With time on my hands I read the June issue of Vanity Fair which featured “Hello, Madoff!” The Madoff Chronicles Part II: What the Secretary Saw. There are some interesting parallels between the Ponzi scheme operations of Madoff and the operations of Great Southern.

Suntech’s Q1 results highlight declining ASP slightly offset by falling silicon prices. Good repurchase of debt. I hope to get back to these notes soon to add some much needed comments. Included are links to the Q1 Filing, Conference call and prospectus for the 20 million ADRs. Suntech currently has $255.8 million principal amount of 2012 convertible notes outstanding. They repurchased debt in Q1 at 78 cents on the dollar, and it appears they plan on doing the same with the money raised.

My partner is keen as mustard to invest in residential property. Being an outstandingly nice guy, I too wish to benovently allow someone to pay off a mortgage for me. Professionals and amatuers both have strong opinions on where housing prices are headed. Most prognosticators or at least the loudest, are predicting higher prices. Cough, cough. Are they fricking insane.

I am not an expert in residential property, but I am a pretty darn good investor. For most long term investors there is only one time when you should buy any asset. You should only buy long term assets when they are cheap.

With that in mind there is only one question that we need to answer. Is residential property in Australia cheap?

Ultra Funds should only be used for short term investments, measured in days. Due to volatility these funds do not return the expected two times performance over longer periods.

Great Southern today became the second major Australian agribusiness to collapse in the past month. It was arguably a complete scam and certainly it had all the hallmarks of a Ponzi scheme.

KongZhong Corporation (NASDAQ:KONG) blew away analysts estimates when they reported after hours on Wednesday. Could this baby gorilla of the wireless market finally be growing up into a chest pounding 800lb gorilla?

Biota Bulls are excited over the following statement in Daiichi Sankyo’s 2008 Fiscal results published today. Fist things first, here are the two important announcements by Biota on CS-8958, a long-acting neuraminidase inhibitor, LANI for short.

What gives at Facet Biotech? Q1 Transcript, Chapman, leases and pipeline.

Macquarie’s SPP offer document has now been mailed out. I haven’t received mine yet, but I got a chance to look through it today on the ASX site.

This is a quick note to reassure readers that you’re not alone, but you are in very select company.
After more than a year of blogging and blurting here are some stats from this site. I thought some of you may be interested.