Blogvesting

TIPS, short for Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, are bonds which provide a degree of inflation-protection and are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government. The principal of a TIPS increases with inflation (as tracked by the CPI-U published monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics) and decreases with deflation, and interest [...]

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I have liquidated SEB from my portfolio at $1365 a share, which is a 6% gain from my entry price. In the end, I felt that this company has too many cash flow streams which is beyond my circle of competence to analyze, and the fact that management is so uncommunicative is starting to worry [...]

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Since my last review of ZINC, zinc commodity price has sunk rapidly from $0.70 per lb to $0.50 today. Even with half of 2008 and 2009’s production capacity hedged at $0.90 per lb, Horsehead probably requires a zinc price of $0.70-$0.80 per lb to break even. With zinc prices at $0.50 and many major zinc [...]

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I have recently sold put options for WMT at a strike price of $45 expiring in November 2008 (WMTWI) and January 2009 (WMTMI) at $0.80 and $2.25 per contract respectively. This is in keeping with my new strategy of writing options on stocks that I would like to acquire at strike prices that I [...]

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Kapstone Paper (KPPC) is a microcap paper company specializing in the production of kraft paper, the strong brown paper used for packaging and paper laminating applications. Kraft paper is made into grocery bags, consumer packaging for flour/sugar/pet food etc., industrial packaging for fertilizers/cement/dry chemicals etc, wrapping papers (the kind found around a burger at a [...]

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