Although I wrote PBR above, I doubt that’s the actual stock I’d invest in, due to political tendencies in Brazil which affect their oil industry. Since oil has not fallen enough for me to take a close look, I sort of use PBR as a stand-in for “Big oil company”, but I may invest in a deep water oil driller instead or who knows what. I do like what all that oil will do for the rest of the Brazilian economy though.

I plan to add to AMAT and GLW. I covet GE, but not at this price, looking for under $25. I want some PFE, but not until it gets a haircut. I’m watching oil fall, looking to get some PBR at some point if oil keeps going down. Looking at Brazil, Chile, India and Mexico. Looking at Europe. In short, looking at anything that is getting beat up and is bound to bounce back. Like the dry shippers, the miners, infrastructure companies, tech, telecoms and of course alternative energy and oil.

Not even slightly interested in banks, home builders or retailers, authoritarian countries like China and Russia with little transparency or accountability to anyone or gold, whose allure I have never understood.

To be honest, I have a large chunk of my portfolio in a PIMCO bond fund and thanks to that I’m outperforming many famous names. I fully expect to wake up any day and find my whole stock portfolio to be down 20-30% and I’m actually looking forward to the buying opportunity. Hopefully, a world wide depression won’t follow right after I’m fully invested…

We’ll see.

What else are you looking at,??..if you don’t mind me asking. I am interested in the banks, now that they have been beaten down. currently watching AIG and AIB, trying to determine a reasonable value given the turmoil in that area…right now at least.

Darren

My two favorite holdings are AMAT and now GLW and I’m expecting growth from them. I did forget to mention several other criteria that I use and one of them is a small to decent dividend that has the potential to grow over time. I can see where dividends would not be a good thing if you are Canadian.

CEMEX has been on my radar for about a year, but it doesn’t have a dividend if I remember correctly (not a problem for you) and if I recall, I didn’t like their debt level. I would take a serious look at it again if it fell a few bucks, but I have a few others higher on my list.

The most intriguing stock I’ve come across is ITI, blew my mind when it came up in a screening and surpassed every criteria by a mile, except dividends, which it doesn’t pay. I haven’t bought it though, I don’t really know what to make of it, I have no way to asses it’s growth potential, although I like the story. They help municipalities with traffic patterns and make traffic safety gadgets. It’s also a $2 stock, which I guess doesn’t mean anything, but it makes me a bit nervous.

They have turned things around..and they are positioned as you say to take advantage of the growth in those sectors you mentioned…..true enough. I just have a hard time, as a conservative investor, with that bankruptcy thing…. (almost bankrupt thing I guess)

Interesting though. You got me thinking. When i look back at past stock prices on GLW it doesn’t look promising for stock growth. That may not be an issue for you though. Here in canada, they tax us heavily on dividends, lighter on capital growth…so I am laways trying to find that elusive stock that I think has good potential for stock price growth as well as all the other attributes of the Graham/Buffett models. Tough to find.

Any thoughts out there on CEMEX?

Darren

Corning used to be one of the darlings during the internet bubble. Like many companies that were involved in all that, even though not in the front lines as a dot com, they got somewhat carried away, bloated and careless. As I have mentioned before, I’m not nearly as competent with the quantitative analysis as most people here, but I loved that company the minute I saw their basic numbers and got a basic understanding of all the businesses they’re in.

They have almost no debt, good cash flow, very low P/E and PEG ratio even before the sell off of the last two days, very good earnings growth, great ROI and profit margins and the CEO seems to have a reputation for straight talk.

The second part is just as important to me and that’s the story. Their main source of income right now is glass for T.V.s and computers. Because of over supply and the general consumer malaise, they are going to have a couple or maybe more rough quarters, thus the sell off by this market that thinks that a six month range makes you an investor rather than a trader.

But Corning is more than just glass panels, they also do optical fiver and cable, ceramic products for emissions controls in cars and a bunch of other stuff that I believe has a great future. In addition, they own a 50% stake with DOW on a company named Hemlock Semiconductor, which is a direct play on solar.

I know this is more of a “pitch” than an analysis, but believe it or not, for better or for worse, this is how I invest after reading everything I can find on a company, from the pages of the Wall Street Journal to the most obscure blog. I write this “pitch”, not to get anyone to buy it, in fact, I hope no one does, as I’d like it to go down a little more so I can accumulate, but in the hopes that if you or any of the math wonks here take an interest in the stock they can wonk away at it and explain to me why I’m a total idiot or an accidental genius. Either way, I can never get enough input.

If I may, it looks like Corning had some bad cash flow years and just turned it around in the last few years. What has your research shown was the problem and why do you feel they have turned the corner on profitability?

Just interested…

Darren

With that said, even though right now it seems that AEO moat is eroding to competition and short-term economic effects, it doesn%u2019t mean it%u2019s not a good investment. If you believe AEO will be able to create positive future value (generate positive future owner earnings) in excess of what you pay now at a significance discount then I believe it%u2019s an investment opportunity. I agreed this becomes more of an Asset Play (one of Peter Lynch%u2019s categories) than a lollapolazza effect (one of Phil Fisher/Charlie Munger categories). I prefer the later investment type myself but I don%u2019t rule out the former either.

That being said, I still have this uneasy feeling about the fickle customer and the clothing retail business as a whole. So, maybe this one is not for me.

I do hope it takes off and makes money for those holding it. All I would say is, “don’t treat it like a buy and hold stock” Make some money and get out…..

Taking my own advice….then..perhaps I should by some !!

Best of luck

Darren