The Intelligent Investor
Intelligent Investor
Miclyn: Time to talk back to your broker
GREG HOFFMAN If someone is encouraging you to buy shares in upcoming float Miclyn Express Offshore, you might like to raise a couple of questions.
Intelligent Investor
How safe is Spark's 11.3% yield?
GREG HOFFMAN Boring, regulated businesses usually produce highly desirable cash flow. That's not always the end of the story.
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Goldies, Greece and Lehman's Repo 105
GREG HOFFMAN The recent release of a 2200-page report on Lehman’s collapse in September 2008 has revealed some explosive findings.
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Directors who should be voted out
GREG HOFFMAN Investors have every right to feel angry when a share offering is followed by a profit warning.
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Primary patience tested over Bateman's millions
GREG HOFFMAN Primary Health Care should be thriving, enjoying the twin tailwinds of an ageing population and growing healthcare expenditure. But it's not.
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Gunns under fire over Gay share sale
GREG HOFFMAN Shareholders in forestry giant Gunns have every right to be upset at chairman John Gay, with the company’s share price falling from almost $3 to less than 70 cents. That, though, is not the worst of it.
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Books to make you a better investor
GREG HOFFMAN We're big on education at The Intelligent Investor.
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The Packer factor in investing
GREG HOFFMAN Many fortunes are built with a value-based approach. Kerry Packer is a great example.
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Buffett sticks it to the CEOs
GREG HOFFMAN Billionaire Warren Buffett reminds us of a few investment basics - while unloading on failed corporate bosses.
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Asset plays the last piece in the puzzle
GREG HOFFMAN Now, like the end of a game of Trivial Pursuit, we'll fill in the last piece of investment pie: asset plays.
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Turnaround stocks: The pleasure and pain
GREG HOFFMAN Turnaround stocks offer tricks and treats, especially for the beginner investor.
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The pitfalls and profits of cyclical stocks
GREG HOFFMAN If the sharemarket were a sporting competition, cyclical stocks would be reserved for "first grade" players only.
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Stalking the ten-bagger
GREG HOFFMAN Here are some tips on landing a wonder stock - and when to let it go.
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Which pigeon hole for Telstra?
GREG HOFFMAN To analyse Telstra one almost needs to be a psychologist.
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Anchors aweigh for stock holders
GREG HOFFMAN We've all done it - waiting for the share price to rise back to where we bought the stock. Bad idea.
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The share price target myth
GREG HOFFMAN Earnings season portends a flood of analysts' reports. Here's a few tips before diving in.
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QBE better than Buffett
GREG HOFFMAN In the past four years, QBE shares have underperformed, which begs the question: is this an opportunity, or simply a business that isn’t as good as it once was?
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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.
The Intelligent Investor
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.
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Kathmandu or Kathmandon’t?
GREG HOFFMAN To attract a favourable recommendation from The Intelligent Investor’s analysts a float has to be rather unusual. Kathmandu’s isn’t.
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Lessons from the Myer float flop
GREG HOFFMAN You might profit more from watching how private equity works rather than buying shares in the companies they’re trying to offload.
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ANZ's expansion plans spell trouble
GREG HOFFMAN In theory, an investment bank should be a more risky investment than one of Australia’s big four retail banks.
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Suncorp's sad state of shareholder affairs
GREG HOFFMAN Shareholders are the ultimate owners of a company; unfortunately many of them don't act like it.
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Do NAB’s woes point to UK opportunities?
GREG HOFFMAN NAB’s operations in the UK were a real troublespot, but perhaps they signal future opportunities.
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Telstra-nomics: A $25b incentive to haggle
GREG HOFFMAN Negotiations with the government could make up to a $2 per share difference to Telstra shareholders.









