Festival of Stocks #23

This is my first time hosting or participating in a Blog Carnival (Festival of Stocks).. I just thank God there are no clowns involved.  I'm terrified of them.  Anyway, on to this week's interesting submissions from around the blogosphere.

Frugal discusses the demand for ethanol, the resulting agricultural inflation and a way to play it.  Reminds me of a story I just read (can't remember where) about the skyrocketing costs of corn tortillas in Mexico and how it is having a great impact on their economy.

Trent at Stock Market Beat highlights the impressive Tempur Pedic(TPX) earnings report - the report from rival Select Comfort (SCSS) wasn't nearly as impressive

Intrinsic value and margin of safety.. Are you feeling safe?

Paul Smith on opportunities resulting from changes in Australian tax code.

Andrea Dickson at Wisebread muses about those pesky penny stock spam emails (Note: I've been using a pay service from Cloudmark which after a couple weeks of training, now blocks 99.9% of all spam)

H.S. Ayoub of BioHealth Investor singles out who Wall St Journal named the #2 best performing insider and what they have been picking up lately

I agree with with the Skiled Investor that higher management fees don't equate to better performace - if you're into the mutual fund thing (which I'm not) there are plenty of quality funds that won't charge you fees on both the front and back end.  In my opinion ETF's are the way to go particularly if you're investing large amounts (so your commissions are lower).  There aren't any restrictions on how long you need to hold and they offer better flexibility.

I don't trade the slow, lumbering blue chips of the Dow, but Surfer Sam provides a brief History of this more American than applie pie index

Travis Johnson takes a look at a speculative Alzheimers play and makes a compelling argument for owning it himself.

George at Fat Pitch Financial places a value on Unilever (UL) - is it overvalued or undervalued?  I'm a technical trader - from this standpoint the stocks looks poised to head lower, potentially as much as 5 - 7% over the next couple weeks where it would find support at its 200 day moving average around 25.

Michael Dawson at Time & Money Group reminds us why everyone should own a piece of BHP Billiton (BHP) at some point - the growth for a company of this size is phenomenal.  From a technical standpoint it looks like it's ready for another run.

Whats the Market Missing?

Leon Gettler of Sox First say's "criticisms of the market's new kings, the private equity outfits, are getting louder. These deals are really about debt and fees. No shortage of advisers and investment banks getting huge fees as part of the deal. And let's face it, in five years time when the company is put back on the market those investment banks will be putting out their hand for more transaction fees. On top of that, there is a real risk of the market over-heating. "  Read ON

That's all she wrote for this edition of Festival of Stocks.  If you'd like to host it or submit your blog entries get all the details here.

Comments

[George]

Thanks for hosting this week's Festival of Stocks.