no_free_lunch

Distractions work great for me. I find some project to work on, usually after a few days you are not even thinking about investing. It becomes the opposite problem where you start to find it difficult to motivate yourself to start researching stocks again.

ScorpionCapital, Your put strategy sounds interesting but I don't know of any stocks where a put striking at 50% of current market price yields15-20%, not even a long-term leap. Likely I just don't understand your strategy. Could you give an example?

Much appreciated Morgan.

I have been thinking about this one for awhile now. I keep wondering in my head why I'm doing so much work on ideas when I can buy an etf that will probably give similar results. The main drawbacks I have thought of: 1) Not internationally diversified. I am not sure I care. 2) There is actually little to no benefit to wide moat stocks versus low / no moat stocks, even based on morningstar's analysis. The main outperformance seems to come from picking the cheapest stocks relative to fair value. Not really an issue per se but something to be aware of. I would still prefer wide moat stocks, just in case. Maybe they have been lucky for the past 10 years, who knows, if it was all luck at least I own cheap companies with moats so hopefully won't significantly underperform. Or in other words, at least the methodology is one that I understand and where it makes sense that it would outperform. 3) They seem to be large cap focused. I don't think they necessarily have to be, but when you look at the index it is mostly large to mega caps. If there was a version that invested in say 50 small large moat, cheap small-caps that would be ideal.

John, The screen you are asking for is a bit trickier to do but definitely worthwhile. One I found manually is ADS. They bought back a bunch of stock in 08/09 when they were cheap and have since basically stopped buying back shares. They have also grown their EPS by about 8x over the past decade. Very interesting company albeit not particularly cheap right now.

I have been working on this a bit and don't mind sharing some results. Just keep in mind that my data-source is not the best and so some of these are not really cannibals but just data errors. Nevertheless it should be less work to go through this than the entire stock universe. These are all the stocks I could find which have reduced share count by 30% or more from 2006 to 2012. SYMBOL, SHARE REDUCTION 'aap', -30.346465072655004 'abc', -40.05856873715785 'acat', -32.78435631183613 'acgl', -39.93088525644429 'ads', -37.72755607298557 'aet', -36.5116241192287 'aiz', -35.85059902983259 'am', -38.93951758262922 'amgn', -35.35897433546168 'an', -41.5429263703194 'ann', -32.01821008664114 'apol', -35.13263652199344 'aro', -33.53342664581492 'asa', -33.02083148739591 'asca', -41.790513454678134 'azo', -47.903769482304135 'bbsi', -37.600003344482715 'bcsb', -46.023685850231345 'biib', -30.041102124577712 'cake', -30.64822889681782 'cb', -36.35479661371769 'cce', -41.20369228475263 'cec', -44.57532615343115 'cec', -43.73837723309554 'cec', -46.81736991401472 'cec', -46.014277324705255 'ceco', -30.244412355332628 'cent', -31.515915041125155 'cht', -45.37041895266577 'chtr', -75.203410132527 'cmt', -30.098043610912796 'cprt', -31.23445032597373 'cpwr', -42.44244579352724 'crtx', -37.780401754290594 'czr', -32.63496797831307 'dds', -37.646615468866926 'dnb', -31.281200468283245 'dst', -32.72449301170558 'dtv', -52.28943375394506 'eat', -40.67513281546914 'esi', -43.1773858174457 'fonr', -55.61837613281568 'fstc', -42.69113555655386 'gps', -43.40657116550908 'grr', -39.388797043548976 'gsol', -33.39198632181234 'iaci', -42.45321633856024 'jctcf', -34.03361389752438 'lbtya', -35.50966359470029 'lea', -37.088525207194536 'lxk', -34.123711894505924 'mrh', -50.55466098526027 'mx', -32.39756847075912 'noc', -30.84817382804339 'pgi', -31.931578076452404 'prls', -78.9224394144082 'ptp', -45.165076493624746 'pze', -52.65120183226871 'qlgc', -39.058549822590784 'qlti', -31.387153629504894 'rnr', -36.87274637755027 'sfi', -33.80738144911996 'shld', -33.56250077998267 'sonc', -32.17126469251842 'stmp', -30.95989344897906 'stx', -31.238824453023017 'swy', -45.58055138831687 'symc', -30.384615031925165 'tmk', -35.965221985474074 'ty', -39.09977438118547 'wlp', -50.49227822035534 'wtm', -41.65120725927062 'wtw', -42.820509469955745 'zlc', -33.05630629828733 'ustr', -32.90064832696405 'vc', -59.68991952563941 'vrsn', -37.09399238869885 'fico', -41.31716526804615 'awh', -42.27898537157808 'big', -44.16747005805737 'eihi', -30.308370333232947 'eig', -41.635051986243276 'ipcc', -40.876655577820166 'jack', -31.921166517708997 'ntls', -51.36124372023113 'pgla', -39.379156001199036 'roiak', -49.225003004083746 'sapx', -33.997343957503325 'hckt', -30.452301643089985

In addition to my previous comments regarding higher production drop-off rates with shale oil, I am also coming across frequent comments that the best quality assets are being developed first. As a result, you may also have to contend with lower average production from new wells as time goes on. Again, I view this as positive for the oil service/equipment companies. Demand for oil/gas is not going away anytime soon so if more drilling is needed then it will simply have to happen. http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9506

I am by no means an expert on oil and gas but I have certainly been educating myself since before and after I bought into this one. It is true that there has been a tremendous amount of drilling over the past decade, and production of both oil and gas has started to increase. However, it really seems that with the high depletion rates of the wells, that oil production hasn't been solved we are simply moving to a stage where continued high levels of drillling will be necessary. That bodes well for NOV in my opinion. http://business.financialpost.com/2012/07/21/will-tight-oil-change-the-world/?__lsa=3fff-2c3b

AIG-WT 8% ATSG 4.5% DAIO 1.5% FB 6% FTP 2.5% NOV 10% KSS 10% MBI 6% IBM 7% JNJ 7% GRVY 2% MISC ETFS 15% CHL 7% BIDU 2.5% CASH 12%

Well thanks to all who replied! The library idea was worth pursuing and while they don't have morningstar, I apparently do have access to valueline through the library. I hadn't even thought of valueline but I think I would actually prefer it to morningstar. Isn't that what Buffet used to use? I was looking for somethingthat can reduce the initial period where i am building up my initial slice of knowledge in order to figure out if I want to proceed with the research. Normally, it is a number of articles, links on google/yahoo finance, maybe a quick skim through the latest 10-Q, etc. So much faster with valueline. Thanks again, you guys are great. :)

I have been thinking about buying a morningstar subscription for the past several years and think maybe now is the time. I am curious if anyone on the board subscribes to them and what they think of their research. I would be using them exclusively for their individual equity research and rankings.

Did some basic research on the mexican homebuilder. It doesn't look good. Some of their competitors are going into bankruptcy proceedings. Rumors they will too. Much of the housing was low,low income build out in boonies. It's debatable whether there book is understated or not. The housing boom was brought on by government involvement and looks to be collapsing. There are always going to be issues when you are dealing with cheap stocks but I have to put this one in the too complicated category.

I don't really know for sure, just my opinion. I have read that china's growth this year will be the slowest since 1999. By the true definition of a recession, 2 quarters of negative growth, they are not there yet. However, in a relative sense they are in a recession. With stocks it's more important to look at things relatively than used some canned formula. I just remember the buzz about china in 2006/2007 and now the index is about 1/3 of where it peaked back then. It is also one of the cheapest countries based on shiller PE. http://topforeignstocks.com/2013/02/19/pe-ratios-of-emerging-markets/ Sorry for distracting the thread.

Is china an industry or is it a sector? I can never remember how these classifications work. ;) Either way it is for all intents and purposes in a recession.

Well I think I made it through most of your post. Not too long, just thorough. There are a couple of things that would scare me about investing in the way you describe. 1) At a minimum I would want diversification across sectors. I would want to make sure I don't have 85% in financial stocks if I'm investing blindly. With this type of investing that could happen. To get around this I would be tempted to set a maximum allocation for a sector. 2) I would buy an account with one of these backtesting companies and run longer and more recent tests. My experience with mechanical investing is you have a strategy that is up 20% pa, but when you break out the results it might not have beaten the S&P since 2007. It always make we wonder if I'm looking at a mirage, or if things have changed. Has the widespread availability of backtesting software fundamentally changed the market such that these strategies don't work as well as they once did? Why were the results for so many mechanical strategies so consistent, with rarely more than 2 years of underperformance, and now you have 5-6 years of underperformance? I would look for something that continues to perform well over the past 5 years. You then should test the effect of changing parameters. What if your pool size is 10 companies, 40 companies, 5 companies? What if you restrict it to specific sectors? Just keep changing the parameters and see if it continues to outperform in the majority of situations and with the most recent data. If it does, you might have something. My personal opinion is that it might just work due to the sub $25M market cap. I can see how with low volume stocks there might be very little appetite for this type of strategy. Personally, it's not for me as I just like fundamental investing, I feel that if the market changes I should be able to see it based on the valuations that are offered. Never forget that the stock market has a feedback loop in it.

Drokos, thanks for the update. If nothing else, it is worth looking at the ETF's holdings just to get a few ideas.

How about the morningstar wide moat focus (WMW) ETF? It is chosen by combining a list of high-moat stocks with the most reasonable valuations. It makes sense to me that high-moat stocks will do well over time and you have a whole range of analysts at morningstar defining high-moat. More importantly it has beaten the market by about 50% over past 5 years.

WarrenWatsa, It is an interesting chart but I am not sure how you would trade on it. It looks like valuations are extremely high, looking back over the past century, but then again they have been at these levels since mid 90's. Would it have been smart to sell out of the market in 1995? Another way to look at it is that to get to historical levels, even the 08/09 bottoms would have been way too high and you would have kept your money on the sidelines.

Interesting, similar experience on my android tablet.

Well first off, I did in the end pass on Banro, I just don't like the management. Also, believe me, I did have a look at Barrick and the other majors but especially Barrick. The thing is the low PE seems like a mirage. Have a look at their capital expenditures. Despite spending significantly more than they have made in profits over the past 4 years on new mines/upgrades their per share revenue is up only 60%, the price of gold went up roughly the same, maybe more. So basically had gold stayed constant they would have the same revenues as 4 years ago and are putting all of their profits back into the mines just to stay where they are at. I think the earnings are quite overstated when you look at it from that perspective.

If you read Mish Shedlock, his basic theory seems to be that you have to include debt outstanding in the money supply. The US has somewhere on the neighbourhood of $50T total debt (federal, state, municipal, corporate, personal), so printing $.5T a year suddenly doesn't sound that bad if that debt level is stalled out. I am not sure it is quite as simple as that, I would assume that different types of debt have different velocities and impact. Anyways, it might explain what is happening in the US and Japan. So I guess in direct answer to your comments, the printing can continue until the money supply gets closer to these debt levels (I have no idea how close) or until leveraging takes off again.

Has anyone done the research on Banro (BAA)? There are 4 analysts covering it and they are putting 2014 earnings at around $1 against a stock with a $1.32 stock price. When you dig into the details beyond that the story gets more ugly. The mines are in the congo, management is going to issue 25% more shares, continued push for expansion, etc. However, if they can meet their targets and the gold bear market ever ends they could do extremely well.

+1 for energold. I was actually thinking about it after I posted and going to mention it but liberty beat me. It is my only "gold" holding and due to it's diversification should do well when gold/oil rebounds. It probably deserves it's own board post.

They are mostly horrible businesses and I would do much DD even with the pullback. I don't know ANV specifically, most of them though just don't ever seem to generate much profit. Just make sure you consider share dilution and capital expenditures. Many of them are putting everything they make back into capital expenditures and yet their output doesn't increase. So if all of your profits are getting reinvested to generate the same profits later, in spite of record prices, that is not a good situation. When you add it all up it almost seems like raw gold is the better investment if the miners can't make money at the current price. If you find a diamond in the rough though, please post it.

Look at this link. The balance sheet section has a column with shares outstanding. I am curious to see what you find. http://investing.money.msn.com/investments/financial-statements?symbol=ibm