generally one to two years. As long as our companies are making fundamental progress, we’re comfortable with waiting for periods that easily extend past December 31st. However, the market doesn’t necessarily share that perspective. many...
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It’s been said that the four most dangerous words in investing are “this time, it’s different.” The stock market’s behavior is clearly pointing to things being different this time.
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Over the past month or so, it seemed like stocks would continue their frenetic surge. This week, however, the market appears relatively lackluster with a lot less excitement. Some investors may yearn for more fireworks, but as a value investor, I find this to...
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The Future is Full of Surprises
One of the oft-told tales of the California Gold Rush is that while most miners failed to strike it rich, the real money-makers were the people selling shovels—and of course that immigrant from Bavaria, Levi Strauss, who sold denim...
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