The Intelligent Investor

Intelligent Investor

The Westfield of insurance

GREG HOFFMAN There aren’t many businesses that can boast a track record like this one. And there are even fewer that are available at such an attractive price.

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My grandmother wouldn't bet on Tabcorp

GREG HOFFMAN Tabcorp seems like a fine prospect; it’s available at a seemingly attractive price and it owns some unique assets in its collection of casinos, gaming and wagering licences. But what’s the company actually worth?

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Time to turn to quality stocks

GREG HOFFMAN Confidence is back. Those same cyclical stocks that people were avoiding last year have become today’s darlings.

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Confessions of an aeroholic

GREG HOFFMAN Hi, my name is Greg and I’m an aeroholic. I’ve thought about buying shares in airline stocks and the urge is growing stronger. The economy is picking up and so are airline stocks with it.

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Be on guard against 'creative reporting'

GREG HOFFMAN Important information that should be brought to the attention of shareholders - the true owners of the company - is often buried at the end of company announcements.

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Hills hoist by its own petard

GREG HOFFMAN From annual reports to ASX announcements, bad news is glossed over and good news talked up. Take Hills Industries’ latest profit result.

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Top three stock tips prove the point

GREG HOFFMAN We kicked off a new ''Top 3 for 3'' in December last year and the one-year check-up has produced some amazing results.

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Patient wait for the big win

GREG HOFFMAN “Sovereign defaults” would likely send shockwaves around the world. Given the powerful sharemarket recovery since the low point reached in March, this is particularly pertinent. Complacency can steal your cufflinks.

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Black swans hit Dubai

GREG HOFFMAN The events in Dubai are but a recent and fascinating example of a 'black swan'.

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Betting on prosperous times

GREG HOFFMAN More than 50 years ago, an engineer at the Ainsworth Dental Company put it to the proprietor's son, Len Ainsworth, that their factory had all the equipment necessary to build a prototype poker machine.

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Be fearful: speculation is back

GREG HOFFMAN For the first time in more than two years, total margin lending increased in the September quarter, and even more tellingly, money is now finding its way into speculative “blue sky” stocks.

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What the 19.5% man can teach us

GREG HOFFMAN There's a few tips worth learning from Anthony Bolton, one of the UK's best-known fund managers.

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What's Woodside really worth?

GREG HOFFMAN Woodside has fantastic assets, first class management and a market capitalisation that has risen 36,000 times since listing in 1954. But does its share price accurately its true future value?

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Woodside's walk on the wild side

GREG HOFFMAN Is Woodside's future as assured as its share price suggests?

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Woodside steps on the gas

GREG HOFFMAN Woodside's success as Australia's largest independent oil and gas company almost didn't happen.

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The case for higher oil prices

GREG HOFFMAN Whereas oil producers can adjust their output based on their marginal cost of production, consumers have less flexibility - oil is embedded in our lives in a way that is hard to overstate.

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When oils ain't oils

GREG HOFFMAN Finding new oilfields won't do much for global supply if they're uneconomic to tap.

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Why peak oil doesn’t matter

GREG HOFFMAN The absolute quantity of oil in the ground isn’t all that important in discerning the direction of oil prices. What is important is the cost of extracting an extra barrel.

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The secret life of caterpillar investing

GREG HOFFMAN The behaviour of small birds can reveal tips on - of all things - smarter investment.

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What to make of ANZ's latest offer

GREG HOFFMAN The ANZ CPS2 offer of convertible preference shares is the latest of its kind to land in investors' in-trays. How does it stack up?

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RHG shareholders don't get the change they wanted

GREG HOFFMAN The tiff at the RHG annual meeting offered the strange feeling of losing a vote one was never going to win.

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Shareholder activism - an insider's perspective

GREG HOFFMAN Getting rid of a board member is very difficult, not least because incumbent directors, regardless of their performance, have a huge advantage over anybody opposing them.

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Wilkins gives IAG shareholders reason to 'unworry'

GREG HOFFMAN Former Insurance Australia Group CEO Michael Hawker had his fair share of critics but his replacement, Michael Wilkins, deserves more praise than he's getting.

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Big banks bounce back

GREG HOFFMAN The talk from the Commonwealth Bank was cautious but the figures are undeniably impressive.

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Advice from a billionaire

GREG HOFFMAN Since I was young, I've been interested in learning from successful people. Platinum's Kerr Neilson is one of them.

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How interest rates affect your share portfolio

GREG HOFFMAN When most people hear the term 'interest rates', they think of the official cash rate (consciously or otherwise). There's a lot more to it.

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Telstra’s $4.2b accounting trick

GREG HOFFMAN Even in a business the size of Telstra’s, $4.2 billion is a lot of money. But when it’s the subject of what polite society calls “creative accounting”, the normally effusive management team falls silent.