libor.plus1

I intend to do a writeup for it at some point when I get some free time. But sure, here's the short version. Hydro One is a regulated utilitity that does electricity transmission and distribution in Ontario. It owns virtually all the transmission system in Ontario and a huge chunk of the distribution system. Very simple and safe business. Recently there's been a lot of political nonsense around the company which drove down the price a lot. This is not an I'm gonna get rich stock, nor do I think it is a screaming bargain at the current price. I think at current levels it's a safe bet it'll do 8%-10%. Given where market valuations are right now I don't mind making 8-10% on some power wires and deploy some cash I got sloshing around in portfolios. I'd love to read your write up on this. Im having a hard time seeing how you get comfortable with the lack of dividend growth potential (only 4-5% increase per year) and the political issues surrounding this company - which plays directly into the dividend growth potential, or lack of.

I bought some EMA.TO and BCE this week. My reasoning is that I think at this part of the cycle rising interest rates are closer to the end than the beginning.

and that doesnt apply to the S&P?

Not sure why so many people are buying brk.b - at this point brk is an S&P hugger and they both have the same 1 and 5 year returns. Plus, there's probably downside if WB kicks it.

wow. How did this company go from $500/share to a microcap in five years?

i work in a real estate law office and we have a ton of clients with dozens of pre bought units waiting to flip them. one client has 30 in fact. 'bubble' is an understatement.

I'm a bearish guy in general. And up to today, I was pretty much all cash, except for maybe some option plays. And over the last few months, I've been waiting for a huge correction so I could start building my position. Even with the slight correction we've had so far, I wasn't impressed... "there's more to go" "More" included: -Greek elections -economic slowdown -batshit insanity from the rest of Europe, downgrades, bailouts, etc. -China. Now, my uncle collects old stamps, old newspapers, old cards. He buys this stuff in bulk from Ebay and thoroughly enjoys looking at them or reading them or just having them around. Just the other day, he got a giant collection of newspapers from the early 1940s, at the height of WW2. I was intrigued, so I carefully opened up one of the newspapers, which contained a headline about the Germans attacking, and something about Pearl Harbour. I flipped through a couple of more pages and got to the stock section where there were headlines about new M&A activities, and general business commentary. What struck me as odd was that these business commentaries almost seemed removed from the headlines in the previous section about the end of the world. Some stocks were up, some stocks were down, but business as usual (relatively speaking). And it made me realize... you know what? All this stuff about Greek elections and Europe, and the end of the world... this will all come to pass. It doesn't really mean anything in the grand scheme of things. I mean, what we have going on around us now is nothing compared to WW2. What we are experiencing now is small peanuts. We'll get through it. Things aren't that bad. TL;DR: I started buying a bunch of stuff today.

this is going to be an excellent opportunity for companies such as LVLT

I'd like to say that I think that these anecdotal pieces of evidence you put here are perhaps only confirming your bias that things are "still looking good". I also think unconsciously you might be trying to seek out these positives and perhaps ignoring the obvious negatives. It's a much more tame and non-insane version of Ben Graham(?) posting things that affirm his investments in LVLT. For every arbitrary article that you post showing a (I would say positive, but I don't think 1.8% growth really qualifies)... I can find an equally disturbing piece of news.. such as the most recent German bond auction results and the widening CDS spreads on all the banks... I'm only stating this because usually there is a lot of tugging and pulling on the board here which makes this my #1 source for commentary, but over the last few months, its started to move towards groupthink (or maybe I'm just jaded by the BAC thread)... and the ones that generally do hold countering views ... umm... perhaps don't state their opinions in the most....reasonable/sane/logical/nonabrasive way.

Did I miss something in this thread? It just took a turn for the bizarre...

This is sort of a red-button argument: "if your investment in BAC blows up, you won't have needed the money you invested anyway because you will be hoarding shot gun shells and bottled water as you fight zombies." Life will likely very well go on after the equity holders are whipped out and the government steps in to "nationalize" BAC. Essentially what they did with Citi. Citi died, shareholders got whipped out, life went on. Well, in the face of the European hurricane causing a relapse into recession, BAC may have to take measures that other financials don't have to, including dilution. But if BAC common actually goes down totally, which is very unlikely, it's likely that most of the other guys are going down too because the financial system will have collapsed again. So I think you're really making a call on all financials rather than on some idea that BAC is more of a black box than any other financial. Fair enough. I guess I was more focused on BAC since it's the company that's been getting the most positive attention on this board.

This is sort of a red-button argument: "if your investment in BAC blows up, you won't have needed the money you invested anyway because you will be hoarding shot gun shells and bottled water as you fight zombies." Life will likely very well go on after the equity holders are whipped out and the government steps in to "nationalize" BAC. Essentially what they did with Citi. Citi died, shareholders got whipped out, life went on.

libor.plus1, when you say you think that anyone who thinks BAC is a good buy is kidding themselves, is there something about BAC in particular that you have in mind? Or do you pretty much have the view that all the financials are black boxes and shouldn't be invested in, as per the bottom answer on the survey? I very much think BAC is a black box. It's one of a many dominoes that's connected to every other domino. If one of them falls (europe, china), you can bet BAC will be ruined. Investing in BAC is essentially stating that you are of the conviction that the massive, massive, MASSIVE, structural problems in Europe will sort themselves out without bloodshed. I don't know anyone who can reasonably argue this. We live in a very interconnected world, and moreso banks than any other sector I can think of. People on this board are talking about BAC "being well capitalized". Maybe as it relates to the CW acquisition and liabilities. But if anyone thinks BAC is well capitalized for the shitstorm that's going to go down when France loses that AAA rating... well, I guess we will see.

http://cdn.styleforum.net/8/85/851ac22e_d61912a9_cant-tell-if-serious.jpeg

Thank you! I thought I was the only one who thought dealing in BAC was more of a gamble than an investment. There are so many variables in play here, and most of them look to be on the downside. Anyone who can confidently say BAC is a good buy is kidding themselves. That said, Sanjeev is right. I've been following this board for about 5 years, and never recall a stock or investment that the board agreed on this much that didn't do very well for its investors... FFH, SNS, ORH, NB, etc etc. At the same time, I simply can't see the value here given all the uncertainty coming out of europe and china, not to mention on its own home turf. I can see this going to a 3 handle in about 6 months.