The main reason for the difference in delta had to do with the stock beta and the discount rate. Our betas are now real time and feed into our discount rates approach, which is an industry weight average cost of capital. What this means, is you have more stability in the intrinsic value and great confidence in the analysis. If there are any further issues, please send me an email or post on our message board. Quality is our number one concern. Thanks you, Dave

BTW, this is the best investing blog I’ve seen on the internet. Keep up the good work.

David T. Durant

Founder, WikiWealth.com

david.durant@wikiwealth.com

http://www.wikiwealth.com…

We seem to be doing quite well on the quantitative aspects. Regardless, we haven’t really explored the psyche of Corporate Governance.

Issues such as:

- Annual Cash incentives

- Long-term Equity Incentives

What should be the TARGETS for which management should be receiving compensation on? Some companies will focus on EPS Diluted claiming it helps them retain focus from the top to the bottom line. Other companies, reward based on ROIC metrics and FCF efficiency (FCF/Net income).

Just to name a few! This has got to be one of the most important aspects given that management is CRUCIAL in our investments.

MTW just issues a 424B5 Sec filing for a shelf registration of 3 million shares. The purpose of the capital raised is to 1) Pay down debt and 2) General company operations.

MTW currently has:

-263 Million L-term debt

-10 Million S-term debt

-103 Million Cash

-126 Million Common Shares outstanding

-34% Debt to equity ratio (using Dec 2006 numbers)

The debt that they are retiring has a 5.9% yield.

After the offering the balance sheet will look like this:

-170 Million L-term debt

-124 Million Cash

-129 Million Common Shares outstanding

-22% Debt to equity ratio

Except for a buyback program in 2003, the company does not actively buy back its shares. Since 2000 the common shares have grown from 96 million to 129 million after this shelf offering.

What should I take away from MTW actions:

-With interest rates falling why wouldn’t they just roll-over their debt to a more favorable interst rate?

-I always feel more comfortable investing in companies with no or low debt to equity ratios, but I did not feel that MTW was exceptionally high to begin with.

-I always study where companies buy back their stock to see if they are getting value for their purchase. By MTW selling their stock at these levels should I take that as a sign that they feel their stock has reached a “fair value”.

-To be honest I would have felt better if the company announced that they were opening up a new plant or retooling a plant and decided to issue stock instead of debt.

-Is the company being good stewarts of capital?

I would like to get your feed back

I love Joe too! Sorry – I couldn’t resist. ☺ I am going to try and answer each question; still, give me time as I can only really get one post a day up here.

Nick: Actually, I am a tech geek. Other than some initial coding help from a friend, I designed the site myself so I’m overjoyed that you guys like the design.

Paolo: The You Are Here navigation was crucial. As soon as I realized I couldn’t get around, I wondered how everyone else was doing it!

Justin: My agents are currently shopping the book to publishers. We’re waiting to hear back. I’ll keep everyone posted with updates.

Glenn: I haven’t checked out WikiWealth. I’ll take a look in a few days and post some thoughts.

Do you have any insight or wish to make any comments regarding the valuations that are available online at Wikiwealth.com?

I have recently conducted a comparison of valuations from three sources, namely, your valuations using your Excel spreadsheet, my valuations using your Excel spreadsheet and the valuations posted online at Wiki. In a nut shell, it appears to be a bit hit-and-miss to me, which does not leave me with a strong sense of confidence in any one source. The following are a few of the valuations that I was able to compare.

Johnson/Johnson: Joe = $83.10, Glenn = $83.31, Wiki = $74.30

Adobe: Glenn = $35.38, Wiki = $28.40

Harley Davidson: Joe = 53.50?, Wiki = $63.50 (Justin = $91.28)

Burlington Northern: Joe = $126.83, Joe = $96.05, Wiki = $129.70

Cisco: Glenn = $20.16, Wiki = $21.00

ITT: Glenn = $85.03, Wiki = $77.80

Precision Castparts: Glenn = $119.38, Wiki = $110.20

Walt Disney: Glenn =$69.46, Wiki = $39.00

Anadarko: Glenn $63.85, Wiki = $135.10

John Deere: Glenn $40.09, Wiki = $140.10

If it were not for the large delta in valuations for Walt Disney, Anadarko and John Deere I might be persuaded to just run with the Wiki calculations rather than grind my own numbers. I will have to double check Disney, Anadarko and Deere to see if I made an input error that accounts for the large delta from the Wiki values. Your thoughts?

Glenn

I only know of a few value investing websites, but your analysis and commentary is by far the clearest I’ve seen and is my favorite. What is MOST helpful to me is how you take specific companies and walk through value investing “filters” – both qualitative and quantitative – step by step, provide all your calculations and explain your conclusion (which is consistent with your analysis!).

My pet peeve with other VI sites is people say they just bought a stock but don’t provide any insight as to why. Or it’s “I just bought USG cheaper than Buffett” – ’nuff said. I don’t find that helpful as a VI student.

At this point in my investing life, I’ve read: Warren Buffett Way, Buffettology, Intelligent Investor, Little Book That Beats the Market. (On my shelf: Security Analysis 1934, New Buffettology, Of Permanent Value) I am sold on value investing concepts, but what I need now is how to apply them to specific companies to identify terrific companies and acceptable bargain prices. That’s what I like best about your site.

I’d love a checklist (like the Buffettology workbook) or an Excel template to use for evaluating opportunities.

Thanks again Joe – you are top notch!