SMOD, NOG and my rules of shorting

April 17, 2011

Over the past week, I have liquidated my SMOD position (first described here in January), because tech positions were taking up an uncomfortably high proportion of my portfolio. With my recent addition of DELL and TECD, as well as my previous RSH position, I decided to offload SMOD as it has already run up 25-30% […]

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Multiple liquidations : RLOG, LNET, TSYS

April 10, 2011

I have done some spring cleaning of my portfolio recently, clearing out some of the older positions in my portfolio. After a position has been in my portfolio for close to 1 year, I do a check on my original investment thesis. For the stocks in which I have lost confidence in my original theses, […]

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A couple of tech additions : DELL and TECD

April 1, 2011

Recently, I’ve added a couple of large cap tech names to my portfolio. Being large caps, these stocks are not massively undervalued, but when one considers the risk-reward involved, they are well worth the investment. Dell’s business model is essentially the same as Walmart’s, that is, building scale and lowering unit costs. After pioneering the […]

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TNP : Crisis of confidence in management

March 22, 2011

In the Dhandho Investor, Mohnish Pabrai describes how he invested in Frontline in 2002 as the stock entered a freefall. Frontline is an oil tanker operator that was under severe pressure from the low charter rates at that time, and appeared to be in danger of bankruptcy. Pabrai describes how his research showed that the […]

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CKEC : The Hollywood threat

March 4, 2011

As a result of my position in CKEC, I have started paying attention to Hollywood news. Yesterday, there was an article about Hollywood partnering with DirecTV to roll out its premium video on demand (VOD) plan. The premium VOD plan will make movies available 2 months after theatrical release, and at least 1 month before […]

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To short or not to short

March 2, 2011

In a recent blog posting, John Hempton complains about the slim pickings in small cap value stocks, and relatively cheap large cap stocks. He finds more trash than gems among small caps nowadays, and as a result, Bronte Capital is now running a long large cap short diversified small cap portfolio. I, of course, am not […]

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HRB : An update

February 24, 2011

Since my last report on HRB, the stock has risen nearly 30%, past my original conservative valuation of $13.11. With the tax early filing season now nearly over, I thought that this would be a good time to do an update on the second largest position in my portfolio. At the start of the filing […]

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CKEC : A Conviction Buy

February 22, 2011

Once in a blue moon, I come across a stock which is so severely undervalued that it makes my heart race. CKEC is one such stock. While the stock is a microcap and is relatively illiquid, I believe that if one takes the time to slowly accumulate a significant position, the rewards will be well […]

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RSH : An undervalued retailer

February 11, 2011

I was hesitant about writing up my RSH position, since there is basically already a cacophony of positive value-oriented reviews out there, and I’m not sure I’ll be adding much. But in the end, I decided to stick to the discipline of writing up every one of my positions, so here goes. Radio Shack needs […]

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Recent liquidations and Portfolio Update

February 9, 2011

Now that my grant application is done, I’ve time to start up my investing hobby again. I thought that I would start off just by summarizing the positions I’ve liquidated in my 2 week self-imposed cone of silence, the one position I added, and the current state of my portfolio. My recent liquidations (% gain […]

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