Friday, February 25, 2011

Chatting Messenger

It's the last Friday of the month, so Frank (author of value site frankvoisin.com) and I are chatting messenger, where we discuss stories from the web that caught our interest:

Saj: We talk a lot about company balance sheets and market positions, but that's all useless according to this article in a national newspaper:
"One look at the charts tells the whole story at Cisco Systems...balance sheet strength, their cash position, R&D spending and their position in their industry don’t amount to a hill of beans."
Frank: Sounds like the media is providing a great education to investors.
Saj: This "hill of beans" metric sounds important.
Frank: Maybe we should focus more on it! And:
"As investors we need to be alert to changes in trend...Until CSCO moves convincingly through the upper resistance of the channel the down trend is still in place"
Saj: Yeah, that makes sense. As "investors" we should ignore the actual company, and instead just copy what other investors are doing by going with the trend.
Frank: Yeah, that's not a recipe for disaster.

Saj: So a government is funding the construction of yet another sports arena, this time in Quebec.
“We have a window of opportunity of only a few months to attract an NHL franchise. It will be gone in a year."
Frank: It's great how the government intervenes in such important areas, where the private sector constantly lets us down.
Saj: Absolutely. Millionaire professional athletes and billionaire team owners need to be subsidized by tax payers...where else is the money supposed to come from??

Frank: While one government spends superfluously, another nation can't afford its interest payments.
Saj: But they're not admitting defeat just yet:
“We do have the money of course...I don’t have a date yet but we will definitely pay.”
Frank: They sound like the degenerate gambler in every mobster movie
Saj: "Come on, you know I'm good for it! The money's no problem, I've got some cash coming my way real soon!"

Frank: How about this chart from Egypt.
Saj: Step 1 in defending a dictatorship: Don't let your citizens assemble/communicate.
Frank: Should governments have internet "kill switches"? This chart says probably not.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Saj,

You have to keep in mind that the federal government has already subsidized billions for the Vancouver Olympics for brand new infrastructures...

Great Blogue btw!
An Angry Quebec Fan

Salsero said...

I say you guys are ready for your own CNBC program. Great stuff!

Saj Karsan said...

Hi, Anon. You are right that governments have made poor decisions in the past, but does that serve as justification for poor decisions in the present?

Thanks Salsero!