Daily Posts Archive
One company that has caught my eye recently is Gafisa (GFA), a Brazilian company that’s trying to bring North American-style housing developments to Brazil. Brazil’s population is more than 70% larger than that of Mexico, but its housing market is about half of that in Mexico. But as prosperity works its way through the Brazilian economy, more and more people will be able to afford homes, and Gafisa is bringing the efficiency of modern building methods to the building process.
So where’s the investment? I have two. The first is a big, fast-growing Russian dairy company, Wimm Bill Dann Foods (WBD). It brought in over $2 billion in revenues last year selling milk, cream cheese, yogurt, butter, kefir, cottage cheese, juice, water, baby food and dairy desserts. It’s growing revenues at a rate of about 40% per year. It’s expected to grow earnings by 35% in 2007 and 40% in 2008. Its current PE ratio is 33. And the stock is trending up!
Which brings us to today. With last week’s powerful market upmove - one of the best of the year, thanks partly to Mr. Bernanke’s half-point rate cut on Tuesday - we believe we’ve kicked off the next stage of this bull market … a stage that figures to be very powerful. Why so powerful? Because many unique indicators we follow are giving us a bright green light. Here are some…
Last, but not least - there’s one more automobile company that’s public, but you won’t find its vehicles on any highways. It’s Zenn Motor Company (4ZNN). The name stands for Zero Emission No Noise), and if you’ve got your thinking cap on you’ve probably guessed that means it runs on batteries. Correct.
Synaptics introduced the world’s first touchpad interface for a computer in 1995, and it’s been on the leading edge of the industry ever since. The company’s biggest hit, at least from the stock’s perspective, was the clickwheel for the iPod, which helped the stock soar from 2002 to the end of 2004. But the company has also developed pointing sticks and a variety of other “pads,” including SecurePad, RoundPad and LuxPad.
A few nights ago, as I found myself sitting at a dinner table with a group of strangers, by way of making conversation (and doing research) I asked, “What do you think will happen with the real estate market?” Their answers: “It’ll come back” and “We’ve been here before.” Not wanting to be a wet blanket, I didn’t disagree. But I think they’re wrong. I think there’s a lot more downside ahead, and that getting there will take much longer than most people imagine today.