This is post 503! 500 posts screams out for a top five. However, I got carried away when selecting my top five. Thus I present you a bakers dozen.

I hope those buying now are shooting their wad early. I’m standing back, forever practicing my patience, looking for any real mis-pricing opportunities. Keeping an eye on stocks showing strong support during the decline. Two small stocks I have positions in have held up strongly; AMM.AX and ASW.AX. If I had more time I’d dig into ELD and PSH as those knives keep falling and even trash bounces high if it’s compacted enough .

David Hocking from SIBA left an interesting comment this week where he suggests that governments are the drivers of the real estate boom as it is they who have the most to benefit. While I see his point and agree that State and Local Governments are making abnormal profits, there are other parties playing significant roles and profiting. The banks play a significant role in controlling the tenor of the market to ensure they maximise their profits. It’s especially easy for them to do within the Australian banking cartel.
As I’ve said before bubbles always pop …

I may as well keep banging this drum. This beat goes out to my friends Bill and Misha who just bought a second property. They hold the view that the worst that could happen is housing prices could plateau for a few years. For their sake I hope Edward Chancellor is wrong.
AUSTRALIA is in the midst of an unsustainable housing bubble that could burst at any time, warns the man who predicted the global credit bust of 2007.
Edward Chancellor, of US investment bank GMO, says the Australian economy is yet …

Despite still owning a position in Penrice with a cost basis of $0.80 and the shares now selling at $0.58 I fell OK. Not because I have a lot of faith in Penrice, but because I was correct in changing my opinion. I’ve found that once I’ve established a position I tend to become married to it. I find it difficult to re-evaluate positions in an open, honest and fresh way.

In the short run markets can go higher fueled by a high octane mix of government spending and peak margins from unsustainable cost cutting. The US market could provide good returns over the next year or slightly longer. In the long run margins will compress earnings will fall the government stop spending and increase taxes and the US market will fail to provide good long term returns from this point.

Is Woolworths going on sale? Has Elders bottomed yet? Will I ace my first assignment? Time for some Jonathan Richman.

At some point the Australian residential property bubble will pop. It’s not a matter of if, it’s simply a matter of when. Everything else is noise.

“The main struggle I’ve had my entire investment life is with the preposterous belief that all information is embedded so quickly and efficiently into stock prices that asset class bubbles cannot possibly occur. But to be honest, I’ve also been pretty irritated by Graham-and-Doddites because they have managed to deduce from a great book of 75 years ago, Security Analysis, that somehow bubbles and busts can be ignored.” Grantham

Silicon Graphics International Corp. (SGI)

1. Price Earning or PE Based:
XXXXX Capital is currently forecasting that SGI will produce an annual run rate of 72 cents per year pro forma. With SGI’s margins, revenues and profits all expanding, SGI should at least achieve some industry parity in value.
When the Diversified Computer Industry’s average PE of 17.55 is applied to SGI, this would give ongoing business a value of $12.63. Then, when you add the cash of $5.10 per share, we believe that SGI could achieve a stock market value of $17.73.
This …