Can Turtles Fly?

Being a contrarian, I like to look at underperforming industries*. There are many different ways of approaching this but one simple method I use is to look at under-performing industries over 5 and 10 years. If you are looking at 10-year underperformance, you need to be really careful with industries that are becoming obsolete and possibly on their way to a zero. Something like the newspaper industry is a good example of one that has done horribly over 10 years. Having said that, if you are into deep-value investing, distressed investing, or something along those lines, 10 year lows are a good place to look. Given how the current bull market has lasted almost 8 years--2009 to almost 2017--I think 3 to 5 years is a good time period to look. Depending on what you are trying to do, you don't want to use starting points at the trough of a bear market or a peak of a bull market (for instance, I would avoid any period that started in 2008 or 2009). In the past, I often looked at ...

Some shipping companies had one of the biggest short-covering rallies in recent memory when they rose 500% or more within a few days. (source: Yahoo! Finance , downloaded November 16 2016) I came across this unusual outcome after reading the story at Marketwatch . There are always some crazy short-covering rallies but I haven't seen, nor heard of, such huge moves across multiple stocks. DryShips had a recent reverse stock split and not sure if that threw off some quantitative fund or something. The stocks above are for DryShips (DRYS) and Globus Maritime (GLBS). These are shipping companies and long-time readers may recall how I have touched at the extreme volatility of DryShips and dry bulk index, and even wondered several years ago if DRYS was an investment opportunity. The whole industry is distressed and facing some catastrophic problems. I have been looking lately at Navigator Gas (NVGS) and Seacor (CKH) but the issue is the massive overcapacity. For instance, Navigat...

Berkshire Hathaway just disclosed that it took stakes in major US airlines . Pretty sure it is not Warren Buffett, rather his co-CIOs, making these investments. Buffett joked that he wouldn't invest in airlines after his disastrous--disaster for him is exiting with a small gain ;)--bet on US Airways in the 90's and, although he can always change his mind, I doubt he did. Also, Buffett usually makes concentrated bets and this isn't one. What is interesting to me is that they seem to be making a sector or macro bet since they took stakes in multiple airlines--either that, or they are trying to obscure their true intention (the stock they want to own) but buying multiple ones. It was only yesterday when I was commenting on Mohnish Pabri and his investment in Southwest Airlines (LUV). I wondered if the airline industry has changed from its money-losing ways. I wonder if the Berkshire investment managers are thinking the same thing. In an interview with CNBC Buffett confirmed...